Sat. Practice
Slept OK but not great. Got up at 6:30am and headed for the track. When I got there Don was waiting for me. He had come up Friday night and camped at the track. I got the cover off the car and we set tire pressures and torqued the wheels. Practice is a bit crazy in that they stuff 3 separate groups on track at once. Remember that a group is a collection of classes. So we’re talking a lot of cars. I was driving in my mirrors trying to stay out of the way of faster cars. One of the first things I tried was to break hard and see if the wheels were still hitting anywhere. Sure enough on one hard brake application I could tell the passenger side tire was still hitting a little bit. Damn. I knew I should have been more aggressive with my fender trough clearancing. Also I was seeing the oil light here and there. And on one lap in particular, coming out of the carousel it went low I got out of the accelerator and had to wait a few seconds for it to come back up. So I pulled into the pits.

The good news was, no leaks! After having the front of the motor off to replace the cam gear it was definitely a worry but everything looked dry. We got the front wheels off and saw that on the passenger side there was rubber on the corner of the notch I had made. Luckily being parked right next to Dan’s rig meant we had power. So I got out the cut off wheel and notched out a few more inches on both sides. As for the oil pressure I decided I just needed to add more oil. So I put in 2 more quarts.

Sat. Qualifying
Went out for qualifying and when I tested the brakes I could tell I finally had no rubbing! Yes I could actually use the brakes! I was still having to get out of the way for most of the cars but I was coming across a few that I could pass. After a few laps I got some open track and was feeling good. Came across the line and looked at the traqdash and saw 1:57.3. Yes! A new personal fast lap. This was a LONG time coming. My previous best was a half second slower and was run back in 2012. So I was finally faster and with a car that was down 50hp to the old car and 150 lbs heavier to boot! I backed it up next lap with a 1:58:00. Then on the next lap I came out of the carousel down towards turn 7 real hot. Got on the brakes late and hard and locked up the rears. Just kept it going straight and ran into the runoff area but stalled it. I waited a few seconds and tried to refire it but couldn’t get it going. Kept trying until the safety truck came by to get me I told the guy I couldn’t get it going and he was about to get ready to tow me when I tried again and it fired. So he pointed me back on track. I pulled off into the pits that lap as I knew the session was almost over at that point. Got back to my spot and was stoked to be able to tell Don about the brake issue being solved and my new fast lap!

There was a big gap between qualifying and the race and I had arranged for Dave Brown (Life’s Good Racing) to run a few laps that afternoon to see what the cars potential was. So I gassed up the car and we sat around waiting for the HPDE 4 session to come up. As we’re all sitting around a golf cart with 3 or 4 guys rolls up and a guy jumps out and starts yelling “who’s the idiot running this javelin!”. Or something like that. I recognized him immediately. It was Ken Epsman who owns the #2 Roy Woods Racing real Trans-Am Javelin (along with several other high dollar cars including a Bud Moore Trans-Am Mustang). He was running around the car saying “how cool is this!”. I’ve met Ken a few times over the years but he didn’t remember me. So I reminded him that the first time I met him was right there at Sonoma (Sears. Pt. back then) when I came to the first (or one of the first) Wine Country Classic vintage races. I have a picture of me in his car from back then… anyway, he seemed to be really into the car and wanted to check everything out. After a while he says “we need a group picture!” and says he’s going to go down to his garage (at the track) and pull out his Javelin. I said sounds great and off they went…

Maybe an hour went by and then one of his guys finally came back and said the Javelin wouldn’t start so could I bring my Javelin down to the garage for the photo op. So I hopped in, fired it up and drove down to the lower garages. I get down there and Ken is standing out front directing me in. As I pull in I see they have his Javelin pulled out so I stop with the cars nose to nose. I got out of the car and Ken asked if I had a camera (which I did). So I started taking pictures of the two cars. After barely a minute Ken says they have to go get ready for his next session (I think he was running a vintage Nascar). He said, “move the cars around however you want and take whatever pics you want and when you’re done just close the door”. I said “no problem, but, which Javelin do you want me to leave behind???”. He just smiled…

