WOW! Texas mile was HOT, the weather that is, low 90s.

i didnt see all , and no 200mph rotaries.

an almost stock 90Fc conv. made 117 mph in one mile(not to exciting)

did see an FC coupe go 169mph, better!

maybe Howard seen more??

 

of course there was the usual array of rich boys toys,

Lambos , ferrari, porsche, Etc.

 

i thought you might like a Texas Mile roadtrip report

fellow co-conspirator Ray and HC loaded up the trusty Mazda 6 DD with all kinds of necessities, mainly the TomTom and Valentine One, and headed out for southwest Texas. a mere 1500 mile drive.

of course being high rollers we booked into a Delux-o suite at a 5 star resort near the track. if you look closely you will see the a convenient PayDay Loans nearby. i think the pool was in the rear but we didn't have an opportunity to check. note the Penske hauler parked out front.

living large in Texas



we arrived at the track, specifically the faaast end of the track at exactly in time to see Hinson's 1400 hp Corvette car run through the lights. it did exactly run through the lights. it took out the timing lights. off the track. after it had lost traction at the 3/4 mile marker, slewed right, left the asphalt for the dirt, went airborn and slowly did a half barrel roll slightly nose up and landed squarely on the pass side of the main roll hoop area at approx 200 mph. (the prior day it had done a 224 at 11 psi..)

i do not mean to make light of this event but the driver did emerge unharmed. as of this moment purely reading the public statements it is currently speculated that the driver lost traction perhaps a blown tire or oil on a tire.

this all happened exactly in front of Ray and i and we saw it develop at the 3/4 mark and watched in horror as it played out.

welcome to the Texas Mile.

here are a few pics. BTW it ended up on its wheels.









there was alot of badass iron waiting for the staff to clear the debris. here's a typical entrant. two monster turbos, lots of cubes and nitrous



Diversity not only in the ivoryed halls but in the paddock... take a gander at this beauty. actually very cool underneath complete w a Pontiac 455 Super Duty. it ran 150 on saturday



this car ran like it looked. sort of yawn. no drama whatsoever at 226. that's 226 mph BTW. i am pretty sure they needed a cherry picker to install the turbo.



i really wish i could have shown the huge amount of cars in the paddock. this pic is a drop in the bucket.

there were 2 rotaries. a stockish FC convert and a zippy orange-ish FC coupe that ran around 170+ and was still brap brapping when we left. good for them.



my fav picture.

it's the track.

it is immense. if you watch from the start line the cars just go and go and go... note the black square markers. the first is the quarter, the second the half and so on... now look waaay down into the picture and you will see the mile marker.

so inspite of the hinson mishap, i came away w even a greater motivation to be here w my weapon in October and to run the 200 number.

we left later sat afternoon and drove 22 hours straight thru back to wisconsin. i will probably sleep well tonight.



howard

 

That red bridgeport FC is Peter Haag's and it's got one of my motors in it. It's been running for 7 years and it's the largest half-bridge I've ever done. Really fun car!

Looked like a fun trip Howard. Glad you had a good time. Wish I could've gone.

 

Wow, nothing good about that corvette cracking up but what timing to get to see it. Gives you a healthy appreciation for lift and any debris at speed.

 

Is there any update pertaining to the 'couple days' on the dyno? The 1 year anniversary for this thread is coming up fast!

 

this thread is a great illustration of how real life works.

 

And a good reason why threads should be started after-event.

 

Some of us here must be living in a different world then. I read earlier that Howards presence isn't even required to do the dyno testing...hopefully Luke is using the 'force' over there and we all will have a big surprise of dyno sheets THIS week!

The line between fiction and reality is getting harder and harder to see, I'm squinting over here.

 

What is interesting to me about the vette...I've seen video of the crash...it has all that power but did not seem to have any additions that might assist with downforce...a wing for example. Now I'm not saying a wing would have kept the car from coming up as the reason is unknown I'm guessing...but it still seems strange that there did not appear to be aero on the car to at least help.

 

He probably didn't want the drag from the wing.

 

Remember Racing Beat at Bonniville!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o8b8oYuftYk

Only had flat bottom with rear diffuser. The stock front & rear spoolers with stock hood were not good!

 

I'll risk a ban. I get next to nothing from this board anymore anyway.

OK Howard in all seriousness how much longer? When I last did a turbo swap where no fabrication was required it look half a day.

