Little video action for you guys snowed in..

Went out this past weekend to compete in a local Las Vegas Grudge Topo 10 big tire race. Which actually has spread to whomever wants to run it, cars from Cali, NV, AZ and Utah. Anyway we just try to support it when we can. Actually had my car in pieces as of last Thursday as we are getting ready to pull the engine to address the retarded cam situation. But we were asked to attend so we put it back together Thursday night loaded it up Friday night into its new trailer and off we went. The night before they had run a
'Midnight Mayhem" race which is a street car night deal. Well those guys apparently tore the track up, and it was literally peeling rubber up. SO they decided to run us on Saturday in lanes 3/4. Which have been sitting unused since the National event pretty much. SO the track was not exactly in great shape, we took a lot of rubber with us on the first hit,.But we adjusted as much as we could to try and get down it and the car was doing well.

This video is our last pass of the day. Guy behind me didn't want to call me out so we got a single. Track came around a bit for this pass. We had the car pretty much as loose as it can go and got a decent hit. 1.043 60' and then some shake about 50' out for about 40-50'. Anyway just a video for your winter enjoyment. Now the engine comes out and will address the cam issue.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-SEGa81bvY

Looked pretty good to me Al..... what did the ET end up being?

How did you do in the race?
How manty cars showed up and raced?

Thanks for the video Al. Hope the transmission issues are behind you. It will be a stought running car for sure. When is your next outing? Are you going to run at MATS this year?

Thanks again.

I thought it looked pretty good Al! And yes...There has been a winter storm warning issued for us...It's getting to be old..

Very nice i love all the black with the color looks mean

Look's good and sound's good Al,,,had to go out to the garage and give mine a hug after seeing the video.

Sheesh! Can’t believe I haven’t been racing this year!

Below ZERO here! Thanks for the heat

Well I got about 2 inches of slush...while about 35 miles south they got 2 feet! In the mountains, they got up to 4 feet!

That car sounds ferocious , and picked up and moved right smartly.
At 9 degrees Fahrenheit and with heavy snow forecast for tomorrow , I will have to make laps vicariously through you.
That was very nice.

-13 here, that was a nice break.
Doug

All those power Adder guys must love the fact you beat them beautiful car insane 60 foot

I feel for you guys suffering with the winter weather. Cant say I miss it a lot. But on the bright side you have time to work on your cars, something we dont get as much of out here. We get a month or two here or there but to be 100% honest I kind of miss having to time to make changes and improvements without missing races.

As for the car thanks for the compliments. It is still a work in progress with some issues we really need to address. Namely the camshaft, but think I am gonna run it this year and order new pistons and a cam at years end. May as well give it some compression too.

Whitedart, Yeah I am not their favorite guy out there it seems. If I can just keep it green. Lobbying now for instant green. Kinda challenging their manhood so to speak. No one has beat me to the other end yet, but I did go -.002 red and -.009 red. Cant push the damn button any harder my darn thumb was still hurting yesterday from trying to bend the steering wheel over.

Great video Al, car looks solid!

Engine seems to be close even though you already want to change things.

Al...what button are you using?

Same one I always use, a Biondo "double 0", I'm not allowed to use the delay box and after all this is a TS/shoe polish car. FWIW my first pass with the box off I was .029- red pushing pretty hard

Honestly without the box I am sure I could go .060 red if I wanted with the TS set up and no box, the car has 1.5" of stagger built into it and the belly pan seems to hang up in the lights a bit too. Car moves a good 10" before the light goes out. The problem is I don't really have room for anything else for a button, it is a VERY tight fit for me. Something like a terminator style button is a definite no go. I do have an adjustable button that is made by a Comp racer I might try too. Last race I just waited til I saw green which makes me look as bad as they do(well not quite as bad but close). I figure challenging their manhood might work, besides these guys love talking crap so just something for me to talk back about. I mean this is a Grudge Race so should be instant green, like an arm drop or flashlight, right?

