Jon Nelson and his Valiant Effort team are representing Slant 6s well this weekend at Thunderhill Raceway in Willows, CA.

I’m sure Jon will post a recap in a few days.

Way to represent Team Valiant Effort!!

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Very cool. Thanks for the heads up, Rob.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Well,… I’m headed to the next Lemons race in New Jersey & I see Jon ain’t posted nuthin’ here yet…

I’ll give him a poke.

He swapped the push button 904 fer one uh them row yer own A833s…
It put smiles on all their faces!

Hey Jon! What you gotta say ‘bout that!?

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Rob

I’m Mater
The Kentucky Poser

Thanks Rob! We had a blast at thunderhill with the valiant. We only made one change prior to the race but it was a big one. We pulled the push button A904 and did a complete stick swap to a A833 4-speed from a 64 dart. Granted thunderhill is a 5 mile course, but our new best lap time with the stick was 17 seconds faster than the last one at thunderhill with the same setup!! The car was also so much more fun to drive, and so much easier to drive int he corners. It doesn't sound believable but we can pretty much hang with anyone through the tight turns, although we still watch them disappear on the straights. The car is incredibly well balanced and stays very neutral through the turns and you can easily adjust it with small throttle adjustments.

We did have one problem that took us off track Saturday for a couple hours. We failed another rear wheel bearing on the 8.75 axle. Again it was the driver side just like our heroic fix issue a few races ago, but at least this time we had spares. Still getting it sorted, finding a press, and putting it together took 3 hours. We are running green bearings but it sounds like they are working well for others. I think we probably have a axle or housing issue, probably a axle that has some runout. This is the second wheel bearing failure we have had on the same axle. We chalked the last one up to a driver hitting a curb hard, but this time we haven't touched anything the 3 or 4 races this bearing has been on the car. Fortunately this time the driver realized something felt off and came in before the bearing failed completely and let the axle become loose. We clearly have some trouble shooting to do here. I'd be curious to hear ideas from other racers. A almost stock /6 shouldn't be breaking 8.75" axle bearings..

Once we went back out on Saturday I had a hung throttle as the quite old return spring gave up the ghost. I got it back to the pits by turning the ignition on and off to keep me going slowly and we did fix it quickly and get back out. I did have to go speak to the judges as they were worried i was speeding in the pits due to the noise, but once I explained the failure and how I was flipping the ignition on and off at like 5mph in first they let me back out. This is the second stuck throttle I've had while driving although different reasons both times. I'm going to go over the returns and other stuff with a fine tooth comb before the next race.

On Sunday the car ran flawlessly from green to checkers. We ended up 64th I think out of 108 cars. If we take the time we weren't on track due to the axle and hung throttle and just assume we ran our normal average lap times we would of been about 30th. Not bad for a basically stock slant six, but clearly we need to fix our problems and execute to get there.

We have some stuff to do before the next race.

First and most important we have to figure out why we are failing green bearings and fix it. Then we need to science out the carb linkage better.

For performance improvements I have some stiffer torsion bars and a holley 390cfm and we might do one of them, but sticking to the theme of one mod at a time probably not both.

We also need to science out why our seat is flexing which is a bit concerning when you drive. Everything is tight as it should be and appropriately rated but we are having a lot of flex in the seat sliders themselves we need to figure out.

One of our teammates put some go pros in the car so you can see what it looked like here: https://www.youtube.com/@stephenabraham6787

Anyway, were getting quicker, the car keeps getting more and more fun, and I can't wait until the next one. Rob was super cool as well and fun to hang out with! He really helped us a ton when we were off with the axle issue so thanks Rob!

-Jon

Sounds great, Jon. Sounds like nice steady improvements. I am not surprised at all that you can hang with most cars in the corners. That has been my experience with several A-bodies in LeMons over the last 8-10 yrs and in other road course events over the last 25.

