More Exhaust and Roll Center

The new transmission checked out perfect. Shifts great! I couldn't really get the full experience of it as my neighbors don't enjoy me running through the gears at wide open throttle though the kid infested streets :)

Productive weekend though. Among other things I ended up getting the Lime Rock Legal exhaust setup and re-did my previous axle back to make it a bit more free-flowing with less abrupt direction changes. You know I'm stuck waiting for parts when I start breaking out the paint, haha.

Also, I installed a new Roll-Center Correction Kit from GTSPEC. The Whiteline one I had before was OK, but I needed a bit (a lot) more correction to compensate for the front end drop I need to do to get the splitter to work.

Once I get some items to make the new headers work I'll start rebuilding the rest of the exhaust.

And Lime Rock Only Version:

Transmission Work Almost Done

Last night I went to town on the transmission. Took the installed gear stacks and set the pinion depth, measured the tolerances and she's ready to go back together. I changed the front diff to a Helical JDM LSD type (version 5) and changed the ultimate final drive to a 4.44. Also acquired a viscous 4.44 R160 rear diff to match to the transmission. I need to open the center diff and make sure the guts are still in good shape. Following that I should be ready to seal her up and install it back into the car.

The process was a bit painstaking, but I think it should be worth it.

Fog Inlets

Small Update - Got some parts in from Bakemono. Great company by the way. Trey is a guy who knows his fiberglass/carbon work. he built to order these fog ducts. They are based off the P1 ducts, but 3" inlets to work with my brake cooling piping. A little nicer setup than the ghetto market light setup I had last season (to the right of the fog lol). Gear stack should be ready to go soon.

First Winter Project: Transmission

Here are some pictures from the recent project I’ve started:

First step – On the bench with the tail housing (Center differential housing) off and draining.



Once I got the case open, Inspection suggested that a broken 5th gear was the cause of this “noisy” transmission I got for free as a donor case. Not sure how it was driven at all like this but good thing I have an extra.




With the gear stacks removed, I laid out the old “donor” parts on the right with the new JDM parts on the left. Going to have to some mix/match to make sure the bearings and gear ratios are what I want. Overall I’ll be upgrading the front differential (just to the left of the case halves) from an Open differential to a helical LSD differential. I’ll use the pinion shaft out of the JDM transmission to move the final drive from 4.11 to 4.44 to get better acceleration on the track.



More to come. Let me know what you think.

Season End - Results In

I've been slacking a bit on posts... Ok, more than a bit - a lot. This winter will bring some interesting mechanical changes to the car and some new sponsors who you'll like to know.

2011 was a good season and the final results are in! I ended up securing a regional class championship (NASA Northeast PTC Champion) as well as a podium spot in the overall regional drivers championship (Over 150 drivers). I missed out on Rookie of the Year by a measly 10 points (out of a total of 950 or so) but I won't complain too loud about runner up. All-in-all it was a great year.

Some new things to look for on the blog soon enough; Aerodynamic Modifications, Transmission Modifications, New Suspension and Spring Rate Setup and more. Should be an interesting rush for the first shake-down of the season in April!

New Improvement

Battling with some other "quicker" cars I've come to realize the RS really struggles on the straits. Although I'm dealing with some aerodynamic issues (driving a brick), a lot of the challenge has been just being 40-50 down on horsepower. The solution was to change a few items on the suspension to gain back some class "points" and modify the motor's compression ratio in exchange. Now to see how she does on the dyno. I'll also be changing a few aerodynamic items including removing the hood scoop and adding an under-tray but larger modification will take some time - most likely in the off season.

Another Trip To Pocono

So another trip to Pocono Raceway ended the same say it did last year... bent wheel. Same corner of the car, same date, same track. Arg, at least the suspension and other bits are ok. Onward to wheel repair shop...

Doing Ok

So far I've had a few races under my belt winning my class at Summit Point, and coming in a close second at NJMP. Pocono most recently was successful placing on top of the podium on Saturday but I had to step out of Sunday's race due to the track conditions.

Next up is NJMP Lightning in August. Hopefully I can bring another 1st place finish in!

Passed

Finally finished up the car and have a short list of things to do before the first track day at Lime Rock. I headed over to EFI Logic's this weekend to go through the NASA Competition Race Tech Inspection. I did pass which is a relief, but still have a few tidbits to finish up. After a garage clean, maintenance on the tow vehicle, and a few other misl. quick projects I'll be back on the RS for a fuel system make over, minor tweak of the suspension and the general maintenance needed for the track day. Official Weigh In was 2600 lbs with about 5gal of fuel in the car. Looks like I'll need some ballast :)

Window Net (1)

Last night I finally finished re-designing the window net for proper operation. When DSX originally installed the window net it was on the inside of the cage and considered illegal. It also did not fully drop away from the driver to allow for proper egress.
I used an amazon.com belt buckle and latch and welded it to a threaded rod. Attached that to the cage for easy disconnect/connect. Also fabricated a few brackets to bolt up the heim joints on the rear connection points.

Here's what the window net looks like now:

Seat Bracket Almost Done

So the welds didn't come out as good as I'd hoped. Mostly due to my bad TIG skills and running out of gas 3 times during the project (3 tanks, all partially full, uggg).

