Bonneville Speed Week 2006
Aug 19, 2006, 12:24 PM
#1
Bonneville Speed Week 2006
Well, this isn't EVO specific but I am sure most of us are into cars and racing in general so here my report from my first trip to the salt flats for Speed Week.
Well last night I got home from Bonneville Speed Week and 8 days spent out on the salt flats. I was unable to find internet the whole time and my cell phone barely ever had service so I apologize to anyone who was trying to reach me. I am wading through my email and will get back to everyone.
This was my first time to this event and all I can say is WOW, what an amazing event. Words cannot describe just how big (both in attendance and physical size) this event is or the diversity of the vehicles participating. It was like a huge family reunion including some of the biggest and oldest names in our industry.
There were over 500 cars entered, and I saw cars going in excess of 400mph. Keep in mind these are all piston powered and wheel driven cars, no jets or rockets. We debuted the new O&W Racing car and people really thought the roadster with the 2JZ was cool. Everyone involved in the project really did a nice job on it and it looks very professional. Upon arrival we passed tech and got all setup. First pass on the short course got us 157mph but the transmission (TH400) wasn't shifting right so we only had 2nd gear. We made a couple more passes but the transmission was really causing us problems (including a big spin). A trip to Salt Lake City got us a much needed shift kit and we installed it the next day. We ran again, with 160mph on the short course before aborting early due to high cross winds causing the car to get a little loose. We were the last car to run that day due to the wind and we headed into town. First pass out the next day we ran 190mph at 16psi of boost, and that was enough to get us onto the long course. After waiting 4 hours for a shot at the long course, we went to start the car and it wouldn't start. Long story short the engine ended up full of water and we are not sure if it is a head problem or air/water intercooler leak. That was about 2 hours before the end of the event, so needless to say we were game over. But in spite of that fact, we were so pleased that overall the car ran perfect all week and really shows some signs of serious speed potential. We found a few setup changes we want to make to keep the car more stable at speed (and more traction - spinning at 190mph is a little scary) so we almost feel the engine problem at the end may have been a blessing in disguise so we can get the car more sorted before letting it loose on the long course.
Here is a PowerPoint I did with the pictures I took from the event. Mind you I am no professional photographer or PP guy, but hopefully the pictures are good enough you can get a small idea of what this huge event is all about. I have always wanted to attend, and I must say it was everything I thought it would be and tons more.
Slide Show of Bonneville 2006
Thanks to Steve, Bob, Rick and everyone else who works with this project in some aspect for choosing our shop and for a hell of a fun week down at the salt! And yes, I am still cleaning salt out of everything!
Well last night I got home from Bonneville Speed Week and 8 days spent out on the salt flats. I was unable to find internet the whole time and my cell phone barely ever had service so I apologize to anyone who was trying to reach me. I am wading through my email and will get back to everyone.
This was my first time to this event and all I can say is WOW, what an amazing event. Words cannot describe just how big (both in attendance and physical size) this event is or the diversity of the vehicles participating. It was like a huge family reunion including some of the biggest and oldest names in our industry.
There were over 500 cars entered, and I saw cars going in excess of 400mph. Keep in mind these are all piston powered and wheel driven cars, no jets or rockets. We debuted the new O&W Racing car and people really thought the roadster with the 2JZ was cool. Everyone involved in the project really did a nice job on it and it looks very professional. Upon arrival we passed tech and got all setup. First pass on the short course got us 157mph but the transmission (TH400) wasn't shifting right so we only had 2nd gear. We made a couple more passes but the transmission was really causing us problems (including a big spin). A trip to Salt Lake City got us a much needed shift kit and we installed it the next day. We ran again, with 160mph on the short course before aborting early due to high cross winds causing the car to get a little loose. We were the last car to run that day due to the wind and we headed into town. First pass out the next day we ran 190mph at 16psi of boost, and that was enough to get us onto the long course. After waiting 4 hours for a shot at the long course, we went to start the car and it wouldn't start. Long story short the engine ended up full of water and we are not sure if it is a head problem or air/water intercooler leak. That was about 2 hours before the end of the event, so needless to say we were game over. But in spite of that fact, we were so pleased that overall the car ran perfect all week and really shows some signs of serious speed potential. We found a few setup changes we want to make to keep the car more stable at speed (and more traction - spinning at 190mph is a little scary) so we almost feel the engine problem at the end may have been a blessing in disguise so we can get the car more sorted before letting it loose on the long course.
Here is a PowerPoint I did with the pictures I took from the event. Mind you I am no professional photographer or PP guy, but hopefully the pictures are good enough you can get a small idea of what this huge event is all about. I have always wanted to attend, and I must say it was everything I thought it would be and tons more.
Slide Show of Bonneville 2006
Thanks to Steve, Bob, Rick and everyone else who works with this project in some aspect for choosing our shop and for a hell of a fun week down at the salt! And yes, I am still cleaning salt out of everything!
Aug 19, 2006, 06:49 PM
#4
Originally Posted by Scawt
Great pics and story John! Sorry to hear about your engine troubles 
Yeah, we were pretty bummed out in a way and on the flip side we were very very pleased with how the car worked. This car has not been driven at all since it was built till we made our first pass down the salt and we had 7 very trouble free runs. The engine is a used JDM import that we really didn't do much to other than cams/springs/retainers/head studs so we don't know much about it other than it looked like it had been resonably maintained. We confirmed our suspicions that the car is too light, so we will be adding some ballast to it and making a few aero tweaks that will hopefully let us run the long course with more stability than we had this time. Our gut feeling is that perhaps not getting to run the long course was a blessing in disguise, and we will look forward to going for 210+mph once the car is setup more to our liking.
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