Electrical: Racepak
One of the many constants with Big Red over the years is the brand of ignition components. Bill Osborne started with MSD Ignition in 1988, and it’s stayed that way. Everything has to be planned. Dave holds the red MSD Power Grid
System controller between the rollcage bars to see if it will fit comfortably in this location. Dave made new panels to close out the rollcage bars. These panels will house some of the MSD ignition and the Racepak data-logging components. The panels will be attached with Dzus fasteners for quick removal.
The MSD Power Grid components were mounted on the black panels. The boxes were mounted between the rollcage tubing to allow as much interior room as possible. A passenger seat may be installed sometime in the future, so foot and leg room needed to be maintained. They were awaiting Jack from Jax Motorsports to run all the wires. The Racepak G2X Pro Data Logger was mounted between the cage panel and the door panel. This makes it easy to plug into when in the pits, and also doesn’t take up valuable real estate inside the passenger compartment. This system will keep track of everything going on under the hood, but eventually could be hooked up to log suspension travel, steering position, brake pressure data, and more. It also can provide lap timing and speed and track mapping functions via GPS. Some upgrades were made when the team installed the Land Speed/Top Speed ProCharged Elephant engine. To better utilize the new four-link rear
suspension off the line at Mojave, they installed the Davis Technologies traction control system that works in conjunction with the Holley Dominator EFI. They also added a new key-operated switch that changes the tune to one of four presets; Blown Alcohol, Blown Gas, N/A Motor 1, and N/A Motor 2. The key gives the guys the ability to easily change the tune without logging into the system.
There had been tuning roadblocks in the past, especially when they were using the supercharged 598 with a blow-through carburetor setup running on E85C fuel. The crew had been using a Racepak EGT (Exhaust Gas Temperature) thermocouple setup. Now that they are upgrading with the new Holley EFI, it’s time to step up their game in the data-logging and controlling department. Replacing pistons and rebuilding engines can be expensive, so it was vital to keep better track of what’s going on inside the engine. The choice was Racepak’s A/F (Air Fuel) controllers and sensors. This system puts an oxygen sensor on every header primary tube. The crew cut new slots in the firewall to mount them on each side of the engine, within reach of the headers. The little square boxes with steel-braided wires coming out are Racepak EGTs (exhaust gas temperature sensors). The other end of each of the braided cables are connected to a small fitting on eachheader primary tube. The EGTs are used only with the supercharged engine in order to further monitor
temperatures. here are a total of 10 oxygen sensors (one is not shown): one data-logger sensor for each cylinder, and two oxygen sensors (one for each
side of the engine) for the Holley Dominator EFI system.
Big Red always has used an Echlin remote solenoid on the firewall, so a new unit was sourced. The remote solenoid helps avoid hard starting caused by heat build up on the starter. In addition, only having one battery cable going to the starter makes it easier to swap starters in a hurry. A lot of thinking went into the list of requirements given to Jack. One of them is the addition of a momentary starter switch on the firewall. In fact, there are two of them— one on each side of the engine. They will come in handy when adjusting valves and turning over the car from under the hood.