Buttonwillow Feedback

Originally from December 8-13, 2010

Guys, congrats on the achievement...3rd in class is awesome. I think that I might have a solution to your helmet head clearance issue...albeit, stolen from the Ford GT-40 project. From what I recall, there was one tall driver of the original race team that required a "bubble" over his head on the roof of his car. Perhaps the carb. bubble from your parts car hood could be fit on the roof in the right position to help your problem.

Also, from the same car...I've been thinking about the idea of utilizing the hood "vent" idea over the radiator for increased cooling. I wasn't going to share that until I tried it first, but it just seems logical for a racing application. - Ken2, OpeltGT.com

Thanks. And "C" class was pretty big, too!

We've considered the Gurney bubble but figured that the Lemons tech folks would end up forcing us to modify the roll bar to match. We're probably going to cut the floor out and lower the seat instead.

I've wanted to do the hood vent ala ALMS Corvette for theme reasons and for cooling, but mostly for theme. If we do it, it has to look good, be well done. No Lemons sawz-all hack. Alan is not sold on that yet so it's on the back burner. We can also lift the hood near the windshield to let more air through. We are definitely going to look into re-coring the radiator or getting another one.

I've reviewing the video now. We have about 52 hours (110 GB) of video to sort through but so far it looks great. I'll try to get up a sample tonight.

I am totally impressed with your performance. We ran at Buttonwillow last year and could not even finish. Most people have no idea the preparation that is needed to keep an old car running flat out for two days. We wanted to return to Buttonwillow but we just ran at Willow Springs in the Chumpcar 10 hour race. With the holidays in full swing the wives said no more this year. Hope to see you at a race in 2011. – Ralph Coates, OpelGT.com

It would be so cool having two Opels on track together, or rather, at the same time, since we'd be competing. Should we agree now that just because one of us may end our weekend early that that doesn't automatically make the dead car a parts car? And maybe Jay should create a new class for us, class "O", for "Oh good God not another Opel". [top secret]If Alan's plan comes through there may be three by this time next year.[/top secret]

And many thanks for the compliments. It does take a lot of effort, and we have loved every minute of it and treasure every scar. Well, Alan treasures his scar.

I gather yours was the red Opel with the missing belly pan. It looked great in the photos I have seen, but I heard it had heat problems, and that it was sporting a V6. I think there was also a V6-powered Opel GT running back east that did not finish due to temperature problems, and now there is a new team preparing an ALMS-themed GT for the Texas races. They've got a thread here somewhere.

We had heat problems, and oil gusher (note merely leaks) problems, and bogging and shooting flames out of the tail pipe problems (Someone came by our spot in the paddock to compliment us on our awesome tune, not realizing we had an anti-awesome tune.) and we broke yet another tranny, but we finished.

We got some carburetion/timing tips from some passing drunks, er, revelers, on Saturday night that solved major problems for us. We also brought a spare tranny, again, and by now we have lots of experience swapping these things. We also went through four, maybe five quarts of oil, and we know where 3 of them went.

We were running an electric fan and the old radiator. We had to back off once the car started getting hot but it seemed OK with water temps at 210F all day. Oil temps were similar. We've got to make this better or else we are doomed for summer races.

I still can't decide if we are good or lucky. If good, we owe a lot of that to OGTS and to the OpelGT.com forum. On the luck side, the car had little rust and the motor has run great for two races and three track days after sitting in a field for 25 years. All we've done to is it change the oil and spark plugs and recently started putting in gaskets to help keep the oil in the engine, not on the engine, or dripping off the whole left side bottom of the car.

But seriously, I think the biggest thing our team has had going for it is our willingness to go out and ask the dumb questions. Oh, and read the manuals, which is actually Alan's job.

We're considering either re-coring or replacing our radiator, and maybe replacing the current water pump with a new one we have laying around.

We may also move the radiator forward a bit, ahead of the bulkhead it is now mounted on, to give us room to mount the electric fan behind it instead in front where it is now. Ford Cook gave us a stronger fan so we might switch to it.

I think I'll also go ahead with the splitter idea. It should help get more air in the nose and it will help complete the ALMS Corvette look.

We already have an air cooler in the nose so sticking a second radiator in the car will be difficult. If the above changes don't fix this for us then getting a larger radiator and mounting it at an angle seems to be our last option. Taking the hood off is not a good idea because of the crap you get on the windshield, plus I think 2011 LeMons rules now require an OE hood.