Year 2000 news

12/30/00
 
IDT IS SHUTTING DOWN- THIS ADDRESS WILL BE INVALID AFTER JANUARY 30.
 
Please stay tuned for further website information.
 
12/20/00

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season... we just got hit with a little snow and ice here (but not to bad)

Old-timers to the site will remember that my other hobby is computers... Need something to do while the ice and snow flies eh? Here is a quick video card review.

Current PC is PIII-700, 256 megs of PC-133 ram, Abit BH6 rev. 1.0 motherboard (old war horse still kicking ass) 2 Voodoo II's in SLI configuration and a GF2MX video card.

Now I did have a Inno 3d GF2MX card which was fine, even came with a heatsink but I was looking for a MX based card that had TV out for some video editing and something I could push a little harder then the current GF2 card... While I was at a trade show last weekend I snagged a Leadtek Winfast GF2MX complete with TV out AND dual monitor support!  Not bad for $135 bucks! Even better Leadtek installs active cooling on their cards! =)  They even use thermal paste!

A plus was 3 LEDS on the card that indicate power, 4xAGP and card fault AND the card has hardware monitoring!  (chip temp amd card voltage) The drivers are pure reference drivers from nvidia and installed without a hitch, I had no problems installing the hardware monitoring software from Leadtek either but it was more intrusive then I liked so I removed it (it added something like 6 unneeded tabs to the graphics menu AND liked to reside down on the task bar)

The default speed of the card was a nvidia recommended 175 mhz core, 166 mhz ram (6 ns ram) The Inno card I had would hit 200/175 no problem but the ram was definitely shaky over 175 mhz... The Leadtek card had no problem running at 220/200 with no visual artifacts or overheating. TV output is fair but will do the job and the dual monitor setup is a little flaky but I'm sure it will do better as drivers progress... All in all I'm very impressed.

I give the Leadtek card 5 stars.
 

Speaking of video cards.... My condolences go out to the fine engineers and staff at 3dfx... What was once the giant in video accelerators who bought us the first truly "kickass" graphics hardware for pc's slipped away this weekend due to bad management over the past year.... You will truly be missed.
 

12/12/00

Jon Persinger could you contact me please, your email keeps coming back as invalid.
 

12/03/00

Quiet isn't it?  I have been REAL busy.

Won't be updating the pages for a bit, might be a few weeks/months before I can. (stuff to do over winter)

Baby/home improvement/customer work has been eating up all my time, work on Relentless will be starting in a few weeks I hope. I can spend hours a day dealing with e-mail or working on car for next year.  Sorry guys, car's going to win this one.  First race is March 1st and I aim to be ready.  With both cars.

No tech e-mails please, I won't have time to answer them.

All set on CPU (picked up 700mhz P3 at show), still need card for nephew, thanks to the people who e-mailed me about it.. I'm having problems with IDT mail so if you e-mailed me about a card and received no reply please e-mail me again.

K.S. drop me a line if you get the chance, Earthlink address is out to lunch.

Gary

11/26/00

Wanted to buy or will trade for parts-

My nephew needs a cheap PCI video accelerator for his computer, anyone have a Voodoo II card or perhaps a TNT unit they want to part with? (e-bay sucks for this stuff imho)

I also need a 600-800 mhz SLOT 1 PIII for a Abit BH6- I tried a Coppermine celeron with a slocket card but it wasn't too stable, board is getting old....

For sale or trade- Celeron 566

11/21/00

A reader send this in....

From your RANT page...

"It's incomprehensible to me that the have a ballot system in Florida where you can VOTE TWICE on the same ballot. What are you people stupid? Your just asking for trouble doing this... "

Hey now Gary, be nice!  I'm from Florida, remember?  =)  I think the majority of people in Florida understand that you can't vote twice.  It's the incredibly moronic retired old people, mostly from xxxx xxxxx, and mostly xxxxx, that live in West Palm that cant figure it out.  All 3 of those adjectives i just listed make for a person who complains a LOT.  I'm sure you've seen a picture of the "butterfly ballot" they used.  How difficult is
that??  There's an arrow pointing right at the hole you punch!  If they cant figure that out, they deserve to have their votes thrown out.  And on that note, if they realize they mess up on the voting, and then vote twice.. shouldn't they think that something might get messed up because of that? Maybe that they should get another ballot or tell someone before they leave? "Oh gee, i figured they'd know which person I meant to vote for".  I mean, come on now.  It doesn't surprise me though..  it's the same damn old people that run me off the road EVERY DAY at work.  The ones that pull out directly in front of me and then go 15MPH while i'm screaming and honking and they don't even turn their head.  I drive up next to them and throw pennies at their windows (which do no damage, but make a LOUD sound).  And they STILL don't even blink!  That's one of the things I hate the most about Florida... all these old people.  Driving down Gulf Blvd. with all the old people tourists trying to find their condo's is ridiculous.. unfortunately I must do it all the time.  Here's my plan for the election crap:  Throw everything away.  Stop the recounts, stop the arguing.  Forget about it all and we'll try again next year.  But DON'T LET FLORIDA VOTE!  (we are the ones that screwed it up this year).  LOL..

No offense Gary, no harm, and no grudges.  =)

None taken ;-)

'Twas going to touch on the retired folks living in Florida and their driving habits... but since your from Florida...

I stay far away from anyone with Florida plates driving on Connecticut roads... hell I might wake them up as I'm going by and they might swerve into my car... I feel for you guys who live down there, I couldn't do it...

Been busy cleaning and organizing things around here so I can start work on... a few projects this winter =)

Oh and let me get this straight- It's ok to count and recount f*cked up ballots by comatose retired civilians who can't read a simple ballot over and over till you get the count you want... but ballots by people that provide a blanket of security for this nation & protect this nations interests are to be thrown out?

Gore & company- you should be ashamed of yourselves. scumbags.

11/15/00

Re: Florida & election

1) U.S.A. needs standardized voting machines, no ballots, no way to vote twice. I live in New England, we use machines that do NOT allow you to vote twice, nor use paper ballots. If you made a mistake voting you have plenty of opportunity to change it before LEAVING THE MACHINE. It's incomprehensible to me that the have a ballot system in Florida where you can VOTE TWICE on the same ballot. What are you people stupid? Your just asking for trouble doing this...

2) Democratic party needs to throw in towel- they are looking positively stupid. If Gore walked away now not only would he look... presidential for the next election dare I say? He would have 4 years to scrape away the stigma of being Bill Clintons vice president. Just my 2 cents.

Democratic party- "Oh wow we had a close election in Florida lets tie up the whole United States with recounts till the numbers come out our way"

Get OVER IT, GORE LOST. Take your stinking lawyers and hit the road. How many recounts should they do??? 2? 3? 4? 10? OH I GET! TILL YOU HAVE ONE WHERE GORE WINS! AHHHH I SEE.

Losers.

11/13/00

Updated: The Automatic & Manual transaxle guide  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/trans.html

(or how I spent my day installing a 555 in an omni)
 

11/11/00

Damage to headgasket in cylinder # 3 location caused by defective distributor cap crossfiring.  damn it.

Plans for next years 9 second fun and games are already in motion.  Can you say "quad cooler" ? ;-)

Drivetrain being pulled out in December for inspection, freshening and improvements... Car is going to get minor lightening (minor because I don't think I can find anything major to remove anymore) 100 pounds would do nicely...  On the drivetrain... there will be something special in the way of electronics... simplification of the wiring and dash area too...

On the family front Leah is doing very well, she is growing like a weed!  She is doing extremely well, matter of fact she is resting on my lap as I update...

Soon I will be updating the turbo database again, there have been developments in the past year that need to be reflected.... also there is information that's been mistakenly omitted... my fault for the most part, I have been doing this so long stuff I take as basic others don't and I tend to overlook it when updating...

11/06/00

First off hats off to Cliff for another years event down at Cecil County, always a fun time even when the car isn't behaving... Don't know if I'm going to next years event after being stuck for $54 bucks in tolls! (NJ has REALLY cranked up what they rob you for using I-95) LOL! perhaps I can move closer...hmmm.