Best wishes and Slant onward!
Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Way to go Team Valiant Effort!!! Yeah, that seat looks a bit unsettling in that movement, let Us know what brand & solution when You figure it out. Being a road course runs clockwise, the Dr. side gets more side loading ultimately, either tight or sweeping turns......so I can't say it isn't just that. In the video, am I hearing the studs rubbing brake hardware on that side or????? Last, glad that N95 'stang didn't take You Guys out, looking forward to updates going forward..peace!!
Jim K6

Didn't E-booger on Mopar Action used to say the green bearings shouldn't be used on the corner carver.
The tapered bearings might be the fix.

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Hyper_pak

Yes, they're garbage. I wouldn't personally use them on anything but a tool-around cruiser, or drag only ride. The 8.75" wasn't designed to use straight roller or ball bearings as axle supports, properly designed rears with C-locks transfer the cornering/side loading to the tapered carrier bearings thru' the C-lock/side gear(inside wheel)& spider shaft(outside wheel), an 8.75" cannot. The green brg. design was to be a simple & low friction unit to increase speeds/lower ET's at the dragstrip, that's all they were intended for. Worse, their use is being propagated by rear-disc swap kits that "can't use" the proper tapered brg./adjuster setup, so for largely unecessary rear disc brakes these things are being swapped in.

I have used green bearings on road course cars/events and for 10s of thousands of spirited street miles. One key is to make sure there is no side loading from the thrust button (remove it, or grind the axles to shorten them). I think that is the main reason for the failures. Ford 8" and 9" rears pretty much all used ball bearings like the green bearings from the factory and with no c-clips. However, I agree they are not as good as tapered rollers like the stock 8.75". I use the snap ring type green bearings and have had zero failures.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Interesting, either the 'slip-over' pin or 'double buttonhead/roll-pin' setups have to come out, but most I've known haven't had such luck. I've never purchased a one, and I wasn't aware of more than one style option. Enlighten Me if You would.
Jim K6

Here they are: https://www.doctordiff.com/green-bearings-pair.html

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

I dug into the seat a little more and most of the slop is on the drivers side slider so I need to dig into that. I'm on the road for work and vacation for a while so its going to be a bit.

For the sound, what you are hearing is a vibration in the clutch pedal when its fully released. It's not a big vibration and if you touch your foot to it gently it stops but we need to figure that out as well.

For the green bearings I won't argue that the tapered bearings are probably better, but I have a lot of experience with the green bearings on road courses with much much higher horsepower cars that weigh much much more than this one. There's no evidence that its a thrust load issue yet. My current best guess is that since we have had the same issue twice on the same car that we may have a axle on that side that isn't straight. That's the fun of this stuff though, we need to go figure it out and nerd out what's actually wrong! Due to work schedules I'll probably get back into it in September as we start to get ready for Sonoma at the end of the year.

-Jon

For the green bearings get rid of the the thrust button in the center section diff if you have not already. You could have some runout problems too, but I would start there.

The clutch ratling can be fixed with a rubber stop on the pedal box, there are factory parts for this and I bet yours is gone or dieed out. A simple length of heater hose split open and zip-tied to the clutch pedal or the pedal box where there is metal contact. also there should be a medium spring in the torque shaft and clutch lever arm assembly "pulling" the linkage toward the front of the bell housing when your foot is off the clutch.

I may also suggest driving a bit harder into those turns coasting less, and either using a 2 foot/throttle/brake technique if not planning a downshift or if planning a downshift from 4-3 or from 3-2 through the braking phase with the heel-toe technique to gain some negative seconds or tenths of a second on the lap times.
It seems that there is a lot of coasting now. Getting into the corner and blipping the throttle into 2nd gear for the corner entry for the maximum torque in the corner exit may help in this area, but you and all the drivers will need to start practicing heel-toe shifting technique on your street cars before the next track sessions.

Best of luck!

Greg

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http://www.youtube.com/hyperpack