So my friend Matt and I spent 10 minutes in his “toy box” rolling his half-million + car around to get a few different angles for pictures. crazy… I now have pics of my car next to BOTH Roy Woods Javelins. I just need the #6 Sunoco Javelin to complete the set 🙂

After we got tired of rolling the cars around Matt and I headed back to our spot to wait for Dave. Dave is a Pro driver, with Life’s Good Racing, who’s been racing for 20+ years and has many many championships in many different categories under his belt. Back in 2012 I worked with him for a day of driver coaching at Thunderhill. I also put him in the Javelin because I wanted to see what the potential of the car was. He went out and did two laps at speed and was instantly 9 seconds faster than me… NINE. I had contacted him before this weekend and asked if he would do a few laps to baseline the car for me in it’s new configuration and he said sure. So about an hour before my race he took the car out in the HPDE 4 group. He did about 5 or 6 laps. He came in HOT so we could take tire temps. As he was sitting there waiting for us to get the temps the car boiled over and barfed some water out of the radiator… Once the temps were taken he drove back to the pits to let the car cool down. Interestingly this time he was only ½ a second faster than my best time of the day… however, he was babying the car and never rev’d past 6k while I was running up to 6500… he had generally good things to say about the car (which wasn’t true when he drove it back in 2012) so I was glad that he confirmed that all the changes have resulted in a much more capable car. He did say the front shocks were not great and so I’m planning to change them. One other thing he did for me was adjust the brake bias. I have a Wilwood brake bias knob but I’ve never adjusted it (because I don’t know how). He dialed in a LOT more front bias and said I might even be able to go a bit further. I’d been having a bit rear end hop under braking and dialing in a lot more front bias has almost gotten rid of it.

Sat. Race
Went out Saturday with the goal to just stay out of everyone’s way. I was hot and tired and so I didn’t manage any new fast laps. But I finished, and being the only car in my class, I believe that means I won!

After the race I got out of my driving suit and rested for a while. Then I went to the pumps and got more gas. came back and filled up the car so it would be all gassed up for the morning… When it was time Don and I hit the BBQ. NASA always thows a BBQ on Saturday night . Eventually Chris from Life’s Good Racing (Crew Chief) showed up and sat down and talked with us for a while. Don introduced him to me in September at the Trackmasters track day (where I cut the tire). Chris has been really helpful talking through stuff with the Javelin and offering his years of insight. Really appreciated that!

By 8:30pm I was ready to collapse. Dan was going home to sleep but said I could camp in his trailer for the night. My wife was having a birthday party for a friend so I decided I’d stay at the track. Got my pad and sleeping bag set up and settled in. Not the best nights sleep but not the worst either. The track has a lot of lights that stay on all night and there are a couple of vents in the top of the trailer that let that light in. So the inside of the trailer had more light than I would have liked. But it was dry and off the ground so I appreciated it. Got up around 6:30am on Sunday and started getting ready for the day.

Sun. Practice
Went out and was even more tired than the day before… just driving in my mirrors and staying out of everyone’s way (or trying). Dan didn’t even go out for Practice. I thought about skipping it too but decided to just go out and confirm that the car was still working. A couple of laps before the end of the session I hit the curb in 3 a little hard and got some air. Came down and heard a “thunk”… I thought I had just bottomed out so I kept going and finished the session.

When I got back to the pits the plan was to swap the front tires side to side. I started the weened with the new tire on the passenger side (the side I cut during the last outing). So we swapped to get more even wear side to side. While the wheels were off I asked Don to look around and make sure everything looked good. That’s when he found it… the driver’s side sway bar mount (on the lower control arm) had snapped off. I had welded that on myself with my little 110 buzz box and did not get enough penetration to survive that hard landing. I assumed I was done for qualifying (which was only an hour away). But I figured I could find someone at the upper shops who could fix it for me. The race was still 5 or 6 hours away… Don was having none of it! he ran over to Life’s Good Racing and borrowed a Millermatic 180 with autoset feature. only problem was that Dan’s rig didn’t have 220v… but the guy park on the other side of Dan had a monster, rolling Honda generator that DID have 220v! He graciously said we could borrow it. Thanks!

