I was driving past Rod Penrose's place a week or two ago and noticed this poor little buggy sitting out in the rain. It seems nobody wanted the thing so Rod very generously gave it to me to race on the condition he doesn't have to mow around it anymore.

We've had to make a few modifications to it to fit my 6'3" frame. Morgan has made a nice aluminium seat which Rod will trim before the sydney event and a really small deep dish steering wheel gives me enough room to shift and use the clutch.
We've also chucked a porsche fan on so we can get as many runs as possible in without worrying about the engine cooking.
I've hooked up a 2 step ignition system hooked up to a pressure switch in the brake line, not sure what launch RPM we'll use yet, the upper rpm chip is 8000 I think.
The aim is just to get some laps in at Sydney and get comfortable in the car, might develop the car and sort some issues out with it after that.
We just need to check the wheel alignment and then she's ready to hit the track in a few weeks.
Most of you have seen the car before but here's a few pics anyway
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93005116@N06/8453002326/in/photostream 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93005116@N06/8451911425/in/photostream 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93005116@N06/8453005034/in/photostream 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/93005116@N06/8453001674/in/photostream 

Good score....

Cool,,,the old motor I was doing 3rd gear skids and 6000-6500 rpm on the line.
You're in for a wild ride!!!
Have heaps of fun.
Aaron

Same motor, it's getting pulled for a freshen up after Sydney.

Are uou gunna run thr jamboree

Probably, I'll see how things go at the VW drags first.

so hav you bought it or just renting for a while?
is a fun ride. i was guest driver at warwick last year.
was the most fun i have had for a long time.
enjoy it!
cant believe it sits outside under a tree.
rod got too many toys.
good luck with it man!
ashley

It was a lot of fun to build and to race. Aaron and I were quite amazed by how quick (and wild) the car was over the 1/4. Both of us spent a lot of time and effort to get it log booked for SuperStreet, so you should have no trouble sorting the car to make it go even quicker.

One thing we wanted to try but ran out of time to fabricate was a front chin spoiler to help keep the nose down and give more feel through the front wheels. Last year the wheels were hardly touching the ground when it crossed the line!

Oh and if you have a heavy right foot, you can make it wheel stand in first and second gear just for a bit of a laugh!

Thanks Craig, got some ideas for the front but we'll try that later on. Got your message re log books/licence etc and I think it's all sorted but I'll give you a call later just to clarify. Hoping to see plenty of wheels up action on the weekend once I'm settled in the car, I've never driven anything down the 1/4 before despite helping out with some fast stuff over the years.

You are going to s*&t your self Owen.
Please be careful.
Crewing on a fast car does nothing to prepare you for driving , even a low 12 second car.
..except perhaps to approach the car with respect and caution.
Looking forward to the smiles after the first run!

Should be real fun Owen , has car got front end straps ? a little weight forward will help , bars down hard if rear is soft .

It's got front end straps but they need a bit of improvement. I've got a bit of time now before the next chance to run it so I'll make a couple of minor suspension changes, I want to get some laps in before making any major changes though. We might try a few crazy things on the engine later on as well. Not trying go faster but just test some stuff rods had on the shelf for ages. I'll post up details when it happens.

Finally got some passes under my belt on the car! Unfortunatly as soon as I started to settle down and think clearly in the car it developed a big misfire so no decent times, but still a heap of fun and bunch of wheels up launches. Best of the night was 13.25 @ 99 on a 1.7 something 60. I did end up changing a few suspension settings and the rear shocks and the car went straight and was easy to drive, I just need to work on my shifting mainly. The tech guys want some changes made before next time but nothing too serious so we should be out again in 3 weeks time running all motor at the Jamboree.

A big thanks to Morgan and Ben for there help getting there and back and obviously Rod for giving me the chance to finally do some racing.

Just remember "STAND ON IT"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Was a good night. Been searching for som pics but nothing up yet.

Well done Owen.... Looking forward to see some pics and massive wheel stands!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqkFC_v1ZhQ 

Found this one, engine wasnt running right from here on on so a bit slow. Had to do a quick bit of wiring repair to get the tail light on in the pits and I think it screwed with the fuel pump voltage. I'll rewire it with a relay and hopefully it sorts itself out, ran an easy 99mph before we did that.

