{"id":726,"date":"1998-06-15T11:59:48","date_gmt":"1998-06-15T11:59:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/?p=726"},"modified":"2011-08-28T12:05:22","modified_gmt":"2011-08-28T12:05:22","slug":"marc-s-carlsbad-in-june-12-20-but-bye-bye-clutch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/1998\/06\/15\/marc-s-carlsbad-in-june-12-20-but-bye-bye-clutch\/","title":{"rendered":"Marc S – Carlsbad in June – 12.20, but bye-bye clutch"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lots of mixed Carlsbad news… This will be lengthy.<\/p>\n

Twas a very hot day which sucked for getting good times… On the positive
\nside it wasn’t too crowded, I got 5 runs in between 2pm and 4:15pm before
\nmy car called it quits :(.<\/p>\n

Run 1. First run had me really, really worried. 12.75 @ 105, w\/ a 1.77 60
\nfoot time. The car was hot & one or two of my shifts wasn’t quite as fast
\nas usual but that time was really off!… Checked peak EGT… 810 degrees…
\nOk, running too rich. Leaned things out a couple notches.<\/p>\n

Run 2. 12.34 @ 110. Phew, getting better, new personal best. 1.71 60
\nfoot time. MPH still has me worried though. Was already getting 110 at
\nPomona, before the cams, and the cams definitely have the car pulling
\nharder. Checked EGT’s… Still low. Leaned things out a touch more.<\/p>\n

Run 3. Off to a decent start. 1.75 60 foot time, 7.89 ET in the 1.8th,
\nand 1\/8 mph is almost 1 MPH higher than Run 2… Go to shift from 3rd to
\n4th… I don’t think I had my clutch pedal in all the way in time as I jam
\nit to 4th… But the *shifter* goes into 4th anyways but feels like it has
\nno weight when it gets there. Step on the gas but I’m not in gear, the
\nengine just revs. No 4th gear. For that matter, no any gear, the shifter
\nmoves into all the gears with almost no resistance & I’m “in neutral”.
\n$h!t. Now I’ve done it! I coast through the 1\/4mi – 12.98 @ 85mph!
\nWhat a run that woulda been if I had 4th gear :) My MPH in the 1\/4 was
\nless than my MPH in the 1\/8 and it was still a 12 :). I come to a stop at
\nthe entrance to the return road (end of the strip), put on the hazards, but
\nthe lazy Carlsbad officials just stare at me… So I think about it as I
\nmove the shifter around… Ok, no resistance at all, & always in neutral…
\nAlmost as if… The shifter ain’t attached to the cable no more! I yank
\nthe plastic panel off under the shifter & look down there… Yep! The
\ncable came off. (It lost the cotter pin). I put it back on, get it in
\ngear & am on my way. Later I rigged a new pin by bending a key ring…
\nProblem solved.<\/p>\n

Run 3 gives me time to think… Why are my EGT’s still so low, and what’s up
\nwith the MPH (1\/4 MPH for Run 3 was unusable but 1\/8mph showed very minor
\ngains)… Then it dawns on me… My boost is low. Never raised it on the
\nway to Carlsbad. I had set it late the night before when the air was very
\ncold. I was probably running 18-19psi in the heat!… Up the boost a
\ntouch… Time for run 4…<\/p>\n

Run 4. Got a decent launch, but had a bog problem which to be honest
\nplagued me on all the runs… I’d get off the line quick w\/ spinning tires
\nbut would then hook up early, have a quick bog, and then take off. This
\nlikely affected all my times that day. Gotta do some tuning, the cams
\nchanged a lot of things. 1.73 60 foot time. 1\/8th: 7.78 @ 88.35. 1\/4
\nmi: *12.20* @ 109! I’m excited about the ET but still puzzled about the
\nMPH. For comparison, I ran 86-88mph in the 1\/8th at Pomona in my 12.4 –
\n12.5 runs & always 110mph in the 1\/4. I up the boost a little more (it was
\nprobably still a little low, 19-20) & lean things out a little more in
\npreparation for Run 5. Looks like I will get several more runs in so I
\nhave time to tune in small increments.<\/p>\n

Run 5… Disaster strikes. The run was bad from the very start. For the
\nfirst time, my less-than-happy-to-disengage-when-hot clutch has a very
\nnoticeable impact at the track. I try to shift to 2nd & it doesn’t wanna
\ngo in. Wait for it to drop in (the run is totally blown now) and I
\ncontinue on… The rest of the shifts ain’t feeling too good. Cross the 1\/4
\nat 13.3\/107.5 & the shifter doesn’t wanna come out of gear. I manage to
\nget it out & am barely able to force it into a lower gear to get back to
\nthe pits. Park the car, figure I’ll let it cool down while I grab lunch &
\nhope it’ll get back to normal like it usually does once it cools.<\/p>\n

