0 - 184.8 mph in 1 mile
10-29-2012, 01:41 PM
#12
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10-30-2012, 08:15 AM
#13
Thread Starter
I arrived Friday afternoon at Chase Field in Beeville TX to get signed in and teched, which went very smooovely and quickly (Friday the first day of runs, but I only signed up for Sat/Sun). Soon a fellow competitor pointed me to his bud's FD (only other one on site), who had done one run Friday at 165, but had experienced a severe engine miss. After which, rotary no workie 
So he ran his big bad 4-door twin-turbo AMG Mercedes (176.x mph!).
Beautiful FD with compromised just-built engine:
Saturday morning I got in line first thing at 6:45AM, which put me about 25th or so in line. Since I've never done such an event before, I started out with a "C" license (lowest level). To graduate to a "B" license, you have to do a run between 140 and 165mph. I went ahead and taped over the hood/headlight gaps, brake ducts, and front parking/indicator lights while in line. I wanted to be sure not to exceed 165mph, so I aimed for 5200rpm in 5th gear rpm, which would have put me right at 160 indicated NOT accounting for tire slip or the ~1-2% optimistic speedometer. Did a minor burnout in the staging area before the start, rolled up to the line and waited for the signal to go. There are no start lights or timing lights at the start, and most of the REALLY fast cars do not launch hard at all. I launched as best as I could (very little experience launching cars from a dead stop), surprisingly found a decent amount of grip in 1st, some wheelspin but not unmanageable. Upshifted to 2nd and no traction worries whatsoever (on the street, on cold tires, it will break traction approaching peak torque revs). Upshifted to 3rd, 4th, 5th at ~7000rpm, then held 5200 in 5th, resulting in:
1st run: 149.5 mph in the 1/2, 147.9 in the mile
150mph was, well, FASTER than I expected! In retrospect I was glad they had limited me to 165 despite the road course experience I had included in my license application. It was good to have a "low-speed" acclimation run. The back of the car did feel a little loose even at just below 150mph
Immediately got back in line, with a LOT of cars in front of me. For my 2nd run I took the mirrors off. Did rolling burnout, lined up at the start line, took off. Did the same run procedure except stayed in it in 5th gear giving:
2nd run: 150.7 mph in the 1/2, 183.8 in the mile
Excel spreadsheet performance model had predicted 184, and I was already there! Yay... The back of the car was definitely moving around a little, I had to (gingerly) steer it to keep it straight. A bit spooky at 180+ mph! Brought it back around to the back of the line.
The wait between runs was very long on Saturday, such that my 3rd run wasn't until 3:30(!). For this run, I taped off the entire front radiator opening in the bumper:
Since I was near the back of my row, I had to idle for a LONG time as we all moved forward one car length every minute or so. The temp gauge started to creep, so I cranked up the heater. In retrospect I should have let the car in front move a couple of spaces forward and only run the car long enough to move it after every second run. Anyway, at the line the temp looked to be under control, so I did another run as per previous. Didn't feel quite as strong... After only looking at the tach and the runway for the run, I looked down to see that the temp gauge was *pegged*. It came down a bit while running ~40mph at low rpm, then came back down to normal levels after removing the tape and letting the radiator get some fresh air.
3rd run: 144.4 in the 1/2, 173.1 in the mile
I was *really* concerned that I'd hurt the engine, given the drastically reduced performance, though it seemed to run normally. I brought it back to the paddock and pondered... The crew in the next paddock stall over had run 206.7mph in their Mustang, and were not going to run it again as they achieved their goal. Crew chief(?) Anthony suggested looking at plugs to see if there was any evidence of detonation, so we pulled one and it looked OK (evidence of minor detonation but nothing bad), but had eroded enough to open the gap to over .050". After deciding the car was going to be OK to run again, I went to the parts store in town and got a new set of plugs, one heat range colder (TR6s vs. TR55s). Ensured they were all gapped to .040" and installed them.
After talking with a couple of LS experts, deduced that the reduced performance was due to the ECU pulling timing based on high coolant temps, as well as having a hot-air intake (inlet situated just forward of the radiator). Had it gotten hotter, it would have started cutting cylinders. So I felt a bit better about running it again, plus what better way to see if the engine was compromised?
Sunday AM, got in line just prior to 6:30, before they even started gridding cars, and was ~15th in line. This time I only taped over the outer portions of the radiator inlet!
That's the builder and former owner of the car in the pic. REALLY glad he was able to make it up from Corpus to see his (now my) baby run! It was very cool in the morning, as on the previous day, but this time I didn't leave the engine idling between inching forward on the grid.
4th run: 150.9 in the 1/2, 184.8 in the mile
Excellent! Thought about running again, but was very satisfied with that result, and really would like to get the back end more stable before going that fast again... and I had a LONG 650 mile drive ahead of me. The philosophy of the 206.7mph Mustang crew stuck in my head as well. They achieved their desired result, didn't see much potential for improvement, only more potential for carnage, so they quit while ahead (a hard thing to do, ask any gambler!).