Well it was a rush job to make it to Cecil and when you rush mistakes happen (combine that with lack of sleep)...the new slicks didn't fit and different rims had to be obtained the morning we left for the event... the new datalogger that was installed in the car didn't work right due to a minor programming error because the programmer was rushed too but that's ok because the laptop fell off the roof of the car the day we were leaving...a spare laptop was grabbed from the house, robbed of it's harddrive at the hotel and installed in the damaged unit but it turns out a few of the OS install disks were corrupt so couldn't run the datalogger anyways which is just as well because of the software problem (datalogger displays live ram values as well, hardware and software will be for sale for a modest sum as soon as final programming is complete)...Made it down to the track and the EGT gauge failed on the first pass so I was unable to tune the car for track conditions! Was tempted to pack it up right then and there with Numero Uno gauge out of commission but figured since it was the end of the year the show must go on...

Run 1 (The easy pass)

The first pass of the day is always a shakedown to see what the track is like- I turn down the boost 1/4 turn, launch somewhat mild... you get the idea. I was somewhat suprised when I picked up the timeslip at the end of the track...The car "felt" so mild I swear it wasn't even a 10 second pass...

Short time 1.75
1/8 mile   6.90
1/8 mph    105 mph
1/4 mile   10.66
1/4 mph    129.6

Run 2

Lifted headgasket at 1/8 mile (remember, no EGT so I have no idea what's going on mixture wise)

Short time 1.73
1/8 mile   6.98
1/8 mph    100 mph
1/4 mile   11.7
1/4 mph    90.9

Run 3

Changed headgasket, checked over fuel system, found pinch valve which was fine for first pass now 35 psi low... backed off boost to be safe as well... aborted in burnout box due to water pump gasket failure caused by cooling system pressurization during run 2, pulled pump and repaired.

Run 4

Short time 1.73
1/8 mile   6.96
1/8 mph    102 mph
1/4 mile   10.84
1/4 mph    125.9

Run 5 (last run of day)

Nitrous bottle installed in car- doing the numbers showed that I need just 75 more hp to run a 9.90

Kit was set at 100 hp. Came out of hole very aggressive since track was biting, NOS triggered in 2nd gear.

Short time 1.67 <-- best to date.
1/8 mile   6.86
1/8 mph    106.5 mph
1/4 mile   10.57
1/4 mph    130 mph

Headgasket failed again in number 3 cylinder, car was breaking up almost whole pass, didn't care it was last race of year.  Cylinder 3 having some kind of issue, rest of cylinders perfect.

No signs of detonation- hot spot in cooling system perhaps or lean injector in #3 maybe, have several ideas.

This winter some of the plans I have for the car are going to be shelved... I feel the car has an easy 9 second pass in it with minor lightening and refining of existing drivetrain- I haven't even maxed the turbo out yet! Just working on the fuel curve down low in the boost range has netted improvements in short time...

Want to thank everyone who came over to say hello- was a bit rushed while I was there and wished I had more time to talk... Saw some real nice rides there and glad to see FWD mopars starting to get the respect they deserve...

As always glad to be with my friends at the track... Steve, A.J. (great mph with that R/T motor bro, have to get that loaded in MY Daytona for next year ;-), Dan Carson, Mike Marra, (sorry for running your dad over on the first pass Mike...) Mike Demoss, Dave, Joe, Seth & Seth, Marc, the IRC crew and many more... have a good one people!

Gary Donovan
 

10/29/00

Updated: http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_shortblock.html
 

10/28/00

Baby Leah is doing great! Is is up to 9.2 pounds now and is 21.5 inches long now! Growing like a weed!

Just getting K-car ready for Cecil event- Had to install a new headgasket, swapped the headbolts over for head studs (maybe the headgasket will last longer then 10 passes now), welded up lips on all the intercooler steel pipes, installed braid covering on the rubber intercooler hoses as insurance against rupture and installed peterbuilt truck clamps on the rest of the induction system.

Now that the repair & upgrade part of the program was done it's time to begin pre-race check over-

Here's the funny part.

For my last pass at Cecil I turned the NOS system on to see how deep into the 10's the car would dip (I was in final round against a RWD 10.2's Rotary MG), much to my suprise the car started to bog and I instantly lifted off. Well I have been kinda busy the last few weeks and finally after the repairs were done checked the NOS system- DOH! The bottle was empty!!! SOB! No wonder the car bogged, it was choking on 50 hp of extra fuel and no nitrous to go with it! He-he!

I have 2 receritified and filled bottles now- =) hehehehhehe

Anyone have a Shelby Dakota ECU calibration??? I have a reader who is up the creek without a paddle, seems a electronics firm lost his computer and needs one, stock dodge truck one can be used but it needs the correct calibration.. anyone?
 

10/24/00

Almost forgot! The Turbo PFI page has been updated with more calibrations!

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_pfi.html
 

10/23/00

Just to clarify a few points...

1) I don't like Rush Limbaugh, not even a bit.
2) This is my personal webpage.   I pay for it every month.  There are no sponsors.
3) I'm not that thrilled about G.W. Bush either- He is the lesser of 2 evils IMHO.

10/18/00

A Political Rant.

Normally I don't discuss politics or religion with strangers, people have strong feelings about both and I think both are fairly private matters except with friends.

Today I'm going to touch on politics- I'm not one whose inclined to believe in "media conspiracies" but two or three items happened this week which make me go hmmm....

1) I'm driving down the road listening to the radio and I hear a blurb for the third presidential debate on ABC... Following this debate blurb is an announcement that there will be a ABC program featuring speech screw ups & gaff's by George W. Bush following the debate?!?!!  Is this unbiased media?

2) My buddy calls me up on friday (A registered republican and avid Rush Limbaugh listener) He laughing so hard he's crying- It seems during a Al Gore speech on children's health care a 10 year passes out on stage in the middle of Al's speech ON STAGE and there is NOTHING in the media about this- I'm utterly amazed I cannot find anything about this on any of the news channels.

I managed to d/l a copy of the incident for your listening pleasure here.

(Right click on the link and choose "save link as" than you can listen to it with Real Audio at your leisure)

This is fantastic- Where is the media? Am I off base? This is a huge gaff (right up there with OJ trying the gloves on) and where is the media whores?

There are other things to dwell on as well... Al Gore the "environmental" VP that receives huge amount of money from Standard Oil for zinc mine rights on his property (4-5 times the going rate)... The NRA spending millions of dollars to protect themselves from IRS agents who right before an election decide there is going to be an audit... Oddly the NEA is NOT being audited even though the Wall Street Journal checked their records and found that they contributed $926,000 to the democrats but claim ZERO on their Form 990 disclosure... Reno not investigating big Al for for visiting Buddest temples and collecting a few handouts... No Controlling Legal Authority... Gore was also very PRO NRA when he wanted to get elected in 76' in pro-gun Tennessee... hmm...

What about your morals Al?

I'm a registered Democrat (1984, soon as I turned 18)- but that never stopped me from voting whom I thought would do the job best- The White House needs needs a change! I don't know if G.W. Bush is the greatest candidate for the job but we had a career politician for 8 years who quite frankly bought nothing but shame to the office of the presidency and I don't think his understudy should replace him.

Note: Joe Lieberman is from my home state... You don't want this man a heartbeat from the presidency... He's the kind of politician that does what he feels is good for you- Without checking with you first!  I have never once heard from this elected official in the whole time I have been a registered voter, I have even gone as far as to write to him directly with no reply.

Gary S. Donovan
 

10/14/00

10/12/00

Leah Fern Donovan is home and doing great!

 She was discharged from Yale-New Haven last night and is home now. The doctors seem to think she will be ok and it's something she will grow out of (if she hasn't already) but are going to track how she does for the next year with visits to Yale and a home monitor datalogger every few weeks to make sure her heart is up to snuff.

For those who didn't know Leah started having Accelerated Ventricular Rhythm right before Heather went into labor, they tried 3 fetal monitors (they could not "track" her heartbeat because it was so far from what
the machine thought was normal) and then called in a few cardiac experts who watched her heart via ultrasound and deemed it safe to have a normal delivery. We have spent since then 5 days in hospitals getting checked
out and last night she came home for the first time...

10/06/00

Just back from hospital (I have been staying there to help mom out) figured I'd upload a picture of Heather doing that mommy thang'

Baby is currently being monitored in neo-natal ICU for a slightly irregular heartbeat, hopefully we will be able to take her home on sunday if everything looks good! I'm staying at the hospital so I can help out and be close by (needless to say when a 5'2 woman gives birth to a 8.13 pound baby she is just a little bit sore and needs a helping hand!) The staff at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital did a fantastic job!!!

