Welp...2 steps forward, one step back. Again.
I've been waiting to mention that I've apparently found a little more power in the car recently. I was hoping today's trip to the track would substantiate that suspicion.
It did....sort'a...in a way.
The car's driving through the clutch again pretty badly--which means it definitely picked up power, but (as seems to be the norm for this damned thing) I can't fully quantify it on the timeslips...HOWEVER I CAN say this much...how many 4000+ lb cars do you know of that can pick up <span style="font-weight: bold"><span style="text-decoration: underline">TWENTY SIX</span></span> MPH on the back half with a slipping clutch??? (1st pass--picked up 23+ on the back half on the 2nd run--with the clutch still slipping like hell)
Check out the slips below (left lane # 105 on both runs):
Both passes were with stone cold tires--was paranoid about breaking the 12 bolt again so I didn't want the car to dead-hook. As it turns out, the clutch slipped badly enough that the car did dead-hook, but the 60' times were dismal. (For comparisons sake, the first time to the track last year it ran a 1.76' 60' time on a very soft launch and ran a 7.74 @ 90.2 mph)
I launched the car both times at 2500 rpm and it never even lifted the front end either time. I launched, rolled out a few feet and matted it, caught the shift light and grabbed the gears and the car rode the clutch until the top of 3rd when all of a sudden it grabbed and the front end hiked up. Both times when I grabbed 4th the front end came down but just at the top of the gear the clutch grabbed and the front end hiked up again.
I'll get pics & video uploaded later, but there's really not much to see--just one rather embarrassing 13 second pass and a 12.25 pass.
So, it's smoked another clutch. At least it didn't $hit parts out on the track. [img]<<GRAEMLIN_URL>>/rolleyes.gif[/img]
Time for clutch #3...or a 400 Turbo (I'm rrrrrreeeeeeaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllyyyyyyy getting tired of dicking with this damned manual trans setup).
More later.