Saturday,

Damn early morning, up at 4:45 to get things ready and roll into the show, glad we were camping right there.

Great parking spot to wait in line.







Got all setup at the show and pretty much forgot to take pics =) there were a couple of outstanding cars there that I could not get pics of but some that I did.

This is an Avanti....yes you read that right.









Just some other neat cars, I shot and thought I would share.






Yes, that is a common rail cummins..





Probably my favorite car of the show.











There were tons of cool cars there, and we met some great people. Kristi finally realized how cool Nova Wagons are....but also how cool early 2 door falcons are as well so its one of those two cars for the next build.

Chris Shelton found me Saturday and we chatted for a bit, he wanted to take some photos of the old girl so we got together for that most of Saturday night.



He took some great pics. Favorite quote for the day from Chris..... "I have never shot rust and had it look so awesome"

He was shooting a really cool 68 camaro the same night and wanted to get some rolling shots of it so he asked me to drive this around while he hung all over it and took the photos.....how cool is that.

Cramped as hell and I physically could not get it into second from my long *** legs but it was pretty awesome.





Chris took some killer photos, this is a little teaser. Thanks for the photo shoot Chris.



We headed back on Sunday but wanted to get out of there early, we walked a bit and met some great people, took a couple of trips around the grounds and loaded up to head home. We were super tired and had a great weekend.







Ready for the next adventure now.

Sean

 

I can't even figure out how that 9" and partial frame works!

 

Great pics Sean. Thanks for sharing.

 

Awesome pictures from Good Guys! I've noticed you've done quite some traveling for these shows. Any chance you're stopping by the West Coast Nationals or the November show in Pleasanton, California in August or November?

 

Thank you Sean. Thanks for sharing all the pictures too. That upholstery job on that low back kirkey looks great. Lots of cool rides.

 

Wish i could have made that show too

 

Thanks for the pics. A lot of nice paint and a boatload of work went into those cars!

 

Looks just like mine, you have great skills sir ,,I wish I could claim I did mine

 

Well interesting few weeks I have had.

Been working on the front of the truck trying to get some better Aero and get the frontend down a little bit. Munssey Speed and Design had built a few front bumpers for the bumpside trucks, I was lucky enough to get one of the very first ones of them in the fiberglass ones. Well, when I got it in the mail it was not exactly what I expected but I decided to make lemons out of lemonade. It really is a front bumper delete, think front rolled pan. You would have had to cut off the first 4 or 5 " of the frame and I was not up for that so I used it as an aero piece to smooth out the front of the truck.


You can kind of see what I am going after here.



Oh and finally picked up a tig machine, this was literally my first time on aluminum, I was pleasantly surprised.



Mocking things up, and getting the bumper to finally sit straight.



Once it was mocked up I pulled it apart and painted the front "Bumper" and sanded it down to get it to match the rest of the truck. This was a quick effort.....this is all rattle can, primer a few coats of paint, some wet sanding a a little time with a buffer. I think it turned out awesome.





Finished up the frontend with some pretty cool little home made struts and that was a wrap.





With that done I was ready or almost ready to load stuff up and head to Optima Fontana. Spent a few days getting the new wheels and tires on the dodge as well as de stickering the camper....yes, I am OCD.

That is my 15 year old nephew that rolled down there with me, just under 1100 miles one way. He had an awesome time and lives 3 hours from me, we dont spend enough time together but we always have fun and he loves car time with his uncle.



Lost a trailer tire about 50 miles from Fontana on Friday got it up in the air and swapped it out fired up the tuck and something was squealing fierce up front.



Got to a tire store, got them to plug and patch the trailer tire and picked up a Tensioner, belt and water pump just incase. Ended up swapping that out at the track at night as it was cooler at night and quiet. Got rid of the noise.

Some great sunrises and sunsets down there.

 

Well, things kind of kept down that route the rest of the weekend.

Ran a few Speed Stop events and my time was getting better, not great and certainly not on the fast end of things compared to the rest of the cars in the field...there was some super fast *** cars there this weekend.

Was getting down to the last 45 mins and went to start the truck for the next run and it had no throttle operation. Shut off, started again and it went full throttle....Ran for a second or two and I got it shut off. Pushed out of the staging lanes and pulled out the JMS Pedal Max controller and tossed it....all worked well again. By this time Speed stop was over and it was lunch time. Ate some lunch and headed to the autocross. Got in two really, really slow runs but getting the lay of the course. Hopped in for the third session and the brake pedal was pretty spongy. Pumped it a few times before heading out and it went to the floor. pumped, pumped and it never came back up. Drove it back to the pits with the e brake and worked on it.

Pulled the cap off the master and had the nephew pump the pedal a few times. Got some air bubbles and the pedal came all the way back. Rebled the fronts and no air, wondering if I had air or something trapped in the lines and they migrated to the master cylinder?? Still wondering about that.





Only ran two sessions on the track on Sunday, just could not get into it.

I have a bunch of photos of the truck thanks to my Nephew and Daniel from FTE. Thanks again for the photos man.



Yes this is an amateur race with streetcars. This thing was bad ***, the guy was super cool and gave us a full tour inside and out.



Autocross











Speed Stop

















Ill get some of the other photos from the weekend up soon.

I had a great time with the kid, safe travels, I am pretty hard on myself and a little disspointed in how I drove and how the truck handled.

Its getting a pretty good tear down, new Springs front a rear, new rear panhard bar and looking at how to get more corner entry grip before SEMA. So here is to the mad thrash of the next two weeks.

Oh and the rearend decided to puke a bunch of fluid on the drive home :cry: Pretty much how I felt yesterday :clap:

Sean

 

The truck still looks good man. Sucks you had some issues though

 

Well, I'de say your definitely not babying the thing. Looks like a lot of hard work to attend those events; truck looks awesome on the track. I'll be at SEMA; see you there.

Tim

 

Sean! Wow, that's all I can say... Wow, amazing work you have done on this little truck. I with I had half your skills, and half the amount of time you seem to be able to find. Truly impressed! I look forward to more posts :-)

 

Tim.....Please hit me up I would love to chat with you a bit this week.

Hey Fellas!!!

Sorry to have been MIA lately. Was pretty unhappy with my performance at Fontana so I busted *** to get things hopefully sorted out a little bit more than the last time out.

Went through all the suspension, remade the rear axle side panhard bar mount to hopefully get the rear roll center down a bit.

Replaced the rear springs with some 450lbx8" springs and replaced the front springs with 650x10" beehive style springs. Reset all the ride heights to be close to how it was and threw it on the scales. Believe it or not this thing is not horrible My next changes will be much much better weight distribution but for now I have to live with a 3550 lb weight with the race seats and and a 55 front 45% rear weight distribution and 3550 lb total weight.

Then was the brakes. I built some heat shields for the brake lines near the exhaust and covered them with heat tape. Been having some brake issues. Got the shields installed and rebled the fronts. Well the passenger side. Got to the drivers side and started inspecting it and found the lower piston was leaking into the dust shield. Curious if that was letteing air into the system. Replaced the caliper with a new one and bled the crap out of the system. Hoping all is well.

Loaded stuff up and headed south.

We are here in Vegas now...Loading into SEMA tonight as we are one of the last groups to load into the show. I will be there all week long and the truck will be in OPTIMA Alley. Not sure exactly where that is as I have yet to be there

If any of you guys following this want to check it out or shoot the **** hit me up, Ill be around most of the week and enjoy meeting peeps fromt he forums.

503.621.4186 Text is great

Have a great week fellas,

Sean

 

Glad to hear you pop back in with an update. Have FUN there Buddy.