In case Banning didn't call you.....

[1of1547]

In case Banning didn't call you and keep you up to date I will. I finally broke into the 10's and Old Reliable lived up to it's reputation (see Jim's pictures). On Friday night after we found out that accessory bracket was ready to fall off. We scored some bolts to put it back together (thanks, Mr. Cotton). I was planning on packing it up for the night but Banning pushed me to make one last pass. I'm glad he did because it was a 10.99 pass. On Saturday after some launching school from Carl and Banning I knocked off a 10.78 and a 10.70. On my last pass I had a 1.51 60 foot and was on my way to a 10.6X when I popped the head gasket. My best MPH was 126.6. Not too bad for a little PT54 turbo. A big thank you to Bill Anderson for taking time out to edit my program.


I highly recommend going to this event. It is well worth your time and effort to go. I had a blast. The place was very kid friendly. Chuck and his boys kept me entertained all weekend.

[pacecarta]

congrats Doug
banning kept me up on your progress and 10s on a 54 are cool

[A.FERRER]

Cool. Congrats on your new best.Looks like it's time to update your sig.

[1970gsx]

Nice!! How much boost and any suspension mods?

[Making Boost]

Congrats again Doug!!!!

[J Banning]

Doug is downplaying things quite a bit, so let me tell the story from what I saw…

First of all, it was HOT!

The last time Doug ran his car at the track was at the Buick Horsepower Nationals in Indy last year. That’s over one year ago! When he made his first pass at that event he was trying to beat his previous best of a 12.4x at about 108 MPH. By the end of the event he managed a personal best of 11.0x @ 121 MPH!

With that being said, he went into THIS event with a little larger turbo (PT54 from Carl Ijames) and a FAST system from Cal Hartline and tuned by Billy Anderson of Anderson Performance. I had the enjoyment of being Doug’s Crew Chief and pushing him to get the car down the track!

I should also mention that Doug is running other parts on his car that a lot of people say that won’t work properly in a Turbo Buick:
- TH350 trans.
- An off the shelf B&M Holeshot torque converter from Summit Racing.

You can’t go fast with that stuff can you????

Ok, back to the story…

Fade in to Friday morning…

Did I say it was HOT? Air temperatures were in the 95 degree range and the density altitude on Jim Dotson’s weather station read 3,450 feet! The car was running really strong though. Boost was set to 25.2 PSI according to the FAST and Doug was turning HUGE traps speeds with a best of 126.6mph!. The problem though was the car wouldn’t launch on the footbrake. He could only hold about 4-5 PSI and we were seeing dismal 60’ times in the 2.24 range. As impressive as the MPH was, the ETs weren’t. All day he was in the 11.60-11.80 range, and he really wanted to run a 10.99.

The solution? When all else fails, launch with the e-brake!!

Doug went back to an empty section of the pits where he could practice the hand/foot movements of the launch with just a couple of pounds of boost. It was especially tricky since Doug has a full manual valve body in his trans, so not only does he have to switch feet on the e-brake pedal, brake and gas pedal… he also has to switch hands from the e-brake release, to the steering wheel and the shifter! After a couple times practicing it looked like he had it down and off to the staging lanes he went.

Launching with the e-brake was showing promise. You could hear the car spool a lot faster, but he was having problems blowing the tires away (I have a really good video of this I'll post soon ). His ETs were dropping and he was getting close. However, the day was quickly coming to a close and the track would be closing soon. We had about an hour left when Doug came back from making a pass and mentioned something about a noise coming from under the hood. It kinda sounded like a bad water pump or something. Carl and Doug pulled the serpentine belt off and see if the noise stopped (it did), but when they went to put it back on they noticed that the whole accessory bracket (the one that bolts to the head & holds the alternator, belt tensioner, a/c compressor and power steering) was only held on by ONE bolt! All the other bolts had fallen out somewhere! With only an hour left before the track closed we took off on the golf cart and asked everyone we could in the pits if they had any spare bolts. We were having no luck and were starting to think that we were done for the day when after about 6 tries we finally lucked out with Jack Cotton. He pointed us towards a big cardboard box of spare nuts & bolts in his trailer and we found exactly what we needed. THANKS JACK!

With no time to spare we ran back to our pits, bolted everything together, and Doug got back in line with only about 5 minutes left before the staging lanes closed. His reward?

