Mat Moran Motorsports
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Old News and Results…In more or less chronological order...April 30, 2004My 2004 season got off to a great start. I won 2 of
the first 4 regular
Wednesday night meetings at the local drag strip (Infineon Raceway.)
Results are here
and here.
At
this point my overall win/loss record in
elimination rounds was 17 wins and 2
losses. Too good to last ? On April 14th I set my current record fast time but
I blew a head gasket in the process. It's not the first time I've
blown a head gasket but this time I decided to try to fix it myself.
It's going to take a few weeks by the time I get all the parts and
tools that I need. I'll also probably take the opportunity to make a
few
more performance modifications while I'm doing it. May 23, 2004After my head gasket problems I managed to get the car back together just in time for the May 19th drag races. The car performed a little slower and more erratic than normal but after 7 rounds, and with a good dose of luck, I had managed to beat everyone that I came up against and went home with another first place finish. You can read a blow by blow account in way more detail than any sane person would want to know here.I've also just received a new exhaust and intake but probably won't have time to fit them until after the big race on memorial day. June 3, 2004Memorial day (May 31) was a points race at Infineon Raceway. If you earn enough points you get to go to the regional finals. The standard of competition is usually a bit better at these events and I was hoping to do well. Unfortunately, I didn't do well mainly due to the heat. The full story is here. On the bright side, I collected some useful data about how fast the car doesn't go on hot days so hopefully I'll do better next time.I've also spent a bit more time working on the car. I performed a compression test and double checked the camshaft timing just to make sure that I hadn't inadvertently done something to slow it down when I replaced the head gasket. I found nothing wrong and it now looks as though the only reason why the car has slowed down is because the weather is hotter now. It's much more sensitive to temperature than I realized. I've put on a new air filter/intake (see here) and my new Borla exhaust will go on next week. Finally, here is a picture of the blown head gasket that I replaced. I'm no expert but I guess this problem was caused by slight detonation. If there are any experts out there who know different, please let me know. June 21, 2004I've finally discovered why the car has been running a little slower than normal. Apparently I can't tell the difference between a fuel pressure regulator and a purge valve and I mixed up the vacuum hoses. The result was low fuel pressure when I was under boost. Stupid mistake but never mind. It's fixed now. Other changes I've made to the car are the addition of a Borla exhaust and I've gone back to the stock air box with the K&N filter for better consistency in the heat.June 19th was another important race event at Infineon Raceway. I did a bit better than last time although still not great. The full story is here. I need to work a bit more on getting consistently good reaction times. June 29, 2004My local drag strip was closed for a Nascar event so on June 23rd I drove 2 hours to Sacramento to get my weekly fix. They put me in with the imports (mostly front wheel drive Japanese cars.) I think my car was easily the fastest one there. Anyway, five rounds later I was on my way back home with the winner's trophy. Next time I'll ask them to put me in with the other V8 cars. Maybe the competition will be a bit closer.I just installed the new BF Goodrich drag radials on the stock rims. I'll see how well they perform next week. June 31, 2004I made another trip to Sacramento raceway on June 30th and after some discussion with a track official as to whether I belonged with the domestic V8 cars or the import 4 and 6 cylinder cars, he put me in with the imports again.The car was running surprisingly fast. My best run of the day was a 13.28 in 80 degree heat which seems faster than usual. Traction was a bit of a problem, not just for me but for all the more powerful cars, but I discovered that if I reduced the pressure in my new BF Goodrich drag radials to 19 psi and then did a very heavy burnout they work fine. They also make impressive amounts of smoke. I'll try to get some more video some time. After 5 relatively easy wins I made it to the final. The final was quite close but my 0.028 second reaction time was better than my opponent's 0.069 and I ended the night with another winner's trophy. That's two weeks in a row and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself. July 5th is another important race at Infineon Raceway. That won't be so easy. Work continues on the car. I have made even more changes to the induction. Details here if you're interested. I've also just received a spare supercharger that I bought cheap on ebay. I plan to get it ported and fitted with an interchangeable pulley kit before fitting it on the car. Finally, I've fitted an air/fuel ratio optimizer. It's just an electronic black box that can modify the signal from the MAF sensor under certain conditions. I haven't experimented with it yet but my plan is that when I raise the boost, I'll make the mixture a bit richer to help keep it cool and avoid detonation. July 8, 2004July 5th wasn't a very happy event for me as I red lit in the first round. On the bright side, I ran a 13.13 in practice which is my fastest time so far.July 7th was better. I won three rounds in a row and then got a bye into the quarter finals where I lost against someone who managed a 0.002 second reaction time. Here's a little more video. July 9, 2004I'm going to be traveling for most of the next two months so I probably won't be able to keep this site updated or even probably respond to email. I've arranged my schedule so that I'll be back home just enough so that I don't miss any important race meetings. (Am I taking this all a little too seriously ?) I'll post the results some time in September. It would probably be stupid of me to make any more changes to the car until the off season...
