We drove up to the World Cup Finals (WCF) at Maryland International Raceway on Friday and had quite the experience. The race was CRAZY. We had a lot of things to sort out with the car, namely the suspension.
There were over 600 racers at the race. It is an “Imports vs. Domestics” race, and the vast majority of the cars were imports. There were several heads-up classes, which required preregistration and proof of prior 9 second runs. I planned to run True Street; the class rules mandated a 9.99 or better time.
In preparation for the race we worked hard to improve my suspension. I had gone a 1.308 60’ with my previous suspension set up, and really felt that with suspension improvements I could go faster. Viking sent me some Crusader shocks. Last Sunday, we took the car out to our local track and I had no luck getting them dialed-in. The car wheel hopped, and it never has before. I tried every combination I could think of; 0 on compression and 12 on rebound worked the best. With this information and in light of the hopping, we switched out my old poly bushing LCAs and upper for parts with spherical bearings. Our hopes were to head off any damage that would occur if the poly bushings failed.
With the new parts in place, I took the car out to the local track again on Wednesday. The car still hopped and 0 compression, 12 rebound did not work! My LCAs were in the lowest hole on my Steeda relocation brackets. This had proven to work previously, but we thought that it may have been hitting the tires excessively hard with the new shocks. Following the testing on Wednesday, we decided to move the LCAs to the middle hole on the Steeda relocation bracket. I was frustrated and out of time to dial-in the suspension prior to heading up to MD.
We headed up to MD knowing that I would have two qualifying passes (we would not make it up for test and tune on Thursday or qualifying on Friday). I made my qualifying passes on Saturday and SPUN! The car bounced once on launch and then spun. It never spins! I qualified 26th at 9.59 in the 48 car field. I was fed up with the suspension. Beefcake, Brian Campbell from Fastlane, Eric Holliday from JPC, Ronnie Reynolds, and Bobby Duggar all were incredibly helpful, offering me advice on the suspension. With their help, I decided to run 9 compression and 11 rebound in eliminations.
Finally, the car hooked! I went a 1.33 60’, and felt a little hop. I went 9.31 at 146, which is my best ET. There is still room left to improve the suspension; I’m looking forward to doing this and seeing 60’ in the 1.2s. In the next week, we plan to measure everything out and determine the suspension needs precisely.
Throughout this entire ordeal Kelly Aiken at BMR has provided a ton of guidance and hooked us up with the new suspension parts.
We recently switched to Brisk plugs, and have had good results. I'm running the Gulf 116 fuel. I'll be posting about both of these subjects soon, and we're considering a switch to E85.
There were over 600 racers at the race. It is an “Imports vs. Domestics” race, and the vast majority of the cars were imports. There were several heads-up classes, which required preregistration and proof of prior 9 second runs. I planned to run True Street; the class rules mandated a 9.99 or better time.
In preparation for the race we worked hard to improve my suspension. I had gone a 1.308 60’ with my previous suspension set up, and really felt that with suspension improvements I could go faster. Viking sent me some Crusader shocks. Last Sunday, we took the car out to our local track and I had no luck getting them dialed-in. The car wheel hopped, and it never has before. I tried every combination I could think of; 0 on compression and 12 on rebound worked the best. With this information and in light of the hopping, we switched out my old poly bushing LCAs and upper for parts with spherical bearings. Our hopes were to head off any damage that would occur if the poly bushings failed.
With the new parts in place, I took the car out to the local track again on Wednesday. The car still hopped and 0 compression, 12 rebound did not work! My LCAs were in the lowest hole on my Steeda relocation brackets. This had proven to work previously, but we thought that it may have been hitting the tires excessively hard with the new shocks. Following the testing on Wednesday, we decided to move the LCAs to the middle hole on the Steeda relocation bracket. I was frustrated and out of time to dial-in the suspension prior to heading up to MD.
We headed up to MD knowing that I would have two qualifying passes (we would not make it up for test and tune on Thursday or qualifying on Friday). I made my qualifying passes on Saturday and SPUN! The car bounced once on launch and then spun. It never spins! I qualified 26th at 9.59 in the 48 car field. I was fed up with the suspension. Beefcake, Brian Campbell from Fastlane, Eric Holliday from JPC, Ronnie Reynolds, and Bobby Duggar all were incredibly helpful, offering me advice on the suspension. With their help, I decided to run 9 compression and 11 rebound in eliminations.
Finally, the car hooked! I went a 1.33 60’, and felt a little hop. I went 9.31 at 146, which is my best ET. There is still room left to improve the suspension; I’m looking forward to doing this and seeing 60’ in the 1.2s. In the next week, we plan to measure everything out and determine the suspension needs precisely.
Throughout this entire ordeal Kelly Aiken at BMR has provided a ton of guidance and hooked us up with the new suspension parts.
We recently switched to Brisk plugs, and have had good results. I'm running the Gulf 116 fuel. I'll be posting about both of these subjects soon, and we're considering a switch to E85.
