I was just kidding on the 'being late to the party' about the RS and ABS swaps. I'm not even sure I'll need any of that stuff (except maybe the RS brake MC).

My plans are to have no brake booster (don't work well when running anti-lag), and re-plumb the car with braided brake lines, and use a brake bias adjuster and a hydraulic handbrake.

If anyone's interested in a similar setup, let me know, and I can probably have my guy do up a couple sets at once. If that catches your attention, shoot me a PM, and I'll look into pricing for you. We'll probably need to cover materials for this sort of job, and then come up with the extra $$ when they're done.

Dave

 

Bringing this back up to the top. I've been very busy the last few weeks, so I haven't had a chance to get down to Colorado Springs to see the Evo since I dropped it off. I had to make time this week to go down for a seat-fitting, so I made sure to bring the camera.

 

Hey Dave... can you grab a pic of the ROOF and around the mount points for that panel?

Inquiring minds want to know.

RallyDSM

 

Few more pictures. Once the seat mounts are welded into place and the welding of the cage is completed, the car will be going off to the paint shop and will return with a graphite grey interior. I'm hoping it'll hide the dirt a bit better than red

 

Nice touch with the mounting point for jack stands. I think I have to replicate that on my car.

The stitch welding on the rear shock towers is nice, but the mounting of the down tube looks odd. What was the reasoning for this design?

 

The roof isn't on the car at the moment (its sitting in a box waiting for paint), but there are quite a few more gusset plates to add, some of which are up near the roof. I won't have a chance to get down there till its ready for pickup, which will probably be at least two more weeks.


All those extra bits including the plates for reinforcing the strut towers are all straight from Custom Cages and are T45. I'm not too sure on the mounting of the down tube, the cage comes pre-bent and pre-profiled. Maybe by having the other two bars join ~4" above the tower, it makes the rear a bit more likely to absorb some impact in the event of an accident. I've read that the thinking in some of the newer cages is that there is a need to build more deforming ability into the cages so the occupants don't bear the brunt of an impact. I'm not an engineer and I don't play one on the net, so this is just pure speculation on my part.

 

If you don't mind me asking dave, what did the stitch welding cost you? You can PM me if you dont want that to be public, or not at all if its a super-secret, lol

 

Sent you a PM with some pricing details.

For anyone else that's interested, there are two shops in the area that I'd recommend:

If you're in Denver, check out Salta Motorsports (www.SaltaMotorsports.com). Brian and Steve run the garage out of the back of Checkpoint Racing (www.cp-racing.com) a shop that specializes in supplying gear for racing. Together they're a one-stop-shop for your motorsports needs. If you've got a bone stock car, you can drop it off and pick it up with everything needed to go out and run your first rally, track event, or whatever.

In Colorado Springs, give Phoenix Autosport (www.phoenixautosport.com) a call and ask for Jason. These are the guys who are doing the roll-cage and shell prep on my car.

Dave

 

So Dave, when is Pike's Peak?

 

July 20th is the actual race date, but practice will be going on the week before the event (www.ppihc.com). I'm shooting to have the car ready a few weeks before the first hillclimb May 10-11 (www.chcaracing.com), so I can get some testing done out at CORE (www.coloradooffroadextreme.com).

Dave

 

Hello from LA

I know... I wanted to see the sub structure beneath the roof panel.

Scott

 

Most of those gusset plates aren't welded in yet (I can't beleive how many there are!), so I'll be sure to snap more pictures when I get it back.

Dave

 

If I can get the time away from work, are you open to letting me tag along for the race weekend? I'm seriously considering running next year and want to get a feel for the event.

 

Just curious -- what are you running for suspension and tires?

Given that the road is partially paved and partially hard-pack dirt, I'd assume you can probably get away with something fairly close to street suspension as opposed to a full gravel suspension.

 

Sure thing! I might even put you to work. I only get a few free passes to hand out, and for those of us with co-drivers, they don't even give us one extra, so the tix are reserved for our crew...if we have one.

Suspension and tires are a big question mark at the moment. I'll do my best here to explain the dilemma.

Tires: If I run in Time Attack, the rules specify a tire with a treadwear of 140 or higher. Last year in my GTX I chose to run Falken Azenis with the grooves widened and sharpened. Personally, I think I made a horrible choice. My car's top speed was only 80mph due to a blown 5th gear, and my suspension wasn't really up to par (no front sway bar, 225#f 180#r springs), so I couldn't really even take full advantage of the sticky tires on the pavement. On the dirt they were terrible. I would've been much better off going with an all season. I'm sure I would've given up a few seconds on the tarmac, but would've gained it all back (and more) on the dirt sections by having a tire with more cuts/sipes/tread blocks.

If I run in Pikes Peak Open, tire choices are unlimited, so some sort of a shaved rally tire, or cut/siped tarmac tire might be the hot choice.


Suspension: Pikes Peak is the superhighway of hillclimbs on my schedule as its extremely smooth and wide open. A set of track suspension like the Ohlins AMS offers would probably do great on the paved sections, but might be to stiffly sprung and valved for the dirt, and make it easy to overwhelm the grip in the dirt corners.

I don't have enough money to have two dedicated sets of suspension, and since my primary focus for the car is rally/hillclimb, I'm going to go with more of a gravel suspension. Its been recommended to me (thanks chronohunter!) that the hot setup for PPIHC now is probably a tarmac rally setup, like the Group N stuff used in WRC, but again, this would be a suspension solution that only helps for one event per year.

Because my plans are to run the whole Colorado Rally Cup (www.coloradorallycup.org), I'm going to be going with a set of gravel suspension, and for PPIHC might pair it with a slightly stiffer set of springs. My choices are down to a set of RS&SPs or a set of Ohlins, both triple adjustable.

For kicks, if any of you would like to see some in-car vids from my 2007 season, you can follow this link: http://www.youtube.com/user/rallyadvertising
I will be getting some more vids up of some of the other hillclimbs, but because of some unfortunate rules regarding event footage, I'm unable to post my in-car from PPIHC.

Dave