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Well it ended up being the coil wiring. I had push in terminals and the bend radius the wires were at was putting enough stress on the #4 wires that at least one was losing contact. Car is being blasted around the roads again with a big smile on my face. I'm also thinking of picking up some 18x10 RPF1s for running 285 street tires as my current street wheels are only 17x9 and I still haven't made it to an auto-x yet. I figure next year I'll buy some sticker A7s as long as I have the time to actually race it again. That will also give me ample time to swap injectors and tune for E85.
Well, it's been a while with no updates. The coil issue came back up and finally figured out what it was, the spring in the coil was bent and pushed to the side. Car is currently on jack stands as I was chasing a coolant leak on the turbo and found an oil leak as well. So, a quick call to STM and I've got all new crush washers and drain pipe gaskets. Also found up & down play in my Vorshlag camber plate bearings so I got those replaced as well. Only thing I'm waiting on now before putting the turbo back on is finding out whether or not a friend has a 10.5 hotside that doesn't have a cracked divider. If he does I'll take it off his hands, port it, and get rid of the 9.8 one on there now. I made a quik-latch bumper setup and today just finished up fabbing some bumper blockoff plates with integral brake duct connections. Going to have a buddy I used to work with weld the pipes into the plates and bolt them in. I can't stand the look of hoses on the front end and with the oil cooler relocated it gave me plenty of space to mount the ducting to these plates instead of trying to steal air from the oil cooler in stock location. Oh, and since I lost my job I decided just to put new 255/40-17 RE71Rs on the car for driving on the street. Blockoff plates below.
Stretched the coil springs and installed them today, calibrated wideband, and installed brake ducting. Happily there was enough ducting that I can remove the bumper and access the clamps so I can still take the bumper off in a few minutes. All I have left to do is put the exhaust back on, lower the rear a bit, and bleed the brakes then it's time for an alignment. I should be able to get that done tomorrow and then I can drive it around and make sure it's ready to race this weekend.
Thanks, Brady. Hopefully your project is going well too.
So yesterday I put the exhaust back on and spent an indordinate amount of time installing the AMS test pipe. I bought this exhaust used and have never known exactly which direction the pipe should be installed as both flanges are on angles but not matching and there isn't a single mark on the pipe for orientation. So, I installed it in all rotations/directions and chose the one that kept it centered in the bumper opening and away from the driveshaft. I'm happy to report it no longer contacts the carrier bearing so one more knock is gone. I also bled the brakes and found a small pocket of air on both sides of the driver's front caliper so now the brakes feel proper again. Finally, I lowered the rear to give it some of that factory rake, put the wheels on, set it on the ground and went to take it for a spin. Click click click..... crap, dead battery. After a nice 4 hour charge to make sure the lawnmower battery was okay I was able to take it out for a test drive. There is still a faint & light metallic knocking sound coming from the rear of the car. It almost sounds like a loose end link but they are both tight. So, my plan for today is track down that knock, check all fluids, and be confident in the car's ability to race this weekend. I have an appointment for an alignment tomorrow morning and then it's good to go!
Well, the car is ready to go for Sunday! I found the knock in the rear; it ended up being the where the pass side endlink mounted to the control arm. I also got an alignment this morning and it's now at -3.0 camber with zero toe up front and -1.9 camber with zero toe out back. Caster came in at 5.3 drivers side and 5.8 passenger side. I'm not happy they're not closer but nothing I'm going to worry about at this point. I'm super pumped to go figure out suspension settings again since some idiot didn't write down where he left off with the settings.
It hasn't been raced since late 2015. It was down from May '16 - May '17. Only been on jackstands a few months this last time and really only because it's been cold so I didn't want to work on it.
Well I went to a Texas Spokes Auto-x at Circuit of the Americas on Sunday and it was extra nice as there was a track day on the actual track so we got to listen to superfast cars and even a Camping World Series truck run around the track al day. As far as the auto-x I was a little worried about my fenders contacting my tires as it's lower than it ever has been and my fenders have never been touched. I'm happy to report they never contacted! I was hoping to mess with suspension settings but I ended up running in the first heat with temps hovering in the low 40s. I have never struggled for traction so much in this car but it made for some fun and wild rides for me and passengers. I still managed to rattle off the fastest time for my heat and it almost held up through the second but due to timing issues the last couple of runs for second heat was with sun starting to beat down on the asphalt. Third heat saw full sun and temps reach the high 60s so they roasted my time and the TTOD was a kart coming in 1.7 seconds faster than me. I ended up 14th out of ~160 for raw time and won my "tire" pax superclass (all modified and prepared cars now choose either "tire" or "race tire" with their normal class and run in a group). I was a little sad I didn't get to try some different suspension settings but I definitely left with a huge smile on my face. Unfortunately I decided it wasn't even worth using the GoPro due to conditions but I should have as it would have been hilarious to watch how sideways and drifty the car was during the event.
There is a small track in Austin (Driveway Austin) that has a time attack series and I'm going to try to make their event on April 28th. If I do make it I'll be sure to bring the GoPro and actually utilize it. Until next time, thanks for reading!
Nice! Just curious... have you tried messing with the toe at all? I used to find that a bit of toe out at the front and toe in for the rear gave me a bit more direct turn-in and better stability for the rear.
At this point I still drive it to events as I don't have a trailer and they're generally 70+ miles away so I don't want to scrub my tires away with toe. I did get some pictures from the event though, so something to show at least.
I went to an auto-x in Killeen, TX today put on by Auto-x & Drift Motorsports. In the past I've not been the fondest of their organizational skills and lax environment but they're super close, cheap, and you get a lot of runs. It's run by a younger Army vet who is really just trying to promote the sport as well as show the soldiers at Fort Hood that you can have fun with your car in a safe environment and not having to do street racing and other stupid things on the street. So I went and took 6 runs (could have had 10 but a friend was codriving and the car was getting hot) and managed 2nd fastest of the day behind a super prepped SSM Miata on A7s. Below is the video and a picture of my brakes after 8 back-to-back runs with very little time for cooling down.
Aug 1, 2017, 06:55 PM
