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Hi all,
I just bought an ITB Escort. I'm planning on attending a drivers's school on the 17th and 18th at Second Creek in CO. I sure would like like anyone's opinions on setup, pre race prep, do's and don'ts, anything you think might be useful. I bought the car from a gentleman in Mich. who did a real nice job of building the car and I LOOK FORWARD TO learning the the car and racing it.
Thanks cw
Welcome aboard!!
The car should be fairly reliable. For a drivers school the main thing is to bring a crew.
Then you bring all the spare parts and tools you have!
Your consumables are brakes pads and tires.
As you get along in racing, you will want spare front bearing/hub knuckle assembiles for each side. Spare half-shafts help too. Make certain you have the tools to change these assemblies in the field. Since wheel bearings are a shop/press job, that is why I recommend bring complete assemblies as spares.
Obviously you will need window cleaner, paper towels, racer tape, oil, coolant, etc. etc.
BTW, feel free to ask questions.
Cheers.
Hi C.W., you bought that car out from underneath me, you dog! I have an EGT already that I run in ITB but was going to buy Doug's car for a backup car and spares. I had a guy here in town that was going to drive that car in exchange for shop space in his shiny new 2500sqft race shop! Oh well, some of the suspension stuff is right out of my design especially the entire rear suspension. If you have any questions about setup and spring rates and settings let me know. I'm disappointed that you live in CO and not closer. Doug and I never had a chance to run together on track but I did run against the original owner/builder of his car one fall at Mid Ohio. The car was pretty good but I still had him covered by at least a couple of seconds a lap at Mid Ohio. I'm always open to questions and would be happy to offer any information that I can come up with. I've been to the limit on everything in the car including the motor and can tell you precisely where to go to make it fast and last (sort of). I've had a bad motor year because I found the limit finally and two and a half motors later, I'll be backing off the compression and hopefully adding a little reliability back into the car. I finished 2nd in points for the CenDiv in 2002 (not this year though) running a pretty conservative drivetrain. I was able to run with the big boys with a significant motor upgrade over the winter but unfortunately wasn't able to make them last long enough to get a good finish (or any finish for that matter!). Anyway, let me know if you have any questions and we'll get through it together. As always, good luck with the car and be safe. Jon
P.S. If you are interested in a Quaife Limited Slip Differential (a huge benenfit over welded front diff) let me know, I know who has done all the leg work on it. I have one in my car and love it, I had a welded diff for years until the LSD and wouldn't change back for anything now.
hi jericker
I just got back from my first test in the EGT
10/9 AT SECOND CREEK and love the car. I've got a lot to learn about driving it. I'm very interested in hearing more about a limited slip differential, I forward to talking to you more later, I have to go back to work and will be back monday. If Doug reads this the car got a lot attention (all good)CW
Hi all
I ran the drivers school this weekend at 2nd creek in CO. The car ran great,3 solid hours of abuse and the car did not miss a beat. Couple of questions, I read the GCR and it says you can't change the stock gear ratios, but this weekend it was obvious that 3rd was way to tall, am I wrong? I see different ratios listed in the GCR are there some options?
I would welcome any advise!
CW
P.S.
Jon
I'd love to talk about where I might be able to improve the motor as well. If your car handles as well as mine did this weekend,you were right on the money when you designed it.
CW
You can't change the individual gear ratios but you can change the final drive ratio which may help.
#37
Hey Chris
Im glad to here your school went good for you.
Joe Craven is right. I think there is a 402 final gear out there that will fit but????
Jon I think has a different setup in his. He made his own setup I think.
Glad it went good for you. Also Im not sure if I told you where to start at tire pressures. Try 36 lbs. front and 35 lbs. rear. Good Luck
Doug
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Doug
ITB Escort
[email protected]
Chris--There are a lot of different gearboxes available for this car; you may find one with better ratios. It will be a lot of research, however, and you may have to prove existence to SCCA for purposes of the ratio spec line in the ITCS.
You would need all of the Powertrain manuals for the years in your spec line to figure this out.
Joe mentioned the fact that you can freely change final drive, but remember you can also use different tires with the same effect (changing aspect ratios).
Cheers.
Jon
I'd love to talk about where I might be able to improve the motor as well.
C.W. I'd be more than happy to talk with you about the motor and what we can do to them. I learned this year where the limit is for sure. I went through two full motors and the top half of a third as well. I have a design for forged pistons that work well from JE Pistons. I have a Quaife which likewise works well. The internal motor parts are otherwise pretty good with the stock setup but contact me offline and I'll give you the whole deal that I know. [email protected]
P.S. The handling and braking of the EGT will win you some races when you finally get them to the perfect balance. You have decent struts and springs and the A+ setup so now we need to fine tune for you some. We'll talk about it though off line. Later.
Jon
Doug, there is not a 402 final drive that I know of. The stock which I think is what your car had is a 376. There is also a 331 that I used to run and also a 354 which is what I run now. I use this final drive to ensure that I don't need to use 5th gear ever. So far, I haven't needed to use it (except this summer at Mid Ohio when I was running on 3 cylinders with a blown head gasket) which is the ultimate goal. The 354 pulls well out of the corners much better than the 331 that I had for several years. When I went to the 354, we put in the Quaife LSD and now I feel that part of the car is okay. The 376 is fine and probably even a better pulling gear but at tracks like Road America, IRP and possibly Mid Ohio where I run alot, I think it would be too low and I would have to go to the dreaded 5th gear. This is what I have come up with over the years so I hope it was of some help.
Jon