Rcr 40-31

[Chris Kouba]

I could never bring myself to park one of my toy cars UNATTENDED in a public parking lot. Especially at night!

Meh... I'm not going to live in fear.

I'm not afraid to take it out and I'm not afraid to park it, scratch it, or get it dirty. It's far from a show queen.

That said, I would feel like I lost my left leg if it was stolen, but it's only stuff. As long as I am healthy, I can build another.

 

[Larry L.]

Meh... I'm not going to live in fear.

I'm not afraid to take it out and I'm not afraid to park it, scratch it, or get it dirty. It's far from a show queen.

That said, I would feel like I lost my left leg if it was stolen, but it's only stuff. As long as I am healthy, I can build another.

Understood. That was obvious from the fact you parked it where/when you did. That WORKS for you, so you're fine with it. I 'got' it. In your case it's no big deal. In my case it is...and that works for me. That's all I was getting at.

"Different strokes" and so on... ;-)

 

[Chris Kouba]

Spent the weekend in WA with Pasha and his dad setting up their RCR40. It took all day Sat, but we set ride height and aligned the suspension. It was a very productive and informative day. Great people to spend time with!

Where this relates to my car is that it went on the trip with me, and was very helpful to have as a reference. I drove it up to WA on Fri night (very cold) and drove it home on Sun afternoon in variable weather, including some pretty strong rain showers. All went well enough, although my door cutouts are extremely drafty so it was quite cold on the way up (30's), but remarkably little precip came in when it was raining hard. Heater kept me warm on the way home, but it was working overtime on the way up and still couldn't really keep up. Ended up being about 450 miles in total and I am now well over 6k on the clock.

And seeing as it was Dec 1st yesterday, it marked a year of actually driving the car every month of the year. My neighbor Butch (with the F5 Cobra) would be proud- but probably not impressed. His roadster has no heater. Or wipers...

In the garage with its younger sibling:

Great weekend, great people, fun times in and because of cool cars.

Chris

 

[Chris Kouba]

Connected with Alan for a romp in the countryside today- 60's and sunny. Not too shabby for February in Oregon:

Hope everyone else has an opportunity to shake out the cobwebs.

 

[Chris Kouba]

Did a suspension upgrade, plagiarizing Chuck and Ryan's work from this post in their build thread, and it was like Christmas in March!

Due to time constraints, I took it out with only the front done and it's made a massive difference. I brought it home and finished the rear, but not before the rain came. Ride height is a bit low at the moment (3.25" in the front, 4 in the back), but when thrashing it with just the front done, I didn't bottom out the suspension or ground out the bodywork despite pushing it pretty hard. It's a whole new car at this point.

All this work is really the preparation for moving up to Avons and getting the car set up to run a track day or two. It's "only" been running for 7 years at this point and has yet to turn a wheel on an open circuit. The best news is a mounted pair of Avon front tires came over to my house the other day (thanks Alan!) and went on the car. The right one rubs at full right lock but they do fit with the present alignment set up, albeit just barely. I can adjust my way around it though and will upgrade shortly. I am done with the BFG's. I do not trust my old ones and just can't bring myself to buy new ones.

 

[Larry L.]

Did a suspension upgrade, plagiarizing Chuck and Ryan's work from this post in their build thread. Due to time constraints, I took it out with only the front done and it's made a massive difference. I brought it home and finished the rear, but not before the rain came. but when thrashing it with just the front done, I didn't bottom out the suspension or ground out the bodywork despite pushing it pretty hard. It's a whole new car at this point.

All this work is really the preparation for moving up to Avons and getting the car set up to run a track day or two. It's "only" been running for 7 years at this point and has yet to turn a wheel on an open circuit. The best news is a mounted pair of Avon front tires came over to my house the other day (thanks Alan!) and went on the car. The right one rubs at full right lock but they do fit with the present alignment set up, albeit just barely. I can adjust my way around it though and will upgrade shortly. I am done with the BFG's. I do not trust my old ones and just can't bring myself to buy new ones.

"Ride height is a bit low at the moment..."

No, it isn't!!!

 

[Chris Kouba]

"Ride height is a bit low at the moment..."

