A little background. My wife was driving at NASA Nationals at Mid-Ohio in September '07, and in the main race her panhard bar mount broke, she spun, and was hit in the driver rear quarter panel. We took it to the body shop on January 14th, and told them it was no hurry.

So, good news. The car is apparently ready for paint. I'll take and post some pictures after we go check it out this afternoon. The body work guy said we should discuss how fancy we want to paint it. Fancy? Um, not.

I put this in GD - I notice we don't have a broke up car specific forum.

Jason

Between you two, Randy, Mike and a few others, I may have to add one....

Glad to hear it's coming along, I can't wait to see the pics (since I saw the damage first hand).

I want to stay away from that forum really bad!

What else have you guys done to the car

So Jason will Chris and you make it to WSR Feb 9/10?

There's a remote chance we'll be at WSIR Feb 9/10, but not in the Camaro. Paint should be done this weekend or early next week. Then it needs to get it's suspension fixed, and some method of fueling added. The stock tank had the filler neck pushed in and will need to be replaced, or we'll need to go with a fuel cell.

Pictures:

http://www.z28racergirl.com/gallery2/main....;g2_itemId=4973

Not sure if we'll put a frrax.com sticker back there again. It was too big of a target apparently.

Jason

You sure know how to hurt a guy.

Let me know if you need a few replacements, I think I've got some left just for you guys.

We'll still have a frrax.com sticker on there for sure. Just maybe not in that location. The car's had three accidents, once in the front, and then once each on each rear quarter panel. The rear quarter panel ones are a pain in the ass. Then again, I guess anywhere's a pain in the ass. Anyhow, I just don't want that to be the target / bullseye again.

Pretty sure I still have three or four in the sticker drawer.

Jason

Are you going to bring the BMW or SER?

I had 5 FRRAX stickers on at one time, i'm now down to 2 with the new hood/hatch. And your telling me they are targets The 2 that remain are on both doors Kevin I may have to remove these

Congrats!


Looks like she is going together instead of the other way around.....I LIKE when that happens!


...oh....and I HATE bodywork

Pretty unlikely that we'll go actually, but if we did it would probably be in the Miata. BMW is retired from track duty, and the se-r is getting the aftermarket parts removed so that it can be sold cheap. So good luck out there!

We are leaning pretty heavily towards fuel cell at this point, probably the 15 gallon enduro cell:

http://www.ioportracing.com/Merchant2/merc...ategory_Code=ED



Amen to that Randy. Fortunately not a lot had to come off before the bodywork started. Now once the suspension stuff starts, that's another matter....

Jason

Remove the door, keep the sticker.

Jason, just a little input for you but I have a 15 gallon cell and if I had to do it all over again I would go with a 22 gallon. I got a deal on my 15gal as a blem. through ATL, but the 22gal does have it's benefits. Such as, being able to ballast the car with fuel. Also, during a 40 minute race at Road America, it is possible to start sputtering even with the cell packed full. One of the Mustang guys out here had that problem with his 331 cube motor.

I was having other issues last year so I didn't run into that issue and I'm running a 310 but it is making me wonder.

Not sure if there's any tracks on the West Coast comparable to RA (big straights), but a thirsty 350 could suck it dry.

TJ, thanks for the data point. We were going with 15 gallons based upon input from Nick Steel, who was just getting starvation in his CMC car at NASA Nationals at Mid-Ohio with a 12 gallon cell. That's the longest sprint race that we currently run. Nick has an AI car, so knows the consumption there, but it would be nice if we had mpg numbers for our car. Sadly, we never calculated that with the current engine / tune - honestly because we didn't want to know. But I think it was in the ~7 mpg area with the last engine. I think we're running richer now. :-0

Jason

Jason,

With my 330-350-ish rwhp 353, I was burning 7 gallons (or a touch over) in a 30 minute session in my Camaro at Nashville Superspeedway. I'm going to put a 22 gallon in mine, I can always leave a few gallons of fuel out, the cell isn't that heavy. That's just my approach, you don't have to agree.

Looking forward to seeing #29 back in action very soon!

Back in my street school days with the '97 also very black TA I had a contest with myself to see how low of mpg I could get at Thunderhill. I believe I ended up in the 7-8 mpg range!

Yeah, we're looking forward to seeing it in action too. I realized today that I *really* need a track day. I got a bday card from co-workers, and there were multiple comments about getting passed on the freeway, fast driving, etc.... I mean, I knew I was driving fast, but I didn't know the rest of the minivan crowd noticed other cars.....

I nabbed some pictures before we loaded the car up. Not going to unload until we go to the suspension shop (please don't let the trailer get stolen!), so they were quick and dirty shots with the point and shoot. The paint's not perfect, but we didn't exactly pay for perfect. You all know what I mean.

http://www.z28racergirl.com/gallery2/main....;g2_itemId=5018

Car looks so naked without the usual stickers.

Dave mentioned that it ended up being a can of bondo. At least it's in the rear.

Jason

That looks great!I know Sutton Motorsports can do the welding right now so you can make it to WSR


How big was the can of Bondo?

I think it was a pint, but it could have been a gallon. I don't recall. Dave mentioned that he told the crew that whenever they had some bondo leftover from whatever (paying) job, they should come over and slap it onto the Camaro.

We've got our local guy for suspension work.

Is Eric the same Eric that used to work at 7s Only?

Jason

That maybe alot of Bondo!

He didn't weld it the last time did he

Sure is, he did my spliter.

No, that was done by one of Corey's (Agent 47) crew, an older gentleman that used to work on stock cars (can't think of what NASCAR was before it was NASCAR - coffee hasn't kicked in yet), and he did a quick repair at the track. It was really my fault for not checking that part of the car more frequently. It's certainly a weak point. I'm not sure yet how we'll address it once it gets to the suspension shop. I am open to input.

As always, there are pictures :-)

http://www.z28racergirl.com/gallery2/main....;g2_itemId=3697

http://www.z28racergirl.com/gallery2/main....;g2_itemId=3685

The Agent 47 guys put in a lot of effort to get us back on track, and we owe them big time. It wasn't their fault that we didn't properly address that part of the car and that it failed again.

Jason

Jason, during my daily ebay cruise I found this from an ASA team that's gradually selling their parts: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ATL-15-Gall...1QQcmdZViewItem

It sounds like the bladder is out of date or almost out of date, but it could be a cheap setup if ATL has any leftover ASA bladders.

Thanks for the idea TJ. But the link leads me to a page that's en francais that says that le page is inaccessible. Good thing je parle francais. ;-)

I'll do some searching and see if I can't find it. But seriously, thanks for passing along the idea. I appreciate it.

Jason

That's weird. The seller is "asaregular" just to let you know. I've bought a few things and they don't sell junk.

Grand National?

This is the eBay # - 320214462725