[AMC-list] SoCal TT!

From: tom jennings <tomj@xxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2009 23:47:15 -0700

OK, so let me say first, no one is more surprised than me. Pretty much
everywhere I go (even AMC meets), I get the 'oh there's that wierdo skinny
guy in the 'wacky' car'. But never did I imagine that that a 1963 Rambler
American would be a

KICK ASS PARDON MY FRENCH GOOD RALLY CAR!!!

I'm serious. You're all wrong about these cars. I have video and an award to
prove it.

OK it's a vintage car rally, check out the line up below, some oddballs
(which I assumed I would be one of) but most are decently seriously fast
cars. It's a friendly not-too-competitive crowd (everyone stops for anyone
in trouble, lunch stops, etc). But almost no one is screwing off, and half
the crowd was running pretty hard the whole time -- and that's the half I
ended up in. Holey krap with a kapital K!

About 550 miles in two days, Echo Park (Los Angeles) to Los Alamos (up near
Lompoc) and back. Spectacular mountain roads, maybe 4000 foot altitude.
Classic twisty windy back roads with a sheer 500 foot drop off on one side
and a rock face on the other. Half of it no guard rails. Cool and dry
(sprinkles today).

268 miles on Sunday, if anyone cares to know the route, I could post it, all
I have is paper directions and paper maps. About the same mileage today,
about 25% backtracking.

I drove the SNOT out of this car. It performed FLAWLESSLY. It understeers of
course, but only moderately. It's utterly stock, but the front suspension is
perfect, it's got good 265/65-15's on new steel wheels (I ran 40 psi), and
my hot-rodded drum brakes. More on those later. Otherwise dead stock, and in
fact, the rear shocks are OLD! metallic blue with gold stickers, but mostly
rusty. They're old but still good the look like Sears shocks or something.
Stock and old springs on all four corners (but no sag and ride hight is
correct).

Other than a terrible an unsurprising lack of power, this chassis GETS
BETTER when you push it. In ordinary driving, it leans a lot, comically so.
But when you push it til the tires are slipping, it doesn't tilt any further
-- in fact it hunkers down and is incredibly stable.

I had no idea -- I've never driven this car hard, ever. I figured I'd go
along for the ride and have a good time. But the more I tossed it the more I
was surprised -- and I ended up sort-of in the middle of the pack.

*** The Alfa had to pull over to let me pass! OK they're not agressive
drivers, but I was HAULING A** and I have video to prove it. I'll load it
this week and post the URLs.

This American -- and i can't believe it's any different from any other
American if you simpyl fix all the broken worn out crap, no matter how hard
it is, and take the car seriously -- handles better than any rear-drive
stock American car I've ever driven. I'm 54, I've driven a fair number of
cars.

Everyone is wrong.

The motor is slow -- but it's torque is near constant. The T96 is awful and
slow, but on a rally (road course) the slowness isn't much of a penalty. OD
made the whole difference, I know I said earlier that the gearing in this
particular model is precisely correct, it proved to be spot-on for rally
driving in desert and mountain roads. What the hell was Nash making,
anyways?!

24" tires, 3.77 axle with OD. If I had a motor I could confidently rev to
4000, I'd drop that overall ratio 15%. And that's exactly what I'm thinking
of, but that's later...

Nearly every car was a beloved project car. The Corolla with the hemi 4, and
the Bluebird, were particularly well dialed-in. The Corolla was a
japanese-market car, imported, with that beautiful little motor, and
completeist japanese license plates, early toyota logo parts, graphics...
beautiful. The bluebird had some very-late-model over the top Nissan turbo
monster motor.

The drilled drum brakes, OK, believe me or not I don't care, kicked ass, I
did stuff with these brakes that were impossible. Hard HARD braking, no
fade, done deal. 9 x 2.5" seriously ventilated and the drum drilling solved
it. 6% - 8% grade, 20 minutes of 20mph switchbacks taken at 50mph, someone
behind me said they could smell brakes, but I couldn't and they DID NOT
FADE. ZERO. I'll pull a drum this weekend, photo and post. That will tell. I
can assure you, I used my brakes HARD, by any standard, vintage or not.

So the furthest third of the run included Tepesquet Canyon, a ridge about
3000 feet?, spectacular twisty windy and very recently repaved On the way
out it was just me and the guy in the 75 MB diesel -- a car we all know is
slower than anything but a volkswagen microbus, so I just headed out on my
own. But on the return trip, I was in the front of the pack (people just
leave at random, there's no starting lineup) -- me, the sprite with wankel,
valiant, the 72 corolla, one of the datsuns. Went up, then down. By the down
run, I was in the groove, but the whole time I was feeling like a jerk for
not pulling over and getting out of the way. At lunch (2 hrs later) I
genuinely apologized for not doing so -- but everyone said "no no no,
really, you were not holding us back, it was fine". Well...

Tonight there was a post-run dinner. Great fun. But I won PEOPLES CHOICE
AWARD. WTF! It turns out -- to my complete surprise -- that they were not
being merely polite, the AMerican was an actual respectable car. At the
dinner I apologized again -- thinking they were being generous earlier --
and multiple simultaneously said basically "no no, if your car was any
faster it would be a real threat"! WTF! The Rambler was the most surprising
performer, least likely, a newbie that out-performed some setup rally cars.
A number of people said to me, after driving near me, "you got that thing
really dialed in!" and I had to admit then, all I did was fix broken parts
and upgrade the brakes and tires. Because that's all I did.

I'm not that good a driver -- I autocrossed a V8 Spirit and basically I
sucked. The early Americans (nashcans) have a subtle blend of features that
apparently have been over looked. How many times have I heard in this list
-- and believed -- the slow, ugly stepchild of AMC, the old holdover from
the nash days, etc, the crappy suspension and awful motor.

Well everyone is wrong, laugh all you want. The motor is desperately short
of power, the T96 weak. But a turbo will fix that (now I have a huge
inducement to complete that!), the brakes are upgradeable, and the
suspension, well fix the old broken crap abused by people that won't take
the car seriously, and it GOES.

The cooling system was utterly boring -- it never left low-normal, and
pretty much I had the thing floored the whole time. I ran at 3000 rpm as
much as I could but ended up lugging 2000 up the grades. 2nd, 2nd over. Down
hills 3rd, 3rd over. No (zero, none) engine braking. It's a waste of time,
there's not enough compression for it to matter, and it ruins the front/rear
braking load and the T96 is too sluggish to download anyways. Better to rely
on brakes.

The carb ran out of fuel all the time on the hard turns. Never happens on
the street. Carter WCD.

Maybe you're thinking 'what is he smoking?', hey go right ahead... I'm gonna
build a rally American!

Here's the car line up. The sprites, all datsuns, the toyota, minis, MGs,
porsche, beamers, alfa and surprisingly valiant, were serious runners. And
the American. I had a severe HP penalty, so I was back of the pack uphill.
But flat and level or downhill, I was in the mix!