Well, I decided to take ol yeller to work instead of the mildly modified Blue Thunder. The weather was a nice cool 52°, and I have pulled the timing up to 24.5° under full boost.
Well, leaving work there were a bunch of fellow workers who wanted to see how it runs, and there are nice smooth, fairly deserted concrete roads where I work. So, heated the tires a bit and made a 3.5K RPM launch. It pulled the tires quite nicely. Ran it up through 3 gears, and ran out of road. Very Nice.
Well about a 1/2 hour later, I went to one of the shops that I frequest, and there was one of the Z06s that I have toyed with a bit. He did not want to race (been there done that), but the group wanted an exhibition. Fairly rough ASPHALT cold road. Did a very small heat of the tires. Figured I would get a bit of light under the front wheels and shut it down. Not this time. It bit (for about a foot) and then blew the tires, and immediately went to redline (shiftlight on) and load POP!. I could tell I had blown the inlet tube off the TB as it had registered just shy of 16psi.
Well, I drove it home, and it kept smelling like something was burning. I got home and pulled the hood. The inlet tube had come completely out and was standing upright (very nice and innocent I might add) where the belt comes off the water pump and goes to the AC compressor. The air filter looks like a wool blanket. It turns out that the piping stood on end and proceeded to cut two nice grooves in one of my clamps as well as eat the tube coupler. As it was eating the hose clamp, the hose clamp served to "skin" the outer layer from the belt (that explains the wool blanket coating on the air filter).
Fortunately that was the extent of the damage. I will need to replace the ducting coupler (3"ID x 3" long), a hose clamp (3"), and a 1.25" Goodyear Polycog (that Kevlar belt is like $85). The belt is still complete, but the outside has been shaved ~1/16". It is nice and pliable, but I really don't trust continuing to run it this way.
Lessons learned:
- Don't assume that cold asphalt (or any road surface) hooks like nice concrete!
- Always check under the hood if you smell something burning.
- Maybe two good back to back hooks on low psi drag radials on the street is asking too much.
Hopefully someone learns something from this, the same as my pocketbook (maybe they can warranty the Polycog, Ha Ha not funny).
Bam,
Yesterday I was at the Woodlands Car Care (Buddhe Rd south of Sawdust; about a 1/2 mile West of I45). I typically frequest Speed Fetish (Rayford Rd; about 2.5 miles East of I45).
If you are looking for a good time, you need to come out on Friday Nights to 1960 & Aldine Westfield (Huge parking lot next to Sonic on the N side of 1960). Last Friday (pretty typical), there were probably 75 domestics and 125 imports; maybe 25 bikes. My boys want me to take them down there, so we will probably go down there this evening. About three weeks ago ran an '02 408 D1 Camaro. It ran well, but fortunately we were rolling, so I pulled him hard. My wife was not impressed (says she is past those days!!!).
I am working with a guy who I am very good friends with and may be partnering with to open a shop. We are planning to pull a couple of select guys from local shops, install a new building and a dyno and have some fun in 2006. We will see.
Bam,
Yesterday I was at the Woodlands Car Care (Buddhe Rd south of Sawdust; about a 1/2 mile West of I45). I typically frequest Speed Fetish (Rayford Rd; about 2.5 miles East of I45).
If you are looking for a good time, you need to come out on Friday Nights to 1960 & Aldine Westfield (Huge parking lot next to Sonic on the N side of 1960). Last Friday (pretty typical), there were probably 75 domestics and 125 imports; maybe 25 bikes. My boys want me to take them down there, so we will probably go down there this evening. About three weeks ago ran an '02 408 D1 Camaro. It ran well, but fortunately we were rolling, so I pulled him hard. My wife was not impressed (says she is past those days!!!).
I am working with a guy who I am very good friends with and may be partnering with to open a shop. We are planning to pull a couple of select guys from local shops, install a new building and a dyno and have some fun in 2006. We will see.
Aaron
Good luck with your new shop Aaron. I hope that in your area that you have a good customer pool. In my area which I had thought would have been fair to good. I have found that people are fairly tight with their cash. I have several very good customers, but in the Oregon area it isn't anything like So California where they can demand $800 for a base dyno tune! If I tried that I would never get any customers.
I have to go with what the market will bear around here, and then there is always the issue with parts and accessories and competing with the likes of Summit on the Internet. That alone cuts the margins down to where you have to depend on what you make in labor in the shop. Advertising is costly as well, which I don't have much of a budget for. I am sure that would help alot but at the same time it is a balancing act with the cash flow and what we can do for ad costs. So far all word of mouth has been my best friend.
As for your new dyno, do some research as to what you want to work on and get the model that best suits your needs. I have a mustang and have been happy with what it can do. However if I were to do it again I would go with a different model. Mine is a craddle type where the car sits on a set of rollers and is lowered so that the tires sit between two pairs of rolls. This in itself isn't bad but sometimes with lowered cars I have to get creative with the way to strap them down, or in extreme cases I just can't. If I were to have a single roll dyne, where the car sits on top of one set of rolls, that makes it easier. But their 1750 single roll dyne requires a very large pit, especially if you have a dual power absorber setup. I have a dual PAU dyno so I can test high powered diesel trucks which was one of the reasons why I went with the model 600HP. After the fact I found out that I could have modified their 1750 to accomadate duallie pick ups, and digging a larger hole isn't that much of deal as its just another dump truck load to haul off. The final concrete tally would have been another 3 to 4 yards and another 200 bucks worth of re-bar would have covered the pit work. In any case I would highly recommend a load bearing dyno regardless of what brand you choose. Without a load bearing dyno you can't tune any car properly regardless of EFI or carburetion. Thats how I steal away customers from the competition around my area because they have a Dyno-Jet without any loading capabilities. Even though they make febble attempts with the Dyno-Jet friction brake, it just don't work.
TJ,
Thanks for the reply. I will keep this in mind as we go towards setting up the dyno. Fortunately, I will not be the one managing the day to day operations. I will be there for guidance and some of the set-up. I will also be the one doing the tuning work, and the creative welding for custom FI applications. There tends to be a pretty good pull in the N Houston area for people who know what they are doing with mods.
I will say this, I have quite a following of even stock vettes that come to me for help after other high end shops have butchered/hacked on their cars. I am extremely meticulous and don't charge much in labor. These guys really like that! I really enjoy working on the C4/C5s, and the day that this is no longer enjoyable will be the day that I quite working on them.
Another bonus is this is still a hobby for me, as I have a real job that pays the bills, the rest is just added dollars to support my car habit.
Again, thanks for the advice on the dynos, as I was leaning towards the DynoJet, as my partner knows the owner very well (i.e. good deal).
Hey Aaron, I will have to come up there sometime and check it out. I will probably ask you for some tuning help when I FINALLY get this car together since you are very familiar with FAST. I am just Southwest of the Galleria. I think your shop will do well. And around here if you get a good rep, you know as well as I do, word of mouth is everything.
Corvette Store
Ate a Belt: Fairly Expensive; Lessons Learned
