That seat is awesome. One thing Oval track racers do better is prepare to protect them selves WHEN they crash. Too many "Track Car" guys think it won't happen to them, because they're not planning to push the car 102%. Which is rubbish. A crash at 100mph is a a 100mph crash, regardless of intentions.

I caught myself saying something like this. Had to give myself a little pep talk about it basically as soon as I said it. Noone ever "plans" on crashing. It always happens fast and you have no control over it, hence, "lost control". Someone told me to buy the best safety equipment you can afford, and I've tried to make sure I do that.

A carbon HANS would be nice, but a fiberglass HANS will still save your life - you need one even if its not the best of the best. Make sure and install harnesses correctly. Fire suits are expensive anyway you buy them, so buy the best one you can. Fire extinguisher is better than no fire extinguisher, but you can't really use a handheld extinguisher effectively between the moment you realize you're on fire and the moment you're able to do something about it. I'll do a post on my fire system and harnesses. I think I did them as well as I could have, but its a good topic for discussion.

I am a fan of the both the Fuel Lab brand & Radium Engineering brand of Top Plate systems with Fuel Cell Surge Tanks.  They only cost a little bit more money than running the square collector in the bottom of the tank.  They pickup more fuel, increasing how far we can run on the same number of gallons.

FuelSafe told me the Radium Engineering brand is hard to get sometimes. So they use the Fuel Lab brand more.

Deatschwerks also did their own version with a fabricated aluminum surge tank that serves as a top hat for the cell as well, so there's definitely options for keep it all contained in the cell. External surge tanks are also an option.

I helped a friend make an external version for his car since he was having starvation issues. It incorporated a box style in the cell to an external surge tank the fed the primary pump. The fuel return from the rail ran to the surge tank and then the surge tank had an overflow back to the cell into the box style internal surge tank. Extra component or two, but he really liked his hat and primary pump setup and didn't want to change it. We were able to make the external surge tank to a size and shape that worked best for the space available. Worked great! Solved the starvation issue. Didn't do anything more for using every drop of fuel in the cell, but doing time trials with short sessions on track, it wasn't an issue.

That seat is awesome. One thing Oval track racers do better is prepare to protect them selves WHEN they crash. Too many "Track Car" guys think it won't happen to them, because they're not planning to push the car 102%. Which is rubbish. A crash at 100mph is a a 100mph crash, regardless of intentions.

I caught myself saying something like this. Had to give myself a little pep talk about it basically as soon as I said it. Noone ever "plans" on crashing. It always happens fast and you have no control over it, hence, "lost control". Someone told me to buy the best safety equipment you can afford, and I've tried to make sure I do that.

A carbon HANS would be nice, but a fiberglass HANS will still save your life - you need one even if its not the best of the best. Make sure and install harnesses correctly. Fire suits are expensive anyway you buy them, so buy the best one you can. Fire extinguisher is better than no fire extinguisher, but you can't really use a handheld extinguisher effectively between the moment you realize you're on fire and the moment you're able to do something about it. I'll do a post on my fire system and harnesses. I think I did them as well as I could have, but its a good topic for discussion.

Something not common knowledge is all SFI suits come with a TPP rating.  The SFI numbers themselves can be a little vague. But the TPP number is clear.  Every TPP point is 1/2 second before the fire burns through the suit & gets you.  Have a 22 TPP suit? You have 11 seconds from the time the fire reaches you until you are burnt. 26 TPP = 13 seconds.  NASCAR requires a 39 TPP = 19.5 seconds. 

I'm telling you from experience, if your car catches on fire above 120mph, it is hard to get stopped in 11-13 seconds.  If you crash (or someone crashes you) & the race car catches fire ... 11-13 seconds happens long before the safety guys reach you.  Buy the best suit you can afford, with the highest TPP rating.

Seems like a good time to talk about fire suppression! I went with a 10lb SPA Extreme Novec system. I would like to add a second system, but for now, this is what I have.

 AFFF is the other common option, and is less expensive. Being a foam system, the chemical must be applied directly to the area on fire. Novec (3M) or FE-36 (Dupont's halon replacement) is deployed as a gas and moves around obstructions.

The SPA system I purchased uses a 5/16" rigid tubing of which they don't include nearly enough of so you'll end up buying more, but makes for a cleaner install. installation of the plastic coated AL tubing used in the AFFF systems I've seen, is much easier. The coated tubing bends by hand, and there's usually enough of it included with the system for the entire car if properly planned.

Despite the Cougar being a large car, real estate was running out. Bottle location was limited to the only available cage tube. Found a nice used pair of mounting brackets for about a quarter of what they are new.


Most manual systems only come with one pull cable so I had to find a place I can reach it belted in, as well as crew.





It may look awkward but I can reach it with either hand and have adequate force to pull and its easily used by crew. Side note - I changed away from the multi-angle wink mirror after the first drive and opted for a wide convex mirror. That kind of thing is personal, but the mounting of the wink mirror was difficult with my layout, and the vertical visual field felt limiting.

Now for nozzles. I system came with four nozzles. I pointed one at the top of the fuel cell, one at driver feet/legs, one at passenger legs and plumbing as a secondary, and the rear of the intake manifold.


