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...

I recognize those Track-Star front hubs! 

Great job on the floater & brake caliper brackets. 

Thanks, Ron! Very excited about the setup even though I haven't gotten much testing on it so far.

Back to the question at the end of the last post - where's the Torque Arm?! At this point I had to make a decision - make mounts to reinstall the TA from the 8.8" on the 9" axle or accept that this is a sign that a different rear suspension setup is meant to be in the car. Can't ignore signs from on high, now can we?

I had my eye on one of Ron's decoupled 3-link setups for a while, so it was time to see what needed to be done for the Cougar to have one. One of the biggest hurdles installing the 3-link was the second "harness bar" that needed to be added. Due to the forces being applied in both acceleration and braking, more support for the J-bar is needed.

Here we go again. Disassemble the assembled  



Right around this time, what should arrive?





Soooo many cool things in these boxes. All organized with the respective hardware and Ron had already sent me an email with takeoff points and fabrication guidelines. Back to the second harness bar!

The biggest issue was the 1-1/4" triangulation of the main crossmember. There was no way I was going to risk movement in the chassis at this point so I decided to make my life more difficult and install the 1-3/4" around the 1-1/4". Took a lot of fitting and trimming to achieve the 3-piece tube to make all this happen, but it turned out really well.








Also in the picture are 2x3 tube gussets where the rear rails meets the main crossmember. Gussets like these were originally on the outside, and the lower control arm was on the inside of the frame rail. Ron had specified the control arm be on the outside of the frame rail so this required some changes. I like this configuration much better.



Next were the slotted front LCA mounts. These presented a real challenge. As with most things on the car, the changes I was making and the hardware I was wanting to incorporate wasn't part of the original vision so I had to get creating in some areas. The front LCA mount was one of them.







The pocket in the frame rail that you see had to be made so the the nut, and more importantly, a wrench could be fit in to tighten the LCA bolt. As much of a PITA as this looks, it turned out great. An open end wrench can be fed into the slot with the nut if necessary and its essentially captured during installation and tightening.





Not in these pictures, but just a cool thing Ron does with his DIY packages is include spacers to be used during welding. Bolts in place with an additional shim he supplies to allow for heat distortion and paint after install. I had no problems with double sheer mounting points being too tight after welding.

Something I just noticed in the picture that's worth calling out - If you follow the bent floor mounting flange forward, what looks like right underneath the drivers harness eyelet, there's a cutout in the flange and a round nub hanging down. This is a hard jacking point in the middle of the perimeter frame rail. Its also the only thing I have access to when the car is on the ground. Make your lives easier, install reliable jacking points. I only have the two - one in the same place on each side and it allows me to do anything I need.



It hangs down just far enough to where the jack pad wont damage the floor when lifting high, and its small enough (1-3/4) that normal service jack pads will hook around it so the jack can slip off of it. Scary situation at the track a couple years ago - rough and pebbly paddock with smooth frame rails and a floor jack that wasn't allow to roll. Watching the floor jack move on the rail as you go up and down....Not a fan

Back to suspension. Now time for the J-bar. The location of the J-bar is dictated by the pinon location. Since the 3rd link mount on the axle needs to be a set distance from the pinion to plant both tires equally, these points need be be as close as you can get them. Always another CL to be laid down, and more plumbs.









Axle brackets already welded on at this point as they also have specified locations. Axle 3rd link bracket is just tacked for now to check clearances. The height of the third link bracket on the axle wasn't set in stone. Taller is better to a point, but if the room isn't there, it isn't there.







Once alignments were checked it was time to start adding more things to the axle. LCA bracket braces, left watts link point, and ARB brackets.



Call it there for the evening. Part 2 coming up!

Now it was time for the lateral locating device. Watts or panhard bar. Having read some of Ron's tech articles I understood some of the advantages that the PB can offer over the watts link, such as ability to plant one tire harder than the other depending on how the bar is setup. The debate really became what would offer the best results with the labor available to me at the track. I am the labor available at the track. Just me. This made the watts link my choice - quick and reliable changes, with only one point of adjustment.