Car looks great...

Weather likes this makes me want to drive to the nearest airport and buy a ticket to LA to hang w/ my sister until the cold goes away. We (NoVa) got ten inches of snow the previous weekend and some near single-digit mornings over the last week, but that's not nearly as bad as others are having to deal with.

How about enticing them into a race with you by giving them the move No relights that way

Because they are faster than me The top two cars run 4.20's and 4.40's WHEN they get down all the way. I am just a tick slower here so no glory to be had that way, I would be stuck at 3 These guys are HORRIFIC at the tree. As in they celebrate a reation time tats starts with a .1XX. The track is not always great to say the least for this deal. We used to run them on the Mayhem/Street car nights, this year will be during the few test and tunes we have and the track just usually is not real good for those either.

Needs more gear. Get that 60 down about another .05-.07.

Awesome car Al, give 'em hell!

You don't think 111" rollout and a 4.27 gear is the hot ticket

Very nice...everything. Thanks for sharing the vid!

Looks great Al.

Thanks for the video!

If you have the time could you give us the history on the car?

I have always liked it.

[quote=340Cuda]Thanks for the video!

If you have the time could you give us the history on the car?

I have always liked it. [/quote

The car is an RJ Racecars IHRA Pro Stock car. It was actually Ricks personal car. They only ran it at 5 races in pro stock over two seasons before switching to a Cavalier. They won one race with it in Milan in 04, his third ever Pro Stock event he ran. They also ran it in the NMCA old Pro Street class at Joliet once. The car was lightly used by Rick and then sat. He sold it to Art Hodges who tried his hand at Pro Stock as well with not a lot of success. He then ran it a few times in PSCA Pro Street a few times. Then he parked the car, eventually selling it to a guy in Wyoming, whom I purchased it from. SO now that I have it the car is running slower than it ever has Rick had two(04/05) paint jobs on it, Art put a refrigerator white paint scheme with Strange Engineering colors on it. We stripped it down to the bare carbon and started over. Car lost 84lbs in that process.

Hers is a picture of it with the first RJ paint job


Art Hodges


As I purchased it. Was not treated really nicely by Mr Hodges. Car was pretty beat up on the exterior. A lot of cracks from tire shake in the C pillar and front end, not to mention lots of mismatched paint and repairs.


The day we finally got it to the booth


Last guide coat


Sorta final product

Thanks Al!

Good Progress....

Badass pass Al, thanks!

18 degrees today,,,,

Could you please post up some more track/car stuff? since you're near vegas could you maybe also add a few show girls checking tire pressure? knees locked, valve stems near ground too?

DT, well its winter here too. Only 62 today Sorry no show girls or strippers as of yet but I am sure they could be rounded up Best I can do is another view of the car and it little tires...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dukCfWF_sr8

Al can you put this into perspective for us how would this car 60 ft given that it has a larger motor but yet a less efficient 2 speed tranny compared to a legal pro stock car. I believe they are in the sub 1 second range but do not know the exact number. Just curious

Pro Stockers are two tenths plus faster than me. So no chance of me getting there with this engine. EVER! My goal was a 1.00 60', and a sub 3.00 to 330', maybe in good/great air somewhere we can get there. Am pretty sure we can go 2.99 or better(been 3.03 in Vegas already) to 330, not sure it will make the 1.00 60' I set for a goal. Just need more power than this ole Mopar is making.

That looked solid Al.

At least I was looking at an attractive rear end in that one, even though it was black, lol.

I hate the winter.

Well its only looks black from that angle in that lighting I hear ya the last four years living in DC most the time and every winter sucked. But for a Midwest kid I am not gonna say I didn't enjoy some of it. But now I can drive to the snow in 20 minutes, look at it, step in it and then go home here

So what does it run ? 1/8 1/4 ? Sounds good.

That thing is a rocket! Sounds really good too.