The fuel cell nozzle can be seen in my fuel system pics and you can see the backside of the engine bay nozzle in the interior.

So here's where we're at. General progress pics. Systems are coming together, more plumbing...lot more plumbing, exhaust exit, wiring is in there too but that's a post for later.










What all this is leading to is the dyno tune, setup, and first drive! This is how the car went out its first time. What a party! I mean, it was terrible but it was still a party! At this point I believe I was about 12 years into my track dedicated build.



First impressions were just an assault on the senses. The last time I'd been on track was about two years and 400hp earlier. The most obvious and immediate issue was braking. ALLL the rear wheel hop. Background on the brakes.

First go around was as budget as I could do them. I found a full set of 3rd Gen Viper 4-piston Brembo calipers, which are just an F40 caliper, radial mounted. I had a friend make me some caliper brackets to go with some brake duct plates I made.















Talking with Ron, we had decided on master cylinder sizes, but there was concern. You would think that calipers from a factory car would be sized relatively on point...and you'd be wrong. The rear piston sizes are only a couple mm smaller than the fronts. The concern was that I wouldn't be able to take enough rear brake out without making the rear MC larger than the front, which we don't want.

This concern quickly became a reality. Even with a really mild rear pad and the crossbar dialed all the way to the front, the rear brakes were way too much and the TA rear suspension couldn't keep the wheels on the ground. In a moment of lust and weakness I decided to start over on the brake system. Braking issues are like cooling system issues - I....don't....want them.







AP Racing Radical 6 piston front and 4 piston rear. With these I was able to fit a little larger 14-1/4" rotor under the 18" wheel.





25mm of brake pad....

The front setup was easy. The rear though...the rear comes with some more uuhem...changes. Scope Creep at its finest.

Rear brakes. Sigh...well...not sigh...totally awesome! The rear brackets made for the Brembo calipers weren't going to work in any way, and there was an upgrade I had been eyeballing for a while in terms of adjustability, safety, and longevity. I originally chose the 8.8 for its lighter weight and lesser power consumption. Strength between the 9" and 8.8" is almost the same, but the ability to have multiple chunks setup with different ratios or even different differentials, is an undeniable advantage of the 9" axle.

After learning so much through the build it was clear why cars that run solid axles and make a lot of grip run a floating setup. There are a few setups on the market for converting to a full floater but the one that had my eye on, was from Strange Engineering. They have two different versions - one is just a normal floating setup and the other is a camber and toe adjustable setup. They call it their "Pro-touring Floater Kit". It uses a weld on snout for the axle and a bolt on spindle up to -2.5* of camber.  Between the snout and the spindle, there's a spacer plate that can change toe if you desire. Also, the setup uses a hub mounted rotor. Its a Wilwood adapter that can accommodate a parking brake, but I don't want a parking brake so I machined the back of the hat off to try and save some weight.





I Probably could have bored out the parking brake hat a little instead of just taking the backside of it down, but I'm no engineer and I didn't want to weaken the bell.









The Strange setup uses a crowned spline axle and a pair of large tapered roller bearings, similar to our friends in NASCAR. There is another setup offered by those crazy Aussie's used in V8 Supercar that incorporates more of a CV joint at the outer end of the axle. Friend of mine bought that setup and is currently installing it. Guilt trips have yet to get him on here.

And this is where the wheels fall off the bus. Not having a jig for building axles, I gave my 8.8 to Scot Rods Garage for the conversion to the floating snout, and shortly after, received a phone call for full stop.

I cannot blame Griggs racing for the next part, but a heads up would have been nice. Much earlier on in the project, I had to obtain and send an 8.8 housing to them for camber modification. I never saw the car the axle came out of, but apparently it was a small tube/thin wall axle. Not knowing any better, I bought it, stripped it, and shipped it - my fault. Doing racing things, I would have hoped to get a call that a different axle would suit my needs better. No such call. Now I had a decision to make. Outfit the 8.8 I have with a really nice floater setup that one day might bend, or start over.

Soooo I chose to start over.







The 5-bolt pattern seen here is the same pattern and mounting that would have been used if the Wilwood brake kit designed for this floater setup was used.



You can see the spindles are labeled -1* and the middle plate that controls toe is set for zero toe. Talking with others who run a similar size tire and IRS are dialing in between -1 and -1.5* of static camber. We'll see what the tire temps say.









The rear rotors stayed a 14", which is probably too big, but if you look at the calipers installed, I built the brackets with spacers that can be removed to accommodate a smaller rotor without remaking the brackets. 

There's one other aspect of this particular floater setup that I'm on the fence about. Typical floating setups need to have the axle position, or depth, adjusted by bolts on the inside end of the axle that ride on the differential cross pin. This setup has a special cap and bolt that rides on the outer end of the axle that keeps the axle in place by attaching it to the dust cap. I understand why Strange did this; it makes servicing a setup easier. I don't have an issue with the method, but it makes the axles a special part number and therefore more expensive, and only available through Strange.

Now I have rear brakes! What about the torque arm? What indeed...