Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

[Tooky]

I need some second opinions. If you were me, would you take this truck road racing again this April?

I raced my truck twice before at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, and posted about it on SyTy.net here and here. I have CBR LS1 brakes on the front and I run a CarboTech XP10 true race pad on the track. I also turn the boost down to the absolute minimum. With my PT51 that is around 14-17 PSI. (For some reason I cant get it to stay any lower).

Now I'm badly wanting to do it a 3rd time, but since I upgraded to Vortec heads & cam, even with the boost at minimum settings the truck is going to be pretty damn fast. Enough to scare the shit out of me just thinking about it, that's for sure!! :lol: On the 3 big straightaways I used to hit 120, maybe 125 mph tops. Plenty of speed considering we run with a passenger and I don't want to wreck my pride & joy. Out of 120 cars, usually 3-4 will get totalled every time I have been to this event. With the improved top end I am sure I will reach 130+.

Last time the race brake pads worked KILLER but on the second day, after about 7 heavy 20-minute sessions of track time, the rotors cracked during a post-race cooldown lap. Now this was a bad idea in retrospect, but I was using rotors turned down to the minimum thickness (I knew the race pad was going to eat the rotors so I didn't want to destroy virgin rotors).

I *think* with new brake duct cooling, VIRGIN rotors, and another set of race pads, I'll be reasonably safe. Problem is, the Fall race got cancelled so April is my only chance this year. Our winter has been record-breaking harsh so I won't be able to get my truck out of storage until 2 weeks before this race! And I'm still running a shoestring budget stock-bottom-end factory motor with Vortec heads & cam. So road racing it now will REALLY test the CRAP out of it!! With it making more power and 5400 RPM etc...

This race is also very costly in entrance fees and parts and I'm tight on money at the moment. The LAST thing I want to happen is sink a bunch of money, and then go out and blow up my motor or smoke my 700-R4 transmission, right away 1st thing of the season and be down the entire year! :roll: :tdown: I just got the damn thing to run 11.45 in November (shortly before I stored it), this is the BEST it's ever run, it sure would suck to only get 1 month of road time..

But obviously, it would be the thrill of my life to race this thing a 3rd time with some real top end..... Really stretch its legs on Road America!! :rock:


What would you do?? Seize this rare opportunity to do something extraordinary, and hope for the best?? Or play it safe and just plan on spending 2008 cruising a mid 11 second truck that runs & drives well?

Obviously the last 2 times I raced it I had to consider a lot of these same things... forgetting to tighten just one bolt could put my truck into a wall and injure me or my loved ones.. And I know 99% of guys would never take their pride & joy to a high speed road course in the first place! But I did it anyways and it WAS a blast and it WAS totally worth it, absolutely one of the top thrills of my life!!! It's just that this 3rd time around, there's more to consider...

Just thinking out loud.


PS: There is an "Option C." that I forgot to mention. It's a two day event. I can pay half price and just race Saturday, minimizing the $$ lost if she blows to pieces.

 

[supersports10]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

i say go for it.... i have 14 trophies from the 1 on 1 street drags with my SS wich was my pride and joy. but i set it up for this, and trumped all that would oppose that truck.

i even took the sy out there 1 time and won!!

should have heard the announcer when he saw the boost launch!!!

in case you dont know 1 on 1 street drags is 1 lap standing start, around the track 1 lap, winner take all. eliminitations till just two, then 3 out of 5 races.

prize was a measly $100 every time, but i did it for the fun, and the adrenaline rush!!:tup:

enjoy your truck, and do with it what you want with it.....period.

just double and triple check everything!

also if you havent upgraded the rear brakes yet to the 12" ls1 style, i would do that also.
drums can suffer some severe fade when pushed.

also a little birdy told me to use napa rotors, they are great quality, at the cheap china rotor prices. FYI

 

[AUSyTyIN]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

I'd say do it, but don't drive like it's a video game.

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

Josh....I've run my truck on Roebling Road several times over the past years. It's a pretty fast 2.2 mi course with only 2 heavy braking zones, so I've never really had any brake cooling issues, but once I throw myself into HPDE 3, I plan to do some ducting. I made some ducts out of fiberglass that go in the foglight holes and route air to the brakes. I'll snap some pics and take measurements once I get them finished. I'd like to do something for the rears once I go to rear discs (maybe a below-cladding scoop on each side).

LMK how this season works out for you. I probably won't put my truck on the track until mid-late season, as I'll be doing races with the Spec Miata crew and working on making my Nova track worthy.