Mom and myself haven't settled on a name for the little one yet- We agreed on a name for a boy before hand but had not agreed upon one for a girl! LOL!
 

A BIG THANKS to the following people!!! Thanks guys I owe ya one!!

Alan Jones, Randy Hicks, Gus Mahon, Chris Yerton, Nick Alessi, Butch Nordstrom, Stephen Rowland, Chuck James, Joe O'Conner, Jeff King, Dave Brode, John Storm, Wayne Hemingway, Dan Culkin, Mike & Carolyn Sweetland, Stan Watkins, Kevein Schofield, Jan D'auro, Tom Allard, Luis Barriga, Pat Culkin, Mark Panos and John Hay.

They all chipped in for a baby gift for the three of us and Gus dropped it off this afternoon!! You guys are the best!

I'm off to the hospital, cya!

Gary
 

10/05/00

10/04/00

Tomorrow we are going to have a baby!!!! Talk to ya soon...

9/29/00

Updated:

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_pfi.html

No baby yet.

9/27/00

Moved for space reasons-

!2 second club: http://www.dodgegarage.com/12_sec_club.html

(Also added Dave Z's picture)

11 second club: http://www.thedodgegarage.com/11_sec_club.html

12 second Daytonas: http://www.dodgegarage.com/12_second_daytonas.html

Still no baby! Kid's being damn shy or something... I know it's normal to be a tad late on the first one...
 

9/24/00

Updated-

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/12_sec_club.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/sale.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_pfi.html

Heather's due date was Thursday, no baby yet... House is ready though...
 

9/09/00

Some minor updates... (did these last week or so)

Overview of Chrysler turbo fuel injection system-
http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_pfi.html

Technical Paper on Super 60 Turbo package by Mopar engineer Jerry Mallicoat-
http://idt.net/~gdonovan/s60.html

Been busy, busy busy! The baby is due in 2 weeks or less, the renovating work to the house isn't finished (we found carpenter ants, OY!) I have a wedding to go to on sunday in Long Island (My buddy AJ is tying the knot) so I'm running around like a mad man! It looks like I won't be racing down at MIR in November (WWIII import battle) some knuckle head at the track changes the rules so RACE CARS are excluded!! What's up with that? I hope to be racing down at Cecil County November 4 at Cliff's fun day though... I still have to slip a fresh headgasket into the car and weld up a few pipes so they don't fly off the intercooler runs anymore...

In PC news just replaced my Voodoo 2000 clocked at 180 mhz for a G-force II MX 32 meg- WHEEE!! This sucker is fast!! If your looking for a good upgrade for your V3 for a little over $100 you cannot go wrong. I picked up 50 fps in Q3- 125 fps in 800x600, 100 fps in 1024 x 768, (87 fps with dynamic lighting on in 1024) and this is on my old P3-500 platform! (I sold the K7-650 system after this upgrade)

8/22/00

Updated pages...

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/ten.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/k_car.html

The baby is going to be here in 3-7 weeks!
 

8/18/00

Links to racing videos are here: http://members.xoom.com/minimopar/shelbydodge/

and here: http://members.home.net/lyons96/videos.htm
 

8/13/00

This is how my week went....

Wednesday night found Heather and myself at Englishtown for a wednesday night test 'n tune- it was wall to wall street racers and imports! Time to open a can of whoop ass! The Reliant had a 1/2 hour of running time
on the new engine so the first pass was an easy 22 psi of boost (the lowest setting for my new hybrid T3/T4 turbo) I can out of the hole fairly easy not know what to expect- the timing was set retarded 7degrees because of the new fastburn head (I was going to play with the timing a few degrees at a time- retarding it was a pre-caution due to the fast burn heads faster pressure rise) and I didn't know how the turbo was going to spool so I can out of the hole fairly lazy. The car ran 12.0 @ 113 mph with a 1.81 S.T. Everything looked good so the boost was set to 30 psi and I came out of the hole a little more aggressive and the car rapped off a 11.26 at 120.8 with a 1.76 S.T. I was STOKED! and this was with the intercooler hose popping off on the top end before
the traps!!!!! Man I got 10's in the bag!!! run number three the hose popped off again in the damn burnout box!!!! Run number 4 the car launched ok but the car started breaking up BAD and THEN the intercooler
hose blew once more! ARG!!!

Trailing the car back home I was wondering why the car crapped out on the last pass and when I did a check over the next morning I found the reason- Busted number 1 spark plug ceramic (OUCH!) While I was dwelling
on this new problem I came to the conclusion that my double core intercooler was NOT flowing enough air and this was causing the hoses to blow off and it had to be replaced- yet how was I going to get one in time for the import race next week at Cecil County? DOUBLE ARG!!

While I was cruising the countryside clearing out every Peterbuilt truck dealer of the superdudybadtotheboneneverblowoff hose clamps a solution hit me- I would reinstall a FACTORY intercooler in the stock location and "Y" into the existing plumbing! YIPPEE! LOL! AND IT WORKED!!!

The problem of the broken spark plug required a bit more thought & research but I seemed to come up with a fix- I'm going to keep this one to myself for a bit till I'm sure!

Well we loaded up the car and Heather and myself headed south to Cecil County friday morning- we were going to hit the track friday night for a test & tune to make sure the car was running perfectly before stomping
the crap out of a pack of imports saturday morning... The very first pass the car left HARD and was screaming when at the 1/8 mile the damn car blew off a DIFFERENT hose! damnit! $%^$#^!! It was only pipe I didn't weld a lip onto!! Steve Menegon and myself busted out a pair of vise grips and a file and quickly bent a "lip" onto the offending pipe and reassembled everything in a hurry (I wanted to get back out to the track, Cecil is JAMMING on a friday night)

Aug. 12, 2000 7:14 P.M.

Relentless made a 10.98 pass at 126 mph with a 1.82 S.T! Man what a RIDE! The track feels like it's paved with cobblestones at 3/4 track (unlike e-town which is like driving on plate glass) and the car was vibrating so bad I could barely read the gauges!! I kept thinking "1450-1450-1450" as I watched the EGT gauge and tried to keep the car going in a straight line with the rear of the car dancing around! I swear I could hear Steve a'holloring all the way down at the far end of the track! He was hopping up and down like a 5 year at the starting line after the car broke into the 10's! He-he! The crowd went NUTS! I headed back to the pits to give the car a look over (and make sure all the intercooler hoses where still hanging in there) and wheeled back into staging... I dialed in a littttttle more boost and came out of the hole a tad more aggressive and the car clicked off a picture perfect 10.86 @ 127 with a 1.74 S.T. At that point it was time to call it a night, as I was loading the car for the trip to Steves place a gentlemen in a new 300 pulled up, rolled down his window and uttered the words that would
make the night perfect-

"Man that is one BAD ass car!"  =)

Amen brother, amen!

Saturday morning we headed back to the track- Steve was racing his GTC today (New clutch) Mike Marra was there with Contraption, Mike Demoss showed up with his GLHS and there were a few other Shelby Dodges among
the imports... Car passed tech no problem (NHRA 10.00 legal thank you very much!) all though the tech inspector asked me what it will run and I told him I was shooting for low 11's today.. He laughed and said are you sure about that? I was here last night!! We both laughed and I explained that I was more interested in test'n tune today then trying to break records- wouldn't you know the damn car made a liar out of me on the first pass by running a 10.92 at 117 mph (a different hose was popped off damnit!) Steve and myself sliced ourselves to death getting the darn hose back on (It's a REAL tight fit and right off the turbo! can you say HOT!!!) For some reason my first pass was not counted as qualification for the FWD quick 8 and I made a second pass-  Unfortunately right behind a car with an oil leak that misted the track with oil!! still Relentless was up to the task at hand and ran a 11.2 at 125mph with the slicks spinning well into 2nd gear!! people in the stands were amazed to see a k-car spinning the slicks PAST them in the grandstands out over 150 ft! The time was good enough to give me the number 2 spot on the ladder (Mike Demoss had the number 1 spot by a few hundreds of a second) Well after that we hung out and waited for the Quick 8 to begin, and waited... and waited.... It seems that there wasn't enough cars entered at the track for the sponsors to make the full pay out so they combined the RWD and FWD classes! It figures! There was a low 10 second rotary MG roadster there that day! ahh well anything could happen....

