We ran our 63 valiant at the lemons race at Thunderhill in Northern CA over the weekend. This was our 8th race overall, and first outing with the rebuilt 8.75" rear in place of the 7.25" and the cop car 11.75" brakes up front. Overall day 1 was a mess, but day 2 we went green flag to checkers without doing anything other than pitting for fuel.

On day 1 we had a green bearing on the 8.75" rear fail after 12 laps, fortunately the caliper held the disk rotor on so the axle stayed mostly in.. We did have a new driver who went off roading with it on lap 4, but I don't know if that played into the bearing failure or not. There wasn't anywhere local that had bearings so we had a bonzai run to summit racing in Reno, NV to get bearings and seals and then to a friends machine shop in the bay area to press them on and then back to Thunderhill after 8 hours of driving.. We dropped the axles off with the car at Midnight and other teammates got up early had it all installed and buttoned up half an hour before the call to grid.

On day 2, the car ran well with the only issue being tranny temp getting hot causing us to back off the gas to keep it cool but it was still fun. The car corners and brakes very well now and is competitive in the corners with most other cars but then we watch them disappear on the straights.

In the end we got the heroic fix award which was fun and the car ran great other than the hot tranny. More projects/improvements to do for the next race.

I'll add some pics later.

-Jon

Sounds like a ball, Jon! I am surprised about the bearing, but if a new part is going to fail, it'll most likely be right after you install it. I have never had a green bearing problem with plenty of road course time and road beatings.

Glad to hear you ran reliably for the whole 2nd day. We are working on reliability on the Toadracer and a bigger axle is going in now to replace the 7.25" we wrecked at CMP. Fingers crossed we'll be able to just run it next time at NCM???

Cheers and congrats on the award too!

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines

Awesome! Way to represent, Jon!!

What torsion bars, leaf springs, shocks, sway bars are you running?

Adding a transmission temperature gauge is probably a good idea for ToadRacer...

Adam is upgrading our rear differential to a Ford 8.8 after our 7.25 died at CMP.

Cant' wait for the pics!!

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

I put a Trans Temp Gauge in one of the Pressure test ports on The Ruster's Transmission - it was fairly easy.


Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

42

don't panic!

slant goodness.. I have a holley 390 to go on it before the next race.

an old pic from Sonoma I like

dash

And yes, we're a very nerdy team..

We are running 1" torsion bars, HD leaf springs that I had but don't remember the origin of, not MP though, KYB shocks, and a 1" front sway bar I had laying around. We could use a little more front spring rate but probably won't ever add a rear sway bar. The car is very neutral as it sits with just a touch of understeer if you overcook it. Tires are 215/40/17 on 97-04 mustang 17x8's.

Cool.

You probably could go to 235 or 245's in 45 or 40 aspect ratio on the front or on all 4 corners without much fuss. Maybe some additional fender clearance or additional wheel spacers would be needed.

Possibly add -1° and those larger width tires to improve front grip on those understeered corners.

Good Luck!

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack

Very cool! You've got thicker TBs and sway bar than ToadRacer.

Did you find that the 8 3/4 slowed you down much from the little 7 1/4?

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

That has been our experience as well. Although with the new engine it was doing more passing in the straights than getting passed at CMP. Until the carb stud and 7 1/4 schtuffff happened...

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

The 8 3/4 rear doesn’t slow you down nearly as much as a grenated 7 1/4

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6