Post Race Update....
Arrived to the track Thursday evening and set up in our rented garage spaces for the Grand Prix and my friends Ratsun B210ZX pictures on this page a few posts up, things where looking great weather wise and had a very strong field of approx. 87 cars compeating. Friday rolled around and got a last few items completed, installed race transponder, swapped out to the stock water pump pulley, inspected fluid levels and new battery terminal lugs put on. Rolled into pre race inspection, safety items passed with flying colors so on to BS inspection where the judges look over the car to see how cheaty the "$500" race car is.
Now mind you the race organizers had talked about having us install the Supercharged version into this vehicle, so as they ponder which class to put us in, they are bouncing between A & B class. They give us the option of A class, no penalty laps or B class with several laps, out come our haggling skills and worked it to B class with 7 laps to make up. Not a lot but would have to push pretty good to make up the time. After BS inspection we went to pay for half a day of practice and get a few shake down laps.
We get out on track, start to bring up the car to operating temps and warming up tires, car sounds like a jet fighter going down the front and back straits, pulling hard and passing cars like their standing still. At this point I'm really excited all this hard work is starting to pay off, looks like we may be in contention to win our class. Then all of a sudden we get a call from our driver saying "No Power Steering and Engine is getting Hot" crap....so he pulls over and gets towed in. Pop the hood and see our accessory belt flew off and made the supercharger belt come off too, we fished out all the belts, supercharger belt is still good but the Gates racing belt is destroyed.
Now we start to look into our spare parts bin and see no acc belts, off to the parts store....get another belt and pay to get a couple spare that they order for us, saying it will be in later that evening, cool. Rush back to the track, get the belts back on and notice the acc tensioner is bouncing quite a bit and it's a brand new unit, "shrug" all the pulleys are aligned and other than the bouncing we send the same driver back out with 45 minutes left for practice, taking it easy out there I radio him to open it up and push the car through her paces. Coming down the back strait "POP" belt comes off again, this time no damage, and driver radios no power steering again but coolant temp is good so he drove it in the rest of the way back to the garages. Tear into it and start to think what may be causing it, we tear out the tensioner and had to wait for friends to pick up the belts. They call back saying we missed the delivery cut off and belts will be here in the morning, we buttoned it all back up and hope for the best on race day.
Saturday comes around and have our customary drivers meeting before the race begins, talking about flags, penalties and what to do is cars break down, cool. Finish the meeting, get the driver suited up and stage them at pit entrance, went over the vehicle one more time and still looking at the belts, not liking how much the tensioner is bouncing still but oh-well. During this time "J57ltr" Jeff came out to join us with his daughter, to mingle and check out all the cars. A few parade laps and checker flag drops, we tear past the slow cars while we keep an eye on RPM's thinking it a speed issue due to shifting at 6700, 3 laps in same thing, radio comes on with "No Power steering, Bringing her in". We get to our garage and pop the hood, this time the acc belt is shredded, crap crap crap.....call our friends girlfriends to bring us the belts which finally got there, so as the belts are on their way, Jeff "J57ltr" and I start to fabricate a sheet metal rail on the outside of the acc tensioner and get it on in hopes of keeping the belt from flying off. Belts arrive and we button things up and send driver back onto the track.
He gets out and starts to make 2 laps and things are good, so I tell him to open it "WFO", so he does and all of a sudden we see him pulled over on the edge of the track. 30 seconds pass and we see him climb out. Now mind you the only time we are told to get out of the vehicle is if your on fire!!!!! Otherwise you stay in the car to get towed off, 45 second more pass and we can see from a distance the car is smoking "CRAPCRAPCRAP".......emergency and fire crew arrive and put out a fire. Vehicle gets towed off the track and back into the pits. Pop the hood to inspect for damage and look at both belts,.....they are both still on, sitting scratching my head I look at the fire damage. wire harness, fuel lines, vacuum hoses, and sensors on the back of the engine melted. Turns out my driver mentioned the car just cut out on him so he pulled over like he was supposed to and the catalytic converter caught the grass on fire that resulted in all the additional damage. I was so dejected by the situation I pulled off my drivers wrist band, cracked a few beers and watched the rest of the race.
I'll be taking the next month off from working on the car to take inventory of what it will take to fix, but the rest of my team mentioned they will help to get it ready for the 2016 season. All in all I had a blast when the vehicle was working it was a beast on track, suspension is so well sorted and power for days, just wanted to thank all my team mates for getting the car ready, my work for allowing me access to have a lift and place to work on it in my spare time, Jeff for coming out to hang out and wrench, and all of you that have posted and read about our tials & tribulations, Team JB-Weld thanks you.
Daniel,
Originally Posted by Booba5185
