Judd and I headed North on Monday. The Jeep tows really really well. It was real easy to forget you were pulling an 18 foot trailer with a car and another trailer on it. We arrived in Lakewood later that day, got checked in at the hotel and then got some dinner at a nearby Denny's. We had to fix our small trailer's taillight/license plate bracket because it broke on the drive up. Then we had a minor panic when a thread on the Raceweeker's page on FB mentioned something about cracked windshields not passing tech. We walked to a convienence store and bought some superglue to put on the crack. I messaged Matthew Frost about it and later he assured me it would be fine. Wheew. More Raceweeker's arrived and we got to check out some of the cars and were happy to see Bill Fowler and his cohort, Karl were at our hotel. We hung out with them chatting and watching them assemble Bill's trailer and get their stuff organized.

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Day 1: Tuesday - Bandimere. We get up and head over to Denny's for some breakfast. While we are there, Cleetus McFarland (Garrett Mitchel) and company come in and sit at the table right next to us. Cleetus, leans over, looks at Judd and say's "nice mullet, man". Judd's week was made. lol. After we finished eating, we went over at talked with them for a few minutes. They seem like cool dudes, but man they were mobbed all week long. Glad we got to see and meet them before the circus started. We arrived at the track a little before the gates opened at 9am and the line was already pretty long. We found a pit spot up top and got our stuff unloaded and the car ready for registration/tech. Reg/tech went really really smooth and fast and the downhill staging lanes at Bandimere make moving up in line super easy. Cars kept streaming in all afternoon and even after we started racing at 4pm. That's one of the cool things about RMRW, they WANT you there and WANT you to succeed and they are willing to get you registered and teched in right up until the lanes closed at 10pm. Judd was a bit nervous on his first pass, as was I. I mean the last time we were at a track, he broke an axle. It wasn't his best, but it went A to B and we got a good datalog of the run. Car was making 8psi and we played with the timing some more. Max kpa was 135 in the thin air, so while it was 8psi, it was 8psi over the ambient atmospheric pressure which was almost 3psi lower than sea level. With no 2 step and the 5 speed, we are making zero boost at the hit and then it ramps in at the top of 1st, then 2 3 and 4 all pretty much have full boost. Judd's shifts were not the quickest, but we were happy to see a best of 13.89 at 105 mph in Denver. The mph told me we had high 12 second potential, but it would be tough with the 5 speed and a novice racer behind the wheel. We were happy to not have an issues, packed up and went to the hotel (and got lost for a minute lol) for some food and a shower. Tomorrow's drive was going to be the longest of the week.

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Day 2: Wednesday - drive day Bandimere to Kearney. Brutally long day that started out with a really nice drive in the mountains. Cool weather, tunnels, pretty scenery, 35-45 most of the time. But, once we hit NE Colorado and SW Nebraska it was flat, flat, corn, corn, wheat, wheat, hot, hot, rough, rough roads. We only stopped for fuel, check points and food and it ended up being a 12 hour day. Just under 500 miles. We hit the hotel around 10:30pm. It was a giant nut-punch for some racers right off the bat and I was glad it was behind us. Car ran great, stayed cool and generally did what it was supposed to do.

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Day 3: Thursday - Race day in Kearney. Since we didn't race until 4pm, we slept in a little. The datalog indicated we were in the 12.5's at WOT so we decided to jet up the secondaries a bit to get that back down, particularly since we were now much much closer to sea level. We checked the oil and went to grab some lunch before heading out to the track. It was kinda hard to find a fast food place that actually had dine-in available, but we lucked out and ate at Freddy's Steakburger. Once at the track, we found a spot to pit and got the car prepped. It was hot and shade was sparse. With this "all evening racing" format, I am definitely taking an Easy-up next time! People were EVERYWHERE. The Cleetus pit area was mobbed from the time they arrived until the minute they left. It was packed and the concession stand line was a mile long. We made a couple of runs but Judd was having trouble hitting shifts. Weather was threatening and we were not sure if we were going to get another run. We waited and waited for them to call our class again, but with time running short, we realized that the staging lanes had devolved into a "all run" scenario whether they wanted it to or not. So we got in the lanes behind another car in our class and Judd laid down his best pass of the day. He was among the last cars to go down the track that night. 13.64 @ 105. We'll take it. On to Great Bend!