Do they race anything other than VL commodores over there ?

After the car failed tech inspection at the last meeting we needed to make some changes to the cage. The taxi bar which the seat belts mount off was too low and the head rest needed improvement. We decided to leave the existing taxi bar in place at the recommendation of the ANDRA head tech inspector and just put an extra one in about 6 inches higher. They also wanted a more substantial headrest so we've welded a steel plate to the cage rear star which will have a padded board attached to it. I'll bring the car back home tomorrow and repaint the chassis while the body is off. The car is also getting completly rewired, moving all the switches and gauges into the dash out of the weather, and installing relays and fuses for all the components. Getting rid of the porsche fan as well and putting an electric setup on so I can cool it a bit in the staging lanes and lose a bit of weight out back.

Just finished loading everything up for the jamboree tomorrow. Spent all week painting the cage and generally tidying things up on the car. Moved all the switchgear and gauges to the dash and rewired everything with relays and fuses. The car Had a grand total of 0 fuses previously, they must have been too heavy... Ended up leaving the Porka fan on it for this meeting but it's getting a new engine combo after this so not sure what direction we'll take with cooling. Not sure what engine yet, the idea of a 1600 with Kadrons is floating around!

Fingers crossed ill be running consistant 12's tomorrow, I'll try post some updates when I get a chance. With the way the car wheel stands we decided the bottom shot was the most valuable sponsor signage I've actually lowered the bars again so I'm curious to see how it behaves

Just been out in the garage and fitted a Procomp ignition system to replace the MSD Rev limiter that screwed up. The Procomp is a copy of the 6al2 by msd, the car seems to free rev a bit cleaner and smoother with the CDI and the limiter is a bit smoother than the MSD's which was a surprise. These are meant to be a direct copy of the MSD product since the patent expired so hopefully next meeting see's some good passes. Should be out again on sat 27th.

Had a good day at the Test n Tune today. Some minor problems with fan belts flipping off and the 2 step stopped working again (????) but otherwise got 4 passes, all in the 12's. Started at 12.8 and got down to a 12.15 by the end of the day all around 105-106mph.

Apart from a little bit in the 60ft I don't think there's much more in it with the current combo, maybe a 12.0 something if I can 60ft better, 1.65 at the moment? Not sure what it was 60ing when Craig had it. I think it ran a 12.05 last year without some of the weight we've had to add and my 90kg's so I'm happy with how it went.

Big thanks to ben and Rod for their help today.

How come the weight was added.
Was it a handling thing ?
Great effort . Where's the vid's

We had to add the extra taxi bar, headrest, porsche fan. It all adds up. I think it was 580 with driver when Craig had it. From memory it scaled at 620 before I welded the bar in so most of the extra weight is me, and I haven't got much to lose. It handles fine now, I'd be quite comfortable adding a bit more power at some stage.

Going to raise the wheelie bars back up a bit before next outing as it hits them too hard and bounces with them set low, sort of an inertia thing I guess with not much power. it carried the front wheels all the way through first nicely the first time out. Also removing the porsche fan and alternator and putting a regular type one style setup on to cure a few issues. I tried Ben's electric fan/shroud and it needs too much hacking up to fit this motor.


We didn't get any vids but hopefully some will show up on youtube.

found one ok pic, last run of the night 12.15@105

Awesome work on getting the buggy going. I'm about to embark on a rebuild of mine and am wondering if you have any pics of the wheelie bar set up.
Andrew

Aaron is the only one I've seen carry the front wheels out past the 60 foot mark and that was impressive!!

The car wasn't wheelie-ing very much last weekend, that pic was highest it got and didn't carry them very far so 1.65 is accurate. A few online calcs say 1.65 is about right for a 12.1 so it might not have much more in it. I know i can probably pick up a bit on my 1-2 shift at least and the two step still wasn't working so maybe a real high 1.5 something if the planets all line up?

I reckon you had them up past the 60' that friday we took it up!! those wheelys were HUGE!!!!!! and you caried them a hell of a long way!!!!
Lift your bars back up!!!!