No, it isn't!!!

Touché Larry, you're absolutely correct!!

I have watched some of the Goodwood video and always thought those cars look soooo good slung down low, but how can they run around like that without any issues. Now I know- and also have a similar set up. That said, theirs is probably even stiffer, but mine still seems streetable. At least it did for the 20 minutes I was thrashing on it. Time will tell what a longer drive brings, but it's lovely right now!

 

[Adam]

I love that ride height. Going to see if I can get mine close to that. How many miles so far? Any things you would have changed (fundamentally)?

 

[Chris Kouba]

I've only done the little loop yesterday after the front was installed, maybe all of 12 miles, and that was without even swapping the rears- so not quite a statistically valid distance.

My one fear is scratching the nose on pavement changes- driveways and such- so I may end up running it back up to 4" or 4.5". That's what it was prior and did well going in and out of gas stations and clearing speed bumps, etc... I don't think 3" is practical in the real world but it was nice to see it work out for those times when I want to maximize vs compromise.

While poking around the internet, I also found a story of someone who ran a 40 at Goodwood but set it up at Spa. The takeaway was all the fast kids at Goodwood run super low because it's super smooth and flat. The set up they brought there was inappropriate and once they started copying the other guys, things picked up. Elevation changes and bumps make running this low impractical in the real world, but it sure looks sexy. Some of the lead cars in the pic below look to have started their turn in but these fender gaps all look great! As a first cut, this was my objective:

My opinion is that at 3", you'll probably need a lift system. I had 4.5" front, 5" rear prior to the swap and it seemed to work out pretty well. I have some scrapes under the radiator, but that generally seemed high enough to avoid trouble on a regular basis.

 

[Larry L.]

"My opinion is that at 3", you'll probably need a lift system."

Bingo...either that or pick your travel routes VERY carefully.

I'd go with the former!

 

[Chris Kouba]

I didn't actually record the mileage but I can tell you that I am seriously happy with the new set up. Woke up this morning, sun is shining. Let's go... I know Alan is out of commission right now so I rang up Butch, who was doing something which does not deserve documentation, and he was all in for a romp around the block.

Up and down the gears, over hill and dale for an hour and change without altering the set up. I was possibly on the bump stops once or twice in some loaded transitions, but no slams or catastrophic events. If it was on the bump stops, they provided a safe landing at the end of travel and there was no ill effect on the handling or dynamics. It even felt like the BFG's were actually doing something. This is a whole new car in a really GOOD way, it has come alive!

The shocks have a large number of settings (16, 18?) and I am on the 3rd from full soft at both ends. The ride is noticeably firmer than the prior springs but certainly not unreasonable. I was thinking about it while puttering through traffic that it doesn't seem any better or worse for touring than the old springs. Need to make a road trip to truly pass judgement, will need to go see Vaughn after things get back to the new normal.

Thanks to Chuck and Ryan for pointing me down this road. Will be even nicer with a new pair of shoes on.

Stay safe and healthy everyone!

 

[Chris Kouba]

Another 70+ miles with Butch today to shakedown the new set up. In preparation of fitting Avons, I backed out my caster, picked a ride height, and re-aligned. For the most part I was happy with it but the dialing out the caster seems to have dulled my on-center feel and weakened the return to center. I figure I can add a little caster back in and hope that playing with the toe will bring back the on-center crispness. Regardless, the company was great, roads were fabulous, and the pictures are OK.

Stay healthy!

My attempt at an artsy shot:

 

[Randy V]

Adding positive caster will increase steering effort, but it will also help bring the steering wheel back to center. The GT looks great at that height!

 

[Chris Kouba]

Practiced a little social distancing with Butch, Alan, and Steve this past Thurs eve. The start:

It was quite fun with the four of us and we headed out toward the roads Butch and I enjoyed last week. Unfortunately we were almost to where the good stuff starts and this happened:

The issue which happened to me in Redding 2-3 years ago happened again. It had a couple of spaced out stutters and then pulling away from a stop sign, it just quit after shifting into 3rd. Rode home in the trailer of shame:

I replaced the fuse after the last incident which killed the calibration module and I assumed something in that module killed the fuse. It appears that is not the case. This time replacing the fuse did not coax the car back to life.

