October 27, 2007 - Van was honored by his
employee, Exxon-Mobil Pipeline for 40 years of service. He was
presented a gold and diamond ring to commemorate the occasion. The
affair, held at Lafayette's Restaurant in Lafayette, LA, featured Van's
whole family, including his mother, uncle and many extended family, along
with Stella and 3 of Van's five children.
Many friends spoke kind
words about Van, including several of his neighbors and co-workers.
Van was treated to a limo ride from his New Iberia, LA home to the
restaurant and back. The evening was well planned by Chandra, Stella and the
kids to make this a day that Van will always remember. There were over
40 guests and family.
Exxon-Mobil was represented by two of his
supervisors, who spoke highly of Van's history with the company, his value
to the company, his attention to detail, love for God, his family and
friends.
Van spoke to he assembled group and told of his background, his
dreams, how he got hired in June 1967. How he wanted to go to college
and become an automotive engineer, designing autos. The call from Humble Oil
Pipeline, later to become Exxon, offering Van a job was the end of his
college dreams, and the rest is history...
September 2007 - Van has decided to remove his
engine and transmission. Both will be overhauled for the 2008 racing season.
He will rebuild his 400 transmission and he will purchase a new Powerglide
transmission, along with all the necessary swap items. an has already
removed the electric throttle-stop and installed the air controller for his
under the carb throttle-stop. The engine is going back to the original
builder, Procell Bros. in Orange, TX. Van has borrowed Skip's
Holley 1150 and his BG 1090 to do the Dyno testing when the rebuild is
complete.
July 6, 2007 - Van went to No Problem Raceway
Park to get some seat time an keep sharp on the light. While he was
there he entered the Super Pro bracket and WON! Congratulations to Mr.
Johnson.
June 22, 2007 - Van went to No Problem Raceway Park
for a weekend of racing and went all the way to the finals in Super-pro
before getting a -.010 red light to finish in the runner-up spot. He
did not do as well on Sat., where he lost in the first round, bought back
and lost again.
Van reports that the car is running excellent after
he installed a dual control air shift conversion kit on his throttle stop.
The new setup allows him to control how fast the throttle stop closes and
opens. The electric unit that he replaced would be either instant off,
or instant on, which made for possible wheel spin when the stop came back
on. Van highly recommends using air for controlling the throttle stop.
Another advantage is the reduced load on the electrical system.
May 25, 2007 - Van was a one person crew for the
Friday bracket race at No Problem Raceway Park, during the first day of "Fun
Ford Weekend". The track sponsored their regular weekly bracket racing
program that dovetailed into the FFW events. The car and driver were
working very well. Van went three rounds before losing on a -.003 red
light in the third round. Van ran in Super Pro, but dialed in 10.90
for each run. On his losing pass, he ran a 10.899. Even though
it was a Ford event, the Chevelle got a lot of good comments, as usual.
May 4, 2007 - Last weekend, Van and family
ventured down to No Problem Raceway Park to take part in the Drag News
event. Van lost in the first round and bought back in and did not lose
until he red lighted in the semi-finals! Van's car also won a plaque
for "Best Appearing Car". What can we say? As one person put it,
"That car should not be on the drag strip!"
April 12-15, 2007 - Van, Stella and Preston
traveled to Ennis, TX to continue their quest for points in the Super Street
class. Some problems surfaced while making time trials on Friday in
the form of a head gasket water leak. The weather was bad all day Sat.
and allowed Van and family time to change the passenger side head gasket in
time to make one time trial on Sunday morning and then they lost in the
first round of eliminations. They did earn another 30 points.
March 30, 2007 - Van and the Zubie Racing Team
headed to State Capitol Raceway to get some seat time in the Chevelle on
Friday night. Along the way that entered the Super Pro Money bracket
and won! Van beat dragsters in the semi final round and the final
round for the win. In the final round, Van cut a .007 RT and ran a
10.908 on a 10.90 dial-in for the money. Congratulations Van!
March 23-25, 2007 - Memphis Trip - Van & Stella
were given a Dodge Hemi Truck by the insurance company while their truck is
being repaired. Van can't wait to get his GMC dually, long bed, with
camper and every option available, back. They did have a very nice
trip, without any problems, and even had nice accommodations.
Super Street NHRA racing in Memphis! The car preformed excellent all
weekend! On Sunday morning, the weather changed and the temp. dropped.
Although Stella was working the numbers using the weather station, Van ran
too quick with a 10.88, and his opponent ran a 10.91 for the win. All
in all they enjoyed the weekend because there were no worries about the
car's electrical system or anything else. Van will be ready for he
next Lucus Oil event at Texas Motorplex in Ennis, TX, April 13-15, 2007.
March 15-16, 2007 - After arriving home from the
weeks work, Van installed the new switch panel and on Friday, he took the
car to State Capitol Raceway where he made several excellent passes.