First round had me paired up against a 10.4 RWD Toyota somethingorother with a big wing in the back- ouch! When they called out on the PA that they were sticking us with the faster RWD cars I installed the bottle in the car (thats correct- all passes this weekend were made without NOS) and felt that I could give him a run for the money. As it was they were running a pro tree and it threw both of us off and as luck would have it it was a double bog launch by BOTH of us and HE had the better reaction time but Relentless recovered first and sprinted like mad to the finish line running 11.5 at 127 to the other racers 12.44 at 132 mph!

Round two had me a paired against a 11.3 VW rabbit (the event sponsor no less) and we haggled over lane choice and I lost the coin toss- A good thing as it turned out as a VW powered roadster puked it's engine in his lane right in front of him! The odds where in my favor with the faster car and better lane now but I wasn't taking any chances as I left him at the tree with a 7 tenths better reaction time and never looked back with a smoking 10.97 @ 127 mph pass.

Round three had me pitted against the darn RWD 10.2 MG roadster- I'd need every trick I could think of to beat this guy! A quick look under the hood of the k-car showed another damn hose coming off! Steve and Mike ran off to get me an extra clamp and we worked like mad to get the hose on tighter and stuff the clamp in- I planned on upping the boost a tad and didn't want to loose the hose! Well to make a long story short I managed to tree the guy but his car pulled an AMAZING 1.49 short time and his car ran a 10.2 @ 132 mph to my loosing 10.95 @ 128 mph (33 psi). It was the best I could do and then some but was just totally out tractioned and out powered- I tried hitting the bottle in second gear but it made the car misfire and I shut it down at once to prevent any damage. Still second place was good for a nice trophy and $200 bucks!

Steve beat his best time by running 12.77 at 113 mph!!! That's one JAMMIN Lebaron GTC! Mike Marra ran some high 12's with Contraption and Mike Demoss also beat his personal best with a 11.2. (Mike had some real tough breaks this weekend between a  minor oil leak and getting pulled at the starting line for a splashed bit of water I think he got 1 good pass in all weekend, that sucks)
 

The List

I would like to give my thanks to friends and family who helped me run 10's- without your help and advice (and parts in some cases) I would never pulled it off! In no particular order....

Paul Smith, Cliff Ramsdale, Steve Adley, Cliff Sebring, Dan Carson, Steve Menegon, Dave Skrab, Marc S., Gus Mahon and if I missed anyone I'm sorry!!!

Anthony Berge gets a high five for donating transmission guts and doing the bulk of the tranny work- this thing is assembled with off the shelf parts and it LIVES, it's been the perfect guinea pig and been hammered on since the car made it's debut July of last year with nothing more then a converter & fluid change.

Mike Demoss at Forward Motion gets a special thanks for supplying me with parts and service- not to mention picking his brain for 8 hours one day! Mike's given me insights on some of the problems of running one of these engines hard and without his help I would have just been repeating mistakes that have already been made...

Nic at TAFT for for coming to my rescue with a 24 hour shipped turbo when turbonetics dropped the ball..

A very, very special thanks to... 5DIGITS for putting up with my 1001 questions and insight on what make these engines tick... (and live)

A very, very, very, very, special thanks to.... My fiancé Heather for putting up with my madness (otherwise known as race season) and being there to support me when things were tough!

Later! I'm outta here! Links to the videos later!!!!

Gary Donovan

07/17/00

My friends it's time for me to say good-bye - at least for a little while anyways till I figure out how much time I have in the future after the baby is born. (outstanding time management isn't one of my stronger assets) Sept. 21'st will be here soon and I have many things to attend to before then (the downside to being a homeowner of a 100 year old house) there is bedrooms to sheet rock, home repairs/improvments to be made, customers cars & pc's to fix and numerous others things to be handled before then. I have enjoyed building the website (with your help) as well as being an administrator to the mailing list with Gus, however.... there is just so many hours in the day and I'm finding it harder and harder to justify the hours I spend in the morning (And in my free time, or in all honesty when I'm just slacking off when I should be hauling ass doing work) answering e-mails and doing site updates with a baby on the way and stuff to do.

I have a transmission article I have been asked to write for Mopar Action- this will be my last major "tech article" of any sort aside for something I promised for Barry and the SDAC newsletter.

 I'm going to try and stay away from the computer except for answering e-mails on sunday mornings- please don't be disappointed if they are somewhat short in reply or it's a week before I can get to them. I'll try to peek in daily if I can but really need to stay away from the computer a bit- it's way too easy to spend several hours doing relatively nothing of great importance.

I have enjoyed sharing what I have learned racing with you- and the other side of the coin is I have enjoyed learning from you as well.

As soon as Gus is back from his vacation it will be time for me to unsubscribe from the mailing list (and doing major site updates)- I don't mean to sound dramatic but this is my first child and I don't know really what to expect! LOL! Things may go fairly smooth and I will have more free time then I thought... we will see.

Gary Donovan

p.s. IF time permits Relentless will be going to the track before September. Big IF.
 

07/16/00

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_air_and_fuel.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_engine.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_transmissions.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_turbo_3.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_turbos.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_electronics.html
 

And more to come here later...

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/5digits_history.html
 

07/14/00  (second edition)

Sunday:

Well Sunday morning at 6:00 a.m. Heather and myself where pointed south to begin our 750+ mile journey to SDAC-10.  Following behind was Ed from Long Island driving Ken Adlers 87 Shelby Charger, Ken had purchased it from a local New Englander and Ed was driving it out to SDAC in Ann Arbor Michigan so he could pick it up (It was his 14 year old daughters suprise present!) Things were going pretty well till he hit Pennsylvania when the Charger decided we were far enough away from home to break. and break. and break. First it was the shifter, then the alternator wiring decided it would join in the fun a bit and then the shifter fell apart again. (Tie wraps don't work well near exhaust systems) all in all it took 17 hours to make a 13 hour trip! It was worth it meeting Ken and his family (who are from the Cincinnati area) The car was a complete suprise for the daughter Tristen!

Monday:

Monday was the driving school at Michigan International Raceway- a huge oval track which doubles as a road course (half the track was blocked off with the infield having a number of s-curves and a good hairpin) The day was overcast and there was good fast racing till it started raining which slowed things down a bit.  One racer hydroplaned in his 87 GLHS in turn one and put a damper on the spirited driving- the driver was ok but looked to be write-off after going into one of the track barriers backwards and sideways!!  I shot several minutes of video on one of the corners and on the main straight-aways where several cars were making 130 mph passes!

The rest of the day was spent shmoozing with members of the club (I wasn't doing any racing today) and checking out some really neat rides.  It was pretty cool to see Cliff Sebring, Jon Johnson, Matt Green, Barry Miles and other people I know making hot laps on something other then a dragstrip.  Heather is even interested in doing some road coursing! We are going to head up to Lime Rock on a friday night when it's a street event and get her feet wet to see how she likes it- perhaps I will be building a FWD road course car next year...

Tuesday:

Drag Racing at Milan Dragway!!  Ken Adler was good enough to loan me his 87 GLHS since the k-car was sidelined- The car had run a best of 13.2 at 107 and I was hoping to present him with a 12.90 timeslip by the end of the day. The first pass the car cut a 2.00 short time (the best it's done all year, on a greasy track no less) but I wasn't quite used to the 520 shifter in an l-body and went from 2nd to 5th!  On the next pass I uttered the words "Now I know what to do next" and this happened:
 
 

The lights came down and I dropped the hammer, there was a loud "SNAP" and that was that.  The intermediate u-joint failed, levered the shaft against the block, broke the extension housing off then busted the diff housing  clean off the case!!!  OH MAN!! I was bumming!!!  Ken took it all in stride- he was planning on replacing the trans with one with a lower gearset which he picked up at the swap meet for $150 and after a few hours of wrenching by himself and friends he was all back together (not in time to make a pass though) Let me tell you Ken is a saint!  I would have freaked out I think if someone was driving my daily driver and that much carnage had happened on the starting line of a track- Ken was always looking on the bright side said he wanted to change the trans anyways and THANKED ME for doing it in such a way his wife couldn't complain about the cost!! Man I need to take some lessons from Ken about not getting bent out of shape when things go wrong!!