July 24th, 200424th of July was an important points race. I lost in the first round with an embarrassingly bad reaction time. - Oops.August 18th, 2004On
August 18th; the day after I arrived back from a 3 week trip to
England, I went to Sears Point for the regular Wednesday night drag
races. I was badly jet lagged and didn't have very high expectations
but after 5 rounds with 5 good reaction times I found myself in the
semi-final round. There were only 3 cars left so someone had to get a
"by" and one of the other cars had already had one so we tossed a coin
and I won. So now I was in the final against my friend Steve in his
Chevy Silverado truck. In the
final, Steve got about a 2 second lead. I caught him just before the
finish line and hit the brakes a little to try and stay close in front
of him. He also hit the brakes to try and open up a gap in the hope
that I would break out by more than him. Fortunately for me I didn't
break out so I went home with the big trophy. Quite a surprising
result and one that I'm quite proud of. :-) August 25th, 200425th
August was another regular Wednesday meeting at Sears Point. I
lost in the second round with a bad light. I guess I can't win
them all. August 28th, 2004On
August 28th I went to Redding drag strip for a day of racing in 103
degree heat to see if I could get on the team to go to the regional
finals in October (since it didn't look as though I was going to make
the Sears Point team.) I had never raced in these kinds of temperatures
before so I didn't know what to expect. When it
came time for the first elimination round the temperature was up to 102
so I dialed in at 13.76 expecting the car to be considerably slower.
When I went to close the hood to drive up to the start line, I noticed
a hissing sound coming from the engine. The small tube that connects
the supercharger outlet to the fuel pressure regulator had come loose
so I quickly reconnected it and off I went. The car I was racing
against was dialed in at 12.39 so he should have been approaching me
fast as I neared the finish line but he was still quite a long way back
so I hit the brakes hard and ended up crossing the line at only 86.54
mph. Unfortunately I still broke out with a 13.637. If I hadn't hit the
brakes, I estimate that I would have done about 13.49. I guess
the vacuum/boost tube must have been off all day and I just hadn't
noticed so when I reconnected it the car became considerably faster. Fortunately
for me there was a consolation race for all the first and second round
losers so I payed my entry fee and hoped for better luck. There were
only 4 cars signed up but the other three were all much faster than
mine and were dedicated drag racing cars not street legal like mine so
it wasn't going to be easy. In the
first round, I was racing against a 10.47 second car. He was
approaching me really quickly at the finish line but I eased up just a
little and crossed the line 0.079 seconds ahead of him before he came
flying past me. That was 13.52 on a 13.48 dial-in. He had a better
reaction time than me but was way off his dial-in. I was a
little off my dial-in at 13.592 (13.53 dial-in) but my reaction time
had been 0.012 seconds. After
the race I found that the vacuum/boost tube had come off again which
explains why the car slowed a little. I must try and fix that more
permanently. The
temperature in the final round had been 103 so I now have some good hot
weather racing experience, I made the team for the regional finals and
I won $35 so I'm very happy with the results. September 2nd, 2004On September 1st, having permanently (I hope) fixed my lose vacuum/boost line problem, I went to the regular Wednesday night drag races at Sears point to see if I could get another good result. My reaction times in three practice runs were 0.019, 0.010 and 0.013 seconds which unnerved me a bit but I managed to slow it down enough when it came time for eliminations that I avoided jumping the lights. To cut a long story short, I won six rounds in a row and went home with the winners trophy and a case of motor oil.All the rounds were very close except for the third round where my opponent jumped the lights, and the final round where where my opponent, realizing that he had got a very poor start, tried to make up time by shifting quicker than usual but luckily for me failed to make a clean shift. At that point he decided that there was no way that he could catch me so he eased up and let me have an easy victory. This is turning into an incredibly good year for me. Have I just been lucky so far or is there more to come ? September 6th, 2004September 6th was probably my most important race of the year. It was a points race at Sears Point (my local track). The people who earn the most points (by winning the most rounds) get to represent the track at the regional finals. There were only 5 points races this year due to bad weather and I did badly in the first four. This was absolutely my last chance to get a decent result. The standard of competition is much higher in the points races as many of the best people only go to these races and don't bother with the more amateur Wednesday night series. I've written up a full race report here but if you're only interested in the final result then here it is:I won the "Street" category which earned me a place on the team to go to the regional finals as well as $300. This is, by a long way, the highlight of my drag racing career to date and it's an accomplishment that I may never be able to repeat so I'm going to go on about how great it is for a while... The regional finals are in Bakersfield next month and there will be about 350 cars in my category. Only