Anyway, it's in and I just have to stitch weld up the mounting plates, drill a few holes and move on to the next project.

Seat Mounting

So more work is being done to the seat now.

Basically when DSX did the seat mount, they built off the cage and tied it into the stock mounting points for the stock seat (front cross member). I originally told them I didn't think it would work due to needing a slider at some point (the short co-driver ) but whatever. Now that I've determined it WONT work - I need to re-do it.

So far I've cut out the existing seat brackets and mounts and will re-make the 1-1/4 seat mounts to support the sliders AND brackets. I'm going to tie into the body with a single bar and run the bars off the cage at a 45 like the

existing setup was, only extend them by about 4 inches. Also the mounting plates for the seat will mount perpendicular to the tubes coming off the cage so i can alter where the seat mounts if needed down the road WITHOUT cutting the whole damn setup out... grr.

Oh - and Myles from RaceComp Engineering and Charles from SafeDrives hooked up some new parts too.

500/500 lb/in springs Front and Rear and window nets.

More Offset

So as the season open gets closer, the time to start working on the RS has begun. Just a small modification to the overall track of the car. Here's a shot of 15mm wheel spacers kicking the track out enough to fill the wheel wells as well as get some extra stability. I just hope the scrub isn't too bad and wheel bearing life is maintained.

NJMP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcxEwPZ7XKY - Almost into the 1:35's!

There's something very gratifying beating up on 300-320 hp evo's all day, but it's all in good fun! Looks like I was just about into the 1:35's at New Jersey Motorsport Park for the last race of the season. Went all year on one motor, one set of brake pads, one set of rotors, and really only replacing a water pump on the first event of the year (shakedown). I shouldn't of even really used the pump but that's what I get for trying to be cheap.

I've decided that the turbo route is too expensive at this point so I'm going to try to do some additional minor modifications to get the car legal for a Performance Touring class. Not sure if I'll be competitive at all, but I need the experience.

Not Lost, Just Busy

So there's much to talk about - Been to a ton of tracks and will finish up the season at New Jersey Motorsports Park at the end of October. I have some winter plans which won't really involve a swap just do to financial constraints, but will involve some work. I'll get some more recient photos up soon. Monticello - Watkins Glen - Etc.

Stay Tuned.

Pocono

Went out to Pocono for the 4th event of the season. Car's still running well - Was putting down some nice lap times minus the bent rim (rock at the end of the track out curbing). Next step will be brake ducts and forward under-tray - Also would like to fix the darn fuel starvation issues :(

Check out the video below for some in-car around the double infield configuration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NoeVAyKyFrg

Brake Wear?

I'm anal - I know - But when it comes to the track car I think it's a good kind of anal. I like to inspect every bolt on the car after each track day to make sure there are no points of failure. So my first point of inspection after Lime Rock was the brakes... You hear a lot of complaining from the high horsepower cars or heavier cars about brake wear and being that I ran 3 pretty full-out sessions at Lime Rock I figured I'd pull the wheel off and see some destruction...

In fact I saw the opposite - I had virtually no brake wear! This is very nice for a few reasons - 1) I don't need to buy brakes every other track day (save me about 200$ right there... per front set) and 2) I'm not overworking them. I still think I should get some brake ducts (Didn't have them for Lime Rock) just to have a little extra safety - especially on a track like Monticello coming up on Friday.

Lime Rock

So I had the car up at Lime Rock last Thursday and she really performed well. I was running high 1:04 laps on street tires when I wasn't in traffic... The car can be setup a bit more to get rid of the push at entry and stablize it under braking. After 3 sessions of some pretty good abuse, I have virtually 0 brake wear and tires are still good.

I had a guy come up to me after one of my sessions and ask "So what turbo do you have on this thing?" - My response is... "I don't - it's the stock 2.5". The expression on his face was pricelesss haha.

I did have a small problem with leaking coolant. The car never overheated, but I'm thinking the water pump may be bad due to the previous event at Monticello. I'll take her apart and prep her for ANOTHER trip to Monticello on Friday.

Weekend Projects

So over the weekend I worked on the RS a bit more. Cut out a bunch of unneeded metal off the front of the car (could cut more, but decided not go nuts just yet). I removed material basically because I wanted to offset the weight added with the addition of the oil cooler and brake ducts.

I Fabbed up some brackets and mounting points for the oil cooler and hooked it up to the thermostatically controlled sandwich adapter I have. used -10 line to keep the restriction down. I had an old steel oil cooler laying around from a previous car. It's not the best cooling but it will get the job done for now. I tried to tap all the brackets to reduce fasteners needed to speed up removal if ever necessary.

I then installed some inlets for the brake ducts. These will be modified over time as they are no where near optimal for flow but they are just temporary to get some air on the brakes in time for Lime Rock. My goal will be to build an inlet using some fiberglass to allow for more aerodynamic efficiency. All in due time...

Brakes

So it's been awhile since I last posted most because work has picked up a lot.

I've been awaiting my second track event with the RS at Lime Rock - and in preparation I need to install brake ducts and an oil cooler. I ordered up some 3" high temp brake tubing and clamps and will fabricate up some ducts. Stay tuned for the progress: