Old parts warning

HAMBsterlady, he is San Diego.
I have kinda put his on hold as I am trying to work some bugs out of mine.
I want to finish it up and see how it runs.
I do not look for him to get it out there any time soon as they have had their first child.
They kinda of put a lot of stuff on hold for a while.
Robert

 

That sounds like a good plan - only I would grind off all of the ratchet barbs on the lever so it will return by itself and not stay locked "on" which will also be a safety hazard.

My parachute story: After making a pass in my altered I pulled off the strip into the shutdown area and rolled to a stop at the side. The next car down the track (a '70s era Pro Stocker) deployed the chute and turned onto the shutdown area. As he rolled past me a gust of wind blew his chute into my wheelie bars and ripped them off my rear axle. There is always a risk associated with deploying a chute and I don't do it unless I exceed the mandated limit of 150 mph. Otherwise most drivers use the brakes only. Brake pads are cheap.

 

Look at a side view of the car before you do this, to make sure you are not locating the attachment point of the shroud lines to the car so as to be constructing a "lever" that will yank the front wheels off the surface and maybe upset the car at speed. It's fine to mount the chute pack up high, just be careful where you attach the lines to the car.

 

Here's a formula that has helped in the past.

A normal drag parachute "flies" at about 5 to 6 feet off the ground.

So. find the center of gravity on your car. This is very easy... jack it up on each side until it teeters front to back. Then mark this spot with masking tape on the body.(okay, I know this is not quite the center of gravity, but it is plenty close enough).

Then, pull the drouge chute out of the pack and pull the it out until the shroud lines are tight, holding the attachment point of the drouge chute to the main chute 5 or 6 feet off the ground.

Have a helper mark the imaginary line between the center of gravity masking tape on the body to your hand that is holding the main chute.

Then move that line up 3 inches on rear of the car where you will then make the attachment point for the shroud lines.

The reason you move the attachment point up 3 inches is to compensate for the fact that the center of gravity of the car is that the mass of the car is directly above the "teeter" point .