English Summary For International Drag Race Fans
Season 2009
Last updated Nowember 22nd 2009
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Season 2008
And the story continues...
-Jan 21st 2009. Despite the long and dark winter, we have started preparing for upcoming season already back in a fall. An engine was taken apart and check for wearing. Nothing alarming there and we put it together with new bearings.
Cylinder heads was flowed and they turned to be just like we expected. There is no reason to put more time and money to them right now. We slightly lapped valves to ensure they will seal properly. One valve was replaced since little damage last season due the rocker arm stud failure. Also new valve springs was installed. For intake we got a new Dart tunnelram and carb linkages waiting on a self. New carburator have to be ordered to pair up the King Demon we already have. We also have to fabricate a new scoop and change fuel line routings a little.
Car body is now painted metallic blue with black SS-stripes on a hood. Local collision repair shop Hakala did the job. Hours of sanding and straightening bodypanels, fixing fiberclass parts. Ton of bondo and more and more sanding. Oh. They did a great job. Deep bows for them.
For next we are planning to convert rack and pinion steering to solve excess toe in syndrom caused by modified steering links. Need to scratch some head to get it right this time. There is some modifications to make vor steering shaft, alternator placement and oil pan. Since centerling will not go through oil pan anymore, we can add some oil capacity by welding a hole shut.
Waiting for a summer.
Apr 11th 2009. Not very much new to tell to date. However paint of a front framerails and firewallend have been stripped off and some fabrication have been made for rack and pinion and lower reaction bar mounts. Next we need to paint the front end and then we may start assembling stuff to the car. There is still some fabrication to do with steering shaft and steering column. Also some must-to-do,s are porting work for the intake manifold and mods for oil pan. Then the motor will be pretty much ready for business again.
Rear end gear ratio has been changed to a numerically lower from 4.88 to 4.56. Hope it helps to use motor's torque curve more efficiently.
Also we got another race car hauler. Its a 72' Volvo. Based an old bus now accommodates 1+8 passangers and a race car. Pictures here.
May 11th 2009. There is les than a week to the season opening race at Motopark, Virtasalmi.
Car is nowhere near ready. Well. New intake is ported and rear end gear ratio has been chaged. Also front end has been converted to rack and pinion steering.
We are able to lift motor in place following wednesday night and it should be race ready friday afternoon. There is some mock up work with front fenders, grille and bumpers. Also right side exhaust pipe need some repair work since it has metal fatigue craks. Valve adjustments and some warm up testing is also in schedule before loading the car in to the bus and heading to Motopark.
Weather forecasts shows possible rain or sleet for friday and temperatures just above freezing. Possible light rain or partly cloudy and temperatures around 8 degrees C. (mid 40's F) for saturday.
Knock on wood. It really would be nice to able to test a car since there is lot's of effort put into the car it this spring.
May 18th 2009 Some pictures from season opening race.
June 26th 2009 Season 2009 is on. Sorry about late update of a two first races but here it comes. Starting with Motopark 16-17 May.
As always we had incredible rush to get car ready and it was loaded in a bus at early hours saturday morning. At the site we had problems with a winch cable and we couldn get the car out of bus soon enough to get it inspected and therefore we miss first qualification round. Bad luck hits again in a second round. Everything supposed to be right, but when was our turn to go to the track, engine decided to puke out water. Someone was forget to reconnect waterpump wires. (don't look at me :/ ). That wasnt all the story. When I connect the pump on, it get hot in a minute. It was stuck since a winter storage. It didn't need lots of an effort to work again but light tap to a side and it was fixed. That still wasnt awhole story though. Capillary tube of a temperature gauge had somehow snapped and ofcourse Juha thought engine wasnt warm enough for needle to show any readings. It worked ok in a morning though. It was fortunate that engine decided to puke just before burnout. What if it was hold down to the track. Engine would have toasted for good.
Afterall we got two succesfull qualifying runs. Best of two was 9,833 et / 223,2 kmh (138,7 mph). That was enough to reach third spot.
Some tuning paid off for sunday. We were able to race two rounds when someone oiled the track for good and track crew could'nt get the track prepped on available time window, and they called the day. That time we were on a second place when Peräkasari was first. Not bad start for a season ha.
Kamasa Tools nationals was next on schedule on June 6-7. Weather was awful cold entire weekend. Should engines liked that. Sure, but there was a strong wind straight from ahead and it kept us to reach good et's and speed.
Four rounds of qualifications and overall sixth place.
While there was'nt enough B- and C class racers shown, those classes was joined to D-class. That makes the weekend wery interesting since there is quite few really fast 4-popper turbos and smallblock cars around to suffle a qualification table around. When B- class racer Paavola, with a newly built 2 liter turbo RS4 Audi thought he got a 1# spot on a qualification list with 8,3 sec something, Jussi Lahti dropped a bomb and slingshots his Mopar BB twinturbo Plymouth Fury Vip to a new finnish national record 8,1 sec.
Sunday eliminations nettet us a new personal best 9,657 et. Since the wind was still strong, we could'nt reach a good top end speeds. We were able to hang on 3 rounds while at semis, Paavolas Audi was too strong. He couldnt reach at his best but surely he was fast enough for us. Lahti got solo run at semis and went to final round against Paavola's Audi. Audi was stalled at the line and Lahti got the "Wally" with a modest 8,392 et.
So third place at the race and 2nd place at the series. Again not too bad.
July 25th 2009 Another racing weekend at Kalajoki municipal airport is behind.