 

you know he could have just done this in private, like you did. you're also incorrect, there was a bunch of fab work to get all the turbos to bolt on and off.

i've done projects like this, i'm impatient, but not surprised

 

What does it matter if he takes ten years or ten days to do this project? He hasn't taken our money or anything... Be patient.

 

What kind of fabrication work is needed to switch some turbos over? Hopefully it doesn't require changing the manifold, because that's adding new variables to the table...oil/water lines easy enough...IC piping on the hotside and maybe a 90 degree coupler to make it a straight shot...10min.

I'm just curious if you've done projects like this, what ended up being the most time consuming, I ask because the list of things I did this passed winter in a span of 2-3months would make swapping turbos look like childsplay

It doesn't really matter, he's already stated he's doing this whole test out of pure curiosity...Unless of course he makes his port design known to the public, and then maybe it'll actually turn out to be some useful information and worthwhile at the end of a year long dyno test.

We are all simply here for motivation!!! I'm not sure how many people would enjoy sifting through 18 pages either...but that's just me.

 

Who knows we might have results for this thing or bdc's meth injected thing sometime this year, maybe next

 

i have a perfect example. we needed a new transmission after the 2009 25 hours of thunderhill. plan B is another new transmission from honda (1800ish). the last rebuild we had done broke about 20minutes into the race, and cost us an hour changing it.

we sent synchrotech a trans early 2011, it came back monday after the last race, and we need to go up to sacramento (2 hour drive) on friday to put it in. we couldn't do last weekend, i can't do this friday, so that's like 3 weeks to do a couple hours work?

 

It's the fact that he opened the thread before being ready for testing that annoys people. If everyone started posting what they were going to do a year from now, I'd stop coming to the forums because its useless. I mean seriously, we're 18 pages into this and there hasn't been a single dyno run for a thread that is called "a couple of days on the dyno". There is no fiction, there is no reality, just a useless thread that a lot of people subscribed to awaiting dyno's which haven't happened. But instead we get pics of vettes and supras on salt flats cause thats what everyone is interested apparently that is viewing this 18 page thread.

thewird

 

Agreed. Annoying.

 

On one hand I don't want to turn this into a flame war but....Jesus...some of you are ingrates. We have a gentleman who has contributed more than 99.9% of the people on this forum in regards to knowledge and you are "annoyed" that this isn't done to your liking in regards to time?

Hey! Guess what? I'm fairly certain Howard isn't some ******* magical gnome to provide rx7 internet information at your fancy.

While I certainly DO understand why someone could find annoyance in the length of time this has taken...what has it really cost you? Oh that's right...absolutely nothing (I'm waiting for some idiot savant to chime in with, "it cost me time").

Items for you to consider:
1) Per my understanding a custom modular manifold was created.
2) Howard lives in Wisconsin which has frightfully crappy winter weather often affecting work, fun, and travel.
3) There have been engine problems that involved pulling an engine, disassembling, sending parts out, reassembling and installing again.
4) Fuel issues? More customizing?
5) Taking the time to do it right.
6) Other "life" items that need to be accounted for.

All of these things take time. Jesus, Howard is a better man than me because I'd take one look at these posts and tell you all to go **** off and keep my cookies for myself.

He's doing this for himself and choosing to share it with others. If his timetable is inconvenient to you than that is YOUR problem. You take the time and money to do this in 24hrs or one week or whatever is "fast" enough for you. God Damn ingrates is all I can say.

Howard, looking forward to this when it is done. In the meantime, hurry up! =)

 

^Co-Sign

Not to mention the shop that is doing all the work, and the fact that Howard has his own company at CPR. No offense but they both have to make money in other ways, versus saying **** it, and satisfying someone's real world turbo comparison fun day. You have to think about how many peoples schedules have to align for something like this to happen.

 

I guess you forgot the part where Howard said the car was finished and young Master Luke had the dyno and keys. I thought this meant it was go time...my apologies I appreciate everything HC has brought to the forums, he's even answered in some of my threads with helpful information...but all I'm doing is being realistic here, sorry if that makes me an 'ingrate'

 

^ i'll co sign the co-sign..
I think you guys are ridiculous. If you dont have anything positive to say about the thread...then don't get yourself invovled in it. And if you don't like how long it's taking.. then do the project yourself and get it done in a week if your so capable. Otherwise, be respectful and maybe a little gracious a fellow enthusiast has decided to share his journy with everyone.

 

LOL @ all the fanboys getting butthurt.