Thanks.

 

Nice work. I love the crinkle finish (that is crinkle finish paint, right?). Tony did the cage in my racecar and will surely do the cage in my Evo once I sell off my current racecar. ;-)

 

yeah its the crinkle finish. this was the 2nd rollbar tony made for the evo, but i belive the first one he used to make the 'mold'. how do i know? it used to be mine.

you have a piece of history bryan

 

great looking car, seems very well set-up.

lol, my rotors look like that too

n

 

how much does it weigh?

 

You do know that's really bad, right? That sort of cracking can develop very quickly into a broken rotor. Ask me how I know.

 

Is that cracking okay as long as you're above the rotor thickness service limit?

 

Not necessarily. The problem is that you don't know how deep the cracks go, and they can deepen pretty quickly. Mild surface cracking shouldn't be a problem, but that Death Valley look is really, really bad.

Best thing to do is have the rotor cut by a machinist and make sure it's just surface cracks (should disappear by cutting into the surface). If resurfacing the rotor doesn't remove the cracks, they're junk. With a two-piece rotor it means sourcing a new friction surface and bolting it to the hat.

The most important step is to figure out why they're cracking. It's usually a cooling issue -- too much heat stress on a rotor will cause severe cracking (as well as destroy pads and boil fluid). Usually figuring out how to better cool the rotor, or changing to a pad compound that works better at a higher temperature, will keep the rotor from cracking again.

 

Are you fitting all four of your 17 x 9's (255/40/17 RA1's, my set up as well) across the rear seat? I was hoping to do this, but ran into trouble with the tires not fitting below my harness bar (Sparco). It also seemed like only three would fit, even if I could get them below the harness bar. I should have remembered to try pulling out the rear seat cushion (certainly easy enough). I've been looking into trailers and other ideas, but if it's possible to get’em all in, I'd like to keep things as simple as I can. On a completely different topic, are you intentionally running cross-drilled rotors on the track? I know very few racers that use these. Cross-drilled is fine for street use, but I've always had bad luck on the track. They just don't cool at an even rate. I can see some merit to slotted, but not cross-drilled for track use.

 

I get these surface "cracks" all the time. They where all gone by the first session on the track yesterday. They usually form after an event once the rotor cools.

They really look ALOT worse in that photo because of the macro and the light at the time.

 

yesterday was the the true test because it was the first time with the rollbar in the car that I loaded it up for a track event.

With both cushions out, it opens up tons of space. The main problem with these bars are getting the tires inbetween the side bars and into the center of the car. I was able to fit 3 wheels with 255/40/17 RA1's in the back seat area. They just barely clear the side bars with the tires standing straight up. Taking the little plastic kick panels off the bottom of the door jams would help but I didn't need to. I also got one easy-up chair in the back as well. My bag with clothes fit behind the passenger seat along with my extra mini battery and my lap timing equipment.

The 4th wheel went in the trunk (with the spare tire out of course) along with my box of tools and fluids, my helmet and my driving shoes.

What I could not fit was my easy-up (its huge) and my drink cooler. I could have used both of those yesterday as it was 100F+ at the track. I tried to fit them by taking the passenger seat out but the easy up was too long and taking the passenger seat out isn't an option for me at events I instruct at.

The small problem with all this is with everything in the car being behind the seats, there is alot of weight on the rear of the car. Not only does it make it look like I have some sweet bling'n hydros, it also made an actual difference in my steering as it felt lighter. Not so bad when I am driving on straight highways but I am sure it changes the alignment settings a bunch while everything is in there.

I might look into a small tire trailer but I really don't want to put a trailer hitch on the car and I'm not sure if they even make one for the EVO so I would have to source a custom one.

The PF rotors are dimpled not cross drilled. Cross drilled rotors will never be seen on my car.

 

Tony said this bar is around 45-50lbs.

 

When my M3 was still my daily driver, I had a trailer hitch and a small southsport aluminum trailer. After years of trying to squeeze all of my crap into a rollbar'd compact coupe, it was a dream. Only part that stinks is having to tow at 55mph in CA, although a little birdie told me that the little trailer was fine at ~85. ;-)

There appear to be hitches available for the Evo, but I'd bet you could adapt a Lancer hitch as well: http://performance.drivewire.com/tow...ilerhitch.html You may not love the look, but there's something funny about running on track or at an autocross with a hitch and ball hanging off your back bumper -- BTDT.

 

I just bought a shifter kart, so I am looking into trailers as well. I think the best option is to do what we did on our red car durning one lap. Bolt a trailer hitch up to the frame rails, and have the reciever right behind the license plate. That way you can just flip up the license plate when your towing, and hide the hitch when your not.

Harbor freight sells some mega cheap trailers, btw. Just make sure you get the 12" wheels.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...441&pricetype=

 

Cool idea on the actual hitch part.

been reading up about those HF trailers on Corner Carvers. Guess you have to make sure you either loctite and lockwasher all the bolts or weld the trailer because they can fall apart with miles.