The wife and I had a superb trip in the GT this week. The car now has over 3050 miles on the clock, and per the hand-held GPS we covered 975 this weekend, although the odo says we added ~1100. The car ran flawlessly with the exception of the oil pressure gauge which quit registering pressure. We made fine time going down with warmth and sunshine and the ventilation work to make the car more user-friendly paid off well. A/C is high on the list at this point though.
The car runs super-strong with 3k on the tach getting me 75 mph. It pulls very well and the ratios and the motor seem ideally matched for each other. My steering arms are in the closer (shorter length) setting and even with my basic string alignment, it tracked well and didn't seem nervous at speed on the highway. With the seat set up just the way *I* want it, the ride and driving position was remarkably comfortable. I also set up a foot rest for B and put it exactly where she wanted it as well, and she was comfortable enough to actually sleep in the car underway... Some of you may cringe at this but we went the entire way down with only one stop for gas after ~5h. And not that it's a real yard stick or anything to have your build be planned around but we got low 20's for MPG's as well (975m/46g = 21-ish). Not bad for having my foot in it whenever I wanted and as deep as I felt appropriate.
Weather on the way down was very warm, but I had recently installed some duct work to flow fresh outside air in through the brake cooling ducts and into the cabin. It worked extremely well. Copying an idea I saw on Ian Anderson's build, I added a switchable bilge blower and also a slide-opening gate in case it's too cool outside. The ducting worked great, with genuine flow coming through once I reach about 15 mph, so the blower is a little redundant. The outside air coming in is AWESOME though.
Once in Redding, it actually rained a bit and the work I did to weather-proof the cabin paid dividends. I will take additional pics and post them later, but I glassed flanges into the front clip to stop the unhindered flow of splashed water from the front wheels flowing into the cabin. I still have some work to do in that respect as at highway speeds, the spray flows in with the air. It was still MILES better than what it was previously and what I've done already is a good foundation.
As for the actual trip, it was a fun visit with Vaughn. His car is flat-out gorgeous. I helped him with a few detail items on it on Thurs and B and I went for a drive on Fri, stumbling on to a gem of a road for 110 miles. Sat we got the car down to the show early (Kool April Nights), went home for breakfast, and came back to check out the show for the rest of the day.
There were some astounding cars there, but only 1 GT40 (I didn't enter mine). It was absolutely magnetic- young, old, male, female, hippy, yuppie, red-neck, blue-blood... EVERYONE stopped to check it out.
Our trip home today was a mixed bag of weather. We left in sunshine, but were driving through some monsoons by the time we got to the OR border. It was pretty cold too and I think I even saw some slushy flakes as we crested one of the passes on the way home. It was a good reminder that I have a bit more work to do with the weatherproofing but the car still did remarkably well.
All in all, it was a very successful trip and as expected- good times with some great people and beautiful cars.
The "luggage" for a GT40- B gets a bigger bag than I do:
On the way, Mt Shasta in the distance:
Vaughn and me:
GORGEOUS road on Fri:
One pretty dirty, one just PRETTY!:
Heading into the show:
On the lawn:
Heading out this morning:
Typical Oregon weather on the way home:
Lunch in downtown Rogue River:
More pics in
this album.
Chris