The SCCA T2 class requires that everything be stock, except for a cat-back exhaust. So everything's factory.

I think you're correct about the boost numbers and yeah, it didn't make full boost until almost 5000 rpm. We did a compression test on the recently rebuilt motor and it was--not surprising--fine. A leak test of the intake system is the next step and I'll keep you posted.

 

I tested my intake tract recently and surprising found a few leaks I never would have known about. I bought a piece of 3" PVC at the hardware store. Capped the end of it and inserted a tire valve stem. I took off the airbox and clamped this PVC pipe onto the turbo intake pipe where the MAS was. Use an air compressor to pressurize the system. You can watch the boost gauge to see how much pressure you have in there. I found some leaks that only happened at lower pressures and others that happened at higher pressures.

Have you checked the BOV? The more I re-read your post the more I wonder if it could be stuck open.

Good luck.

EVOlutionary

 

Is the C/D Evo an MR or plain vanilla? If it's not an MR, then you may want to replace the standard BOV with an MR BOV, which is definitely better. Dunno if SCCA will allow it, but it is an Evo BOV afterall...

l8r)

 

the USDM MR has the same plastic BOV that normal evos have.

 

Sorry to hear about all the problems, it seems to be part of the territory when racing.

Since shocks are free, have you upgraded? The person who tuned the shocks for the US version of the Evo runs a T-2 Pontiac Trans-Am (He was employed by KYB back then). He should be able to rebuild yours in a way that would seriously enhance on-track performance(www.predatormotorsport.com). He's hoping to qualify for the Run-offs in his Pontiac & switch to an Evo for the Runoffs. Sounds like you guys could get some synergy going.

 

BTW, the brake pads that I use are Hawk HT10 and I though they worked fine, but I have not produced any hard numbers.


The car is an EVO MR and we looked into rebuilding the shocks. First we calculated a theoretical perfect shock curve and then measured the standard bilsteins. The Bilsteins were actually quite close so we left them on. You'll hear guys talk about how important shocks are and that's true, but when you're running stock suspension bushings, the fine tuning that expensive shocks gain you gets lost in bushing deflectcion.

That's just my opinion, tho....

 

So how did mid-ohio treat the new set-up?

 

Last time I wrote, Shiv had flown in to tune the car, but due to an intake problem of some sort, he was never able to make any changes, so he went back to California. Yes, we paid for a couple of hours of dyno time and didn't make the car any faster.

I'm in Michigan and I had only one week until the next race. I called David Buschur. He told me to bring the car right over and luckily his shop's only two hours away. I dumped the car in his lot late in the eveing and by 9:30 the next morning, Buschur had tested the intake system and within an hour he had replaced the turbo. Yep the turbo was bad. The housing had come loose and it rubbed against the impellor, which ground it down. WHat's ironic about that it the turbo is the only moving part that I did not replace since we ran the 25 hour race. Murhpy's law right?

Well, it gets worse b/c Buschur said the engine was vibrating more than it should. I had no idea bc I had the motor rebuilt, installed it in the car and simply figured that the car was what it was. Upon furthur inspection, Buschur said the balance shafts were out of time and he fixed it.

Let me take moment here and talk about how hard it is to find reputable guys to work on four-cylinder cars--at least it's been hard for me. I paid the engine builder $3000 and he came highly recommended. I guess folks make mistakes, but I can't help but feel like I got screwed. THe engine vibration is what likely caused the turbo hose to blow off. The disconnected turbo hose made me miss a 10-lap qualifying session and cost me a certain second place in the race. During a race weekend, you only get 45 laps total. So once I've factored in the money I paid to enter the race, drive 7 hours to the track, hotel, etc etc, that vibrating engine cost me quite a bit. BTW I had the car to yet another shop for some other work and they never noticed anything. I'm not gonna flame anyone, but both of these were small local shops that you could tell were just getting started. The second one was a disoganized mess tucked in the back of a industrial complex. You get the feeling some of these organizations are barely staying afloat.

Buschur's been at it for a while and it shows. He's got what I would call a real shop with lifts, welders, a dyno. One shop truck is an old pickup truck that's got, instead of a old V-8, a mistsu four-banger in it that they built. Plus the place is immaculate, which to me is always a good sign that it's well run and you're gonna get taken care of. I wish I had called him months ago. I'll tell you, one thing I've learned is that the internet makes it awfully hard to know who' s running their hot-rod shop out of their mom's basement and who's the real deal. THat's old news I know, but it's worth restating.

OK so in addition Buschur flashes the ECU and I make it to the race at Mid Ohio. THe car runs better than ever and during my first qualifying session, I was dealing with wheelspin, a surprising development. The race hosts the biggest field of the year, 22 cars, all different makes and they've all been equalized via weight and tire size to attemp close racing. I'm he only guy with an EVO. The biggest names are there, WIll Turnur (his cars won championships in World Challenge) in an M3, TC Kline in a 350Z and too many others to list.