Well looking at the prospect of being at a dragstrip and not racing looked fairly grim- Once more the Daytona was asked to pinch hit for the Donovan family.  After tossing everything out of the car it was ready to go and after 3-4 passes it ran 13.7 @ 105 mph on street tires! Totally unprepared, old spark plugs, medium boost a/c belt and all!  I was happy and promptly turned the boost down a bit and gave every warm body that wanted a ride a pass down the track!  Ken's wife and daughter got a ride (Ken wanted them to catch a little racing fever) Garry Mckissick rode in the shotgun seat for a blast as well as a few others (taking care that none of the passes were faster then 14.0)

 It was a great pleasure to see many people from the mailing list (and old friends) there as well as some very excellent rides- Dave St.Louis, Dean Stillie, Chris Pace, Ken Adler and his family, Angelo Taylor, Paul Smith and his family, Garry McKissick, Paul Velliky (nice, err... ride bro!), David Zelkowski, Carsten Ramcke, Paul Fosen, Murray and his wife, Dempsey Bowling (1700 miles! yikes!), the whole wild crew from Canada (I'm drinking with them next year, those boys know how to party!), Jeff Chojnacki, Nick and Nic, Mike Bachman and many, many others (I'm bad with names, sorry if I missed anyone!!!) It was a great event (the streaker wearing nothing but a helmet and a slick was hysterical!!)  The ride home though Canada was uneventful and the Daytona even managed to pull down 36 mpg cruising at 80-85 mph! (must have been the Canadian air!)

Some pictures of the event can be found here:  http://members.xoom.com/overlands/sdac/

Cya!
 

07/14/00  (first edition)

Something that I think is important enough to be brought up is membership in the Shelby Dodge Auto Club

http://www.sdac.org/

It's only $24 a year- membership in one of the mailing lists is NO replacement for being a member in the club. The national conventions cannot be missed!! I have been to three (4, 5 & 10) and it's like a huge family reunion with people from all over the US and Canada- Imagine 4-5 days of nothing but FWD Mopars (S.Dakotas and Shelby Can-am cars too) dyno days, tech seminars, Speakers from Chrysler (DID you know 2.2's are being made in China!!!!????), car shows, road-coursing , auto-crossing and drag racing- Imagine doing high speed 130mph+ blasts on M.I.R. front stretch!! The only way events like this will continue to happen is if YOU join the club.

Your club dues help offset cost of the newsletters and track rentals- M.I.R. alone was $6000-$8000 for the day!!! (I think it was $8000) it was $2000 for the dragrace part of the program. Even with $185 to race (and learn from pro instructors) at the M.I.R. driving school and $40 to race at the dragstrip the club still took a loss staging the events.

The SDAC is a NON-PROFIT organization!! there books are open to the public!! Barry Goodall, Barry Miles, Ray, Jon, Cliff and others make NO money off our entry fees NOR do they collect any pay for their efforts.

As a my contribution to the club- Barry says he would like some tech articles for the newsletters which I have agreed to do. In support of the newsletter I will NOT mirror the article on my website till the newsletter
has been shipped.

In my mind to many people feel the mailing lists are a replacement for SDAC- this could not be farther from the truth.  All you have to do is go to but one of the national conventions and you would be a believer.

The mailing lists are a great way to exchange information and "meet" fellow members on line- to meet, smooze, drink, help fix each others cars and race with them in person at the yearly SDAC nationals is the real treat which will never be forgotten.

Gary Donovan

More in a bit....

07/05/00

No K-car at SDAC-10.

I apologize to everyone who was hoping to see the car run, many obstacles have been placed in my path the last few weeks but the latest is just to much to overcome in the amount of time I have to work in.

My thanks to TAFT for supplying me a T3/T4 hybrid turbo in such a short amount of time, sadly Nic's and my efforts have been for naught. This was to be my last race of the year due to having my first child due in September and I'm bitterly disappointed the car could not make it to SDAC.
 

06/29/00

Well I have a new forged piston shortblock (installed)

No new head (yet)

No new turbo.

No racing at e-town.

06/22/00

06/21/00

New Stuff's

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/five_digits.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/11_sec_club.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/12_sec_club.html

06/19/00

Went to the Clearwater/Hudson river music festival in New York this weekend, click on this link to see what all the noise is about.

Blame G.E.

In other news as soon as I'm done working on a customers pc I can boogie down to the machine shop and grab Relentless's new forged piston shortblock. (some assembly required)

Changed picture below by popular demand...
 

06/15/00

06/14/00 (Second edition)

 Been mulling over a few things the last day or two...

1) If you ask me for advice its not the gospel.

I can only relate to you what I have seen or done (or what has been reported to me by reliable folks)

So if you ask me what I think about something it's not cast in stone- be flexible! If your dealing with a vendor and they suggest a change (over my advice) have them explain why-  What comes out of my mouth is hardly the final word when it comes to FWD Mopars.

I'm just passing this along- A reader asked for my advice on a part and I made suggestions, he took those suggestions to a vendor and the vendor suggested a small change which the person I gave the advice was not inclined to go with... I'm sure "but Donovan said" was the last thing the vendor wanted to hear.  The vendor might have been suggesting a less expensive part or one that was easier to obtain- all with an exceptable performance trade off if any at all.

2) Someone made a snide remark to me along the lines of "you sure break a lot of parts"

Normally I don't address this kind of buffoonery but hey why not today.  Here is a breakdown of what happened with all (2) the engines in Relentless...

A) First engine was a guinea pig from 4 years ago (used in 86 Daytona) a broken piston was replaced with another used piston, reused rings and bearings.  Motor ran a best of 11.68.

Failure #1 was collapse and burn through of piston in cylinder 4.  Cause? After installing "double cooler" intercooler very light pinging was noticed (so light passenger didn't hear it) after adding more hi-octane fuel pinging was no longer noted. (I was running a half n' half mixture of 94 & 110) At the time the car seemed to run fine- little did I know that at 30 psi of boost ANY pinging with cast pistons is fatal, I had cracked a piston.

First pass at Atco collapsed the damaged piston, next pass the gasses burned through the cracks in the piston and melted it.  I did NOT have to make the second pass which melted the piston- It was my choice with the full knowledge that the piston was already damaged. (This shortblock is currently being fitted with J&E forged pistons)

B) Engine #2 had 90,000 miles on the shortblock- It was tossed in so I could finish last years season and it ran a best of 11.4@113 mph.  Engine was damaged first race at Atco (04/30/00) and several passes were made on the car.  The only problem being due to high backpressure in the exhaust manifold the car was breaking up.  Leaning out the fuel mixture eased the breakup problem but number 4 cylinder showed evidence of detonation on the plug.  I made the call to lean out the fuel mixture further and the car made a 11.5 pass with no breakup but cylinder 4 suffered a slightly melted piston top.  From this I learned that the backpressure issue in the exhaust manifold had to be addressed and the "stagnant cooling" issue on cylinder number 4 had to be also handled.  A header and better flowing turbine was the solution for the backpressure and my relocated coolant outlet mod fixed the stagnant coolant problem.

C) Engine #3 was #2 with three used pistons in it- I would have assembled a forged piston shortblock but J&E had them on intergalactic backorder and rather then miss Mopars at Englishtown I slapped together this unit.

It had no new rings OR bearings! (It also had one rod bolt that was a little on the "soft" side, since I was pressed for time and the motor cost me nothing I let it slide)

Saturday during tuning the engine hit 1550 degrees and piston #3 cracked and piston #1 the crown started to come off the piston.  Repairs were made (more used pistons and rings) with help from my friends in 4 hours flat, and plans were made to return the next day.  Car ran a best of 11.24 and I started to figure something out- As the power goes up more fuel is needed to keep the engine cool. This explains why the Grand National guys making big power run as cool as 1200 degrees! My Target EGT used to be 1550 and I had run as high as 1700 in the past- those temps at the current power levels however are death to pistons.  Another lesson learned.  On sunday the car ran a best of 11.14 and after 4 more passes the car developed a slight rod knock- I wasn't suprised considering the bearings had 90,000 miles on them, had been out of the motor TWICE and had a rod bolt that was stretching like taffy when  we tried to torque it to spec on saturday during our parking lot rebuild.  The car made a final pass rod knock and all, ran 11.42 first round on a 11.50 dial in, and WON on a double breakout- Relentless left the field of battle under it's own power.