We have not had an opportunity to run it 1/4 mile yet, not for lack of trying but the one time we went to a local bracket race the track made it no Bueno. Typical for LVMS bracket races IMO.

We have competed in a couple local 1/8 mile deals and that's it so far. We have been 4.70 at 149 best with a correction factor of .9746/1.0266(according to the weather station), so typical LVMS "good" air. So we should be able to run low low .60's/150 in better air as is.

Unfortunately the cam just aint happy. IMO Bullet just missed it, the reason I say this is some lash changes picked up 30hp. But to be fair we also dont have the piston to valve to put it where it wants/needs to be(6.5 retarded), only have 210lbs of cranking compression and feel it needs a fair amount more. We have the engine out now and are cutting the pistons to try and put it clower to its happy place. Not sure we can get there but have to try before I condemn the camshaft completely. But I got tired of "racing" the dyno and it went in the car, to sort it out some, which has proved a good idea with the little issues I have had. The end of this year we will be getting new pistons and likely another cam. Hopefully it surprises me and Im wrong on the cam, find out here soon. Not going back on the dyno just in the car and we will learn what we need to.

Still have some tuning to do, just been fighting some little "new car" issues. Trans has been out a few times already as we broke it on the 3rd pass and then broke an "unbreakable" input shaft two passes later(looks like it just had a flaw in material). No excuses at all just stating whats happened and pretty confident there is more there. I think realistically we can go 7.teens in good air and low .30's here as it is with some tuning. Hopefully we can get the cam happier this weekend and that shows a positive gain.

Mad respect to you and Steven

My Stratus was a RJ car also, best 1/8 was 4.70 at 150.00 . It was 2410 lbs with my 588 B-1 PSO headed engine. Only got a chance to race it 1/4 mile once and it went 7.39 188, It was at appox 4000 ft of air in August at RT 66 . Felt it would have been quicker with a 3 speed , it would sixty 1.06 most of the time. Good luck with yours.

Pete I love the car and it seems to be pretty bada$$ ride for sure. We have been able to make small adjustments and it responds to poor track conditions. The first run the last time out it just blew the tires off at .18 into the run. Two passes later 1.043 60', and in Vegas that is pretty damn good given our lack or barometer. was typical 27.8 that day.

Pistons are cut and going to see how much we can advance the cam today. Wont be able to get it where it wants to be but hopefully it will be happier. The heads seem pretty good at least numbers wise so our thoughts are we need more cylinder pressure. We will find out soon. Not happy about loosing some compression but whatcha gonna do. New pistons will be ordered as soon as we can get the new KB block and get that engine finished up.

Here's my pile o straus lol. Mine is RJ as well, and was Larry Morgan's in 07

This is the last time I ran it. WJ came out to help me sort out the new inerter shocks. I had hurt the motor on the previous attempted run, down 2 cylinders lol. Broke an exhaust guide that bent the hell out of valve in one cylinder, that introduced the intake valve to it for some lovely valve to valve contact lol. Broke an intake valve spring on the cylinder next to it as well. Those 2 cylinders were basically out of the picture. Also had ordered new hoosiers that came the day I was leaving. Had been running the PS tire at 104.7 roll out. These came in at 113. A real ratio killer with a 3.9 gear I had just switched to untested, from a 4.3. I did that because I went to a 3 speed. I mounted the tires up without balancing them. When I got home it took 8 ounces to balance them. The car would blur your vision in the burnout, and down track. Made the shock data useless beyond the 1st shift lol. Just a total mess of a day. I was so angry about it all I just ran it anyway, and drove it out the back door to see what would happen. still went a 4.38 with 1.01 60.

All repaired now, and ready for action. First warm chance I'll get back after it, and get both kits on hard, and early. Hoping for some low 20's or teens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MgqYn7KpPbY

Al maybe I missed it but what engine is in it now? And what are you planning to put in it?

600" Predator NA deal, first attempt at this combo and so far pretty happy.