Lisa Devlin's Racing Diary

Testing the D

by Lisa Devlin

I call a "do over!"

We went testing Ted's car last weekend. The theory being that we were going to find the cause of the high end miss, get some seat time in, and have the car running well and ready for a ninety minute enduro on November 7-8 at Buttonwillow. Yeah, right.

OK, I'll start at the beginning. I finally got Ted to agree that to do a race would be fun and to let me drive his car. (Convincing him that racing would be fun was easy. Convincing him to let me drive his car was much more difficult.) We were informed that the Las Vegas event would likely be canceled so that race was out.

After much discussion, Ted decided we could test with the Shelby Club Oct. 24-25, get the car sorted out and go to the Buttonwillow enduro two weeks later.

Nothing is ever that easy. A good friend of Ted's is also getting his car ready for a different enduro on Nov. 15, and he thought that going testing with us would be fun. But they were having a housewarming party on Oct. 24. So the plan (Plan A) became that we would go to the party, stay the night, leave for the track in the morning and test on Sunday only.

On the surface a good plan, but keep in mind that the track is about three hours away and tech is at 7:15 am. Some quick math says we need to be up 3:30 am to be out the door by 4 am to be at the track at around 7 am... after a party. (And then drive on the track all day and then a 3.5 hour tow home.)

I only reluctantly agreed, even after being reassured that I would be able to sleep on the way. As test weekend approached, this was looking like a better idea. In prepping the car and checking for potential electrical problems, Ted found problems with the plug wires. Three were corroded and the fourth was black. Gee, could that cause a miss? You bet.

So we're all confident that we have the problem solved and we won't have to mess with the car at the track and life is good. And then Ted's friend decides not to go to the track and a friend of mine calls to see if we're coming up and he may have room for us to camp in his room. The new plan is coming together.

Plan B: Saturday we leisurely get the car and trailer loaded, go to the party, drive to the track that night, stay with our friend there and be somewhat more rested in the morning. We'll take turns driving the car that is fixed and will be running perfectly since we found that problem and don't we feel silly that it was so simple. It was a good Plan.

On Friday night, we spent a quiet evening, happily cleaning splatted bugs off our visors from our last outing and getting everything together for the weekend. Saturday arrived with a downpour. The only place in the United States that's raining and it's in the part of the state from our house up to the track.

At least we were going Sunday. We gave the rain some time to let up and then went to pick up Ted's dad's Suburban and then to the storage yard for the trailer.

When we got to the storage yard, we found the trailer basically blocked in. John - who has the shop next to the yard - was at the lot so he moved the car that was in front of the trailer, but then we had to pull it out. On one side of the trailer was a several ton press with the motor sticking out into the side of the trailer (OK, so we had about an inch clearance). On the other side of the trailer was a huge tanker truck - with no keys available.

If we'd hooked up the suburban facing a little more straight, we might have had it, but we didn't realize this until after about 45 minutes of moving the trailer a few inches forward, a few inches back and making creative use of the English language. We went and got John.

By this time the trailer was pretty well wedged in and after ruling out using a forklift to move the trailer over (no access), Ted and John finally unbolted the press motor and used a come-along to pull it back, theoretically out of the way. They only managed to get the motor about an inch out of the way, but it was enough to get the trailer past it.

As we headed for home, the suburban felt like there was no steering. We pulled over and adjusted the stabilizer bars, which seemed to help a bit. When we got home, there was, of course, no parking in front of the house so we had to park the trailer at the other end of the block.

I had to make a housecall, so while I was off doing that, Ted loaded the gear and tools in the trailer by making several trips up and down the street with the three wheeler. What a sight...

As we got on the road to the party, we left a message for Pat (with the hotel room) to call us on my cell phone. We had been playing phone tag, so we weren't really sure what was going on with the room. When Pat called, he told us that the room he had had only one bed, so bring sleeping bags. oops... we hadn't planned on that. The sleeping bags, the air mattress, all the stuff we needed to be prepared was at home.

No big deal, back to Plan A. We were having so much fun, we didn't notice that it was bedtime until well past. So at midnight we went to bed with the alarm set for 3:30 am. The alarm went off, we got up got ready, played around with the stabilizer bars some more and we were on the road by 4:20 am.

About 5:20 am we remembered daylight savings time... so it was actually 4:20 am. Figures.

Oh well, maybe we'll get a real breakfast and a nap when we get there. At least it wasn't raining, it looked like the weather would be beautiful and we were off to the track to have fun and get some practice in.

We did get the breakfast, we didn't get the nap, and we had the car unloaded and ready for the first track session at about 9:30 am. The plan was for Ted to go out, make sure the car was working, then I'd drive.

I've never really driven it when it was working well, so it didn't make sense for me to try to diagnose the problem.

Well, in keeping with the spirit of the weekend, the car still wasn't working. Ted came in and we decided to change the black ignition box and the coils and wires. As I started to undo wires, Ted removed the black box and shook it. It rattled. OK. Forget the coils, put on a new black box, let's get back out there.

Problem still there. OK. It must be that the new headers come really close to where the black box is mounted and it's getting hot. Ted put rubber grommets between the black box and the firewall to keep it cooled. No help.

By now we're pretty frustrated. Ted decides to start playing with the fuel system. We put the short carburetor spigots back on and bump up the fuel pressure. I get to drive this one since it's starting to look like I won't get any seat time at all, and I'll know if it's not running well.

I did know, and it wasn't running well. Messing with the carburetors was the biggest step backwards we had made. On the first lap, the car was hesitating and sputtering and it just got worse. It had no power at all and the throttle kicked in randomly.

After about 12 minutes, I got tired of being a moving chicane so I came in. Ted grilled me about the problem... mostly was I sure I was in the right gear. Then he asked me to hit the throttle. The car went bleh.... He said "I mean to the floor." Well, I pushed it to the floor last time, but I'll do it again if it'll make you happy.

Still, bleh... then it kicked in... the revs shot up and the car sounded strong. It wasn't my imagination, that's what it had been doing. I pulled it into the pits and we proceeded to put the long spigots back on. It was the end of the day and Ted went out for a few laps. Back to the original problem.

We managed to make it home without falling asleep or crashing the trailer. We never did get the Suburban/trailer situation fixed completely either. A small truck driving past the trailer would set it swaying, making for a very nervous ride home.

On Monday night, we sat down to watch the in car video we had shot. We inaugurated our new video camera in the car, so we had some footage of Mustang differentials and we were listening for the miss. The footage of Ted turned out really well. During my session, Ted had the camera well focused and aimed at the ground. That doesn't sound like anything I would do, does it?

Not all is bad... So what if I paid the fees, got 3 1/2 hours of sleep, worked on the car all day, got less than 15 minutes of lousy track time that was recorded as ground speeding by and then was kept awake by fear of the ride home. At least I didn't break a nail or chip my polish.

We haven't given up on the race idea yet. We're going to try and get it on a chassis dyno tomorrow night and see what we find. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

To send a letter to Lisa, email to devlin@thunval.com

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