Safety gear:
It’s all about helmet weight. Buy the lightest helmet you can afford. The stock seat belt will hold up ok for most people until you get to the upper intermediate levels of HPDE, by the advanced group have a racing seat and harness please. Your $$ will be well spent on Safety gear, harness, seats, etc. Why? A super charger doesn’t keep you alive in a crash. I am a Dr. by day and treat auto accident cases often. When you have an impact the head whips forward and back = whiplash. This could also snap your neck & kill you (Dale Sr). Whiplash is a factor of speed & weight. Your heavy head moves forward and back, this causes the injury. So the heavier the helmet, the more force is applied on your neck in an accident. More likely you will have a severe neck injury! In fact, I would think many of us are safer without the helmets for this reason sadly. What to do? A HANS. Head and Neck Saftey device. Unless you have a special race seat for the standard HANS units with a Halo etc, the best device out there for the rest of us is the R3 (google shopping to find vendors). Standard R3 is carbon fiber and $1000! It allows you to attach your helmet firmly to your torso, thus avoiding the whipping motion of the skull and protecting your neck and your life! Recently a composite version came out called the Rage R3 for $650, same device… less pretty. Saves you a lot of $$$. The newest version is the hybrid Rage. From calling several vendors (I did), the consensus is that this device is just as good in crash testing as the older style R3, but doesn’t go as far down your spine. It’s wider on the shoulders, but less bulky (thick) behind you in the seat. It also comes with a pad you can place in hard race seats so you can “leave it behind” embedded in the seat (like a Kirky seat) and then just sit down and strap in. It’s comfortable. It saves lives. Do this before you do any engine power changes. It’s a definite necessity when you change from the beginner to intermediate groups & beyond. The faster you push, the more likely you will spin or crash. Safety is more important than performance! From all I have heard and read, those cheesy neck padded collars do little in a severe impact. Better than nothing though. Just FYI.
One last thing, most of the HANS equipment you buy will have hardware that comes with it to attach to the helmet that is #10/32 screw sized. However I found that many modern helmets COME WITH factory moutning points already threaded for the HANs with M6 screw size sites. I went to Sears Hardware and got hardened Alan key bolts for these. Home Depot & Lowes had a crudy selection and many of the items were mixed in draws and hard to find. Easy attachment & removal with no worries about stripping screw heads in the future. I found that the 3/8" bolts worked best, but this may vary helmet to helmet & I had to drill the anchor holes a bit bigger to accept the M6 with cobalt steel bits.
Fluids:
Change them often. Many people will tell you that the standard 5-30 isn’t great for racing temps, its too thin. 10-30 is better (6.5 quarts). Lots of debate on redline, royal purple & the XPR, Amsol, mobile 1, etc. All subjective. One thing is clear; you cannot watch your oil life % indicator on your DIC when doing HPDEs. You need to change the oil more. Bad oil will = engine wear and higher oil temps racing.
Read here for how much to use / which fluids & how much needed for the Rear Diff/Manual Tras: (
http://forums.corvetteforum.com/auto...post1571382132) You need to do this every few years for a street car, and atleast annual for an HPDE car... some say more.
You DO need to get a 160 thermostat (
http://www.lgmotorsports.com/catalog...products_id=91) and either an engine tune to turn your fans on sooner (easier) or a aftermarket hard wire kit to kick the radiator fan on sooner. Lower temps = longer engine life and less failures. Get a good tune! Don’t forget your coolant. The 50:50 works great for normal driving, but higher water (distilled) to antifreeze ratio will run a bit cooler. Its not a bad idea in a track car to go 70:30 / 60:40 in spring once you know ther eis no issues with freezing for the whole race season, then change back for the winter to 50:50... but its time consuming. Only use STEAM distiled water, NEVER tap or "spring water". Running ALL water = higher pressures, and needs some system items changed/considered first. All water will also corrode the aluminum engine engine parts without the anti-corrosion chemicals in it, and all water = higher pressures hot = faster water pump failure FYI. The redline water wetter will also help keep temps down a few more degrees, this is a MUST for all water systems. The farther away you go from 50:50, the more water wetter you need. Don’t forget to change the fluid in your car if racing for the rear diff and the transmission after every season as well. These parts expensive when they fail. I find that the dealer does a great job on fluid changes CHEAP and reliably IF you get your own fluids and bring them. If I bring all my fluids, the total cost for oil, trans and diff change out is under $90 and saves me a mess & disposal costs. Filter? Mobile 1 is just fine. Oil temps above 300F are not uncommon if you are pushing your stock motor without mods. Ouch. I hit high 260s even on a hot day with the mods for heat discussed here in this tutorial.
Learn the Ranger clutch reservoir trick! This is getting a 10cc syringe or bigger from your auto parts store (Pepboys has them) with a small hose attached; store it in a freezer bag sized ziplock to keep your tool box clean. It’s usually used for mixing 2 stroke oil, etc. Open your clutch reservoir and STIR up the gunk on the bottom. Then SUCK it all out carefully, it will eat your paint if you drip since there is brake fluid in there. Then dump it into an empty disposable water bottle. Carefully refill with the same good fluid you now use in your brakes, DO NOT OVER FILL, and then get in the car. Pump the pedal 20 times. Start drive 2 minutes. Come back, turn car off. Pump clutch 20 times again. Repeat the flush. This is for the first time only. Then do this after all spirited driving involving shift or clutch dumps (i.e. spinning wheels). Keep at it often and the fluid will be and stay clear! If the fluid brakes down it gets gunky looking snowflakes in it that damage the slave fast! The constant change over of fluid here will keep your slave cylinder clean and avoid clutch failure. It’s cheap insurance. I do it first thing at an HPDE each day, and if it’s a busy morning (4 sessions) I will do it at lunch too. Basically every 4 sessions, I do this procedure to keep the car fresh. Power steering fluid can be changed the same way with a sucking syringe, get the synthetic good stuff not the OE cheap stuff. Just insert wheel left and right a bunch of times with engine on instead of clutch pumps. I only do this two times a season though.
Recently I found a local Tuner shop (you know the Honda, subaru, etc. places) that sells all the Redline products, motul, etc. They have a PRICE MATCH policy on all fluids! I went one by one on my fluids I needed on Google Shopping, copied down the best prices for each and bought locally at rock bottom prices! Think about this option. 8q oil, 2q diff, 3q trans, 1q steering, 1q water wetter = $140 all Redline when price matched locally without shipping costs. I also set up an account with them, so next time I will get the same prices automatically! Saved about $25 bucks. Not life changing but they also said they will price match for rotors, pads, and anything else they sell / can order...
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