How much did all this engine breakage cost me? 4 headgaskets, 15 quarts of oil and 4 oil filters. $135

Not too shabby.

PLUS with what I learned I know what to do to keep my forged piston shortblock alive pass after pass- rather then damaging a set of $500 J&E's to learn the same thing.  Now you know the rest of the story...

06/14/00

Good morning!  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_coolers.html has been updated again!

Jeffrey Goggin Audi enthusiast has passed along some good information on Audi intercoolers (including how to keep them exploding)  Check out his webpage at: http://members.aol.com/oorque/

If you have been paying attention you will see that website had a few pages return- they were taken down to save space as new articles went up.  Gus, Tony, Benzo, Steve & Steves pages are all now resting on 50megs.com's webserver which gives me another 1.6 megs to play with for the technical stuff on the IDT main server.  Of course there is direct links to these pages from my main page- sorry for the banner ad's on those pages, the price you pay for free server space. And speaking of free space I have done a new page- The Dodge Garage image archive, a large collection of images that have been posted to the mailing lists or last years news pages.

Page I'm working on: http://www.dodgegarage.com/jon.html

Jon has a CSX-T that has gone from 15.5 at 85 mph to 13.8 at 102!  I'll be working on the page later today...
 

06/12/00

What a boring weekend, cracked ribs suck. (I don't take well to bedrest, it's not in my nature)

Updated http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_coolers.html  with pictures of a ruptured Audi intercooler.

Shortblock is at machine shop, head is at other machine shop, new turbo on order.

Next race is July 1st import battle at Englishtown N.J. and SDAC-10 is the week after in Ann Arbor MI.

Maybe i'll run up to M&H today and pick up a replacment slick.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by this week- 1600 hits!  Glad you like the site... more to come...

06/09/00

The BOV install page has been updated as well as the parts sale page.

I have a Real Audio clip of Relentless racing Ed Bergenholtz (Mr. 9 second Honda) and holeshotting him- If you wish to see it drop me a line and I'll e-mail it to you, it's fairly amusing.
 

06/07/00 (updated)

I'm thinking about selling a 5th injector setup- Everything you need in one package.

Basic kit:

Pipe with new injector
Lines and tee
Vacuum switch
Adjustable diode for no overboost shutoff
Grainger for boost control

Deluxe kit:

Pipe with new injector (painted)
Lines and tee with clamps (stainless braided lines like my cars optional)
Adjustable diode (for no overboost shutoff)
Cone air filter
Vacuum switch
Grainger for boost control
Cooler thermostat and gasket with "air burp" modification

With it you would be able to run 18-20 psi of boost no problem, were talking a hp increase of 45-55+ hp with a good exhaust system!  (A perfect example would be my 89 Daytona, with nothing more then a 5th injector, good exhaust, and 18 psi it ran 13.6@100 mph)

What do you think? drop me a line...

06/06/00

11.14 @ 122 mph.

It was a long hot weekend-

Headed down friday night and was at the track first thing saturday morning, car breezed through tech inspection (How fast does this thing go?!?!?, heheheh!) and then tooled back to the pits to get ready.

(temps were in the 70's with 45% humidity)

first pass the car blew out the right front slick and I had to swap out one in a hurry, instead of putting both the old slicks on I just replaced one so there was one new slick on left, one old slick on right.

so the first two passes were shakedowns to check the fuel curve, launch and anti-squat gizmo. the second pass was a 11.48 at 116, there was only one tiny problem- due to the differently worn slicks one was a little taller
then the other and the car handled funny (an understatement) I don't recommend doing it! car felt like it was kicked at a 45 degree angle when I lifted off the gas at the top end! I still didn't have time to swap on the
other old slick so they were even and made my last time shot of the day- with the boost set at 32 psi the car ran a 11.24 @ 121.99 mph on a 1.88 ST! man it was hair raising on the top end of the track! after the time shot was
over I swap on the other slick and made another pass which was a 11.43 at 122 with a 1.98 ST (the larger turbo is taking some getting used to out of the hole)

The car had been a tad lean on this pass and had a bit of a slight skip, (you know what that means) Steve Adley, Dave Skrab, Anthony Berge and myself ripped into the motor and replaced 2 of the pistons in 4 hours flat in the middle of the pits with hand tools!  Piston number 3 was cracked and piston number 1 it looked like the crown of the piston was lifting off!!!! People were looking at us in amazement as we went to town on the sucker, they couldn't believe we were fixing the car on the spot. They were really amazed when they found out how
stock the engine was!!! I popped out the rod bearings to show one guy the 1989 date stamp on the bearing shells!

THE COOLING SYSTEM MOD WORKS. ENOUGH SAID.

Anti-squat seems to work, have to be careful on top end lifting off throttle.

Highlights on saturday:

My man A.J. running 13.6 @ 106.9 mph on street tires with a 3200lb 1990 TIII Daytona with a full tank of gas- glad you hit the mark you wanted to bro. Not bad for a car with stock R/T electronics!!

Jon's 88 CSX-T!! (fellow Oakdale CT. resident)  Jon has been parking next to
my Daytona in the driveway and it must be rubbing off! ;-)

last year the car ran a best of 15.5 @85 mph with a 2.5 inch exhaust, an intercooler and 18 psi. This year with a stock g-head, an exhaust manifold he ported himself, a stock TII computer and injectors (he wanted to get rid
of the TI mph cutout) minor lightening of the car (80 lbs) and a Turbo I modified Garret, see:

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_con.html

He went 13.8 at 99 mph with a 2.3 S.T. at the SAME BOOST AS LAST YEAR! He turned up the boost on sunday and ran 102 mph. That's a gain of 1.7 tenths and 17 mph- he's thrilled to have the garrett and says there is no comparison and no going back to a mitsu.

Mike Marra was knocking out the numbers in his red Neon R/T (ran 15's if I remember correct) Mike also waded through several rounds of brackets racing making us FWD guys look good- speaking of which...

Steve Menegon went out and whacked several RWD cars out of the running during brackets and ran a best of 13.06 with his Lebaron GTC!

Sunday on the first pass Relentless rapped off a 11.14 at 122 mph with a 1.86 ST! hoping to get a 10 in I went back and tried again- the car was to rich downstairs however and bogged of the line and ran a 12.5 at 121 mph
with a 2.6 ST (whoops) next pass was a more careful 11.6 at 118 with a 2.0.

After some tweaking of the extra injectors so they came in later and a swap of spark plugs (I was still running the ones from yesterdays engine rebuild) it was off to stage for the first round of brackets- I dialed in the car
with a 11.5 and was pitted against a cummings diesel ram with a 17.7 dial in- a sandbagger if I ever saw one. I was under the tower waiting to pull up to the burnout box and when blipping the throttle noticed the k-car had a
slight rod knock!!!! CRAP! well the engine didn't owe me nothing so I went up did my burnout and staged. The guy in the truck took off and I mashed the pedal to the floor and waited for my lights-

and waited-
and waited-
and waited-
and waited-

6.2 seconds to be precise, it felt like eternity- I was sure the car was going to drag itself through the beams and red light me but nope like a trooper it hung in there and I was off! at the big end of the track I was hauling ass on Mr. Diesel and my closing velocity of nearly 50 mph panicked him as he broke out with a 17.62. I lifted as soon as I approached the lights and coasted through with a 11.42, breaking out less then him by the
slimmest of margins...

Well that's how my weekend went- went 11.1, won a trophy, freaked out every RWD driver in the place and didn't blow up the motor! On the way home Steve Adley (who was racing his 70 Charger 500 for the first time) suffered a catastrophic fan failure not far from the track. We had to cut out 20 rows in the rad!!! 2 things of JB Quick Weld, some hose clamps cut up and some barsleak and we were able to make the long 5 hour drive home (us new england racers come prepared for almost anything, except for broken hood latches
perhaps ;-)

Well my J&E's came in while I was gone, time to put a bulletproof shortblock together.

Next race is on July 1st

p.s. I need a tee shirt that says: That guy with the 4-cylinder on it!

p.p.s. I has some people in the pits in tears they were laughing so hard- I went around a corner with the car and they could see 1.5 inches of daylight under the right rear wheel!

06/02/00

It's time. Lets go racing!  Next post with results will be on Monday.

05/30/00

New pictures: http://idt.net/~gdonovan/ten.html

05/28/00

Has it been only 10 days? I have been busy! the last couple of days has gone by in a blur..

