Ezrider

did another autocross in the jag this last weekend. did a lot better this time i was only 7 seconds off the fastest car vrs 19 seconds last time...lol a little shorter course this time though. a few less cars this weekend and the shorter course did get a lot more runs in. 

only change on the car itself is im now running it on straight e-85. as methonol is not allowed in scca last time i was spraying straight water trying to control iat's and the blower was heat soaking bad. much much better on e85 and was able to put some timing back in it. 

almost spun in in this clip but managed to save it without going off course or hitting any cones. of course that miss hap killed my time on that run. 

after the event i did a couple fun runs that didn't count for competition and got a time that was only 5 seconds off the fastest time durring compitition. 

on another one of the fun runs. i spun it 180 just before the Finnish line, tires were spinning a little bit around the last tiny jog before the finnish line and i thoguht i could hold it and kept it matted just about crossed the Finnish line facing backwards....lol and i was hitting over 60mph crossing the Finnish line on most runs. 

unfortunately i didn't record any video of the fun runs as i kept forgetting to turn off the camera's between runs so the memory cards were full and the battery's were dead and i didn't feel like changing them....lol

really looking nice!

11 hours ago, Freightrain said:

I'm sure the tech guys will realize you can go way faster then what you are telling them.

im most worried that they won't let me run it at all knowing that ill break out. but i used to run low 12's at beach bend when i had my fox body and they never gave me any grief. ill be going on a test and tune day so im hoping that they will just overlook the fact its a convertible. i don't think ill go go sub 12's on street tires. ill be going to a track iv never been to before so i have no idea how picky there going to be. i do want to try to get at least 1 good pass in but im mostly wanting to see what it will mph out the big end. 

that thing looks like a beast

i wanna say it was 13.50 for a roll bar for convertibles, i looked it up somewhat recently. i plan on taking my convertible jag to the drag strip later this month, i am hoping they don't sweat me on it. car on paper could possibly run 11.1 ill be on a soft street tire not a drag tire so im hoping for a mid 12 with a 120mph trap speed. if it seems like they are going to give me a hard time about it i plan to try to get my 60' figured out the best i can coasting out the end of the track, then when i think iv got my 60' the best i can run it out take my time slip and go home....lol

ill probably end up putting a 4 point in the car at some point because well it would probably be smart but i will not be putting a nhra legal 5point in. not willing to have any bars into the front area of the car being its just a fun street car. never ran at the track i plan on going to so not really sure how much of sticklers there going to be. 

do you ever have any issues with the running e85 on carbs, esp during periods the car isn't driven much (ie winter) 

iv been playing a bit with blending e85 on my setup with good results but about a 30% blend of e85 and regular pump gas is about the most i can go without having re jet if i fill with straight premium and even if tuned for 30% its really rich if i fill with straight premium. i have considering trying to go straight e85 but worry about what it would do to my carb ect if it end up sitting a while with a tank full of straight e85

yeah the power really wasn't much help to me..lol i suppose it might have made up some for the truck driver in me causing me to slow down way to early coming into the corners...lol was running the entire course in 2nd gear to help make the throttle a little less twitchy and help keep it planted. still had to be careful to roll into the throttle to keep it planted. it would be interesting to figure out the longest i was ever in the throttle couldn't have been much more than a couple seconds at a time. the car really did pretty good at staying planted even though it wallowed around like a boat. could defiantly use some stiffer springs and adjustable shocks if i actually cared about being competitive. 

i did a couple auto crosses probably had to be 15 years ago or better when i had a 79 datsun 280zx. i really forgot just how fun it was. 

nice! 

can't really add much to your post mach technician. most times i have come across that it was normally a leak in the sense line from the governor to the wet tank or a leaking fitting on the wet tank. 

iv been super busy sense spring started but starting to get a little bit of time now to catch my breath. trying to get some fun things squeezed in before winter is upon us again....lol never seems like summer last long enough. found out there is a number of local autocross events for this year so hey sounds like fun. lots of power on bone stock suspension should be perfect for a handling course....lol i have plans to try to take it to the drag strip next month. 

video for anyone that is interested. 

https://youtu.be/-IRX-SkCOQQ

i only know that cause i worked at weyerhaeuser at one point...lol

you mean corrugated container board 😉

i would guess a nozzle tip problem. wont throw a code for that as there not electrical and the unit pumps cant know the difference. you could pull the ex manifold off and see if you can narrow it down to smoke out of one port. 

it would be cool to tour that property. but i agree if anything the junk should be considered negative value rather than something to be sold off for a return. 

3 hours ago, Mack Technician said:

Snow phenomenon....It appears that if you get enough snow weight it bears down upon itself, compresses to the frozen ground and becomes a slush gasket nothing can flow through. Then when you add 51 degrees and a 2” rainstorm the water runs BACK at your house and follows the only path of earth that isn’t frozen because it’s tight against the warmed foundation, which is still permeable, and pools up despite the drain tile. 

