Had an awesome first outing with the FGT! Congrats and Kudos to all involved at the mile. What an amazing time...
We went out with the car with low expectations wanting to sort it out. The day before the event was the first time it was driven. We had not been able to tune the car on the dyno which proved to make setting the boost very difficult with our Motec system. Needless to say a huge thank you and nod of respect go out to Naoto our tuner... he is truly a tuning genius...
Our first time out with a completely new turbo combination, engine management system and wheel and brake setup gave slight cause for concern especially given the fact that we didn't drive the car until the day before the mile event...
We tuned the car on the access road the first day of the event... no abs, no traction control, no launch control, no idle control.... time to shake it down...
Jason and I talked about letting out at the 3/4 mile mark and seeing how everything felt.. Bear in mind we had a completely new (for this car) brake and wheel combo that hadn't been tested at speed... an untested chute for backup :)
first pass we ran base boost running on the wastegate springs... shifting at 5000 rpm and ran through the gears... car felt so good I ran it to about the 7/8 mile mark before letting out and coasted through the traps at 222.2 mph... Exactly the same speed we worked our asses off in 2007 with the same car (different combo and Gary J driving) to attain... WOW!
we decided to check the data and attempt to tune the car a little more before pushing the car anymore and that ended our first day...
by the time we got into the line the next day we didn't get a run in until just about noon... we decided to make a full pass on waste gate springs shifting at approximately 6000 rpm and see what it would do... just as I shifted into 5th gear I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and saw coolant spraying in the engine bay. I lifted and coasted through the mile at 168 mph... We noticed upon inspection that a coolant hose had blown off... that's when we discovered the need for the Ford GT coolant vacuum tool that we didn't have. Put that on the list for the race trailer. By the time we got all the air out of the system it was after 5pm before we could make another run....
we decided to stay on the same plan and run it through on wastegate springs.... 229.8 MPH!!!!!
we checked the data and everything looked good so we decided to run the same power level but rev it at designed rpm shifting at just over 7000 rpm... 233.5 MPH at 7pm... done for the night...
The next morning proved to be perfect cool weather sporting a nice tailwind. NICE!
We ran our first run at approximately 9:30am with a couple lbs of boost added to the map. With not having dyno data to set the boost map up it is not a simple matter of adding 2 or 3 lbs of boost. Our tuner had to make the map based on knowledge and experience... 239.8 MPH!!!!
We were able to repeat one more run before lunch utilizing the same parameters and squeezed off a 246.2 MPH!!!!
After the lunch break we went out after reviewing the data and made another run. 249.7 MPH!!!!!!!! So CLOSE HAHAHA
The car felt absolutely incredible!!!! NAOTO!!! NEED MORE BOOST HAHA
We were still running WAY WAY under designed and planned for boost levels!!!
On the last run trying to break our 250 MPH mark the lack of testing prior to the event finally got us. Pulling HARD at the 3/4 mile marker the Motec cut out causing us to coast through at 245 MPH.... What a weekend!!!!
For our first time out with this combo... my first time at the Texas Mile, first time playing with the Motec we met every goal we set out to meet and then some.
I have to say a HUGE THANKS to Jason Heffner, T.J and the crew at Heffner Performance for building such an awesome machine, Naoto for his Tuning Mastery, John for the monster bullet proof power plant, DBK, B.M.F, James, Mike, Mullet, SAGT, Chip, Kirk Swartz, Richard Freeman and David Weaver for getting us in the mile event! I know there are many others that worked hard to get us here and thanks to you as well!
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