May 7, 2010

There was no time for a last report prior to our departure for the Mitty, as the car was completed, well, almost completed, the night before!

Five Days Before Departure

At 10:30 at night, after installing the temporary FS5W63A gearbox, it was noted that the new clutch would not release. At this point, we feared we would not make it, but failure was not an option.

Four Days Before Departure

We made a couple of phone calls to inquire about our clutch dilemma and received similar responses regarding some flyweights used by this brand of clutch. Out comes the gearbox and clutch, again. We analyzed the problem and it was confirmed that the flyweights were interfering. The offending “extra part” was removed and all put back together – the clutch worked! We called it a day by 11:00 pm, but we still needed an exhaust pipe, a distributor, corner balancing and alignment.

Three Days Before Departure

Alex and Christian cleaned the car and trailer and took it to the muffler shop, while I worked on the new Pertronix-equipped distributor. This distributor would check OK on the bench, but the engine refused to start with it. While the car was on the rack at the muffler shop, it was noticed that one of the rear wheel stub shafts had backed out. It was very fortunate that this was noticed, as it would have been disastrous if the half shaft would have come out while on the track. The nut that holds the stub shaft had not been staked by a previous owner and had fallen out, but held captive by the U-joint flange. Luckily, there was no damage. The nut was reinstalled, torqued and staked. The other stub axle was checked and the nut was found to be tight, but not stacked. This was corrected.

Two Days Before Departure (Sunday)

After not finding any fault with the Pertronix, it was decided to build, from scratch, a dual point distributor. It was tested in our street 510 at Nestor’s house, but no time to install it in the racecar, which was at another location.

One Day Before Departure

Still running on the distributor borrowed from the old 510 wagon that saved the day at Sebring, we went to the alignment shop. Incredibly, corner balancing and suspension adjustments were uneventful! The distributor was the last planned item. It would have to be installed at the track.

Finally The Mitty

Since there was a Datsun reunion, we had to take our red 510 that we’ve owned since new. It hadn’t been on a long trip in decades, and there was only time to check tire pressures and oil level. However, we did not anticipate any problems for the 1500-mile round trip, since this car’s maintenance is always up-to-date. It ran as expected.
We enjoyed meeting so many Datsun people at the BRE dinner and Datsun corral. Factory racecars and Ron Carter’s #46 240Z replica were incredible. Meeting the original BRE Team members, legends we had only seen and heard of in magazines in the last 40 years, was also an experience not to be forgotten.

Now to the racing:

The dual point distributor ran flawlessly. Our racecar went on the track 10 times. The first time out, we noticed we had unstable fuel pressure; a new regulator corrected this. Earlier problems with the starter casting cracking came back. One cracked, then the spare cracked after only one outing. The problem appears to be caused by some vibration resonance and not just weak castings, as our newly designed alternator tensioner bracket also cracked. A replacement starter was located at an auto parts’ store 43 miles from the track. We rushed out to get it in the red 510 and got back with 20 minutes to spare. This time we tried something new to keep the starter from falling apart. It must have helped, as there were no more starter failures in the last four track outings. Weld modifications to a spare bracket for the alternator were made with the help of the Porsche folks at the 901 Shop, who were very accommodating. The modified bracket was installed at the same time as the last starter, and it also held. The car only required topping off the fuel cell for the final four track sessions.

We gradually improved our confidence as we acclimated to the new track. Changes we had made to the braking system and suspension worked, and we soon got into a good rhythm and consistent lap times. We earned second place in class on our last race on Sunday afternoon. More improvements are on the way, but finally feel we can be competitive!

We were presented with an award by none other than Pete and Gayle Brock for 2nd Place BRE Datsun 510 Tribute Car. First place went to Bob Leitzinger. This was truly an honor. Also, while looking through racecar photos at a kiosk, we found a photo of our own 510 on the track. Needless to say, we purchased it.

As always, we thank all those fans and fellow competitors who stopped by and certainly appreciate all the nice comments. Visiting with old friends we hadn’t seen in many years completed a fabulous weekend.

Until next time …

Where do I start! Pete Brock of BRE fame, who ran the Factory Datsun Trans-Am Team in the early ‘70s, stopped by with his wife, Gayle. They were very supportive of our effort, spent a long time with us and gave us some pointers. We had some unexpected problems on track with systems that had not been touched since we got the car. These problems are a testament of how much development a new racecar requires.

Problem #1: Gear selection has been a problem and has gotten worse. We suspect it may be costing several seconds per lap. We expect to have the direct drive Option 1 F5C71B gearbox for the Mitty at Road Atlanta at the end of April. The new gearbox has some history; more on this later.

Problem #2: An apparent failure of the distributor shaft bushing allowed the shaft to wobble, causing damage to the Pertronix unit; we came in the pits in the 1/2-hour race and DNF with a lap to go. This was very unfortunate, as we were having a good run with Orie Voightmann in another Datsun 510. We had meant to rework the failed distributor prior to to this event, but ran out of time. A spare distributor, a points unit borrowed from my street 510 wagon that was back in Miami, got us going for the parade laps when the only issue was the difficulty in shifting gears.