1)  Rebuilt shortblock in Relentless (cough) "rebuilt" in this case means I opened it up, tossed out 3 bad pistons, replaced those pistons with 2 units from last years motor and 1 from Gus Mahons Slugmobile and buttoned it back up.  The rings have 5k, 90k, 15k & 5k on them plus the bearings have 90k. Insane? I have done more with less and have nothing to lose- my new shortblock isn't ready yet. I'll do a leakdown test later today just for ha-ha's to see how the rings are sealing.

2) The k-car fired up again for the first time in a month with the following changes:

A) Forward Motion header and turbo with wastegate & swingvalve of my devising.
B) New lower intercooler hose 2.25 diameter
C) 52 pph injectors with adjustable fuel pressure regulator and rising rate regulator
D) 87 2 piece intake manifold ported for 52 mm throttle body
F) Relocated air filter in nose of car (I can put headlamp back in, cool I get the sleeper look back)
G) Cooling system mod to keep cylinder number 4 cool.

All I have left to do is a trans service, some trans tweaking, some other odd's and ends plus work on some shock replacements for the rear. Aside from that ready to rock and roll June 3rd and 4th at Mopars at Englishtown. This will be the dry run for SDAC-10, after I get back from e-town the new shortblock and torque converter will be installed.

3) Gladiator- Excellent movie, fantastic visuals, good story, a must see.
 

05/17/00

Well I was away on a road trip for a week (1400 miles), visited a few friends (drank some beer, did some bench racing, poked around some race parts) stopped at Forward Motion to pickup a few parts....

It's the new turbo for Relentless, it's REAL BIG! It's a custom job built to F.M. specs.  Combined with the new F.M. header, J&E forged piston shortblock,  reworked fuel systems and electronics the car should really haul ass now. Upgrading the car to 87 Turbo II electronics for a number of reasons (faster ecu, external map sensor, easier chip upgrades), 52 pph fuel injectors with a modified FPR and an adjustable rate of gain pinch valve and perhaps a 2-piece intake.  (Mike at F. M. has a nice hi-flow intake top, hmmm)  Currently I'm waiting on pistons to get the ball rolling, the fuel system will be done today, the turbo already has a 90 degree elbow welded on it to clear the intake and I have to work on the exhaust outlet and wastegate can today as well.  Plus finish remodeling the bathroom. sheesh

New page: The 12 Second Daytona hall of fame (4 members)

05/08/00

I will be away for a few days or more, please no e-mail at this time- I'm backed up about 30 or so as it is, sorry to anyone who is waiting for a reply, i'll get back to you in a few days...

05/05/00

Is it me or could the "drive through" food services industry hire some people who can hear?  I'm getting tired of going to Burger King or Dunkin Doughnuts and getting shafted on my meal- mind you if it was once in a blue moon I would not complain, but it's been like 50% of the time lately!  What's so hard to understand about a number 6 with a coke? hello? hello? black and sweet, no comprenda english? BLACK with SUGAR in it damnit, I even go as far to say "black with FOUR sugars" what's so hard about that? They still fuck it up, geeze I received a sandwich last week that was still frozen in the middle, what are you people trying to do kill someone?

WHAT'S SO HARD ABOUT REPEATING THE DAMN ORDER BACK TO THE CUSTOMER MORON.

I swear I'm going to go postal one of these days, it's like we live in an age where nobody takes pride in their work anymore- this includes goods as well.  I picked up an RCI race jacket from Summit last year, I have to get one of the seams restiched after wearing it ONCE because the threads are just falling out!! I'd send it back to RCI but for some reason they seem to have gone out of business.  It's as if some companies don't take pride in their craftsmanship anymore and it's more of a contest to see just how much low they can go before customers no longer buy from them.  Hello Mr. Manufacture?  I'm willing to pay a reasonable price for quality goods.

And get some good help while your at it.

04/30/00

Here is how my weekend went...

(THE TRACK CONDITIONS WERE VERY POOR)

The night before it rained, then the scraped ALL the rubber off the track, street cars were putting down lots of radial rubber down AND the track guys were using almost NO VHT to treat the track. All in all NO ONE was getting traction this saturday even the big boys.

8:15 passed tech inspection with flying colors

11:22 Pass number 1, no NOS

Against Eddie Bergenholtz!!! Mr. Top Fuel Import!

I treed him by .010 and had a slightly better S.T. 1.76 vs 1.78 and it was door handle to door handle to the 330 mark (4.82 to 4.71) and then he just lit off like a rocket! at the 1/8 mile it was 7.4 to 6.9 and by the end of the quarter I had run a 11.7 at 113 to Ed's 10.5 at 141 mph! he picked up 31 mph from the 1/8 mile to the end of the track, the k-car only picked up 20.

Passes 2, 3 & 4 were 40 hp NOS runs

11.48, 118.9 mph, 1.83 ST
11.71, 116.8 mph, 1.92 ST
11.73, 114.1 mph, 1.96 ST

 Car was breaking up badly as the day went on- EGT's were erratic and tried changing the fuel curve, cam timing and distributor timing had little effect on the car.

Pass Number 5, NO NOS

11.48 ET, 113.5 mph, 1.75 ST <-- cars best NO NOS pass to date

Pass Number 6, NO NOS (still trying to tune)

11.76 ET, 113.3 mph, 1.94 ST

Pass number 7, (Half NOS pass, 3rd only)

This was a fun pass- I was pitted against a RWD rotary Datsun with wheelie bars! I treed the guy with a .552 light but had a nasty ST of 2.02! his ST was a 1.5 but he was sleeping with a high 500 light. It was door handle to door handle again at the 1/8 mile 7.75 vs 7.6 and 9.96 vs 9.95 at the 990 mark. on the top end Mr. Rotary was starting to breath a bit and I wasn't putting up with any of that as I looked over at the guy and armed the NOS system and hit the switch Relentless won the race 11.94 at 117 to the guys 11.97 at 119! LOL! shame I had such a crappy launch...

Pass number 8.

11.56 at 118.9 with 1.88 ST.

This is the pass that broke the car- I leaned the car out because the EGT's were on the fat side to the tune of 1400-1450 or so. I was a little worried doing this because cylinder number 4 where the EGT probe is was showing signs of salt'n pepper on the plug even with the mixture pig rich! however I had the car up to 1650 last year with no ill effects so figured it was worth a try. Car pulled hard and the breakup problem gone! I was so suprised I forgot to hit the NOS trigger till I was well in to 3rd gear and the car was screaming down the track- EGT was 1600 through the traps and everything seemed ok till I got on the return road and:

1) right front slick was flat
2) slight skip

Went and got the truck, changed the tires and headed back to the pits.  Car had a skip that came and went, number 4 piston is cracked but no too bad.

Things learned this weekend:

1) upgraded fuel system fattened up car- much shorter lines (by about 20 feet, lol) and higher voltage to pump richen mixture up.

2) Turbo and exhaust manifold hurting car performance- based on weight loss  car should have picked up several mph but did not, exhaust manifold and turbine wheel raising backpressure to extreme levels preventing car from running better mph. Even upping the NOS from 40 hp to 60 hp did not raise NOS mph from 118. Time to pitch turbo and manifold.

3) coolant flow problem with cylinder number 4 needs to be addressed- even  when fuel curve was pig rich (1400F EGT) and fuel octane was raised from 110 to 115, cylinder 4 spark plug showed evidence of detonation. I have an idea to fix this that's so stupidly simple its a wonder no one has though of it before... (perhaps someone has and isn't telling ? =)

4) S-60 can hit 32 psi (whoa!)

In 2 weeks hope to be hitting the track again, hope Forward Motion has pistons in stock...
 

04/28/00

Hear that noise? it's the fat lady warming up..   10's this weekend or I'm going to break it.
 

04/23/00

New pictures of Relentless are here- http://idt.net/~gdonovan/ten.html

The 4 inch exhaust system installed
The new and improved trunk
A sunroof

That's about it for now....

(The jackstand picture has been moved there as well)

04/22/00
 

Bought home a new car last night- what should I do with it? Keep it? or parts!
 

04/15/00

Sale page updated again with 88 Shelby Z for sale.

04/10/00

The "Ten second page" has been updated with what's going on with the k-car as well as new pictures!

