Post 1

[Scott Gesford]

Gotta start somewhere.

[Rennie Clayton]

Great, I'll join in the fun.

Any other FA'ers out there?

Ren

[RussMcB]

Not really a "true" atlantic, but I enjoy racing my RT-5 Super Vee in SCCA regional races in the FA class. I enjoy Rennie's posts in the Sports Racers forums, so I'm glad to see him and other FA racers starting a forum here. I'm sure I'll get a lot out of it.

[Brooks O'Brien]

Nice to see this site, I have a 1990 Swift DB4 Toyota. Planning on doing CenDiv Nationals. I am looking for a spare motor, preferabily a long rod, small port head motor.

[D.T. Benner]

I run a Formula 2000 Vandiemen Zetec as a Formula Atlantic. I had a 91 Reynard FA but could not afford the cost to run it. The Zetec is in no way competive with a well driven "real" Atlantic car but sometimes i find it possible to qualify among the "real" atlantics. Though with only 160HP and 4 gears I always get dusted at the start! One of my friends with a Swift ask me if i ever have to work on my engine? Nope,just put gas in it change oil-it's good for 5000 racing miles. As the old saying goes "How fast do you want to go?/How much money do you have" Me i go as fast as i can afford! Good luck to all in 2004! Darrell

[Dan Kennison]

I just bought my first Atlantic and look forward to learning alot more about it. I hope to meet some of you out at the track.

Dan Kennison

[Rennie Clayton]

Dan,

Welcome to the FA crowd. What kind of car did you get?

Ren

[Dan Kennison]

I bought a swift 008a.

[Rennie Clayton]

Dan,

Wonderful! As I said, welcome to the FA fraternity; I'm sure you're impatient to get a sampling of the car, if you haven't already been behind the wheel of one. Ask anybody that we compete with here on the west coast - I'm an open book as far as sharing information with competitors is concerned, so if you have any questions about setup or driving one of these things, drop me a line. The tougher the competition, the more fun I have...

Can we look forward to seeing you at the June Sprints this year?

Ren

[Dan Kennison]

Yes I hope to be there. I have been running an F2000 the past few years.

I do have a question. I bought the car with the high downfore tunnels, the inserts to make the less efficient and the low downfore tunnels. I understand that the Yok's were hard and it was hard to get the front end to bit, but if I run Hossiers are the high downforse tunnels better?

Thanks

[Mark Ishikawa]

Hey guys.. Stan just pointed this site out for me. We run a 008 that I bought from Mike Shank. Just finished our 1st season in the Atlantic.. Definately a big change from the showroom stock car I used to run..

Mark

[Rennie Clayton]

Dan,

From what I understand with the 008's, you're better off running the high downforce tunnels at most tracks. I'm told the low downforce tunnel inserts were used mainly on ovals, but they might be effective at a place like Elkhart Lake as well. I'm not sure on that, since I don't run a Swift. Did you get any setup notes with the car for any of the tracks you run?

You'll always have less downforce than an RT-41, even in high downforce trim, and you'll always have more drag than an RT-41, even in low downforce trim. So you'll have to play a balancing act to stay competitive. It's the nature of the beast, unfortunately - the car was never really designed to compete with the RT-41, just to replace it as a spec car...

Ren

[Dan Kennison]

I got alot of set-up data when I got the car. It has a fairly static sweet spot. It looks like gears and wing changes mainly. The overall set-up range is not that dramatic.

There is no doubt that the Ralt has less drag. You can look at it and see the advantages.

I think you are right about the inserts as well.

I will be doing some testing in April and hopefully some of my questions will be answered.

For the winter I have to be satified with tinkering with it.

Dan

[RussMcB]

With the recent discussions in this forum I've learned a bit about the evolution of recent atlantic models (RT-41 - 008 - 014). It prompted this question in my mind:

How much of a performance jump was it when the RT-40 came out? Was it significantly faster than the DB-4?

One reason I'm curious is because there are occasionally DB-4's for sale and the prices are pretty low for an atlantic. Are they far off the pace of current RT-41's? The DB-4 was a significant step up from the RT-4, right?

[timos]

You might look at the last few Runoffs stats... it may or may not show why a Ralt 40/41 will set you back easily 2X-3X what a DB-4 will.

That being said, Wilcox's DB-4 was at the sharp end of the grid this year.

A list of the winners only, doesn't always tell the whole story:

1985 Michael Angus, Ralt RT-4
1986 Chris Clark, Ralt RT-4
1987 Russell Newman, Ralt RT-4
1988 John Thompson, Swift DB-4
1989 Wayne Cerbo, Ralt RT-4
1990 Joseph Hamilton, Swift DB-4
1991 Jordan Harris, Swift DB-4
1992 Chris Fahan, Swift DB-4
1993 Greg Ray, Swift DB-4
1994 Stan Wattles, Ralt RT-40
1995 Dan Carmichael, Ralt RT-40
1996 Steve Forrer, Ralt RT-40
1997 Steve Forrer, Ralt RT-41
1998 B.J. Zacharias, Ralt RT-41
1999 Brian French, Ralt RT-41
2000 Larry Connor, Ralt RT-41
2001 Larry Connor, Ralt RT-41
2002 Mike Biangardi, Ralt RT-41
2003 Rennie Clayton, Ralt RT-41

tim

[size="1"][ January 06, 2004, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: timos ][/size]

[Rennie Clayton]

Russ,

The consensus is that an RT-40 in stock configuration is about 1 tenth faster than a DB-4. An RT-41 is about 4 tenths quicker than a DB-4. In terms of a closely contested series where everybody is capable of running the car close to it's limits, that would be an unacceptable gap.

However, given that we were running about 2 seconds per lap faster than Keith in testing at the Runoffs, running the same basic configuration of car, leads me to believe that running a DB-4 will not put you at a totally insurmountable disadvantage.

Ren

[Stan Clayton]

I agree that the DB4 is a potent car. At the 2002 Buttonwillow double national, John Hill put the hurt big-time on both Rennie and on Keith Lively. John was driving Arne Loyning's DB4...

[Matt M.]

I'll try to throw my brother in (Mark)here too - He landed one of P1's old 008's last spring. I know he'll have a few questions/comments.

I run a pro spec Zetec also - So I guess now I have an official club home - I feal the FC guys never really excepted me anyway...

[Scott Gesford]

Originally posted by Matt M.:
I'll try to throw my brother in (Mark)here too - He landed one of P1's old 008's last spring. I know he'll have a few questions/comments.

I run a pro spec Zetec also - So I guess now I have an official club home - I feal the FC guys never really excepted me anyway...

Matt, did you ever get to drive the 008 yet? I think the FC guys tolerated you quite well. [img]tongue.gif[/img]