Back to the gearbox. The direct drive gearbox is another component we have wanted to install at first opportunity. That opportunity has come, since we’re not going back on track with the worn roadster box. Anyway, the new gearbox had not been tested and, when none other than Bob Leitzinger had his own gearbox fail during practice, we offered ours, and a propeller shaft that goes with it, so he could finish the weekend. We were very happy to be able to help him get back on the track and, since we knew he would not abuse the unit, also felt it was an excellent opportunity to test our new box. Bob went on track the next day for the 1-hour enduro and took our class win with our gearbox! Then, during the Friday 1/2-hour race as we came into the pits a lap from the finish due to our distributor problem, Bob also came in just in front of us … The borrowed gearbox would not go into 5th, and he decided not to risk further damage. Bob wanted to pay for the repairs, but we declined his generosity knowing it wasn’t his fault. We’re glad that this had happened before we fitted it to our car.

The direct drive gearbox was purchased from a supplier in California; after waiting almost 10 months for it to be overhauled, it lasted for only two track outings. We are repairing it ourselves this time.

I have been attending Sebring as a spectator since 1982, and the rest of the team (my two sons) since they were 8 or 9 years old. We have always had a great time, but this time as competitors was the best of all — in spite of all the work during the evenings to get the car back on track.

Thanks to all the dozens of people that visited and chatted with us.

Oh, and how could I forget. We signed our first autograph! See you at the Mitty.

A big thanks to Kim & Bobby, also to Jame for the photos.

We completed the 2009 December Sebring HSR event; we had a blast! There was lots of rain, but, by Sunday, it had cleared and the temperature had dropped from the 70s to the 40s. We actually ran only one practice session in moist conditions. For our first race on Saturday, it looked like the rain would not stop, so we changed to our rain tires, then went back to the dry set one hour before the race.

Our first priority was to finalize our Weber 45 DCOE jetting before the first of two races. We had done some preliminary tests and had made changes to the idle jet, emulsion tube and pump jet, and expected to only make changes to the mains and air correctors at the track. The process went as planned, although it took a bit longer than we had planned. We made stepped changes (three total), then removed the NGK A/F instrumentation.

A couple of minor problems during our first testing session were corrected, then the car went on track five times, requiring only topping off the fuel cell. The two mentioned problems were, in a way, almost comical. Firstly, our new shift knob with the Datsun logo came off in the driver’s hand. Then almost immediately, the driver lost the throttle … literally. The pedal plastic hinge broke and the pedal fell off! The driver completed the session, but heeling and toeing was out of the question.

We replaced the shifter knob and made a quick trip to the hardware store for a brass hinge to repair the gas pedal. Although we had a new gas pedal back home, we think the repaired part has some character to it; maybe we’ll leave it on.

Another problem that was noticed after our second test session was with a new reduction gear starter we had installed a few weeks earlier. The aluminum casting must have been defective and a crack developed that progressed almost all the way around. Luckily, Christian noticed the crack while doing routine checks. We had a spare starter and were lucky that the cracked starter didn’t unzip completely and dropped off on track.

We were hoping to complete our tire temperature checks to arrive at final front and rear settings for camber and toe. Unfortunately, setting the carburetors took longer than anticipated and the only time we had to take tire temperature readings was during a test session, when it was cool and moist, and the tires didn’t really get up to temperature. This will be one of our main priorities for our next race.

Our goal in Vintage Racing is to always keep improving, and this we did. This was our third visit (the two earlier visits were just track tests) to Sebring with this car. Our fastest lap time has improved with each visit.  We plan to make more suspension adjustments to improve our handling.

During our first race, we were excited that the very first pass we made in actual competition was on a very nice vintage Aston Martin. We passed a few other cars, but during the last lap, we put two wheels off coming out of turn 1. Instead of easing the car back on track, we forced it and this caused us to spin. We think we followed the proper procedure of  ”when you spin, both feet in”, but we must not have been quick enough, as the engine stalled. Although the engine restarted right away, we had to wait for traffic and I think this put us dead last. However, we caught up and were able to make a pass on the car ahead on Turn 17 before the checkered.

The Sunday race started in very cold weather, and we were careful not to make mistakes with the cold tires. With each lap we picked up the pace, but at about the halfway point a problem, that later turned out to be very simple, stumped us at the moment and resulted in a DNF. The engine sputtered a couple of times, then quit. We later found that the inertia safety switch tripped and shut off our fuel pump. We were more ticked off at not realizing this at the moment and not being able to correct the problem on-track than we were about the actual malfunction, as the switch is resettable from the driver’s seat.

We went to the track prepared and it paid off, as we were able to deal and correct our problems.

We want to thank all those who stopped by and all the compliments we received. We’ll be back at Sebring for our next event, which will be with SVRA, during the 12-hour weekend in March 2010.