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Contour in Big Bend Open Road Race

Be nice and I will post, my wife is impressed I figured this out so I'm good, and she lets me race and buy cars.
I built the car per SCTA rule book. They are group which runs the land speed events at the bonneville salt flats. To run in the Production class you can have no body modifications are allowed. The spoiler is just a flat piece of alum which is attached with quarter turn fasteners. Makes it easy to get into the trailer and I can adjust the depth based on my suspension. The lower grill is covered by a custom mesh to keep the bugs out, and it makes it easier to tape off, fog light openings are now brake cooling ducts which I always tape off for open road races. I also took off the mirrors, I think that is it.
 
From the pics, I figured it was that front air dam setup. They weren't the most detailed, but I could tell.

So what exactly is an open road race? Is it literally a race on open roads mostly based on speed? It's obviously not on a road course, and this is the first time I've heard of it.
 
It all started with the Silver State Classic, remember the 1969 camaro Big Red?
They close a road and run a rally style race, usually down and back. The goal is to come as close to the average speed you selected as possible. But you can't go over a tech speed or under a min speed. For example I ran in the 135mph class at Big Bend. I had 120 miles to try to average exacly 135mph without going over 168 (i Wish) or under 105.
When I first started running them I just wanted to go fast, now it is quite a challenge to try to get that time perfect. There are only a few left around the country but they sure are a lot of fun. I'd love to have some contours join me!!!!
 
rwalton said:
Thanks for the interest in the car, it's fun to have people interested in my project. If you know much about open road racing about 90% of the cars are corvettes so when you show up with Contour they have no idea what it is.
Rob
Click to expand...

Utmost respect for what your doing here, 167mph in a contour is really something. your the only guy probably most of us have had a chance speak directly with who's actually competitively racing a contour. how much of that top speed do you expect to lose if you switch back to the 4.06 FDR?

Just out of curiosity, how much money do you have in the trans? I'm guessing terry had a custom gearset made for it? or is it the quaife set like someone else mentioned? and how much power at the crank does it take for that trans to achieve those top speeds?

also, how important do you think aerodynamic mods would be on a contour with a goal of 150mph?


thanks man
 
I hope to run 167, It's run 162 so far. A 5mph increase is tough at that speed. I'm switching to the 4.06 to increase my top speed. Now at 7050 rpm in 5th i'm running 160 and that is about the top. With a 4.06 I can use that extra 1000 rpm. 7900 rpm =170 and my engine makes max HP between 7000 and 8000 RPM. The theory works but you never know until you run the car, and there are not a lot of places you can test your top speed.

The transmission is another very important part of the equation. Terry and I took my Dyno chart and matched the shift points to my power band. I think we used a european gear set for 4th and 5th with a 3.8 FDR. 5th gear is just to much of an OD, so changing that made a big difference. Having 8200 RPM sure helps also. I'm sure I paid over $2000 for it but that is one of the few parts I haven't broken.

The car make just under 250hp at the wheels, I'm hoping for a few more with the gear and new headers.

The cars are very areo friendly with very low drag. But they are tall, even when on the ground like mine. I took a picture of mine by an R8 and a Z06 and it looks like a bowling ball (i will try to attach). So drop it as low as possible and some type of spoiler in the front. but more important is gearing and RPM.
 
rwalton said:
I hope to run 167, It's run 162 so far. A 5mph increase is tough at that speed. I'm switching to the 4.06 to increase my top speed. Now at 7050 rpm in 5th i'm running 160 and that is about the top. With a 4.06 I can use that extra 1000 rpm. 7900 rpm =170 and my engine makes max HP between 7000 and 8000 RPM. The theory works but you never know until you run the car, and there are not a lot of places you can test your top speed.

The transmission is another very important part of the equation. Terry and I took my Dyno chart and matched the shift points to my power band. I think we used a european gear set for 4th and 5th with a 3.8 FDR. 5th gear is just to much of an OD, so changing that made a big difference. Having 8200 RPM sure helps also. I'm sure I paid over $2000 for it but that is one of the few parts I haven't broken.

The car make just under 250hp at the wheels, I'm hoping for a few more with the gear and new headers.

The cars are very areo friendly with very low drag. But they are tall, even when on the ground like mine. I took a picture of mine by an R8 and a Z06 and it looks like a bowling ball (i will try to attach). So drop it as low as possible and some type of spoiler in the front. but more important is gearing and RPM.
Click to expand...

Shouldn't that lower your top speed but increase acceleration?? That's what my knowledge and experience has told me. I'm guessing real life you might be at the same speed, though with the extra power of the headers might help a little. Being up in the powerband will also help.. so who knows until you try. The European gearset you're referring to is the B1 gearset, IIRC, for anyone else wondering.

Where are you getting the long tube headers from? Custom made?

Yeah I like that these cars are aero friendly. How much lower than stock are you? With your car being that low, do you have any roll center adjusters or anything? You're suspension geometry must be off if no roll center adjusters are in. Though it looks like you don't do much road course/circuit racing.

Oh and the attachments don't work.
 
Normally you would be correct about gearing, but since I can't get to redline in 5th gear I'm wasting 1000 rpm. I'm having the headers custom made. The car is maybe 2" lower than stock (not sure). I do run road course events, actually run more of those than open road races. The suspension is fully adjustable, front and rear. Road course events I run a lot of neg camber -2.5-3 deg front and rear but when I do open road race event I only run -1deg. I also run a lot of caster in 3+ makes the car track very straight on high speed runs.
Sorry about the pics, I have no idea?