Everything worked as it should without one hiccup all day. The car is deadly
consistent and the driver is getting better as time goes on. Van is
keeping the car on the throttle-stop and on one pass, they ran a 10.90 with
a Zero! Van and Stella are ready to go to Memphis to take part in
another Super Street competition. Good Luck to Van and Stella.
March 2-3, 2007 - The race car and trailer were
safe at the track! Therefore, after making sure that Stella was OK,
Van decided to continue with his objective to run the car in Super Street at
the Lucus Oil DRS event. Van could deal with the truck on Monday,
after the race (see March 1, 2007 entry below)!
Van made three good passes on Friday and was
very satisfied with the operation of the car. It seemed that all the
problems had been solved. The best time was a 10.908 @139 MPH.
Data was collected for the weather station and they were ready for some
throttle-stop predictions.
On Saturday, the car preformed great, with more
data being collected and just trying to get the routine adjusted.
Eliminations were suppose to be on Sunday for all classes, but due to
changing weather conditions and predictions, the track decided to run Super
Street, Stock and (I think) Top Dragster classes on Saturday evening.
Weather conditions were actually great, and as the temp. dropped, along with
the low humidity, the engines were loving the "good air".
Van took the Chevelle up to the staging lanes
and when it was his turn, everything started to fall apart. The
burn-out was not good at all, and Eric Johnson, Van's brother, backed up Van
to do a second burn-out, which did not come off very good and Van powered up
to the Pre-stage light. After staging, when the lights came on, Van
drew a big red light! This was the end of the day for the Chevelle and
the Zubie Racing Team.
On the way back to the pits, the car actually
shut-down at least three times on the return road, as the Ignition Relay
dropped out from low voltage. We suspect the low idle RPM on the
return road did not allow the alternator regulator to stay on and supply
charging amps to the battery. This problem will be taken care of as
soon as the car is returned to New Iberia and Van can install the new
control panel. Many lessons were learned this weekend and some things
must be worked on.
March 1, 2007 - Thank God for defensive driving!
Van and Stella were leaving the track after the Thursday test and tune
session was rained out at No Problem Raceway and just missed a head-on
collision. A driver of a small import lost control in a curve and came
over into Van's lane. Van took the shoulder and missed the car, but
his 1 ton pickup hit a culvert in a ditch and then a steel I-beam that took
the rear end out from under Van's truck. The car that lost control
ended up off the road about 300 feet away, stuck in someone's front yard.
Van and Stella ended up very shook up, but not hurt. Stella took the
worst of the accident, but only got bruises from the seat belts. They
were both seen at an emergency room and released. The other driver
told LA State Police that it was his fault and thanked Van for his quick
thinking to avoid the collision.
March 1, 2007 - Van received his control panel,
as promised, yesterday. The unit, from Trick Cable & Switch Co. is an
excellent piece. Due to the short time period, Van has decided to run
the old relay control panel for today's test session. If things don't
work, he has time to install the new panel before qualifying on Saturday,
and the race on Sunday.
Feb. 26, 2007 - Van received all of his parts
except the control panel. This special order panel is being assembled
to Van's specifications. It will be a 8-switch panel with lighted
rockers and a manual reset ckt. breaker for each component. It will
have a Van designated color coded wiring harness to connect directly to the
existing wiring using a terminal block.
Van has already installed the new one-wire East
Coast Alternator and two new batteries. The alternator installation is
specific for a BBC with motor plate. The installation kit, which is
purchased separate, comes with a belt, an adjustment bracket, spacers, an
extended pulley that mounts on the damper and all the mounting hardware.
Of course Van's installation is perfect! After I arrived we tested the
alternator installation. With the engine off, we had 12. 6 volts,
which dropped to 11.8 volts during start (batteries had not been on charge
in over 24 hours). The instructions that come with the East Coast
Alternator state that charging may not start until alternator RPM is above 2500 RPM. As soon as the engine
started, we noted an increase in battery voltage. The pulleys may
result in greater than a 1:1 ratio. At approximately 800 engine RPM,
we were getting about 12.8 volts. At 1000 RPM, we had approximately
13.1 volts. At 2500 RPM, where we stopped the test, the voltage
increased to 14.1 volts. Max output for this alternator is suppose to
be 14.5 volts. We were extremely happy with our observations.
Alternator Installation
Van should be ready for this weekends Lucus Oil
Div. 4 Points Meet at No Problem Raceway Park. Van will arrived on
Thursday to take advantage of the Test & Tune session and test all of his
new components. If the new control panel does not come in, and he
still has problems with the control panel containing the relays, he is
prepared to put in a new temporary control panel that does not have relays
or printed circuit boards.
While in Houston, one racer suggested that the
printed ckt. board inside the control panel was bad and only manifested its
problems when high vibration took place during a run or during the burn-out.