So I got to work grinding the snot welds off the bracket (Dan had a grinder) and then used a wire wheel to clean the paint off the lower control arm. I wasn’t working that fast and was still assuming we’d skip qualifying. But Don went into crew chief mode and said (incredibly tactfully) get in there and get it done! we’re making qualifying! 🙂 So I picked up the pace. Life’s good didn’t have a welding helmet or gloves so I had to do it blind. I set the dial to ?” and the wire speed to auto for .30 wire. I lined up the gun, closed my eyes and pulled the trigger. bzzzzzzzt… I could tell instantly by the sound the settings were perfect! Got the thing rewelded in a few minutes. I did flash myself a little a couple of times but not too bad. Anyway, then Don put the sway bar back together. the swaybar link was bent but it was still able to be connected. I got into the car and on grid with 2 minutes to spare!

Sun. Qualifying
More of the same. Tired, hot, driving in my mirrors… just didn’t have the strength to really push. But I completed the session and got back to the pits. When I checked the time sheets I found out they didn’t have any times for me for practice or qualifying for Sunday!? Said something about the transponder being intermittent… I went and got the transponder and showed them it had plenty of charge. They just shrugged. So I went back and put it in it’s charging cradle (unplugged). This is supposed to basically turn it off. I thought maybe if I did that it would be like restarting it… guess it worked because they had times for me for the Sunday race.

Sun. Race
Exhausted, hot oh and now the sun was right in your eyes at the top of the hill for turn 2. So I knew I wouldn’t be getting any good times and just rode the session out and brought it home…

So that was the weekend. I have to call if a HUGE success. Car ran all 6 sessions (plus the Dave Brown shake down). The tire/fender trough/spring perch interference has been eliminated! The brake bias got adjusted to something more more reasonable. I didn’t have any oil pressure problems (after I added the 2 additional quarts). and, I believe I “won” 2 races. I also believe that means I’m the American Iron Norcal champ for 2015! I know that doesn’t mean anything as there was no competition BUT I am happy that, whatever the reason, an AMC JAVELIN is going in the NASA record books as a Champion! 🙂

This *might* be it for the season. There are a couple of test days and another Trackmasters weekend in November at Sonoma. And there’s an NCRC weekend at Laguna Seca in Dec. I may do ONE of those. Otherwise I’ll start working on all the needed improvements for next season!

here’s some pics and video from the weekend:

Ever since I lowered the car I’ve been having problems with a bad shimmy/shake under braking. Early in 2015 I was just having weird issues with the car. Shimmy under braking and some weird side to side motion under acceleration. When we discovered the 3rd link ripping out I thought, ah, that’s it! But, with the 3rd link mount fixed and re-inforced I was still getting the shimmy. I didn’t realize it but over time I had trained myself to use the brakes less and less. So I had sort of fooled myself into think the shimmy was still there but that it wasn’t that bad…

The day after the Trackmasters event I got the car jacked up and pulled the front wheels. My plan was to remove the 3 bolts that hold the remote oil filter and relocate the filter slightly to move the bolts farther from the tire. However, while looking in the wheel well with the wheel off I suddenly saw what had happened… The first was the real breakthrough. I noticed the undercoating was completely worn away from the bottom of the fender trough! THAT’S what the shimmy was. Under braking the top of the tire was hitting the bottom of the fender trough. That’s what was causing the violent shaking when I really used the brakes. If I used the brakes lightly, the front didn’t dive as much and the tires didn’t hit. I check the drivers side and it had the same wear so I knew it was happening to both sides. Seroius “ah hah” moment… What had been cutting the tire was also obvious. The upper spring perch had wear marks from the tire and I realized that, without the spacers, when I was turning left the passenger side tire was contacting the edge of the perch and getting cut. Not sure why it wasn’t symetrical but it did not cut the drivers side tire…

Anyway, I was jumping with joy because now I knew what the problem was! ok, I guess I Don’t know 100% till I run the car again but I’m willing to bet big money that this is the problem that’s been plaguing me all year. No worries, nothing a little quality time with the grinder and a cut off disc can’t solve!