No dice this time. I go start up the car. With the clutch pedal pressed
\nto the floor & feeling “normal”, the shifter will NOT go into ANY gear no
\nmatter how hard I press. Shut off the engine & it will go into the gears
\nbut no chance while it’s idling. I put it into gear while the engine was
\noff & THEN started the car with the clutch pedal fully to the floor… Sure
\nenough, the car starts moving immediately as if my foot is barely on the
\nclutch pedal. Can’t get the thing to disengage at all.<\/p>\n

Thank god Corey Dennen showed up today :)… Felt great not to be stuck
\nthere alone!\u00a0 After finding out how insanely expensive it
\nwould be to flatbed the car back to RRE, we decide to try to drive it there
\nby starting the car up in gear. My poor starter motor :) but yeah the
\nstarter gets the car moving, and I make it out of the track w\/o the ability
\nto disengage my clutch :). Stops were an absolute hell as I tried to gas
\nthe engine to make it slip the clutch, while keeping my foot on the brake
\nto stop the car, & keeping the clutch in to at least slightly disengage it.
\nGot to hear lots of scary noises coming from the engine compartment. :)
\nFortunately this only occurred a few times. We got more & more ambitious
\n(started in 1st at the beginning, then started in 2nd ’cause driving slow in
\n1st was unbearable, and finally said what the hell, started it from 3rd
\ngear & got on the freeway). Corey drove his car & escorted me the whole
\nway to RRE. Thank god there was little traffic & it was practically a
\nnormal drive… 70mph\/5500rpm in 3rd gear the whole way there :). Dropped
\nthe car off at RRE, & Corey dropped me off at my home some 40+ minutes
\naway… I owe Corey big time! Corey, thanks for being there for me!<\/p>\n

That’s pretty much the tale, time will tell what the culprit was. One thing
\nseems pretty certain- this was just the end result of a problem that’s been
\nplaguing me since having the clutch first installed. I’m very interested
\nin finding out the “why”… If the problem is specific to the Clutch Masters
\nclutch, they’re soon going to find that there aren’t any DSM’ers left who will
\nrun one of their clutches– so many people have switched to ACT already &
\nhave been telling me to do the same.<\/p>\n

Performance notes… 12.20 was nice, I think the car is 12.0x capable
\nthough. I have confidence that these cams added nice horsepower.
\nConsidering they were installed less than 24 hours ago with 1 minute of AFC
\ntuning, I think there’s some serious AFC tuning work to be done to get the
\ncar running more optimally. That, combined with more boost (21-23) & some
\nreal gas instead of 100ish octane should hopefully shave a couple tenths
\noff. Time will tell. For now I’ll worry about having an operational car
\n:).<\/p>\n

On the bright side… Those low 12 second runs really had people talking
\nabout DSM’s at Carlsbad & admittedly it’s nice to get the attention :)…
\nLots of people coming by to ask what the hell was done to the car & to
\noffer their congrats. It was great overhearing a conversation some guys
\nwere having- “Did you see that? 12.2! I’m not talkin 12.6 or something…
\nThis was a 12.2! He was just GONE!” :)- Some Mustang guys were
\nactually belittling how slow their cars were in comparison – wish I coulda
\ngot that on video tape. Ok, “big-head” mode off. Thanks to Scot G for
\nmaking those Club DSM cards a few months back. There was a modded turbo
\nDSM guy there in need of the right parts\/advice who didn’t know about Club
\nDSM\/Socal DSM. The card came in very handy! I sent him Mike’s way since
\nas we all know, Mike @ RRE has too much free time on his hands & needs more
\ncustomers to bug him. :)<\/p>\n

Sorry for the rambling… Am tired\/drained & not looking forward to the
\nrental car expenses\/inconvenience. But, it coulda been a lot worse so I’m
\nkind of thankful.<\/p>\n

Oh, that reminds me… Here’s a good piece of info I hope you never have to
\nuse- a good Carlsbad towing service. I fortunately didn’t have to get
\ntowed, and it was the cost of towing that had us looking for every possible
\nalternative- Between $2-$8 per mile! AAA basic membership only has 7 free
\nmiles! Call La Costa Towing – 760-730-0348. They normally charge
\n$35\/hookup + $2 mile, but they said they’d give me a deal & charge me $150
\ncomplete to flatbed the car all the way to RRE\/Huntington Beach. May be a
\ngood chunk of change but that’s a good deal given the usual rates.<\/p>\n

Hope everyone did well & stayed in 1 piece at Buttonwillow.<\/p>\n

G’nite,
\nMarc<\/p>\n

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<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Lots of mixed Carlsbad news… This will be lengthy. Twas a very hot day which sucked for getting good times… On the positive side it wasn’t too crowded, I got 5 runs in between 2pm and 4:15pm before my car called it quits :(. Run 1. First run had me really, really worried. 12.75 @ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[16,33,30,15],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":730,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/roadraceengineering.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}