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Day 4: Friday - Drive to Great Bend and race that evening. I was excited about Great Bend because I have been there on 3 previous times on DW and RMRW. I felt like we were going to have the best air of the whole week and I was right. We saw a max kpa of 153 there. The drive was somewhat uneventful and was a relatively short 160 miles. The last check point was at a wrecking yard near GB with a ton of cool old cars and they had hot dogs, chips and water for us! We walked around and looked at all the cars then got back on the road. We got to Great Bend with a half tank of 87 still in the car. Boo. We went by O'Reilly's and bought a gas can so we could drain it and fill up with some 91. We drained it out the sump and then went by a station and put some 91 in it. We arrived at the track and pitted down below the staging lanes. Judd went up and made his first and only clean pass of the day. 13.33 @ 108! We were pumped! We hung out for a while until they called our class again. Judd goes up and lights up a 15 something. I figure he just missed a gear. Then my phone goes *buzz-buzz*. Oh crap. I hate getting phone calls from the other end of the track! He says he thinks the throttle cable broke. I grab my friend Robert and we go down there with a tow strap. Yep. Cable is broken. Actually, the cable pulled out of the ball end-thingy out by the carburetor. We get the car back to the pit and I start checking to see if a cable is available locally. Nope, but Autozone did have a universal Spectre cable in stock. We run to town and get it and come back to the track. We futz around with the old cable and we take apart way more stuff than we needed to when we realize we could just use the stock cable and the carb end pieces from the Spectre kit. Fixed! About this time they call our class again. Judd goes up and launches good, run looks good then he slows down..... rut roh. *Buzz-buzz* another dreaded phone call from the top end. Judd explains that it he thinks he broke the transmission but it was still in 3rd and still moving. He said the shifter came out on the 2-3 shift and I am in disbelief as to how. He arrives at our pit and we start tearing into stuff and discover that the 4 bolts that hold the shifter stop tower onto the shifter base were all completely loose/out. The rubber boot was the only thing that kept them from falling out and getting lost. Never in a million years would I have expected those to come loose much less come completely out. We did lose one centering spring and the corresponding spring seat, but it all went back together and worked. Bullet dodged, or so we thought. We called it a night and drove back to town and the car was acting weird trying to stall at stop signs, etc. Fuel pressure was at 9 psi for some reason and we couldn't get it to go any lower. We wheel into Braums, grab a burger and speculate as to what the heck would be causing it. We really had no clear idea as to why so we drive back to the hotel and crash for the night.

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Day 5: Saturday - Drive to Pueblo. We get up and monkey with the car a little and need to run to O'Reilly's again for an allen wrench set to adjust the centering spring. I decide to look at the fuel pump and discover that the 5 bolts that hold the bottom of the pump were not exactly tight. Not leaking, but definitely not tight. We take off and the car continues to act funny when stopping but only if you were on the brakes hard. Gentle braking did not cause the stalling problem. We never figured it out but we think it was bad gas because it eventually stopped as we ran more fuel through it. Not far from Pueblo, we got our first taste of real rain on this trip. It was welcomed because it was hot and surprisingly, the wipers worked properly (unlike RMRW 2018!). We found our hotel, checked in and started to drive to the back side to park when we were startled by a huge *thunk*, loud exhaust noise and scraping noises. I tell Judd to shut it off and we bailed out to see what had happened. We look under the car to see the entire exhaust system from the down pipe back lying on the ground. It seems the bottom edge of the muffler caught the edge of a manhole and ripped it completely off the car. Yeah, completely off the car. Yowza. Luckily, it was attached by a rubber mount in the back and an exhaust band clamp in front. This amounted to a "breakaway" exhaust system and thus prevented us from damaging our down pipe or turbo. We throw the pipe on the trailer, go park and proceed to put our exhaust back on. We chill at the hotel for a little while and then go eat a steak at the Texas Roadhouse.


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Day 6: Sunday - Race in Pueblo. Again, we did not get in any big hurry getting up Sunday morning as we didn't have to be out at the track until the afternoon. We stopped at The Cracker Barrel, met a local Ford guy that has a Ford 400 in his '85 T-Bird, and ate some lunch. It was hot. Real hot. Every surface in that car was a million degrees when we came out. The track is just down the road and we get there and find Robert's pit spot and set up right next to him. Did I mention it was hot? Holy smokes we about melted until some clouds popped up and blocked out the sun. Judd went up and made an ok pass but was limited on WOT because the floor mat was stuck under the pedal. I didn't get any run data that time because the USB adapter came unplugged from the cable when I set the laptop in the floor. Dang. Oh well, we'll get it next run. We are called back to the lanes and wait while some minor staging lane chaos ensues. We are waiting patiently with big block n/a and small block n/a and they announce if you haven't had 1 or 2 runs come to lane 5 & 6. Well that opened the flood gates because we had just started the second round of runs. In all honesty, the lanes went really well this week but this was frustrating because we were there ready and waiting to run and suddenly they are pulling in cars we know had already made a couple of runs. We finally get up there and Judd launches, 1-2 shift was good, then he slows..... Yep you guessed it... *buzz-buzz* goes my phone. "Hey dad, I think I really broke the transmission this time, it sounds bad." Oh crap. Judd comes rolling up and it sounds like there are marbles in the transmission. Yikes. We pack up, Judd turns in his slip and we head to the hotel. The trans sounds bad, bad, but it was a consistent bad and 1,2,4,5 and R all worked fine so we decided to just run it. I briefly looked at FB marketplace for T5's but decided I had invested all the money I cared to in T5's and did not want any more. Besides, our 4cyl T5 uses a small pilot shaft bushing so we would have to really tear into it to put a V8 T5 in it. Nope. Just gonna run it. We order a pizza at the hotel, eat and plot the next day's route on the map.