Every chassis being different, Ron provided a RC range he wants the setup to be able to achieve, and I built the watts frame accordingly. Notice the tube pass through in the crossmember. This allows for quick adjustment of the watts height. Still have to loosen the nut on the propeller but its so quick.

This is also where another challenge presented itself. Jacking screws and associated fabrication parts are supplied with the kit to establish the angles of the shocks, but its up to you to locate them correctly. The shocks need to be at the lowest angle of misalignment with the mounts at ride height, and that's where the problem presents itself. You now have a shock that doesn't wish to be compressed at all, that you need to hold in place on brackets that aren't held to anything themselves.

Went through several trial and error moments with angle finders and cutting tacks until a friend of mine suggested this little guy.





Simplest little piece of delrin and a 3/32 welding rod. Now how to hold the crossmember in place which moving things around. Being round tube, and a little bit weighty, its a real pain. Ron does offer a setup tool for this, but I didn't have it. Another method would be to obtain swage tubes and rod ends at the correct length the shock would be at ride height. There's options, but the little delrin guy came in clutch.

Again with the simplest thing I could think of. 1-3/4 hole saw in a piece of plate, then cut it in half. Now I had something to hold the tube in exact place that I could clamp and move around.



You're probably asking why the crossmember tube is above the frame rail if I had control over the height of the watts link adjuster, and the answer is the upper shock mounts. Despite being 100% the way I'd do it again, the jacking screws do add some height to the overall setup. Having only given myself enough adjustment to run one height tire my first go around, I didn't want to limit my options. With the jacking screws I can accommodate a 710mm tall slick. Another note to think about with the decoupled setup is the movement of the axle under acceleration. There's a coil spring inside the black canister that compresses and makes the axle move rearward. The location of the watts link has to be able to handle this movement.



Now that the location of the crossmember is set, how to tie the crossmember and shock mounts into the rest of the chassis.





The square tubes coming off the fuel cell cage had to be reintroduced since I still need an ARB. Big milestone getting most things welded in.



Yes, those last couple pictures sprung ahead a little bit to the rear closeout being done, so lets check that out. The original closeouts were really neat being between all the tubes but now with the extra harness bar, I was out of desire to make that again, so I went basic. Still needed to add some complication, but not nearly as much, in the form of an access panel to make in car adjustments to the accel link. Yes, there is a jack screw on the front of the accel link, but if movement beyond the jack screws capability is needed, the access is nice.





Some 1/4 turn fasteners made for a really nice panel.

Somewhere in here, it was time to assemble an axle! Due to their robust nature a locker had already been chosen, but I needed to make sure it had the proper springs in it. I chose 40# springs just in case I ever decided to compete in class that had a treadwear rule. Since I'm never going to see a super speedway, there's no downside to going light on the springs.







Re-springing the lockers is easy, but not without its challenges. I did end up having to trim a decent amount off the new springs to get the diff to reliably unlock. Luckily, and this is a BIG luckily, Strange oops'd on one of my axles, giving me a spare that I could turn into a setup tool. They did make it right without an additional cost to me, by the way. I tested unlocking on the bench as well as once I got the setup in the car. Testing the diff on the bench is the only way to go, imo. Especially considering how difficult an iron 3rd member is to manipulate by yourself when its under the car.

One more item on 9" 3rd members and then I have to roll. Finish up the decoupled install on the next post - I'm using a Mark Williams 3rd member. Not the lightest of items but the quality is there, and Scot Rods Garage made me a killer deal on the whole 3rd member. Being more of a heavy duty 3rd member it has a load bolt location on the side of the case about an inch below where the factory fill hole is. Due to this there is NO FILL HOLE! W...T....F. I, never having been into drag racing or off road stuff never knew that such a thing existed. First time with this setup on track the diff was running really hot. Being a locker and not having any clutches I wasn't too concerned running it hot during testing, but knew a solution was needed, as 300F is not sustainable. Luckily, I already had ports welded into the housing for a cooler should it be needed....still don't know if it's needed, but its there lol!

