Well the saga continues and it's been a while since I posted any upgrades for the car. The changes have been pretty minimal but setting a new best last year reignited my interest to go further down the rabbit hole.
Clutch Hydraulics:
At the last Racewars, my trans/clutch were requiring more deliberate operation to avoid missing a gear. The issue got worse as the day went on and the car also become harder and harder to get into reverse. Towards the end of the day, I just made sure all I had to do was go forward which was effective. Getting home and putting the car in the garage was a different story. I decided to try the simplest thing first which involved swapping the clutch fluid. The fluid looked clean and was bled prior to the rental but let's just try it anyway. After doing that, getting into gear went much much easier. The slave is pretty new so my only thinking is the wilwood master included with the original McLeod clutch may just be tired. My thinking is the seal for the master is leaking slightly and when the fluid gets hot, the fluid gets past the seal easier resulting in a clutch that doesn't fully release.
A new Wilwood clutch master seal may be tough to find and honestly, I prefer the piece of mind of a new unit. I purchased a Tick clutch master and new slave to replace the hydraulics completely. These will hopefully be installed in the coming weeks in prep for the Slipstream event in the Poconos on April 21st.
Braking:
Last year I slapped on Hawk HP+ pads up front and HP 5.0s in the rear which definitely improving stopping performance but still didn't give me the confidence I wanted to haul down this overweight missile. I've been talking about upgrading the brakes for a while and finally pulled the trigger in a more serious way. The bummer is I knew this would necessitate new drag front runners since the 15's wouldn't clear any setup I had interest in purchasing. After debating different brake setups (C5, GM brembo from Camaro/V/etc, Kore3, etc), I came across a new kit from Sam Strano featuring Wilwood calipers, stainless lines, bracket, and Stop-Tech rotors. Reading through Brembo conversions from other GM cars, some require you to have the center of the rotor machined to fit the hub, shims, spacers, etc. Pads will also be cheaper although knowing how many miles I put on the car and how I use it, this isn't real benefit to me. I do like the 6 piston setups from the V2 cars but in addition to the drag wheel clearance challenges, braking hard with skinnies up front would not be ideal.
Last night I was able to put in a bit of time on the car so on to a few pics. The hub was a little bit of a bitch to remove but she eventually gave way with a bigger hammer. The lower caliper bracket mount needed to be lopped off to make way for the new UMI bracket. A Pal got me a nice cutoff tool which worked really well. Mid way into cutting I stopped to check progress thinking I'm around a quarter of the way through only to find it was almost completely chopped off lol.
Don't worry....the hub oxidation will be cleaned.