10.99 and a 1.71 60'

The sun was setting at that point and we had to call it a day. We left the track, had a couple congratulatory beers at dinner, crashed at the hotel and planed to start over again the next day.

Fade in to Saturday morning…

It was just as hot as Friday - some said worse. With the MPH Doug was turning on Friday (several 125 MPH runs, 126.6 being the best) we knew the car had more ET in it if we could get the 60’ times down even more. At Indy Doug had gone a 1.59, so we just had to get things figured out. The problem we were having though was that more often than not he’d instantly blow the tires away right off the launch. After a group pow-wow with Carl Ijames, they came up with a launch technique for Doug to use in conjunction with the e-brake. So, armed with this new launch technique Doug went back out to do battle on the 'ol 1320. One or two runs later, BAM… 10.78! His 60’ time was in the high 1.5x low 1.6x range. Boost was at 23 PSI (2 less than the day before).

After a couple more runs and some more practice on the launch...

10.70 @ 124.9 MPH!

His 60’ was a 1.55 60 and boost was at 23 PSI.

Well, there you go. That’s the end of my version of the story. Congratulations Doug!!

[J Banning]

I should also mention the suspension setup is as follows...

Front:
No front swaybar, 47psi in front tires.

Rear:
Stock rear swaybar, 275/60/15 MT Drag Radials set to 17psi, Southside Machine style lower control arms (sold by Lakewood now via Summit Racing), no air in drivers airbag, 30psi in passenger side.

Doug may correct me on this, and the FAST logs will tell, but I believe launch boost off the e-brake was about 12-13psi. This was needed (along with Carl's launch technique to harness the power) since the converter that is in the car now is stalling WAAAAY too low - at 5psi it was only about 2,450 RPM.

[Scott GN231]

YES!!!!! Congrats Doug-- couldn't have happened to a better guy. You certainly earned this one!!

The question is, what will it do on a cold night at Cecil????

[1of1547]

Thanks for the kind words everybody. I've had a lot of help from a lot of Magna members through the years. I am very excited about Old Reliable's results. Most of my good launches were at 12-13 psi just like Banning said. I tried 15 psi and up but it would just blow the tires off of it and make cool videos. Banning had most of my suspension correct except it has adjustable Summit drag shocks front and back. The SS bars are sold by Jegs under the Jegster name.

Other than the bottom end most of the parts on my car have been bought used or won. Bill has taken care of me numerous times with most of my higher dollar purchases. Even thou I didn't buy the FAST from him he gave me a lot of support that he didn't have to. Everytime I sent him a PM about the FAST he always replied. Both Ted and Banning were very helpful as my "Crew Cheifs". They both knew a lot of little tricks that help it go faster. And were patient enough for it to sink through my thick head. The same goes for Carl Ijames. I don't think there is anything electronic about these cars that he doesn't know.

[ijames]

Congrats, Doug! It's not everyone who picks up over a half a second each time out to the track. Just think about the next time, at Cecil :-).

Oh, it was hot, and then it got hotter, and then the sun came out, and, well, you get the idea.

[Nordy racer]

congrats Doug.. thats great MPH and ET.. wait in till you hit Cecil up on a cold Friday or Wednesday night.. WATCH OUT

[84BuickGNYorkPA]

Guys,
It was great to get to know Doug over the weekend a little bit. Andrew my youngest son really wouldn't let Doug or Banning alone all weekend, but you know I think that they where asking for it .
Doug a big Wow, you stuck with it untill you Carl and Banning figured it out. You where really hauling *ss down that track, you made us all proud in the stands, we where yelling and raising our fists as you went flying by, great job! On one of my pictures I have your last pass I believe before the head gasket let go.

Chuck

[J Banning]

Sh!t to Hell!!

[J Banning]

A couple quick pics before I go to bed...



The man and his machine:




Doug with his race face on:




Comparing timeslips - doug was on track to beat his 10.70 run till the 1,000 mark:




Hey... how'd this joker get in here? That's SHOCKING!!

[J Banning]

Oh, what the hell... one last one

(Sorry Doug, I couldn't resist!)


Not many people know this about Doug, but at times he is just like a gecko - he can match his skin tone to his surroundings. In this case, while in Columbus he was able to match the skind tone on his neck to the color of his truck!!!