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S197 BOSS 302 Race Car Build Thread Build Thread

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ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
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Arizona, USA
One more event for the year coming up this weekend. My upper control arm chassis-side bushing has been destroyed for a long time. I finally got around to installing the Hotchkis adjustable UCA and BMR Suspension UCA mount to replace the tired old part. I have a poly bushing on the diff side, so no issues there (although that won't be around much longer).

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ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
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Arizona, USA
OK well it has been a very busy few weeks--on top of the great racing weekend that we had over the Thanksgiving holiday, I have had my house getting ripped apart for tile throughout the first floor. And on top of that, we did some significant mechanical changes to the car after the race weekend...

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Thanksgiving weekend a bunch of us ventured out to Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park to run the "Mondo" track--a 2.75 mile track that combines WHP's "Main" circuit/dragstrip with Bondurant's primary test track. This is a fun track with a little elevation change and some blind crests and corners, but limited passing opportunities. We only typically get to run this configuration once per year, so I try not to miss it!

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This was a three-day weekend of racing due to the Thanksgiving holiday, but I decided to sit the Friday warm-up day out and recover from my Thanksgiving night hangover. On the plus side, I was able to enjoy @captdistraction hauling ass around the track without issue so that made Friday great for everyone in our camp; at the same time, I was able to make a few minor tweaks to my own car so it was ready to run on Saturday and I didn't have to rush around doing stuff.

Some images from the Thanksgiving evening party at Camp Runnin'Fast!

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Saturday was my first day of racing on the track. This was my first time racing with this organization (ProAutosports) this year, so I didn't have any points or championship standings on the line, just a chance to race hard with some old friends. My only real goal for the weekend was to beat my fastest competitor's time from last year (meaning cutting just over one second off of my best time). I ended up missing that target by about 2 tenths! Pretty good improvement, though! Faster than I have ever been on this track. To complicate things, @captdistraction was glued to my bumper for this qualifying session (fortunately, his brake issues were all sorted out) and was able to set a time pretty close to mine, meaning we would be starting next to each other in the day's Qualifying Race! On the plus side, the new Upper Control Arm hardware that I installed the week prior seemed to be working well and the car felt great. I even got to drive a friend's GT350R on Hoosier R7s that morning--and that car is VERY buttoned down from the factory. Very impressive now that I have been able to toss one around at-speed. My friend agrees and has enjoyed the car so much that he is thinking to find an FP350S or GT4 to replace his other race cars now (Maserati Gran Turismo GT4s).

Unfortunately, things took a bit of a turn here. My wife was running her Mini Cooper S in HPDE for the weekend, and it had some engine troubles. We thought it had blown the motor. I left the track to go help her get it towed to a shop, but all this time running around meant I missed the Qualifying Race and that I would be starting from the back of the "big bore" car field (10th of 30, and 3rd of 3 in class) for Saturday's final race. Later we learned that the Mini had "simply" melted one of the spark plug electrodes and was able to be revived within an hour of arrival to our local shop (although the tune probably needs some tweaking :eek: ).

Here is the footage from the final race on Saturday--I was determined to claw my way up the pack, and I had some heat-cycled A7s left over from NASA West Coast Nationals the month prior--but could I make them last 30 minutes in the 88* heat?


After a tough but very fun race against that stock car (piloted by a good friend of mine) I ended up 2nd place in class and third overall for Saturday. Not a win, but you don't have to win to have fun!

Sunday was a fresh start again. The main challenge for Sunday was to FINISH the 60-minute "Triple Start Enduro". Temperatures were again in the high 80s/low 90s, but the real question was if I or @captdistraction would have enough fuel to make it 60 minutes. We figured with the various machinations of the "Triple Start", we might spend 45-50 minutes on the Green, so it was feasible but we would be cutting it close!

My qualifying time let me start 4th overall out of 23 and 2nd in class out of 3. Everything was going smoothly at the start and first few laps, until after about 20 minutes, someone managed to put their car into a tire wall. This gave us all a chance to breath and cool down our cars a bit from the heat. We re-started and I made it about another 20 minutes before my transmission locked up! The MT82 had expired! From what I experienced (and as you can see on the video below), my best guess was a bent shift fork. You can see it become difficult to shift into 5th gear on the straight, and then it finally lets go/locks up on my 4-3 downshift about 15 seconds later. I was able to pull to the side of the track, away from traffic and awaited a tow truck--but I was able to finagle it into first gear a few minutes later and managed to limp the car into the paddock. DNF! What I didn't know is that @captdistraction had some issues of his own about a lap earlier and also had to retire! Rough race for the typically-reliable Mustangs!

On the bright side, I knew this was going to happen sooner or later, and I had already procured a T56 Magnum XL kit from Dederichs Motorsports of Ft. Worth, TX and it was sitting at my buddy's local warehouse waiting to be installed, along with the Exedy Hyper Single clutch I bought from @wwilde001 earlier this year, and an MGW shifter. Another good buddy of mine offered his services to help install the transmission the following weekend, and @captdistraction came by to lend his expertise and free hands to the install. Between the three of us, we had the swap completed in about 4.5 hours on a Saturday, and the break-in run for the clutch was a few parking-lot-speed crawls to our local car show at the Scottsdale Pavillions :) Additionally, the McLeod RXT that we extracted was not damaged in any way, so that (along with an MT-82 compatible Dynotech aluminum driveshaft) will be available for sale soon!