Rob
 
rwalton said:
Normally you would be correct about gearing, but since I can't get to redline in 5th gear I'm wasting 1000 rpm. I'm having the headers custom made. The car is maybe 2" lower than stock (not sure). I do run road course events, actually run more of those than open road races. The suspension is fully adjustable, front and rear. Road course events I run a lot of neg camber -2.5-3 deg front and rear but when I do open road race event I only run -1deg. I also run a lot of caster in 3+ makes the car track very straight on high speed runs.
Sorry about the pics, I have no idea?

Rob
Click to expand...

Yeah that's true. I guess the only real way to find out is for you to run the 4.06 FD and see what happens, right :).

Ah, ok.

Yeah, so I guess suspension geometry isn't really affected. So you run -3 deg of camber on the rear? That's kind of alot, but you must have it like that for a reason. I'd love to see some pics of the camber/caster plates.

To get pics straight from your computer, go to quick reply, look for the little image at the top of the reply box with the B I U. You'll see a little image of a tree right beside a globe and film strip. Click that. A box will come up. Click browse (I'm pretty sure). Then from there find the image in whatever folder.
 
rwalton said:
I hope to run 167, It's run 162 so far. A 5mph increase is tough at that speed. I'm switching to the 4.06 to increase my top speed. Now at 7050 rpm in 5th i'm running 160 and that is about the top. With a 4.06 I can use that extra 1000 rpm. 7900 rpm =170 and my engine makes max HP between 7000 and 8000 RPM. The theory works but you never know until you run the car, and there are not a lot of places you can test your top speed.

The transmission is another very important part of the equation. Terry and I took my Dyno chart and matched the shift points to my power band. I think we used a european gear set for 4th and 5th with a 3.8 FDR. 5th gear is just to much of an OD, so changing that made a big difference. Having 8200 RPM sure helps also. I'm sure I paid over $2000 for it but that is one of the few parts I haven't broken.

The car make just under 250hp at the wheels, I'm hoping for a few more with the gear and new headers.

The cars are very areo friendly with very low drag. But they are tall, even when on the ground like mine. I took a picture of mine by an R8 and a Z06 and it looks like a bowling ball (i will try to attach). So drop it as low as possible and some type of spoiler in the front. but more important is gearing and RPM.
Click to expand...

ah, I didn't realize how high in the revs the kinetic engine was making power. I've got a full 3.0 and it makes most of it's power in the midrange, it falls flat on it's face in the top end. thats why I'm fairly sure the best setup for me would be the 3.8 or 3.5 FDR with a much closer 5th and the rest of the gears where they are.

as for aero, I'd like to copy the last round up of the BTCC rapid fit mondeo's. good effective splitter low to the ground, replaceable, and would fit over a standard contour bumper.

how bad is your tire wear with -3 degrees? what camber plates are you using, I'm guessing something custom? the bat camber adjusters leave a lot to be desired...

thanks
 
Yeah, since the Kinetic engine is a race engine it will make power up high.. pretty much like every other race engine. They are designed around short gearing to stay up in the powerband which is usually very high. Yeah since you have 3L cams, I'm assuming, it will fall flat on it's face on the top end. 3L cams are better in the midrange. To get a closer 5th you're either gonna have to go with a Quaife gear set, which good luck on getting one gear from them, or get a European B1 gearset. That has the shorter 4th and 5th gear. IMO, a 3.5 FD is too long of a FD for a N/A 3L.

With a splitter being low to the ground, you're gonna need some stiff springs so that it doesn't scrape screwing up the splitter and affecting the effectiveness and balance that the splitter gives.

Most likely custom plates, that's why I want to see some pics. I saw some before on another Contour.. the SSR one that's blue and yellow I'm pretty sure. It was a while ago so I can't really remember, but I'm pretty sure it basically looked like the ones Pole120 is making. The bat camber plates are mostly just for alignment purposes, not race setup and optimum race handling purposes.

Rob can answer on the camber wear haha.
 
fortunately I have a friend who can fabricate anything and he has built most the parts I need. I think he started with Ground Control and modified them?
The only time I run that much camber is when I'm on a road course and with race tires (tire life 2 weekends). The pictures you see are from open Road Races. There I run -.5 front and rear.
There are a lot of theries on suspension set up, and most are based on driver preference. I don't want to debate them, but I can tell you what I do. I raced an rx7 for several years and we discovered the Hoosier road race tires loved neg. camber. We would check tire temp across all 4 tires (inside,middle and outside)after several laps. Our goal was to have those temps as close as possible across each tire, which means your using all the contact patch equally. There are many ways to adjust those temps one is camber.
So I use that same simple system on the contour, but again for flatout speed as at Big Bend I had everything as straight as possible.
Everyone that races has their own preference on car feel and what they are comfortable with, I like the suspension to work (softer springs, stock swaybars and a great set of shocks) as opposed to a rock hard go cart. But both can be fast!!!!

when I rebuilt my engine I discussed with several people going to a 3L with my heads and cams but decided against it for that exact reason, I was afraid I would lose some RPM's. They sure make great street or road course engines!!

Rob
 
Maybe it is just me but it seems there are a number of people on this board that were or are RX-7 owners as well as SVT Contour owners. I have had an RX-7 since I was 17 and still AutoX and open track it today. AutoX my first SVT and now use my current one solely as a DD. I would love to participate in the Open Road Races. In my younger years on road trips I was rarely below 100mph so traveling long distances at high speeds is right up my alley.
 
Nice! Its cool to see a transmission with a custom gearset that was built properly...
 
That's what is nice about these races, there are classes down to 85 MPH. So any car can run. The more safety equip you have the faster you can go.

When I started everyone told me the transmission would be my biggest problem and it would never work. The only part on the car I haven't broken is the transmission, it has worked perfectly.

Rob
 
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