My Daytona at the UFD Challange at Montmeló (Circuito de Cataluña)

[MopàrBCN]

Hi,

this weekend was the 10th Maxi Tuning Show in Montmelo.

Montmelo in Spain is what would be Indianapolis for US Race Enthusiasts. So big audience and a big track.

The event itself is the biggest gathering in Spain for Tuning freaks. Now, Tuning in our terms is taking a farting bumblbee and putting on a lot of spoilers big exhaust so a 12cui engine is audible as well. The other aspect of tuning are asien cars pumped up to its limit with super- or turbochargers.

The contrapoint to those 2 groups are people like me who are interested in american cars. This group is quite small and enjoys purity in terms of visual aspect but performance under the hood. I in turn are the black sheep in this group because I am the only one going with a 4 cylinder car. All others are V8 from all decades.

So to have an opponent and an enemy for those tuning guys they invite our club every year and actually pay us to participate.

The Drag Challange was in front of ca. 10 000 Spectators. It is made up of around 60 cars competing. Of those cars let's say at least 20 cars are thrown in from professional tuners, round 20 of our cars and the rest individuals who want to show off their rides.

Important is that all of our cars are prepared by individuals with a lot of passion. This weights even more if you know that half of the Top 10 cars in this event are US Cars from our club. The remaining cars without exception are from professionals who use this event to advertise their cars. The winner is every year the same and is paid by the main sponsor. Ironically it's an US Car as well, a VIPER with round 1000hp.

Unfortunately (this is Spain) I don't have the results as yet. I don't even know my timeslip yet.

Only so much:

I did not qualify for the eliminatories (top 16 Times out of all cars).

But I won my cualifying race (challanged by a Honda CRX VTI - something with a supercharger and said to be between 200 and 300 hp) He challanged me, so I was happy to compete and to win.

The results I will post once I have them, but upfront some unfortunatly not high cuality pics but just to give you an idea of the event:

1. This was lining up to enter the track (take note of the spectators block!)
http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081819qb5.jpg
http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081941dx0.jpg
2. My Daytona getting ready....
http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081951oe2.jpg
3. Looking at where I would be lined up soon...
http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081942im3.jpg
4. Finally stagin (it was dark by then....)
http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609082120wk8.jpg
This foto no mirrors in no way how impressive it really was.

Edit, I don't know why the fotos don't display: Here the link to the pics:
http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081819qb5.jpg
http://img382.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081941dx0.jpg
http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081951oe2.jpg
http://img374.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609081942im3.jpg
http://img378.imageshack.us/my.php?image=0609082120wk8.jpg

This race and having a croud cheering after the win I can say was the most emotional moment since I got my first Turbo Mopar!

Results and official info I will post once available.....

[cordes]

Very cool. Thanks for posting the pics for us. I think it would be pretty sweet to see that event in person.

[Stratman]

Congrats on being in the event!!!!! I love stuff like that at great tracks.... The first time I went to Texas Motor Speedway to be crew chief for Ed Peters at an SCCA road race event gave me a great feeling.
How is your car running now? I haven't chatted with you since your interest in the flashable SMEC I have.....

[WickedShelby88]

That is pretty amazing. Unfortunately most of our US tracks are too lame to host something like that..

[MopàrBCN]

Hi, it's been a while since I last been on the board. Mainly for being really busy at work. So no braincell free for the fun part of life.

Meanwhile we got the results and besides that I won my race they are rather embarrassing for me. I was ranked 64 out of 72 cars starting.

I can explain it for parts but being the way I am I prefer not to keep myself busy with excuses but rather analize what went wrong.

Viewing the cars participating I should have found myself way higher. So in one word, a lot of areas to look at.

On my side is to address that my cal was not done good enough. First of all I had my CEL flashing for knock already in first gear thus slowing me down (though not bad enough because I still won my race). But this is the first time in my life that I experienced this because usually I got it if at all in 3rd).

There is another reason which made my time in total bad (but this goes for more then half of the cars participating - so it's no excuse as such) because those affected lost propably a second for breaking early. For an event of this magnitude the organisation was a disaster. This is usually a grand prix track. I raced there the first time and supposed that the finishing line was where usually the formula 1 cars finish. But no, it was rd 80 meters further and at the time in total darkness - the second big failure of the event. Race was supposed to start at 7.30 pm - then still daylight but finally began at 9pm - darkness.

Then I got a penalty second and I have no clue for what. But nearly all cars got this.

So here we go 16.99 at 148 km/h. If we discount the penalty seconds from this and assume that I lost a second for breaking early I would have still considered 14.99 a bad time for what I have invested into the car though It would be in the range of where I would see myself. In the 14th.

However I took out quite some positive experiences out of this.

First: Adrenaline seems to be my friend which I think is a good base for getting into racing. I surprised myself for not being a bit nervous in front of the crowd which I have to say was a great one because the only thing that did make me nervous was them cheering when I came back.

Second: I learned a lot about my car during this race. You can test as much as you want, if you don't have the opportunity to test under real accelerating conditions as in go from 0 to the 1/4 mile with a time slip you don't get a real feel about your cal.

And so here I noticed that I have a lot of power in high RPM but thus sacrificing torque in the low end. My opponent started and left me a car length behind until I got into second where when boost kicked in I got on a par with him and then in third I left him well behind. But then the race was nearly over. This against a stronger car - (I am currently aiming as a first goal to get on a par with our newer generation v8 trans-ams in the club) is no good.

So to answer the question on how my car runs....Good but not good enough yet :-)

So here I concluded that the only way is to save up some bucks an get help of a dyno. And the first session confirmed what I thought already. On one hand they were quite amazed what I presented them (Thanks to @Shelgame and others sharing their code and knowledge at this point!!) considering that my cal was trial and error at the most. But it became aparent that my fueling was far from perfect. I am too rich off the line but then I get decent fueling in mid range (in 3rd the car pulled like mad) just to lose all gained then in the upper RPM range where I am pig rich again.

When we starting tuning the cal the first thing will be to get timing and fueling sorted out. As in getting the car running great without boost from 0 to red line. Then we will take in the boost. Goal is a compromise of decent torque and good power. With whatever I am going to learn there I will share with you guys.

It feels good to know there is interest on how I am getting on over here!!!

[cordes]

Well, you didn't break anything and you learned something. That sounds like a good day racing for sure. Hopefully next time out you will be a bit quicker and still not break anything. :)

[MopàrBCN]

Hi, this is true!!! I nearly forgot about this as being good news as well :lol:

But if you referring to the knock thing, I know it is not knock, this is what bugs me. And I swear, I ran with that particular version a good few days with no issues at all. So I was quite confident on the run up of the event that I would be ok. From my EGT's and (still) narrow band gauge I knew I was rather on the rich side. It seems though that I had overdone it.

PS: I haven't forgotten you and your Cut Out Problem. I am sorry for not getting down to it earlier, but I had quite some stress the last 2 weeks!

[cordes]

don't worry about it. We all get busy with work from time to time.