It was actually pretty hard, dirty work but I got all the offending metal cut away and I plated the notch I made in the fender trough. I’m a little concerned that maybe I should have made the notch even longer but at least I know what the issue is. If I’m still hitting next time I run I’ll know I just have to keep cutting till there’s enough clearance Clarance!

Unfortunately I’ve run out of time and won’t be able to make the Sept. race. So now I’m shooting for October.

So here we are 2 years later and it was time to finally get serious about making this car faster. And that meant lowering it. Wilwood came out with these 2″ drop spindles and I really wanted them on the car. So here’s a video showing the progress. Plan is to do everything I can to get the car as low as possible and try to go racing again next year. Stay tuned…

1. make/weld in a block off panel between cockpit/trunk area
2. fix/install rear spoiler
3. weld up little rust pin holes in the quarter panels
4. sand surface rust off the new roll cage bars and prime them
5. cut out some rust from the inside trunk panel
6. remove all the interior items since the inside is getting painted (seat, belts, rollbar padding, fuel line, etc…)
7. put on my old wheels so the new ones don’t get messed up while in the paint shop

For the block off panel I wanted to do something different than I had last time. On the original build I left part of the package tray intact and then built an aluminum panel that hung off the shelf. It didn’t really seal very well as my shape around the wheel tubs was not that tight. This time I decided I would completely remove the package tray and just weld in a sheet steel panel. I didn’t have a big enough piece to do it as one piece. So I used every inch of the piece I had to create 2 side panels with a strip down the middle to finish it off. This took a LOT of fiddling but I got it reasonably close and was able to weld up all the seams.

At the test in January I didn’t run the rear spoiler. Most of the mounting bolts had broken off when I wrecked the car and since the car under-steered I thought I might as well try it with no rear spoiler. But now that the test was done I, of course, wanted the spoiler back on. trying to restore the stock mounting studs (and drilling the stock mounting holes in the correct locations) seemed like it was going to be hard. So, I came up with a different solution. I got rid of all the stock studs and bent up 4 pieces of flat stock and fiberglassed them in. I put bolts into the flat stock. Now I had 4 mounting studs in a fairly straight line. I took some measurements and drilled holes in the trunk. Pretty happy with how it turned out. I also fiberglassed a couple of big chunks that had been knocked out of the spoiler.

So with all that done, I need to figure out a time to get it over to Maaco. Pics below:

While I was unloading who walks up but Gaetano (Track Junky from the Lat-G forum). He just happened to be in the area and popped in so see what was happening at the track. He hung out a bit and helped me unload but had to go before I got on track. Matt, Jeff and Dan also showed up so I had some support.

Plan was just to take it slow and see if the car worked. Did 2 slow laps and was getting a fair amount of smoke in the cabin so I pulled in. Jeff dove under the car and said there was a decent drip coming from somewhere. Only took him a few seconds to pinpoint the dipstick tube at the pan. So I jumped out of the car and got to work removing the dip stick tube so I could replace it with a plug (I knew I had one with me). Here’s where things get ridiculous. Of course when I pulled back into the pits I forgot to refill the Accusump and close the valve before shutting down. I should have known what would happen but I was so focused on trying to fix the problem (dip stick tube). As soon as I loosened the tube fittings and pulled them out… look out boys, we’ve got a gusher! Oil starting pouring out of the top of the pan. I dove into the back of my truck and dumped some stuff out of a catch pan and got the pan under the car. Not before a decent amount of oil had spilled out…