Skip contends that the only problem is low voltage and the new alternator
should take care of all the voltage problems. The Thursday test
session should tell the story. If the new panel comes in before
Thursday, Van will install the new panel and we will never know the real
culprit. One of Van's goals is not to do any work on the car at the
track, and I can agree with that 100%.
Feb. 22, 2007 - Van
has ordered all the parts necessary to upgrade the electrical system and be
ready for the next points race at NPRP on March 1-4, 2007. A new
switch panel, alternator and two new batteries are on the way. Check
out:
Trick
Switch and Cable
Feb. 16-18, 2007 -
Van and Stella arrived at the track on Thursday afternoon and got in one
round of time trials before the track secured for the night. The
problems continued to surface in the ignition system, in the form of top end
"popping", above approximately 7000 RPM.
Friday, the problems really got bad. While
preparing to make the first time trial, the water pump and the fan shut down
in the staging lanes for no good reason, but they were restarted right away.
When Van rolled up to start his burnout, the engine shut down. He was
able to restart it immediately and was able to get the car back to the pit.
Van and Skip commenced to troubleshoot the problem, along with some of the
other racers in the area (everyone was very nice and helpful). Van's
electrical system has a very nice electrical control panel that has a relay
for each circuit, including the ignition circuit. Each circuit has a
ckt. breaker associated with a relay and push button. A major trouble
shooting effort commenced, including checking all the connections inside of
Van's relay panel. The relay panel is the only common item between the
ignition, water pump and fan.
Saturday, son Preston and daughter Chandra
arrived. After charging the batteries and checking everything,
including all the ground connections in the car, the first time trial of the
day was attempted. This time the car completed the burn-out but cut
off just after leaving the line (about the time of the first shift).
Troubleshooting begins again, it was discovered that the alternator was not
putting out very much voltage. The batteries only showed 12.07 no-load
volts, individually and in parallel. With the engine running, the
voltage only came up to 12.18 volts max. At some point, we measured as
low as 11.7 Volts with accessories running. Van's car has an electric
shifter, an electric throttle-stop, fuel pump, water pump and fan.
With the additional load of the MSD box and lights, the system is drawing a
lot of current. During all of Van's problems, none of the ckt.
breakers ever tripped. The push button for each component had to be
pressed to get the water pump, fan or ignition back in operation.
A Super Gas racer, pitted next to Van removed his batteries and let Van use
them for his last time trial. Again the car lost power to the ignition
circuit with the car approximately at the 330 ft. mark on the track.
With the track about to close, Van decided to wrap it up and forget about
running in eliminations on Sunday.
During the day there were many suggestions on
how to fix the problem. Some of the suggestions were; remove the
relay panel and replace it with a set of switches and fuses or ckt.
breakers, replace the alternator with a unit that will actually charge the
batteries, and finally, replace the batteries with regular lead-acid
batteries that have a higher no-load voltage. There were some other
suggestions, such as, install a 16V system, get rid of the electric
throttle-stop and use a pneumatic system to reduce the load on the
electrical system. Some of these are good, but the bottom line is, get
the voltage up (12.5V -14V min.) and the problems will (should) go away.
On Sunday morning, after the Johnson family had
dinner and settled down, they decided to run the car with the throttle-stop
disconnected. Van also changed the pickup in the MSD distributor, just
in case that might be the problem. Deciding to run was a good
decision. To gain NHRA points, you must compete. Van needs the
points to be able to qualify for a NHRA national event in 2008.
Van took the car up for the first round of Super
Street and after deciding the make sure he did not red-light, he would keep
the other car within striking distance to take just a little stripe.
During the race, the other car ran away from Van and the fellow broke out a
little more than Van. The car did not cut off until it crossed the
finish line. It restarted immediately and Van made it back to the
pits. In round two, with no changes, Van left the line and was on a
good pass until the car reached almost the 1000 ft. mark, it cut off again!
Again it restarted without a problem and Van put the car in the trailer to
go home. By winning in the first round and making it to the 2nd round,
he gained about 40 points towards qualifying for a national event!
Van Johnson -
Zubie Racing Team - Super Street
Feb. 9, 2007 - Van
is preparing to race at the Lucus Oil Event at Baytown, TX on Feb. 16-18,
2007. He will drive and compete in Super Street Class. He
has been testing the car over the past three months and has hit 10.908 sec.
and is trying to better that time. He has also been trying to get use
to the .500 Pro Tree which is used in SST class.
Feb. 11, 2007 - Stella and Van went to State
Capitol Raceway for Sunday Test & Tune. The car ran perfect all day
and with Stella doing the calculations and Van doing the driving and
maintenance, they got a best time of 10.899 @ 139 MPH.
During the past week Van had been battling some
gremlins in the ignition system, but after replacing the coil, everything
cleared up. Everything is set for the Johnson's to participate in
their first NHRA Divisional event this week.
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