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That is the END of my racing for 2017. As I mentioned earlier, I am working with the capable staff @cortexracing to deliver a host of upgrades before my 2018 season starts in January--so stay tuned for more news as things happen!

Thanks for following along!
 

Grant 302

basic and well known psychic
Nice update, but I completely missed this news! It's sad when track prep distracts me from reading everything at TMO. Definitely looking forward to your upcoming reviews!

Here is a full list of what is going on the car. I went with the CorteX JRi damper set, too, so it would be easier to optimize based on Filip's experience; since there are going to be a LOT of changes, I'm relying on his experience to flatten the learning curve :)
  • Cambered rear axle assembly with 3.73 & T2R
  • JRi Double-adjustable damper set front/rear w/ springs/camber plates/offset struts/camber slugs
  • CorteX Track Watts Link
  • CorteX adjustable rear swaybar
  • CorteX adjustable rear LCAs
And no kidding on the learning curve...
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
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Arizona, USA
Happy 2018, everybody!

I have been busy over the holiday break installing some camshafts from L&M Engines (designed by Shaun @ AED) to pick up a few more ponies to make up for the increased weight of the Magnum trans.
These are the "intake only" cams--meaning I left the OEM exhaust cams alone (although I did remove them to refresh the valvesprings with some new B302 units.
Supposedly these are good for 15-17rwhp over the OEM B302 cams, without losing any low or mid-range power like the CJ cams do.
We shall see in a bit once I am able to get to the dyno...

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Passenger bank stock Boss hardware out:

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Refreshing the valvesprings in-car...probably what took the most time of the entire swap. Not required but I have 3 seasons on this set of springs so figured there is no better time to do this.

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Driver's side primary timing chain all lined up...

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Engine basically buttoned back up

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Got everything re-assembled last night, with fresh plugs, fresh oil/filter, and water/water-wetter...loaded up the new tune and everything seems normal :)

Stay tuned for dyno results sometime in the next few weeks.
 
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Nice work!
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
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Arizona, USA
Are you going to be hitting the UMS Dyno day?
I will not be running my car there but I might stop by to see what's going on. I have typically dynoed my car at Arizona Dyno Chip so I stay there for consistency's sake.

When you say "freshened up", what does that entail?
Replaced the existing 3-season use Boss 302 valvesprings with a brand new set of Boss 302 valvesprings.
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
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Arizona, USA
The results are in and they are (pleasantly) surprising. Roughly 30whp and 20wtq over previous setup, gains in every part of the rev range, no losses anywhere. Won't have a chance to drive it in anger until February but this should be fun :) Also, my shipment from @cortexracing is on the way, so things are about to get very interesting :)

Bottom to top (all setups utilizing tuning from AED, 100-octane race fuel, on the same Dynojet dyno at Arizona Dyno Chip in Chandler, AZ):

Blue: Boss engine w/ stock airbox and zip tube, long tube headers, no cats.
Green: Added CJ intake, VMP twin 67mm TB, FRPP CAI.
Red: Added L&M/AED "Intake Only" camshafts (stock exhaust cams retained).

zBqJxuO.png

We were thinking the cams were only going to be worth ~15hp at the tires with no losses so this was a very nice surprise, and puts me right at the limit for classing (good). CJ cams were another possibility but Shaun maintains that while they will make more power up top, you will lose double your gains in midrange torque.
 
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Drew:

Can you post Shaun’s thoughts on installing the intake cams in Gen 2 Coyote?

Maybe comparable gains, since G2 heads are “similar” to Boss heads.

Thx,

Rob
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA
Been very busy here and that is not slowing down anytime soon. Got all the CorteX components on the car now, just need to find a few hours for setting ride height, corner balance, and alignment...and tackle a couple other minor odds and ends.

Preview pic of rear suspension (please excuse my dirty car):

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I'm heading to California to help @Shonuff82 and another good friend with their entry into the King of the Hammers off-road race as of tomorrow AM, so I'll only have a couple nights to finish everything up once I get back before I need to leave for California (again) to drive THIS car :) My wife is not happy right now :eek:
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA
Nice!
Do you have any pictures of the Cortex rear axle before install? Which rear brakes did you end up with?
I only have a few and none in great detail, unfortunately. I can get some more if you have special requests.
What I can say is that it arrived in meticulously-powdercoated condition, and to my pleasant surprise, the axle tubes were welded to the center section.
I asked for the axle side to be completely assembled including a new T2R differential and the capable folks at CorteX were able to accomodate that, took a lot of time out of my install.
I went with the "reuse stock calipers" option, which included a couple (pre-installed) relocation brackets and a pair of 2-piece floating 12" Girodisc rotors.

Here is a picture of everything after getting most of it unboxed (axle not shown in this photo):

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Fabman

Dances with Racecars
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Pleasanton: 1/2 way between Sonoma and Laguna Seca
What shocks
?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

ArizonaBOSS

Because racecar.
Moderator
8,730
2,734
Arizona, USA

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