Once I got the dip stick tube out I could see that it had fatigued at the base. This was my fault because I never got around to securing the top of the tube. So it just vibrated like crazy and of course finally split. Put a plug in the top of the pan and topped off the oil and headed back out. Slowly started going a little faster. First lap was like 2:40… then 2:30, then 2:20… etc. After about 15 minutes I pulled back in. I didn’t like the seat position. I was having to look up OVER the hood. I remembered I’d had the same problem the first time I had driven the car on track. the fix was to simply raise the back of the seat one hole up. That took 10 minutes and then I strapped back in and got back out there. Lap times kept coming down till I got a 2:00 flat. The sun was getting low and was becoming a problem going into 2 at the top of the hill. I came back in for another brief break because I wanted to check the lug nuts and make sure they weren’t backing out (new wheels, aluminum lug nuts, so I wanted to double check). They were mostly ok but I was able to snug a couple down. I was also noticing my back hurting. Again, something I had experienced before but had forgotten. The fix was simple, I just folded up a towel to put behind my lower back and hips. The deal is I’m skinny enough that although I’m strapped in tight there are voids around my hips and it tires my back out quick (plus it’s not like I’m in shape or anything…).

I headed back out for one last session. Got out there and the sun was even worse in 2. Basically blind for probably 3+ seconds. So, I did a few more laps but knew I wouldn’t be able to get a faster lap than the previous session. So that was it. The car works but with me being rusty I was about 3 seconds off my best (1:57.x). Disappointing since with the new tires, reconfigured panhard bar and blocked off grill I was hoping the car might be better than before. And who knows, maybe it is and I’m just that rusty… Anyway, I loaded up and headed home.

What now? Well, I need to get the bodywork and paint done. I’m going to strip the interior out and try to paint the cage and interior/trunk myself. Then take it back to Maaco and let them repaint the exterior. Finally, I get new stickers for the back half of the car. As for performance? The guys said the front end still comes up a lot going down the straight. I really need to get this car LOWER. It’s 9″ at the rockers and 7″ from the bottom of the frame rail. Joe says I can’t go any lower with the current setup because I’m out of shock travel. I really need drop spindles. I’m also going to try a front spoiler extension again. And of course the biggest thing is I need to start doing laps again to build up my confidence (in myself and the car). And, of course, getting in better shape would help a lot as after 20 minutes I’m getting tired.

we’ve come a long way and are basically back at square one… That’s life I guess. I’ll just keep plugging away and hopefully get the car and myself more competitive someday.

Here’s a couple of pics and some video from the day.

LF 936 RF 832
LR 680 RR 649

Left 1616 52.2%
Rear 1329 42.9%
Cross 1512 48.8%
Total 3097

*tires at 25psi, me in the car and 8 gallons of gas in the cell

Then Joe changed the sway bar end-link mounts by putting them on top of the lower control arm. This raised the bar a good 2″. We also shimmed the steering arm on the right side to create more clearance to the rotor (the steering rack heim was touching the bottom inside edge of the rotor and machining it down a bit). We also bled the brakes. And he made me a front grill block off panel. Once I got the car home I spent a couple of hours (spread over a couple of days) nut and bolting the whole car. So, I’m ready to fire this thing up for the first time in over a year. There’s a test day at Sears Pt. on Jan. 15th I’m hoping to make. Stay Tuned.

So here it is (in alphabetical order). Oh,and you’re welcome!

AC/DC – Long Way to the Top (if you wanna rock n’ roll), Walk All Over You, Beating Around The Bush, Shot Down In Flames, If You Want Blood
Bad Company – Bad Company, Ready for Love, Feel Like Makin’ Love
Billy Squire – In the Dark, The Stroke, Lonely is the Night
Black Oak Arkansas – Fancy Nancy, Rebel, Crying Shame
Black Sabbath – Paranoid, war pigs
Blue Oyster Cult – Don’t Fear the Reaper, Burning for You
Danzig – Mother
Deep Purple – Highway Star
Dio – Holy Diver, Rainbow in the Dark, The Last in Line
Foreigner – Long Long way from Home, Juke Box Hero, Double Vision
Golden Earring – Radar Love, Twilight Zone
Heart – Barracuda
Iron Maiden – The Trooper
Judas Priest – Breaking the Law, You’ve Got Another Thing Commin’
Kansas – Carry On Wayward Son
Kiss – Detroit Rock City, Love Gun
Lynyrd Skynyrd – Gimme Back My Bullets, That Smell
Mettalica – Battery, Master of Puppets, Damage, Inc.
Ministry – Jesus Built My Hotrod
Montrose – Rock the Nation, Bad Motor Scooter, Space Station #5, I Got the Fire, Paper Money, Jump On It
Motley Crue – Kickstart My Heart
Motorhead – Ace of Spades
Nazareth – Hair of the Dog
Ozzy Osbourne – Crazy Train
Red Rider – Lunatic Fringe
Rush – Working Man, Spirit of Radio, Freewill, Limelight, Tom Sawyer, Subdivisions
Scorpions – Rock You Like a Hurricane, No One Like You
Steppenwolf – Born to be Wild
Styx – Renegade
Thin Lizzy – Jail Break, Cold Sweat
Tom Petty – Runnin’ Down a Dream, Refugee
Van Halen – Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love