the winner will go to the national finals so realistically this is as far as I'm ever going to go. My track however is one of the most competitive in the country so we have every chance to win the team title. My plans are coming together for the next round of changes that I plan to make to the car. I'm going to install a ported supercharger together with new pulleys for higher boost and a low temperature thermostat which I'm hoping will improve my consistency. I already have some electronics for modifying the air/fuel ratio so, as soon as I get the other things on I'll spend some time tuning it and then we'll see if I can get the car into the 12's. I'm not sure yet if I'll have time to do this before the regional finals but I'll certainly get it done before the end of the year. September 8th, 2004I won 3 rounds to make it to the quarter finals but fell asleep at the lights and got a 0.081 reaction time. Not a bad result but I'm getting used to doing better than that.September 15th, 2004This time I won 4 rounds to reach the semi final and got a 0.060 light against my opponent's 0.078 but unfortunately for me, he had the faster car so he was catching me fast at the finish line and I left it too late to hit the brakes. I broke out by 0.04 seconds and lost. It was a race that I could have won but it would be easier if I had a faster car. Still, it's a pretty good result.September 22nd, 2004I made it through 5 rounds to reach the final beating a couple of good people along the way. The final was against a slower car which gave me the advantage. Unfortunately, he got the better light (0.036 against my 0.068) but I was catching him fast at the finish line and I didn't let up at all. We both broke out but he crossed the finish line about half a car length in front and broke out by 0.04 seconds more than me. Very similar to the way that I lost last week but this time I had the faster and more predictable car so I went home with the big trophy and a case of motor oil. Here's a picture of the trophy. That makes six Wednesday night wins so far this year and I'm feeling very pleased with myself.September 29th, 2004Another Wednesday night meeting at Sears Point. The weather was cooler than recent weeks so I was able to set some faster rimes. I comfortably made it through 4 rounds to reach the semi-final which was very close. I crossed the finish line just over one hundredth of a second ahead of the other car. It turned out that we both broke out but I had a significantly better light so I won with a 13.178 on a 13.18 dial in.For the final, I thought the car might get a little slower because there was no time to cool down so I left my dial in at 13.18. I was going for a perfect light but tried a little too hard and got a remarkable -0.001 second red light. I ran it out anyway just to see how consistent the car was. It did a 13.183. That's only 0.005 seconds slower than the previous run. Even though I lost the final, I'm happy with that result. If I had been 0.001 seconds slower at the lights, I would have been unbeatable. Next week it's the NHRA pacific division finals at Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield. NHRA Pacific division E.T. finalsThe regional finals were held from October 7th to October 11th at Famoso Raceway near Bakersfield. I had a little difficulty dialing in the car but still managed to do well, getting through to the third round against a field of the best racers on the west coast. The full story and some pictures are here. Now that the last important race of the year is over I can get back to work on the car to try to make it faster and/or more consistent. Next year I hope to do even better.October 16th, 2004I've had a couple of minor (but expensive) rear end problems. You can read about them here.Also, I've added some interesting information about how temperature affects performance and a weight / horsepower E.T. calculator. October 27th, 2004I made it through 3 rounds to reach the quarter final where I lost with a -0.008 second start. Trying too hard I guess.November 20th, 2004I fitted a new ported supercharger and tried it out with at the same (relatively low) level of boost that I have been running for the past year or so. It didn't make the car significantly faster but it did produce less heat so maybe at higher boost levels it will make more difference.So... I've now raised the boost up to 16 psi and tried it out again. The result was about a 0.4 second improvement in quarter mile time or about 40 horsepower. My quickest quarter mile time is now 12.843 seconds. Not bad. November 28th, 2004The last race of the year.Weather conditions were perfect and I was hoping to set a new record time but unfortunately water on the track caused the the races to be shortened to 1/8th mile instead of 1/4 mile so even though I did set my fastest ever 1/8th mile times I don't have much to show for it. I entered the Street Category and also CFRA. I lost in the first round of street because the car didn't slow down as the day got hotter as I had expected so I went too fast. Not what I had hoped for but never mind. In CFRA, I won my first round with a 0.016 reaction time which was better than anyone else so I won $50 and a second round bye. In the third round I lost because the car was still getting faster even though the air temperature was rising but good news: The third round was the semi final so I had won another $45. Not a bad days work. I'm not sure if the car is now less temperature sensitive than it was before I made the latest round of changes but I'm going to have to wait until next year to find out because the next scheduled race isn't until January 2nd. |
