Respect vs Fear

[ERA 626]

Originally Posted by eschaider

Your observation about the cars under full power and their skittish nature, for anyone who has driven them, is a very real risk that you have to continually manage to. I have a friend who bought a new Corvette a couple of years ago and also bought a driving school course from Bob Bobdurant's High Performance Driving School.

During the course one of the litmus tests the instructors put the students through was driving the cars with and without the OEM traction control turned on. Predictably the students all did better with the traction control on.

Our cars never came with traction control either as originals or as the replicas we built. Today that can be different. If you have ever considered changing from a carburetor to EFI, and for some of us I know this is heresy, you can avail yourself of some pretty sophisticated traction control capabilities built right into the newest generation EFI systems.

There is a particular system I am biased towards because of capabilities and price. It is the Megasquirt MS3Pro-PNP <= clickable. They call it a PNP system because it uses the original OEM engine wiring harness and Ford ECU plug so it is literally plug and play. It also drives the entire OEM gauge panel if that is important. Most of us opt for the original Smith's look so the instrument panel stuff is not high on our priorities list.

The next item ought to be — it could save your life and others as well. The MS3Pro-PNP system has a built in, tunable traction control system. The system uses OEM wheel speed sensors (VSS in the vernacular) married to the front and rear wheel.

The software provides you the tools to tune the sensors for differing tire sizes and different tire sizes front and rear. Once you're past the tire size stuff you simply set the percentage of slip you are willing to tolerate, say 3%, and when the ECU sees that percentage it progressively pulls timing to maintain the tires at the slip limit you have set. This occurs dynamically in real time without intervention on your part while driving. It is literally a life saver!

Because it is dynamic it changes the character of the vehicle's power application to the tires so it lliterally accommodates all surfaces including wet surfaces. This capability can literally save your life and your car.

If you've always wanted a Weber look there are commercially available plain throttle bodies that look like Webers all you do is put injectors in the already supplied ports. If the eight stack approach is not your cup of tea there are carburetor replacement air valves that bolt on where the Holley was and use port nozzles in the intake manifold above each port for fuel delivery and maintain, for their part, the period correct underhood look.


Ed

Great Post... I am also using a Mega Squirt and had not even thought of using it for Traction control... Humm... In terms of Driving scared... In kart racing (in my opinion the purest form of racing) if you drive scared you will most likely make a mistake and get yourself or someone else hurt or killed. If you are driving scared you are driving over your head. Either slow down or get some driving lessons...Can you imagine the green flag drops, 40+ 125cc shifter karts hitting turn 2 at Laguna Seca going north of 100mph, that is called driving skills, rarely is there a incident... You have to trust the people you drive with as well as your skills. NEVER drive scared... JMHO