Ok, so back to cars… I started working through my list of items to get the Javelin track ready again. My goal is to get the car to where I can take it to a test day at Sears Point (Sonoma Raceway). if it checks out (goes straight when you want it to) I’ll then blow it apart again for final bodywork and paint. Here’s what I’ve gotten done so far:

1) welded new mounts and drilled holes in the trunk for the trunk pins
2) made a new battery mount (this time behind the drivers seat). this let me eliminate about 7 ft. of battery cable.
3) new wheels/tires. I was going to try to get the one bent rim repaired but ended up finding a great deal online for some black wheels (I had always wanted black wheels on the car). these wheels (Drag 31’s) have a 73mm bore (had to have Joe open up the bore on the old set to get them to fit). I got 4 wheels, with valve stems, delivered for under $400 bucks! now I can use the 2 old wheels as spares (that leaves the old wheel that’s bent and has a tire that was gouged by metal when I wrecked it and another wheels that’s fine but the tire has a blister in the sidewall). I took the one shaved, unmounted Toyo I had and bought 3 more from AIM Tire (at sears point) and had them all mounted/balanced on the new wheels.
4) did a bunch (but not all) of the body stuff. pulled the side trim, welded a bunch of holes closed. still more to do but the bulk of it is done.
5) re-installed the seat and belts
6) re-installed the Accusump. I also hooked up a remote cable so I can open/close it even while strapped in. this was on my to do list after racing in 2012.
7) front suspension – the front wheel studs had gotten lose and backed out a little. so I pulled the front apart and removed the studs so I could drill them for safety wire. this took a lot longer than I thought it would because none of the drill bits I had could make a dent in these hardened studs. Called Joe and he said I needed a cobalt bit (of course he has them). So I went to Joe’s and he hooked me up with the bit and a drill press. Now that I live up here it only took me 12 minutes to get to Joe’s shop; awesome! Once I had the studs drilled I screwed them back into the hubs and torqued them. My method for torquing wheel studs is to turn a wheel upside down and wedge against something (wall, other tires, etc). then place the hub (studs first) into the back of the wheel. now the hub will stay put (because the studs are sitting in the holes in the wheel) while you tighten them. works great. With the front end apart I also decided to take the time to change the front springs. I ran 500# springs all of 2012 and everyone said they were too soft. Al, from Control Freak sent me 850# springs and said that’s what I should be running. So I got the 850’s in. I didn’t have a spring compressor so I used some light duty ratchet straps threaded through the coils to compress them enough to get the top cap off and slide the springs out. worked great.
8) the taillight wiring harness had been cut when Evil Genius cut the car in half (I had run the wires inside of the rocker panel). no biggie, I just spliced the cut back together.
9) I replaced the rear gear oil. The rear has had a slow leak since day one. I think (but am not sure) that at least part of the fluid was coming from the drain plug. so I pulled the plug, drained the rear and then put a new plug (I had rounded the corners of the old one a bit) with some thread sealant from loctite. I’ve got it all cleaned off and a drip pan underneath so i’ll see if it still leaks after this.
10) bolted the fuel cell down and hooked up the fuel line and vent hose. Evil Genius are the best but my one gripe is they put metric hardware on my ‘murcan MUSCLE. ewwww…. 🙂
11) re-installed the front sway-bar. the drivers lower control arm sway bar mount had one of the tabs bent (probably happened when the car hopped the curb when I wrecked it). I got it bent back enough to bolt in the rod end but it needs more massaging. hopefully Joe can help me straighten it out.
12) got the rear bumper bolted in. took a couple of extra minutes because the brackets had 4 bolts each (just like the one that got destroyed in the wreck) but the new back half of the car only had two HOLES for each bracket. weird. I don’t know if they tried to save money at some point by mounting the rear bumper with 4 bolts total instead of 8? anyway, took a cut off wheel to the “extra” bolts and I was back in business. Another issue is that this bumper (which was thrown in by Don who sold me the rear clip) has been hit and has a bit of a bend in it. Hopefully when I get it painted they can also straighten out the bumper. otherwise I’ll have to scrounge up a straight one somewhere…
13) got the taillights “built” and installed. I had to clean them, paint the inside with “chrome” paint, mount extra brake lenses where the backup lenses usually go and paint the “buckets” trim black.
14) changed the oil filter and put in fresh Joe Gibbs XP6. 10 quarts to start. once I get the car running again I’ll get the accusump filled and then top it off with another 2 quarts.