It's late and I'm tired. I'll write about the race tomorrow and trust you won't believe what happened.
L

 

+1. There are only a few EVO shops in the country that I would trust w/ my motor....and Buschur is one of them. I'm glad to here they got you on the road again.

 

^^ ditto. Can't wait to hear what happened.

l8r)

 

Yeah, we are waiting!

 

It was fair to say that I arrived at Mid Ohio more than a little intimidated. I'm a small fry compared to the big boys racing in the T2 class this year. Guys rolled up with stacker 18-wheelers and more than one runs a T1 car in addition to their T2 car. Plus the long dominant car in the class, the camaro/firebird got some help from the SCCA to be more competitive and an outfit called phoenix racing brought along a few. In short, it's a packed class with well developed cars and in my opinion very good drivers.

The Mid Ohio field was so strong b/c everyone wanted to practice for the Sept Runoffs which is held at the same track. You have to earn points in regular season races to get invited to the runoffs and that race crowns the amatuer champion in each class. I don't think there are many amatuers (read poor joes like me) anymore.

Ok so the format for the race was the same as before: Two 20-minute qualifying sessions on Sunday and your fastest time in either of the two sessions determines your start position. In this race, the 22 T2 cars were grouped with the much slower SSB cars (Miatas, integras). During qualifying the track was packed with a total of 50 cars.

During session one, my fastest time puts me in tenth position. Admittedly, I had fantasies of a top five, but tenth is better than eleventh and I only had maybe a handful of unobstruted laps and it was my first time at Mid Ohio with the car. The EVO quick. In fact, the motor overpowers the diffs in some turns and I felt like I was overdriving the car, inducing a push, and then having to wait for the front tires to regain grip before feeding full power. For session two, I try a new driving technique where I never drive hard enough to slide. I figure that if I can avoid the understeer, maybe I can get on the gas sooner and post some better lap times.

Nice theory, but it didn't work. Everyone else goes a little quicker, I go slower and get knocked back to 14th. DOH!
Before the race, we removed the rear toe-out becasue it didn't loosen up the car as I had hoped and we figured we'd straighten the wheels and hopefully pick up some straight line speed. We also tilted the top of the rear wheels away from the body and set the rear camber to -0.4. Now I always preach making one change at a time so you know what worked, but this case, we were a little desperate to loosen up the car and go faster. Hell I was in 14th, how much worse could it get.

THe starts of these races are by far the best part. You're packed into schools of cars, dicing, bumping a little, trying to get ahead. Man it is really freaking incredible. It makes all the hard work worth it.

For this race, I made a fantastic start. We lined up for the rolling start and I hit the gas early--which usually means you have to lift off and wait for the green flag--but this time it worked out perfectly. ALl I can say is that for once I got lucky. I left the 13th place guy in the dust and I think I passed two more cars before the first turn. It's a little hard to tell becasue it is so chaotic. For the next two laps, I stayed with all the front runners. No one could take the ideal line becasue you were fighting for every corner with at least two other cars. Fantastic stuff.

IN front of me WIll Turner took the nose off his BMW when he got too close to a CTS-V, a few guys spun off, I passed a few, got repassed, and after three heart racing laps everyone settled in for the rest of the 20-lap race.

The changes we made did indeed loosen up the car. During that first lap the oversteer surprised me twice and I found myself perpendicular to the track way too often. Luckily I saved it both times, but each slide cost me a position. I think at lap three I was in ninth, or mayeb eight place. Turner's BMW was two car lengths ahead and I felt that if I could hang with him and maybe pass him, then I'd have earned my dinner that night. Turner's raced in World Challenge with BMW's. He know those cars inside and out and has a shop at his disposal to build them. Plus he was running Hoosier tires like I was so I thought we had a straight up race going.

At least that's what I was telling myself. I was still far back from the leaders so in some sense who cares if I was hanging with Turner? By lap three, the tires had heated up and the rear end no longer swung wide and the understeer began to set in. I think I was overdirivng again, but I found that we some careful brake applications I could tuck in the nose and corner fairly quickly.
At lap five, I think I could still see the leaders, a positive development in my opinion. At the middle of lap five, I felt a jitter in the steering wheel and it was then that I knew the power steering pump would not last the race. Two turns later, the the steering assist was gone.

When we raced at the 25-hour race and went through 4 pumps in seven hours, the belt broke with every pump failure so I immediately checked the temp gauges to see if that had happned this time. THe temp gauge read fine, so I figured I could tough it out. Try driving your car without power steering and then imagine how hard it is to turn when you've got sticky race rubber.