Learning later that what I thought was a fill plug was actually a load bolt hole, my axle was a bit underfilled....face meet palm. Now I have a really neat cooler setup that I may not need. I'll go over it after the 3-link install because I'm very proud of it. So, beware of what you're getting when you buy aftermarket 3rd members - they may have qualities that you're not familiar with.

One of the really cool things about the decoupled 3-link is the ease of adjustment. Of course this also means, to take advantage of what the suspension offers, you have to make changes! Already talked about the RC adjustment in the trunk, so on to Anti-squat adjustment. The J-bar bracing is designed to use a jacking screw that passes into the drivers compartment.





Something maybe Ron can shed some light on - how much adjustment to the AS can be made before re-shimming for damper preload and pinion angle must occur?

Which brings us to the next item, the decel link which is a double adjustable damper and also plays a role in accel control. Provided with the setup are remote adjustment cables/knobs to be mounted for driver adjustment. Rebound for accel control and compression for braking control. Made a bracket to mount next to the driver seat for these two adjustments.







Made a diff breather similar to the fuel cell but without baffles. There's a lot going on, but here's a pic all assembled.





And of course, as is tradition, another exhaust modification....ugh.



That kinda wraps up the decoupled 3-link! I'm very excited to finally getting back to the car in the next couple weeks and do some more testing.

As I mentioned in the last post, I ended up making a diff cooler that I may now not need, but its there if I do need it! Ill go over that  next

The diff cooler was a really neat project. Areas in direct airflow at the front of the car being taken up already made for some thinking on how to feed the cooler core. Mounting a core out of airflow and then adding a fan is ok, but if I could figure out a way to bring air into the core... The first obvious place seen in racing would be NACA ducts in the window area. The qtr windows on the cougar are of decent size but still not big enough for a proper duct much less two, so that was out. The package tray area is sealed to the base of the rear windshield so simply putting the core in the package tray and relying on pressure to build was a possibility, but not a for sure. This would mean the exhaust from the core just goes under the package tray in the trunk area - whos to say the pressure building under the package tray isn't to same or more than the pressure above? Nope.

The bottom of the car is mostly flat, what if I brought air from under the car? Plenty of volume under there, and flow being king, lets give it a whirl!



Despite the very crowded picture, here's the driver side floor with NACA ducts installed. I don't have pictures of the ducts without the rest of the path so this will do for now. Next was the core, and how to get two hoses to feed the core and seal.



I feel like a broken record - more used race parts  . Picked up a couple carbon ducts with the size inlets I wanted and got to work on how to hold it to the core.







I was dabbling into welded sheet metal work compared to what I'd done in the past which was all rivetted together, and it turned out really well. Now it starts getting cool. The cooler/duct assembly mounts to the bottom of the package tray since the air is coming from the floor under the driver seat.





In the next picture you can see the outlet duct on top of the package tray with the cooler core removed. Again, changing back to hoses for a clean exit



Now we have an inlet and an outlet for the cooler core, but still no path from the NACA ducts.







And on to the exit. I wish I would have made more of a teardrop shape, but it still turned out really nice.









Now the path is completed!





The ducting underneath is close-ish to the exhaust, but that's just how it has to be. Given the volume I'm hoping will be coming through the ducts, I don't think its going to matter. If the cooler is less effective than I'm hoping (if even needed), the first thign I'd likely try would be a simple heat shield in this area for the tubing.

The location for the core and ultimately the outlet was chosen more to prevent obstruction of rear view for me when driving. Could have gotten further away from the exhaust, but my already limited view behind would have been basically eliminated. Now instead of wiring up a cooler fan, I'd be wiring up a rear view camera.

The plumbing side of things is pretty basic. 100 Micron filter on the inlet side of the belt driven Johnson cooler pump, and that's about all there is going on other than a lot of hoses! The internal pumps are really neat, my gearset doesn't have the provisions for it.