February was a big month!

February turned out to be a very good month for progress, accomplishments, and more pieces falling together.

First, progress on the ProMod was pretty good! Everything is done except for wiring and paint/wrapping the body. We, actually Traci and Mikey decided that we were going to update the control system and data system to make the car NHRA legal so I stripped the car of all of its wiring again. I also decided to rearrange all of the pneumatic controls too.

Mike Janis set me up with a great Fueltech ECU, sensors, and wiring harnesses to totally renovate the car’s central nervous system. I have most of the electrical stuff laid out and the sensors installed.

I am still waiting for a few pieces that are slow to ship from the manufacturer but moving ahead the best I can without them. One of the items are better/lighter carbon brakes for the front of the car. They were supposed to be delivered 4-5 weeks ago and now there is no E.T.A. at all. Who knows?

I will be talking to Mikey’s graphics designer to talk about the colors/theme of the car. Traci and I will wrap it ourselves, once he gets our design done. I am anxious to learn a new skill. Should be interesting, ha!

We started thinking about the long trips that we will have to take to race the car and we were concerned about our old truck (Clifford) being dependable enough so we started looking at low mile/late model trucks. Clifford started being sporadic about shifting correctly (auto shift transmission) and we did not want to take chances with Traci and I traveling by ourselves with that big rig. 

I met a great guy on Facebook that deals in the exact kind of trucks we were looking for. Turns out he had the perfect truck and he is also a real standup guy that is a race fan himself. His name is Duncan Clarke on Facebook if any of my racing friends are looking for trucks. He is the one to call. God continues to bless us with putting great people in our lives that play a roll in our dream! God is amazing!

We ended up buying a 2020 Peterbilt with only 400,000 miles (low miles for a road truck) on it and it looks like new. It is an automatic clutch and shift truck that drives so nice. Definitely a step up for us. We should be able to go anywhere in it with no troubles. This is a legit race rig now!

We will refresh the look of the trailer with a new all white wrap when the weather cooperates. It will look sharp!

I also worked on The Blue Banana some while I have been waiting on parts and finally fixed the  hesitation that the car had at the shift. Turned out that it was the launch delay box that was causing interference in the digital power distribution module. I ran a couple of runs on the dyno after the fix and the car runs great now. It would have taken forever to figure out the problem without the Dynocom dyno. Here is the last run with a LOT of load being applied by the dyno.

We are still going to push hard to be ready for the ProMod race in April but it is doubtful that we are going to make it. It is what it is and we will race when we are ready.

The Janis’s continued to work on the 67 Mustang and it is looking fantastic. They are going to try to have it ready by summer. We hope we can be there when they debut the car. I can’t wait to see their faces after the first pass!

All in all it has been a good month and God continues to bless or family and our crazy dreams. 

Luke 1:37 For nothing will be impossible with God.