Now I'm no iron man, but if I could hold on for a top ten, then man I'd be thrilled. So I sucked it up and stayed out there. If I had the brakes on even the slightest bit, I could not physically turn the steering wheel, so trail braking was out. And there was also a delay in steering corrections so I was all over the track. I know now that the pump failed on lap five, but at the time I figured we had already gone past the halfway mark and had done 12 laps. Then I passed the start-finish line and saw the number "6". I was already huffing inside my helmut. Three laps later turner got anohter car length on me and the Neon SRT-4 was closing in from behind. I blocked the exertion out of my mind and clawed my way back up.

I was already getting major league arm pump. My forearms were stiff, but once I hit lap ten I was feeling hopeful as I had a solid position. I have no clue exactly where I was in the race. Tenth at the worst and eight at the hopeful best.

My position mattered little when on lap 12, the shift linkage broke (later we found that the end of the cable had popped of the transmission mount. I had Showcase Mitsu install the tranny so I assume it was done properly. Another mystery of the cursed EVO....) I couldn't select a gear so I had to park it on the grass off track.

I climbed out, walked behind the fence, and looked back at the car. I was just about hypervenitlating from the exertion and was surprised that I never realized how hard I was breathing while I was driving. Hot power steering fluid was dripping onto the grass and smoking. I hoped it would catch fire. A worker came over and asked what the smoke was. I thought about telling him it was nothing, just the brakes, and let whatever was now supposed to happen happen. But instead I mentioned--between gasps for air-- the power steering fluid. Also I added that the SCCA stupidly makes us run the catalytic converter and I bet the grass underneath it is giving some serious thought to lighting up. A fire crew rushed over and watched as the smoke intensified but then subsided. A small part of me softly thought, "damn..."

IN the end, there's hope. I was two seconds off the fastest time. While that's an embarassing enternity in SCCA racing, we can break that down in a couple of ways. First, there's some more power to get. Bushcur says maybe another 10-15. Depending on who you talk to , at Mid Ohio that could be worth either a few tenths of a second, or two seconds. I figure 0.7. There's for sure at least another 0.5-0.7 second in improving the setup. I've had little chance to do it since all I do is fix the car and have not tested at all (remember, the turbo hose, turbo, 6-speed tranny). Finally, there's at least 0.5 second to gain from improiving my drivng. Now that assumption goes against my belief that the driver is NEVER at fault, I should shoulder some of the responsibility. Just don't tell my boss.

So stay tuned. THere's going to be at least a month long break in the action and there may be a forever break meaning I 'm out of $$ and becasue I've got a full time job that is asking me to pay up for all the time I've spent screwing around. If you have any quesiotns about brakes, tires, setup, etc. I'll be happy to help.

Thanks for reading.
L

 

why the hell does that thing keep eating power steering pumps?

 

We feel your pain man. I took the Mid-O driver's school many years ago & my instructor was Calvin Fish, who is an announcer now on Speed Chanel but was a professional racer back then. He described it as endless disappointment and frustration punctuated by moments of brief ecstasy.

Your car keeps letting you down which is the ultimate bummer. Given the talent level & financial comittment of the other members of the group you were running with, the fact that you were running somewhere between 8th & 12th is extremely impressive.

As far as other low budget operations, as I noted in a previous post, I have a friend who runs a T 2 car at the Runoffs every year. He usually can't get time off from work to get there early in the week to practice and so shows up at the last qualifying session, way behind the learning curve. One year he was at the farthest outside spot of the paddock as he showed up so late. Where other racers had motor homes and huge tow rigs, he had a ground cloth and his Dad's 6 cylinder SUV that he'd towed his Mustang to the race with on a two wheel car dolly. He changed into his driver's suit in the SUV. Typically he places anywhere from 12th to last and, like you, is generally about 2 seconds slower a lap than the leaders. One memorable year though it rained and his power disadvantage was negated and he came in 2nd at the Runoffs! Then he was disqualified for having an illegal muffler! Oh well, that's racing, as they say (a lot). Last year he did it right, had a "built "motor for his Trans-Am and took an entire week off to attend all practice & qualifying sessions. His reward: two blown engines, about $10K vaporized and in the hole on his various projects at work.

You may find the time off to be refreshing. I am inclined to believe that the car has a faster time in it and that better days are ahead, but I am not the one paying the bills so its easy for me to say.

Have you qualified for the Runoffs? What was your fastest lap time this last weekend? If you do get recharged, we will be rooting for you.

 

Thanks for the updates Larry. For those of us here who follow road-racing and enjoy trackdays regularly this thread is the reason to read the boards.

Hopefully you can ascertain the cause of that power steering failure before the next one.