so there’s really not much left for the car to be running again:

– fill with water
– have Joe scale/align the car
– nut and bolt the whole thing
– fix/remount the rear spoiler

that’s it (in theory)… So I’m going to finish up the last few things and then get it to Joe’s for scale/alignment. After that I’ll wait for a Friday test with good weather at Sears Pt. Pics below.

1. make a new battery mount. I had been using a small battery located in the trunk but am considering going with a bigger battery and moving it forward of the axle, in the back of the passenger area.
2. need do a bunch of misc. body mods like – pull the side trim, fill the side marker lights, fill the trunk keyhole, grind down a bunch of trim clips
3. repair the damaged rear spoiler and mount to trunk lid
4. repaint the interior, new cage bars, trunk interior and bottom of trunk lid light gray. I’m going to get a quart of paint mixed and borrow Jeff’s spray gun and try to do this in my garage.
5. redo the wiring to the tail lights
6. remount the accusump
7. weld brackets in the trunk opening to hold the trunk pins and drill holes in the trunk lid for them
8. one of the rims has a bent lip. I’m going to call one of those mobile wheel repair places and see if they can fix it.
9. one rear tire has a blister and the other was damaged in the wreck (had a piece of metal jammed into the sidewall, although it still holds air). So, I need to buy 3 new tires (I have one new, shaved tire already) and get them all mounted so I have fresh rubber on all 4 corners. I’ll keep the two front tires as spares.
10. get the exterior painted blue and have the yellow stripes redone on the trunk lid
11. get all the graphics on the back half of the car redone
12. need to get the car scaled and aligned

then there’s the stuff I need/want to do that’s not related to wrecking it.

13. I want to redo the way the front swaybar is mounted. it’s too low right now. need to figure out how to get the arm mounting point on TOP of the control arm (instead of on the bottom like it is now).
14. need to redo the front grill block off. basically I need to make one with no holes. I need to do this to try to keep air from getting under the hood and creating lift.
15. Al at Control Freak sent me 850# springs for the front (thanks Al!). I’m running 550# springs now and the consensus is those are way too soft. So I need to swap front springs. Also hoping Al comes through with a drop spindle setup so I can get the car lower.

there’s probably 50 more things but that’s the big stuff. Of course I need to nut/bolt the car again before I take it back on track. Need to see if there’s a track day I can shoot for to shakedown the rebuilt car and then see if I can make a race this year. Here’s some pics of how it looks back from Evil Genius.

The guys at EGR have been BUSY. Here are pics of what they’ve gotten done. I’m still a long way from driving my car on track again but after seeing the pics John took of their progress I’m believing it will happen! Thanks EGR, you rule! Here’s a link to their facebook page that has more photos of the Javelin and other cool posts about the goings on at the shop: Evil Genius Racing facebook page