A winter 4 n 1 project

[Charlie_Iliff]

I, too spent time with a 4 n 1 project yesterday. To create a projeck like mine, first you need a warm November Sunday, and a crowd of willing volunteers (AKA motorcycly and 4-wheeler riders), a case of beer or two, a few shovels,. and a short circuit at some unidentified place in a 300 yard wire run under a pasture. The result was a series of holes, some filled with water, two or three hundred feet of ditch, miscellaneous piles of dirt, and several irritated horse owners of the female persuasion who could no longer use the pasture. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif
So, having waited until everything was appropriately frozen, I set upon the piles of dirt with the 4 n 1, to fill the holes and ditch. Having tried that for a while, I went and got the tiller, which - rather slowly - broke the immovable piles of frozen dirt into a fair imitation of course gravel and grapefruit sized stones. Then back to the 4 n 1.
Result: holes and ditches all filled, hose reconnected and waterer working, short circuit bridged with a new cable, horses and ponies moved.
Response from horse people: "It's about time.", marking another successful PT project. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
My continuing complaint about the 4 n 1, however, is that it requires skill. I'm trying to get away from stuff like that. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[tracdoc]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( My continuing complaint about the 4 n 1, however, is that it requires skill. )</font>

Skill, indeed. Being quite new to this, I am constantly getting surprised with my 4-n-1's manners. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif As one small step, I finally decided to color code the hydraulics with zip ties, so I'll re-connect it the same way each time, and at least establish some constants for the aux PTO. But then, I will have less excuses for my skill or lack thereof. Oh, well...

I'll wave hello in your general direction as we make a pass not far from Arnold on I-295 later this evening on our way to pick up our race car in Philly. Afraid if we don't get it back this weekend, we may have to wait until a Spring thaw /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

Our best wishes to you and all for safe and Happy New Year's celebrations.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

<font color="red"> our race car in Philly </font>
What kind of car - class, etc?

If we ever get our engine act together, maybe we can return the wave as we go past way east of you on the way to Maxton, East Coast Timing Association. (Our kind of racing - point it, floor it and see how fast it goes, with no corners or other cars. - again avoiding the necessity of skill if at all possible. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif)

 

[MossRoad]

Charlie, do you drag race?

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

<font color="red"> Charlie, do you drag race? </font>

Nope, not recently. Since the late 70's, one of my brothers has held (and now lost) records in five different classes on the Bonneville Salt Flats. A streamliner which he built, with minimal design and construction help from me, held one liter (a two-liter engine with counterweights replacing two pistons.), two-liter naturally aspirated and two-liter blown records. In the hands of new owner Jim Knapp, it now holds two normally aspirated two-liter records, in the 250 mph range.
We're back to a stock bodied 80's Firebird, and are working up a GM based 2 liter.

 

[MossRoad]

<font color="blue">Bonneville Salt Flats </font>

Ooooo. I would like to see that some day.

Before we had children I drag raced motorcycle a bit. Lots of fun. The nice thing about bracket racing was you didn't have to spend a lot of money... you just had to be consistent.

But top end speed would be fun, too. It is very satisfying to see just what you can get out of a small engine. When all my friends in high school were building up V8s I went and built up a straight 6. Got lots of laughs until I blew them away on starts and the first 1/8th mile. The look of panic was very amusing. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

<font color="red">The nice thing about bracket racing was you didn't have to spend a lot of money... you just had to be consistent.
</font>

Did a little of that. (Car, not motorcycle) Most successful car I remember was a Pontiac station wagon, automatic. 14.51 nearly every run.

 

[tracdoc]

A somewhat belated but very Happy New Year to you Charlie and to all.

We had an uneventful trip up to Philly and back. I was glad we had with us the GPS we got for Christmas. It was so easy to get lost on the 3-digit Interstate feeders around D.C.,(I-295,-395,-495.....-895) /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif and I used to live in Silver Spring, MD (albeit some 20+ years ago) /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Our race car is an '03 Mini Cooper S. It is still street legal /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif, but race modified w/ full roll cage, Sparco seats/harnesses, monster Stop-tech brakes, coil-overs, etc, etc. My wife is the pilot on this gig, and I am crew chief. We race in the N.A.S.A. series, the BMW car club races (the Mini is sold by BMW so it's eligible for their events), and in the Mini factory spec series.

This was our first full year with auto racing, and we had great fun. We elected to give up motorcycle racing when we moved from CA, where we both raced 125cc GP roadrace machines. My wife, however, still had this craving for speed. Small, but fearless, she was consistently in the top 5 in her class in BMWCCA events this season, competing against mostly E36 M3's.

Her big disadvantage aside from HP, has been excessive wheel spin in the corners, the bete noir of front-wheel drive. The trip to Philly was to have the nice folks at Helix Motorsports install a race prepared limited slip differential. They also dyno'd the car and we were pleased by the performance with 185+ HP at the rear wheel. There's an after-market kit, the "Cooper Works Kit" that will take you to ~200 HP at the crank, but since it involves mods to the OEM supercharger, it's not allowed in the Mini spec series, and jumps you to a modified class in the BMWCCA events.

Fingers crossed, hoping I've resized ok, here's a pic of the car "at rest" just after I installed an awesome performing rear wing this Fall. It keeps the light rear down and eliminated the squirrely behavior, especially on hard deceleration.

 

[tracdoc]

And here's another showing Mrs. Leadfoot getting the checkered flag at Carolina Motorspots last Spring.

 

[Charlie_Iliff]

Sounds and looks like a lot of fun.
We used to autocross an original mini -- 997 prepared. Your wife's is lot more car, but similar configuration.