Packed up, took a few pics of cars on the grid, then headed east at about 100mph reduced pace
So he ran his big bad 4-door twin-turbo AMG Mercedes (176.x mph!).Beautiful FD with compromised just-built engine:
Saturday morning I got in line first thing at 6:45AM, which put me about 25th or so in line. Since I've never done such an event before, I started out with a "C" license (lowest level). To graduate to a "B" license, you have to do a run between 140 and 165mph. I went ahead and taped over the hood/headlight gaps, brake ducts, and front parking/indicator lights while in line. I wanted to be sure not to exceed 165mph, so I aimed for 5200rpm in 5th gear rpm, which would have put me right at 160 indicated NOT accounting for tire slip or the ~1-2% optimistic speedometer. Did a minor burnout in the staging area before the start, rolled up to the line and waited for the signal to go. There are no start lights or timing lights at the start, and most of the REALLY fast cars do not launch hard at all. I launched as best as I could (very little experience launching cars from a dead stop), surprisingly found a decent amount of grip in 1st, some wheelspin but not unmanageable. Upshifted to 2nd and no traction worries whatsoever (on the street, on cold tires, it will break traction approaching peak torque revs). Upshifted to 3rd, 4th, 5th at ~7000rpm, then held 5200 in 5th, resulting in:
1st run: 149.5 mph in the 1/2, 147.9 in the mile
150mph was, well, FASTER than I expected! In retrospect I was glad they had limited me to 165 despite the road course experience I had included in my license application. It was good to have a "low-speed" acclimation run. The back of the car did feel a little loose even at just below 150mph
Immediately got back in line, with a LOT of cars in front of me. For my 2nd run I took the mirrors off. Did rolling burnout, lined up at the start line, took off. Did the same run procedure except stayed in it in 5th gear giving:
2nd run: 150.7 mph in the 1/2, 183.8 in the mile
Excel spreadsheet performance model had predicted 184, and I was already there! Yay... The back of the car was definitely moving around a little, I had to (gingerly) steer it to keep it straight. A bit spooky at 180+ mph! Brought it back around to the back of the line.
The wait between runs was very long on Saturday, such that my 3rd run wasn't until 3:30(!). For this run, I taped off the entire front radiator opening in the bumper:
Since I was near the back of my row, I had to idle for a LONG time as we all moved forward one car length every minute or so. The temp gauge started to creep, so I cranked up the heater. In retrospect I should have let the car in front move a couple of spaces forward and only run the car long enough to move it after every second run. Anyway, at the line the temp looked to be under control, so I did another run as per previous. Didn't feel quite as strong... After only looking at the tach and the runway for the run, I looked down to see that the temp gauge was *pegged*. It came down a bit while running ~40mph at low rpm, then came back down to normal levels after removing the tape and letting the radiator get some fresh air.
3rd run: 144.4 in the 1/2, 173.1 in the mile
I was *really* concerned that I'd hurt the engine, given the drastically reduced performance, though it seemed to run normally. I brought it back to the paddock and pondered... The crew in the next paddock stall over had run 206.7mph in their Mustang, and were not going to run it again as they achieved their goal. Crew chief(?) Anthony suggested looking at plugs to see if there was any evidence of detonation, so we pulled one and it looked OK (evidence of minor detonation but nothing bad), but had eroded enough to open the gap to over .050". After deciding the car was going to be OK to run again, I went to the parts store in town and got a new set of plugs, one heat range colder (TR6s vs. TR55s). Ensured they were all gapped to .040" and installed them.
After talking with a couple of LS experts, deduced that the reduced performance was due to the ECU pulling timing based on high coolant temps, as well as having a hot-air intake (inlet situated just forward of the radiator). Had it gotten hotter, it would have started cutting cylinders. So I felt a bit better about running it again, plus what better way to see if the engine was compromised?
Sunday AM, got in line just prior to 6:30, before they even started gridding cars, and was ~15th in line. This time I only taped over the outer portions of the radiator inlet!
That's the builder and former owner of the car in the pic. REALLY glad he was able to make it up from Corpus to see his (now my) baby run! It was very cool in the morning, as on the previous day, but this time I didn't leave the engine idling between inching forward on the grid.
4th run: 150.9 in the 1/2, 184.8 in the mile
Excellent! Thought about running again, but was very satisfied with that result, and really would like to get the back end more stable before going that fast again... and I had a LONG 650 mile drive ahead of me. The philosophy of the 206.7mph Mustang crew stuck in my head as well. They achieved their desired result, didn't see much potential for improvement, only more potential for carnage, so they quit while ahead (a hard thing to do, ask any gambler!).
Packed up, took a few pics of cars on the grid, then headed east at about 100mph reduced pace
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