I had a more supportive conversation with Edelbrock this time (the tech hung up on me last time), but the end result is basically the same: my version is 2 generations old, they don't make or stock parts for it any longer, they had no troubleshooting recommendations to speak of, and the strongest pitch going forward was either check and replace sensors and do a continuity check on the whole harness or just replace the whole system with the newest hardware.

I will spend a bit of time on it before dropping $2k on a new EFI set up, but in the end, that may just be the path I end up taking. This is super-frustrating though. Things have been going very well with the car lately and I have been putting some decent mileage on it. It's been out for a drive at least once a month for 16 consecutive months, with a couple of good chunks of miles recently. I was absolutely loving the new suspension and had bumped the rears up to click #6 for this latest drive (fronts were still at click #3).

But hey, we're all still healthy here so these are not real problems....

 

[Randy V]

Sorry to read of this latest issue. Please stay far away from EZ-FAST 2.0 if you think the tech support you’ve had is really bad. My cousin’s got $3500 worth of their system and related parts in a box under his bench. They will not help him/us...
—
If I were to do it all over again, I would look into picking up a Fox Mustang wiring harness with either an A9L or A9P ECU and installing that. This system is darned near bulletproof... You’ll need a distributor that’s compatible...

 

[Chuck]

Practiced a little social distancing with Butch, Alan, and Steve this past Thurs eve. The start:

It was quite fun with the four of us and we headed out toward the roads Butch and I enjoyed last week. Unfortunately we were almost to where the good stuff starts and this happened:

The issue which happened to me in Redding 2-3 years ago happened again. It had a couple of spaced out stutters and then pulling away from a stop sign, it just quit after shifting into 3rd. Rode home in the trailer of shame:

I replaced the fuse after the last incident which killed the calibration module and I assumed something in that module killed the fuse. It appears that is not the case. This time replacing the fuse did not coax the car back to life.

I had a more supportive conversation with Edelbrock this time (the tech hung up on me last time), but the end result is basically the same: my version is 2 generations old, they don't make or stock parts for it any longer, they had no troubleshooting recommendations to speak of, and the strongest pitch going forward was either check and replace sensors and do a continuity check on the whole harness or just replace the whole system with the newest hardware.

I will spend a bit of time on it before dropping $2k on a new EFI set up, but in the end, that may just be the path I end up taking. This is super-frustrating though. Things have been going very well with the car lately and I have been putting some decent mileage on it. It's been out for a drive at least once a month for 16 consecutive months, with a couple of good chunks of miles recently. I was absolutely loving the new suspension and had bumped the rears up to click #6 for this latest drive (fronts were still at click #3).

But hey, we're all still healthy here so these are not real problems....

 

[Chuck]

Webers. A decade from now they will still be working. No wiring needed. And so much fun setting them up. Webers. The way to go.

 

[Peter U]

Sorry to hear about the issues...hope you get it figured out soon, summer is nearly here! Where in Oregon are you? I'm up in Seattle

 

[Chris Kouba]

Oh Chuck, I hear you but I love the driveability and performance of the EFI. The Mustangs are carb'd and I much prefer the GT. Turn key, push button, drive. It's been very reliable outside of this issue.

I'm just outside of Portland Peter. Alan lives 5m away from me and Dave is across the river in Vancouver. If you're ever in the neighborhood, drop me a line. My wife and I normally spend a bit of time in Anacortes with our boat but that's been on hold for a couple months now thanks to the pandemic issues. Hopefully life will get back to normal some day soon.

 

[Dave Collins]

Chris I am still running the Edelbrock EFI Pro-Flo 2 throttle body and injector hardware on my car (331 SBF). We got rid of the Edelbrock ECU and replaced it with an Omex 710 unit to provide sufficient mapping capability to pass UK IVA emissions tests. As well as this we fitted 2 4 cylinder coil packs and I have had no problems at all. Has always started on the button and is very diveable on either street or track.

I hope you find a good solution to your issues.

Regards

Dave

RCR Mk11 #38