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Day 7: Monday - Drive the Bandimere. The end is in sight! Even though our trans sounded like it was about to come apart, the drive today was my favorite of the whole week. Our one and only check point was in the Garden of the Gods and it was pretty darn cool. After that we drove on some really windy/steep mountain roads. We loved it and the car ran cool and never missed a beat, even with no 3rd gear. Other guys were not so lucky as we passed a lot of cars with their hoods up letting them cool off. As we approached Morrison, Judd could help but test our exhaust system repair one last time. There was "something" in the road. I though it looked like a thermos or maybe a Gatorade bottle. With cars next to us, he had little choice but to go over it. *Kablammo!!* Whatever it was, it was SOLID and it just managed to hit the front edge of the muffler. Nothing came off, but the muffler now has a significant dent in the bottom edge. Haha. We pull in the gates at Bandimere, crunchy transmission and all, and go find a pit spot on top.... mainly so it would be downhill all the way to the starting line. Haha. They called our class and Judd went up on street tires and laid down a 1,2,4 shifting 16.xx pass at 93 mph. Way faster than I would have wanted to drive it with that transmission! And with that, we finished Rocky Mountain Race Week 2020. Judd turned in his slip, we retrieved the Jeep, loaded everything up and went and watched the rest of the afternoon. The awards ceremony was later that evening and we got good seats up front with our friends Bill and Karl and right next to the Cleetus crew. Those guys were having a good time. Haha. Afterwards, we decided to beat the rush and hit the hotel. It had been a long day and we were exhausted.

So that was pretty much our week. The stuff I was concerned about worked perfectly and stuff I never expected to have trouble with, broke. I really didn't even expect to have T5 trouble. I think the shifter stop tower incident was the beginning of it's demise. But even with trouble, I loved every minute of it. There were laughs, stares of amazement, moments of mild panic, inside jokes, talk of changes and improvements and best of all, just spending a solid week with Judd. That guy is the best. Love him and love that we got to share this adventure. Can't wait to do this again!

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Cruising at 65.

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T5 noises. Drove it 150 miles and made one pass like this. lol

 

Seriously? You didn't expect trouble out of a 4cyl T5 behind a turbocharged V8? Lol. You're lucky it didn't grenade on the first pass. Put a TKO in it and you'll never have an issue again, or just put a fresh 91 to 93 trans in it and it would probably be fine too.
Glad you and your son had a good time and made it home safely. Toss that 4 cyl T5 in the trash and please don't do that again. Trans parts come out like grenade fragments.

 

Hahaha!! That trans has been a workhorse! It is literally a $150 junkyard take out trans. When we put it in we never had any idea it would see nitrous or boost. I really think it would be fine had the stop tower not come loose and allowed him to overshift 3rd.

We are done with manual transmissions. A C4 or maybe an AOD will go back in. I think it will be easier to exploit the power potential with an auto.

 

I love your optimism. I broke mine behind a 2.3 with 130 rwhp. They will not last nore than a few passes behind a v8. They were only rated at like 170 ftlbs of torque. It was a ticking bomb and you were very fortunate it lasted as long as it did and no one got hurt.
I vote for AOD. That's what's going into the burgundy coupe.

 

Sweet adventure!

2nd for AOD, with events like race week that overdrive will pay for itself just in driver fatigue, screaming through the flatlands with your engine at rapped out will get old fast.

 

Just picked up an AOD for basically free from a buddy. Haha.

Overdrive is not a 100% necessity for these types of events. The routes they choose are smaller highways and back roads that nornally have 60-65 mph speed limits. A 3 speed auto with 3.55's and 28" tires works fine.

 

But with OD it's even better. That's why my coupes both have OD in them. Just a ton easier on the engine and keeps things cooler. Not to mention the improved fuel economy.

 

Plus, once built right, the AOD can handle some power.

 

I have been off the site for a while. Was awesome to read the race week story! Sounds like a great time!

 

So. What about AOD converters? We are budget guys, so a custom converter is not in the cards for this thing. An off the shelf converter will be going in and it will be a non-lockup. But what stall should we be shooting for? My thought is that ~3000 would be a good place to start. Much more than that might be doggy around town off-boost because this thing is just a 200+ hp 302 n/a. 3.55 rear gears are in it now and we run 28" tires.

 

We have similar set up except I have a C4. I run a 3,000 stall converter. works well.
I had a 2,500 and it just left the line to calm and timed!