04/09/00

Hey check this out!  This was sent to me by some lamer with a anon-hotmail account (too bad I traced his IP to mlc-wels.edu, didn't know hotmail included the ip string in the headers did ya?)

What a waste of time.  Here's an idea, how about you drop a small-block V-8
into your riding lawn mower, then you would probably run 8s and have a lot
more style too!!! HAHAha   AHahahH H  hahA a aAahhAhaha ha  ahAH AHa (gasp)
HAH a A HhA AHAa aH aA H(wheeze) aHa aHa HA aH ah a(stop it your . .. ) AHaH
aHA ah(killing  . .. me) ahA HAH aH aHaHA hhAha!  Mopar is short for MOre
PARts than normal needed to repair.

It's a real shame that someone from a College of Ministry would be sending me e-mail like this. Feeling a little insecure my friend? Poor little k-car get your panties all in a bunch?

Too bad, get over it.

04/08/00

The sale page has been revamped- I have a few cars & trucks for sale as well, they have been added there too...
http://idt.net/~gdonovan/sale.html

Wonder what I have been doing the last few weeks on the k-car? Here is a list...

hole sawed a lot of holes in rear trunk/frame rail area (wore out 4 hole saws and one new drill)
gutted trunk floor and removed fuel cell, floor replaced with 20 thousands thick aluminum
removed factory fuel lines (4 pounds)
gutted and installed replacement rear trailing arm (15 pounds)
new rear brake shoes and hardware, milled dust lip off rear drums for weight savings
removed front bumper (need to make aluminum support this week) 25 pound savings
gutted drivers door and added aluminum door panel, replaced glass with plexiglass
removed factory door panel on pass door (already gutted) and replaced with aluminum door panel
replaced rear bumper support screws with rivets (weight savings)
designed new fuel cell, had it constructed and installed in right front of car
installed new fuel lines & pump in right front
installed relay for fuel pump hooked directly to battery
made battery box in LEFT front side of car below power module (of aluminum of course)
installed and secured 12 pound 235 amp lawn mower battery (17 pounds lighter them Omni battery I was using)
replaced steel bracket on intercooler with aluminum
lopped off threads on various bolts that were too long with sawzall (weight savings)
removed headliner (8 POUNDS) removed an extra ceiling cross brace
replaced rear window with plexiglass, saved 10 pounds
replaced solenoid bank on pass/side shock tower with resistors (weight savings/looks neater)
removed pinch valve/regulator setup (weight savings/looks neater)
removed hood insulation and hood lamp & wiring
removed wiper motor and all linkage
removed rear seat brackets and bracing
removed rear seat aluminum firewall (no longer needed due to removal of fuel cell from trunk area)
designed and had Epping track officials approve new roll bar (still need to construct and install)
test valve clearances  of Turbo III cylinder head on 2.5 common block

04/02/00

Image of the month page has been updated!

Spent all day yesterday working on the k-car removing weight.  I had a circle track buddy visit a few weeks ago with his digital scales and the car is 2435 lbs with my 205 pound self behind the wheel.  I figure as of this week 174 pounds has been removed from the car and another 30 or so has been relocated to the front so I'm fairly pleased.  Still I have another 50 or more pounds to go because the rollbar will add to the car.

Weight distribution on the front was 882 pounds on the drivers side and 799 on the passengers- not good! But inflating the left rear airshock to 90 psi evened out to fronts to within 3 pounds of each other!!

You guy's have really been starting to hit the page!  I generally get 600-700 hits a week and it has been slowly going up till 3 weeks ago it spiked to 900, 2  weeks ago the counter hit 1089 and this week we topped out at 1195!!!

Must be the start of race season eh? =)
 

03/30/00

Well HI!

Sorry I have been a tad busy of late! Things that are going on....

1)  Going to be a dad in September!  What can I say? It's going to be my first and it's too cool for words!
2) Work has begun on the K-car!  Major weight whacking has begun.... The plan is to loose 200 pounds or more before installing the rollbar making the car 10.00 legal...

Stay tuned!

02/28/00

Uploaded a new page this weekend: http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_bov_install.html

It basically walks you through installing a Talon BOV flange on a piece of 2.25 pipe so you can install the valve.

Damnit, it's the end of February and I haven't done a damn thing to the k-car yet!  Customer work has swamped me for the last month (cars AND computers) and now race season has started and I'm not ready to roll yet... Hopefully the customer work will be done this week (for awhile anyway) and I will be able to concentrate on getting the car ready to go....
 

02/23/00

Updated Turbo database index page with newest to-do list, tips & tricks has been updated, rules have been added to mail list page and Talon BOV mod page has been done and uploaded here.
 

02/19/00

Updated links/vendors page.

Cylinder head page updated (better backcut valve picture & angles and info on "TS" stamping)

It's winter, it snowed, I'm still bored.
 

02/13/00

Updated:

Turbo myths page (the dreaded glowing turbo)
Tips and tricks page ( #16)
Link page (Chris has an excellent page on TII conversion) and Clutchnet (Vendor)
Cylinder head page updated (warning on valve differences between late and early heads)
 

Added:

Frequently Asked Questions page (started)
Image of the month page
Link to Russ's video archive

 It's winter, I'm bored.
 

02/04/00

Finished (for now) shortblock page for turbo database, I'm planning on adding more there I think in a few weeks.  Links are now on one page for vendors and websites, here is a list of some of the other stuff i'll be adding in the future (or have to do period)...

FAQ page
Link to Russ's video archive
Talon BOV mod page
PFI page
Basics page
TI to TII page
Stuff you cannot buy anymore page
Image of the month page
Add 16V 2.2 engine to turbo database (PERHAPS)

I have been working on other things besides my own toys the last few weeks, no work will be done to the K-car or Daytona till the end of the month.

01/20/00

Still plugging away on the turbo database page...

Turbo myths, fact vs fiction-  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_myths.html

Intercooling: What is it and why do I need it? plus links!  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_intercooling.html

Camshafts, Sprockets & Timing Belts (updated)  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_camshaft.html

Ignition System, reading spark plugs (updated)  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_ignition.html

Turbochargers- which one is which? (updated)  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_turbo.html

Tricks & Tips for going fast  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_tricks.html

01/14/00

Cool! The GTX is car of the month over at Kanata!

http://www.pinnaclecda.com/mopar_rides.htm

Page on my 86 Turbo z, reformatted down to 2 pages doubles as Turbo case study page as well (saved 2 pages of html)  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/86daytona.html

Turbo database main index page, redone into sections:  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo.html

Transmission page updated, florida clutch vendor added, starter warning for 84-85 cars swapping to later trans, 2.5 clutch tip, minor reformatting:  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo.html

Turbocharger id and tip page finished last night, still looking for a/r ratios for mitsu turbo.

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_turbo.html

Extra injector page updated with minor reformatting and pictures of Jon's csx-t with 5th injector install (19 psi at 150,000 miles):  http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_extrainj.html

Anyone you know that should be on the turbo supplier link list? http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_links.html

Minor overhaul of Shelby/Turbo picture gallery

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/shelby.html
http://idt.net/~gdonovan/shelby2.html

  Been working around the house (winter does suck with no snow) Doing repairs and upgrades to my D-150 Dodge. Upgraded my computer AGAIN, got an outrageous deal on a K7 Athlon 650 & Motherboard. Not really that pleased with the performance increase, first generation motherboard issues I believe and there appears to be some AGP driver issues as well (texture thrashing in some gaming applications that were not there on the intel platform) rock stable though.

  Was loaned a G-force SDR video card for testing, GOD DAMN this card is fast! (It better be for $264) Takes a 40-50% performance hit in 1024x768 when going from 16 bit color to 32 bit color though. If your going to buy one get the DDR version, it has twice the memory bandwidth as the SDR version and i'm told its only a 5 % hit.  I'm tempted to pick up the DDR version but spring and the new releases are just around the corner...

01/06/00

New stuff:

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_heads.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_intake.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_camshaft.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo_ignition.html

Updated stuff:

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/shelby.html

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/shelby2.html
 

01/04/00

Welcome to the year 2000 edition of Donovans Dodge Garage!

Old news can be found over at http://idt.net/~gdonovan/old_new.html

For the new news the Turbo database page has been updated and broken into 31 easy to load pages!

http://idt.net/~gdonovan/turbo.html

I still have 5 or 6 pages to finish, hope to be finished by the end of this week...