Merry Christmas

Since the best presents are the ones you make yourself, I persuaded Santa to give me a Milodon road race oil pan for the 'Cuda. It has extended side reservoirs for more capacity and little trap doors to keep the oil around the pick-up during hard cornering and braking. It should help keep the oil pressure up even during the most severe driving situations.  

Get a grip

The transmission is installed, pistolgrip shifter and all. Doc Stinger from the Mopar Garage did a great Job, I can't wait to take the Cuda out for a spin!

Trackday Red Bull Ring

Here's some footage of the last trackday at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria. Filmed from the Cuda of course, with some other Mopars in the picture as well.

Tremec upgrade

Prior to installation the tremec transmission was upgraded with parts from Liberty's Gears. That includes bronze shift fork pads, an internal shift linkage upgrade and carbon fiber blocking rings on 2nd, 3rd & 4th gears.

I hope that will remedy some shifting problems that have occured with these transmissions in e-bodies in the past.

Going manual

Work is progressing on changing the transmission in the Cuda. A 5-speed  tremec TKO 600 will be passing the power to the rear instead of the torqueflite in the future. The 0.64:1 final drive of the tremec will reduce rpms on the highway, a much appreciated improvement considering the cruising speed of 85 to 90 mp/h  on the left lane around here :-)

 The 4-speed hump has been grafted on to the floorpan of the Cuda, along with some modification of the passenger side front of the transmission tunnel to acomodate for the bigger bulk of the transmission. Again, Doc Stinger of the Mopargarage is performing the work.

Number 146

More pics

Cars running in a pack during the warm up lap. Being at the back of the field in the beginning lets you pass more Porsches in the race :-)

 Hard cornering in turn one!

Cool competition

Some images of the competition, race spec vintage cars are always cool and this Capro RS 2600 is no exeption,

A very beautifully prepared Ferrari in Italian livery.

 One of the most unusual cars on the grid is this Kellison J 5, a kit car from 1959. There are a total of 3 of these in Austria which must be a substantial part of the worldwide Kellison population.

Marcus Lipp from Prototech brought his immaculate Group 2 Alfa Romeo GTV. The transaxle Car is race prepped in accordance with the FIA rulebook, very light and well balanced. Even though it lacks some top end power, it is quicker around the course than quite a few more powerful cars.

Christian Kornherr, editor in chief of the Autorevue, Austias leading atomotive magazine, taking the hot seat in Macrus' car.

Classic "Jägermeister" livery on this Porsche, I wonder when they stopped promoting  alcohol on racecars...

Reinis 59 Corvette next to the 'Cuda in the pits, he ran hard all day as well.

A day at the races

So, here are some pics of the 'Cuda action last saturday on the Red Bull Ring.

Braking was much improved over last year, no fading and confident performance all day long. 

As always, there were many Porsches in my group, so many you get the impression they are still falling off the assembly line in Stuttgart.

 Doc Stinger from the Mopargarage brought his 1970 Super Bee along, sporting a 440 and a Tremec 5-speed manual transmission. The Bee ran flawlessly all day, chewing up front brakepads as if they were going out of style.

Flat out on the main straight.

Finished front

I finished the work on the spoiler and the brake ducts just in time to hit the racetrack. No problems stopping this year :-)

Sneak preview

Had a great day at the Red Bull Ring, here is a small appetiser until I get a chance to go through the photos I shot...

Cool it two

Aluminum duct bent and fitted to the airhole in the spoiler...

Cool it

In an effort to keep the brakes cool during the upcoming trackday at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, I've decided to route some air to the front hubs. I bent an aluminum bracket that attaches the 3 inch high-temp hose to the upright.

 I made some funnels out of a sheet of aluminum, they should catch the air through holes in a new chin spoiler I've had laying around for some time.

 The cutouts in the spoiler had to be opend, easy job with the right tool - impossible without it...

 Mockup of the spoiler with the cutouts.

Workdays

Took the Cuda to work yesterday, all systems work like they should. Commuting takes on a whole different flavor with a ride like this :-)

Footrest

I asked Marcus to build me this footrest for the left foot, as I experienced it quite uncomfortable driving spiritedly without it, especially in right-handers at speed!

Rear brakes

The Cuda spent some more time at Prototech to finish the the brake system. Marcus' trick Alfa Romeo GTV Group 4 Racecar  sits in the foreground.

 The rear brakes come as a complete kit from Wilwood, retainig the emergency brake in a small drum inside the hub in addition to the disc brake. Unfortunately the system is far from plug and play, some modifications and fabricating was necessary in order to make everything fit. A new master brake cylinder was also in order, as the one installed was too large for the new barke setup.

 Rear brakes installed in the rear!

Moparty 1

Riding along with Jacky in his yellow Jensen Interceptor to the big Moparty in the south of the country. Jacky just finished installing a fresh 440 engine in his car so it was an enjoyable cruise of  two hours from the outskirts of Vienna down to Voitsberg to meet other Mopars.

Moparty 2

Some of the best Mopars in the country gathered to follow Doc Stingers invitation to Styria. Star of the show was the Docs new Challenger Funny Car Drag Racer "The Stinger II".

 

The Challenger is loud and fast, and was presented among a variety of sweet cars, most of which doc Stinger has layed hand upon in the last couple of years.  The meeting was also a chance to meet some great people that share enthusiasm for old detroit iron.

 

 

 An immaculate '62 Sport Fury presenting its crossram intake and dual fourbarrel carb setup. Big money definitely went into this restoration!

 

The Cuda among some other Mopars...

 

 

Old brakes

Since I am definately not going back to the old brakes, I will be selling the parts off. The kit from MP brakes served me well - until I went racing that is - but for street use, I could not recommend a better set up. The parts come complete with rotors, calipers, brackets and dustshields. I can also throw in the old pads but would recommend renewing those.

Stop and look

Pic of the finished brake setup with the wheel mounted

 

The view from behind exposes the trick custom made bracket that the calipers are mounted to.