It didn't went wery good from us. Traction was a little bit a compromise and we couldn't able to get good times and speeds over there. it was same thing to ewerybody, I think. We got four qualification runs saturday and the last one was the best one 9,939 s with 218,59 km/h (129,4 mph).
That was enough for second place qualification spot.
For sunday eliminations should everything be good. But just after first round line-up call we discovered that throttle blades wont open fully and we rushed to adjust them. Id didn't went that well. We just got 4000 rpm idle instead. We backed linkage down to a reasonable idle speed and headed to the lineup. There we find out that trottle pedal arm was bent and it was a cause to blades not open fully. Car starts fine at the line-up but same time that lousy pedal arm gave up a ghost and our racing day was over.
What a shame. We managed to keep a second place in a selries but there was a leader change. Since Jussi Lahti and Fury Vip wasn't able to attend the race they fell back and Peräkasari with a 'Rebel Express' -Nova took the lead. Game is on, game is on.
Back to the drawing board. We have to fabricate a new gas pedal and do some routine check for the car. Next race is held at Pudasjärvi Airport after two weeks. It will be very first time for Fhra drag racing circus for visit that far north of finland. Pretty near Arctic circle though. Since there are numerous teams and fans from northern parts of finland, it is more than a welcome event at the region.
August 12th 2009 And there it went. The first National Drag race event held at Pudasjärvi airport. It was quite a distace to drive and there were somewhat hottest summerdays last weekend.
Saturdays qualifications was all about slippin and sliding around the track. There was'nt good traction and it caused us to work hard with a car. We tried to adjust chassis height, timing, jetting and launch rpm. nothing seems to help much. We also tried to launch without trans brake but that did'nt make any diffrence. Car was 3-5 tenths slower than when driven a good track. We nettet et 10,337/ 219,72 kmh (136,5mph) and that was enough for second place.
Eliminations fist round we were against kieku Salo's Blower Broom -Duster. They were increased boost a little saturday night and I was participate tuning wery early sunday morning. Well, i think, Kieku drowe the cars best so far but it was not enough and Juha took the winning light for the first round. Next round was against Peräkasari's Rebel Express Nova. Starter somewhat delayed to start the tree, Juha revwed against launch rev limiter and released too soon and head to the finnish line. Peräkasari launched right after and they both ended up leaving the line before tree was activated. They were both disqualified and both of them got second round loser points. Other side of the ladder was Joni Lappalainen and Chevelle against Sauli Hituri with Valiant. Sauli red lighted bad when his transbrake applied slowly and he jumped off the staging beams. Lappalainen got an easy win. Second round was also solo for Lappalainen and because neither Juha or Peräkasari did'nt make to the final round, Lappalainen got a win practically for free.
After all while we got second place for the race we lose a spot in points. Now there is Peräkasari and Lappalainen ahead of us. While there was a lack of drivers in a C and D -classes, weekend was wery interesting. Symphaties to Kenneth Mattfolk who overrevwed his small block Mopar badly right from start due the lack of traction. But thanks for kenneth to show us and all the street class teams mysteries of datalogging.
STW stayed together for next race at Alastaro 28-30 August but surely needs some routine inspection to stay that way.
September 4th 2009 Okay then. Season 2009 is now officially Wrapped.
Friday qualifications started pretty late at 4 pm. Because of timing system malfunctions first round et and mph was something odd and add to that the tree was set sportsman mode. Tree was fixed and second round netted 9,782 et.
At the end of the day we went out to participate Hakala's car repair and body shop, new shop opening party. There were somewhere aroud 150 vip's more or less on a party mood. We set up Nova and made some noise on otherwise quiet neighborhood. Should the noise was something, most of the participants had never imagine that a car can be so loud =) It was well over midnight before we get to bed.
Early wakeup at the saturday morning and back to the Alastaro. Before that we had to weld a minor crack on a ladderbar front mount. Once in a pit we were mandated to get car reinspected because of a trip out and back to the area. Again that was no brainer but unfortunately it started to rain and again it was late afternoon when qualifications started again. We were able to take two rounds and bested 9,740 et / 136,5 mph (223,69 kmh). That was enough for sixth spot on a ladder.
Sunday eliminations started on time at 11 am with one minute silence for Fhra's beloved long time crew member Ari 'Raaka' Haverinen. For first roud we were against Kieku Salo's Blower Broom -Duster and Juha get her with 9,75 against 11,125. Second round was Juha vs. Timo Suojanen. Timo took the light with 9,290. Damn hes good. Timo take the win light again from Toni peräkasari and climb up to final. From other side of the ladder there was Lappalainen and his Chevelle against Nyberg, also with Chevelle but with a twin turbo setup. Nyberg took the win and get to the final. At final Suojanen took incredible light while Nybergs turbos still spooling for pressure. Suojanen wins with humble 9,210 against Nybergs 8,911.
We were able to get fifth place at the race and that was enough for third place at the cup series. Toni Peräkasari took the first place and Lappalainen was second.
For next season there is couple of positions to gain. We have a plan to update rear suspension and tires, and also swap for slightly bigger low end for the motor. Fhra just changed the rules for racers requst allowing bigger engines. Lets see how big we can go.
Race scedule for 2009 season.
16-17.5. 09 Fhra Spring Nationals, Motopark Done
6-7.6. 09 Kamasa Tools Nationals, Alastaro Done
18-19.7. 09 Fhra Summer Nationals, Kalajoki Done
8-9.8. 09 Leatherheaven Nationals, Pudasjärvi Done
28-30.8. 09 Fhra Finals, Alastaro Done
