7 hp on a roll down test is real good...

Steve One last small thing I just have leave you with is that there are a lot of things out side the sealed areas of an SRF that have the most bearing on the velocity of the ride. Unfortunatly alot gets blamed on whats between the valve cover and the oil pan, when it's just fine in there. I had a customer for many years who ran the original conversion engine from 1995 until he sold the car in 2006. That car made the most power on my dyojet I have ever seen, before or since, and it had never been disassembled from new in the crate. the cardinal rule is don't overheat and don't overrev and they will give lifetimes of service. I think that car had more than 60 weekends on that engine and the last day it was at my shop, on the way to a new owner it pulled 2 hp more than the first day I saw it 10 years before. So don't shoot the Mule when the wheel fals off. If ya know what I mean. You sound like the kind of open minded analytical guy who will find results and have a ball racin these cars for a long time. Keep it up and if you ever need any thing feel free to call on me.

Thanks for the offer Dave Brown! I appreciate it!

So an update here on progress....I ran #009 over the weekend at WGI with finger lakes region.
I think that Dynomometer may have been off calibration...OR the car was REALLY down on power before.

Using my previous driving line, I was hitting 110-112 after the top of the esses, certainly well before the bus-stop 200 foot marker. I compared data traces in various locations where I was pretty sure I was always full throttle (I don't have a throttle data acquisition yet) and I calculated that previously the car was accelerating at about a rate of 3.99mph/s meaning on many previous runs the time it took me to go from 64.9-83.0 mph was about 4.531 seconds...so 3.99 mph. Same places now, I reach about 4.87mph/s acceleration... about 3.713 seconds for a similar 64.9-83.0 mph change in speed. Overlaying data more, I found that my turn-1 to bus-stop braking time DECREASED by about 1.5 seconds (on average) and top speed to ~112 by doing nothing else to my driving line.

very encouraged by this data, I was able to find a really nice line through bus-stop so I could carry more speed there and could repeat this nearly every lap. I also found some magic on the esses (i say magic because i wasn't able to consistenly repeat it due to driving skill) so when i was on the magic line....i hit a top speed of 118 mph (no drafting!!) by about the 300 foot braking marker.

So yes, the car has picked up some speed and I am more consist as well on my laps and my times.

So its going in the right direction!

Car may still be down a bit on power, but....I am seeing good top speed numbers, it certainly pulls harder now. I also knocked 4 seconds off my last time on the short course posting a personal best lap of 1:30.9ish - so i was pretty happy about that for only running short course 3 times ever...

Guess its back to working on driving skills for a while

sspano01 wrote:Guess its back to working on driving skills for a while

It's the Catch 22 of a spec series. It's supposed to liberate your mind to focus on driving and not on the car. But because the cars are SO closely matched, it's easy to obsess over minute mechanical issues. An SRF friend taught me the mantra, "Just drive the car."

GregCirillo wrote:

sspano01 wrote:Guess its back to working on driving skills for a while

An SRF friend taught me the mantra, "Just drive the car."

I've only been thrashing these things around for about 21-22 years now and the best advice ever given (by the crew, every single time I get in the car):
"Shut up and drive."

H.(which direction?)B.

thanks again for the all help here and advice, I really appreciate it!
I have a couple more race events i'd like to do, but my season is wrapping up here soon.

then I can work on it over winter and be even faster next year

no new engine needed....