Hope your having better luck EZ, it’s good you got snow. 

so far we have had very little melting, we were supposed to get 9 inches of snow last night combined with highwinds so i hauled a few truck loads of snow out from the house yesterday to make some more room ended up kinda splitting around us we only got maybe an inch here but i94 is closed to the east. as much as i want to see the snow go away i hope we get a bit of a slow melt there is a good 2ft of snow pack on the ground. the snow gets cleared away from 2 sides of my house the other two sides have a pretty decent grade sloping away from the house we have not yet had any issues with getting water in the basement and we have had years with more snowpack than this year. 

a few pictures from a few years ago taken around Christmas time

i think i did see a day in the 40's in the forecast so far all we have gotten is a bit of melting threw the afternoon hours and then re-freezing at night. 

weather is now talking about more snow weds night-thursday combined with 60mph wind. we did get has been getting a little warmer durring the day now hopfuly the snow will have enough of a crust on it that it doesn't blow all the old snow around with the new snow. 

errrr ummmmm .........

in north dakota we spent the vast majority of February sub 0 temps. i say bring on the global warming...lol

i think your like that setup better than propane. using the vehicles fuel system certainly makes things better, no need to worry about stale fuel in the off season no separate tanks or bottles to fill.

31 minutes ago, Rob said:

Watched your king pin replacement video and was quite impressed. Sorry you come out of it looking as if you'd met my wife and said something she took exception to, but glad you survived. Your little press idea there gives me thoughts on a hydraulic pipe bender I no longer use for the purpose so may make a small bench top press from it. It's an older "Blackhawk" unit and works well. I'm thinking with some strap or channel along with possibly some angle, I can repurpose this thing to something useful again. I no longer bend 4" rigid conduits so this press just sets in it's wooden case.

yeah after i finished that job i just stuck some legs back on it and made it a bench top press, it would still be able to be used as a kingpin press if i needed to. i am pretty sure i accually broke the cheek bone in that video...lol a year later theres still a big dent that you can feel in the bone under my eye and to the side of my nose where i got smacked in the face....lol still have some mild pain in that area too and that was almost a year ago. i remember it happened on valentines day  last year cause i went out to dinner with the wife right after that happened. 

ill be curious to find out how they work out for you.i obviously don't have the long term experience with the knock off units that i do with the espar. i think my espar has over 3000 hours on it now. witch at the same time makes the cost of the unit more justified considering what 3k hours worth of fuel costs to run the engine let alone wear and tear. tons of people report having great luck with the knock off units. and i do think that the name brands are a bit over priced. 

i had planned on buying a second knock off unit myself to put in my boat that has a small forward cabin. i think im going to try to find a used espar for it instead now, the china unit might be ok for the boat as i trailer it so its not like its on the water all the time but the kinda crusty exposed electrical shyed me away from the knock off for that application. 

cool, i don't really have a issue with the plastic case espars are plastic as well. the espar has been good for a long time, there could be a difference in the composite of the plastic between the two but they do seem similar, in-fact id be more worried about a metal case getting dented where if the plastic were to be struck by something it would have more give and bounce back if it where to get hit by something. its a very tough ridged plastic. although the china units seem to be functionally fine. i wouldn't be surprised to see the control boards fail on if used in a high moisture or high vibration environment. also with the casting quality on the aluminum heat exchanges on the china unit that i got i would expect they experience far more cracking/casting failures than the espars. my personal take on it is the china units are ok, they are functional. i think they are great for recreational applications where its just hard to justify the cost of the espar given the amount of use it will get. i personally wouldn't buy a china unit to put in a semi, but then again you can replace the china unit several times for the cost of 1 espar and the espar's are not without there issues ether. mostly just requiring fairly frequent cleaning to keep them operating properly. i would suspect the china units will have that same issue but it may be harder to find service parts for the china units (have not looked yet though however) 

i do buy all my espar parts online as its a pretty substantial cost savings i generally keep a atomizer screen a set of gaskets and a glowpin at the shop. order them on e-bay from the cheapest seller wich is normally shipping from the uk or some other place so takes a few weeks to get them but i do like that i can run to my local thermoking and grab parts for it as well if i needed even though it would be about twice the cost. 

20 minutes ago, carlotpilot said:

slightly different topic but  related . i remember as a kid riding in a car a plymouth i think that had a gasoline fired heater . anyone know how that would have worked or has anyone ever seen one

vw buses and chevy corvairs had optional gas fired heaters. 

back when i first got my espar for my truck i looked into trying to find a gasoline version for my boat however at that time there was none available at that time. however now there is a gasoline version of the webasto  

https://www.amazon.com/Webasto-Gasoline-Heater-install-9032227A/dp/B01M2ZCWTF

the next link is the pdf specs on that heater

https://www.webasto-comfort.com/fileadmin/webasto__media/webasto-comfort.com/EN_US/Datasheets/909543_ATEvo4055_SpecSheet_lo_res.pdf

as well as the espar https://www.heatso.com/eberspacher-airtronic-b4-12v-4kw-heater-petrol-gasoline/

planar has a gasoline version of there coolant heater but not there air heater as far as i can find

https://planarheaters.com/product/pre-start-engine-heater-binar-5sgasoline-pu27-12v/

so i don't think it was unreasonable to think that it should work as advertised

here is another link to another one of the knock off versions that claims to be gasoline, you can see how there is a drop down to select the fuel type witch is the same as what was on the one that i ordered before it became no longer available

http://drivworld.com/product/277741101