Good luck.

 

[Tooky]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

Hood: What temp did your trans get to? And is your temp sender at the filter coming out of the trans or in the pan? Every time I've raced, after 5-10 minutes the gauge starts to max out (260) and stays at 240-260. Of course I have the derale pan, and the 28K GVW B&M cooler behind the grille.

Also, I assume you had to use lots of 3-4 WOT upshifts like I did.. Do you recall anything weird happening with that after the trans got hot? When going around the "Carousel" (high speed horseshoe) in 2006, sometimes it would pop out of 4th back into 3rd. It never did that on the street.

Did you also have to run race pads? I would like to see your duct pics if you get them done in the next month. Ivanko posted a few to his highperformancetrucks.com gallery that I saved, too.

 

[sytyguy]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

Hood: What temp did your trans get to? And is your temp sender at the filter coming out of the trans or in the pan? Every time I've raced, after 5-10 minutes the gauge starts to max out (260) and stays at 240-260. Of course I have the derale pan, and the 28K GVW B&M cooler behind the grille.

Also, I assume you had to use lots of 3-4 WOT upshifts like I did.. Do you recall anything weird happening with that after the trans got hot? When going around the "Carousel" (high speed horseshoe) in 2006, sometimes it would pop out of 4th back into 3rd. It never did that on the street.

Did you also have to run race pads? I would like to see your duct pics if you get them done in the next month. Ivanko posted a few to his highperformancetrucks.com gallery that I saved, too.

Sender is in pan. Waller built 700 with deep pan & 1/2" hydraulic lines (8' each) going to 28k cooler under-bed with SPAL fan on it. Trans never gets over 170 dF in everyday driving and drag racing, but does go to around 190 dF on the track. This was during the summer months and after a few laps. Stayed in 3rd for most of the track except on the front straight when I upshifted coming off of 9 and held 4th WOT until the brake zone for 1. Even when I left foot brake on 2 & 6 to keep boost up since they're low speed corners, I would see a little higher temps, but never noticed anything weird with the shifting. I'm gonna try controlling my own shifting more once I'm more familiar with the track, truck, and road racing in general, but odds are that I'll be piloting the Nova full time before I get truely "good" at driving the truck on course.

 

[brock1949]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

I road race my truck at Gingerman raceway in MI, i'm hoping this year i get the truck back on the track with the new setup. The totaling cars every event seems insane.. but i dunno.

My group rents out gingerman for the day and we run it our way kinda thing.. 40-50 cars.. everything from vipers, to ford taurus SHO's.. If you wanted to sign up I can get you the information. Its in MI figure 175 bucks for 1 day even including food and we have different run groups, instructors etc etc. Good group to hang out with.

 

[brock1949]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

I run C6 vette brakes with LS1 pads and LS1 rotors on a custom front brake setup.. then 12in rear disc on a 8.5 rear axle and it stops like no ones biz.. as long as i've got the supra 712's warmed up. doesn't lift the back hard stopping etc does great.

 

[jbone]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

I wish I had a sy I would def. be doing some road racing. I say go for it but be careful

 

[Zewerr]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

It's gonna break! They always do! But many times, it's worth it! I took mine on the track one day. I repeatedly had the downpipe burn up a spark plug wire for most of the sessions. I spent most of the day trying to keep that from happening. Once I got it fixed well enough, I eventually fried my brakes about 15 minutes into the session. Granted, that my brakes were stock. I had to buy new rotors, calipers (came with pads), and wheel speed sensors. I had to find used sensors since they're basically not available anywhere! Luckily, stock brake stuff is dirt cheap, so it was worth it for me, even though I had to drive home afterwards with brakes that barely worked and made absolutely horrible noises afterwards!

 

[HighPerformanceTrucks]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

Heat is the biggest issue road racing. You want to set up the truck for repeatable reliability.

I would consider caging the truck, go even bigger on the brakes, get good tires and keep the boost down to a reasonable level. Work on your lines and the driving to lower lap times versus using power in the straights or exiting the apexes. The brake ducting is a big help if you direct it properly at the inside of the rotor. Bleed the brakes before every race.

 

[Tooky]

Re: Nervous as hell about Road Racing this April!

It's a no go this year. It costs a small fortune to road race and with the crash of the US Dollar and the stock market, I don't have one. I'll be there as a spectator.

The shitty part is they've always had an October event for years. This year is the first time where April is the only event for the year.