again i took the maverick to the SCCA Autocross at Qualcomm stadium. it was a practice so i got 11 runs in today. the changes to my car from last time are new tires, custom panhard bar, and home brew alignment. wow what a different car. it was very predictable where before it would be unstable and want to spin. before coming out of a turn the rear end would whip back and forth and when if i applied power it would end up spinning out. so i had developed a driving style to cope with it today i found my self hesitating coming out of turns before i would apply power. as i got used to it towards the end of the day i was able to roll on the throttle as i came out of the turn and the car would stay planted and go. the track was pretty good over all. it had 2 pain in the rear turns. first was a decreasing radius turn that just caused me grief most of the runs then right after that was a really tight hair pin turn. i had to get the wheel to full lock as fast as possible and still some times couldnt make the turn. then on my third run, the fuse to fuel pump blew right after the hair pin turn and the motor started running out of fuel. thanks to having a in cab fuel pressure gauge, it was easy to diagnose and fix quickly. i talked with mo and he said it would randomly blow. so i will be rewiring the fuel pump soon. i picked up a suction cup mount for the gopro camera. i got some good footage from the cowel. then i moved it to the roof and it fell off when i started. i immediately aborted the run and got the camera back. it was ok but the starter guy was not very happy with me and told me to keep the camera inside! so here are some of the videos from today. this is the first run. you will see where i go off the course in the decreasing radius turn then the hair pin turn. this is the second run. i blow the hairpin turn bad. this is the third run. this is when the fuel pump fuse blows. this is the 5th run. its not perfect but i do get through the hell turns. you hear how much more agressive im getting with the throttle now. ive got a lot more confidence at this point. here is the run with the camera moved to the roof i think the suction cup couldnt keep a good seal on the seams for the stripes on the roof. next time ill have to offset the mount so its not on the seams. i didnt get any video of my best runs but those are boring. its more fun to see the screw ups! after the autocross i took my dirty car (the racing brake pads leave brake dust down the side of the car) home and started getting it ready for the knotts show tomorrow. first thing i did pull off the front wheels and washed the brake dust off of them. next thing i did was realign it so the 300 miles of driving to and from knotts berry farm tomorrow wont eat up my new tires. then the cleaning began. i dont like to hose the car with water because the cowl leaks badly. i use a california duster then spray detailer to clean the car. then i clay bared the car. that was a pain but dang it made a big difference on how the car looks. next i took a buff ball with aluminum polishing compound to the wheels. now the car looks presentable for knotts. heres how it sits now. tomorrow ill take pics of the show and maybe some gopro video of the caravan drive up to the show. we are meeting up with Jerry and Val and taking a customers Capri that we built at the shop so it should be a cool caravan trip up.
i didnt weigh every thing. the heaviest thing was the slider box part. i would guess the most it added would be 30lbs. if i used a slider tube on the diff side im sure it would be under 10 lbs
Pretty cool Brant! I'd like to try auto cross someday, Looks like fun! I met you at knotts car show and was impressed by the work you did on the t-5 conversions of 3 Mavericks. I would like to do the same someday, but I recently rebuilt my own C-4. I used my Samsung cell phone rubber banded to the passenger sunvisor in a friends 65 Mustang @ Willow Springs track. Turned out he happened to spin off into the dirt and was caught on video. My cheap version of Go PRO. Good thing it didn't ruin your camera after falling off. At higher speed it wouldn't be very good for it. My friend thinks his car needs a Panhard rod to keep the rear end from coming around. thanks for the videos!
Hey Russ, it was nice meeting you at the show. the panhard bar made all the difference in car control. let your friend know that he should do it.
