Awesome video. Quick car too. U are very sympathetic to ur car, but they do say smooth is fast so.i must say I drive harder everyday to and from work.
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Awesome video. Quick car too. U are very sympathetic to ur car, but they do say smooth is fast so.i must say I drive harder everyday to and from work.
Man that looks like so much fun, I would love to get start doing this. Also love the kids with the little tool belts haha
I am so itchy to get on a track and yours and Martins videos are not helping. Unfortunately I dont think I will get on a track until next year.
Yea my wife likes to accessorize the kids lol , made lots of people smile!
Jigz, dont wait take your daily youll have fun and be hooked. Its better to start in a stock
car, at first its not about all out speed its about car control and learning the line. Its actually harder to
learn in a modified car, I mean people do it all the time but its easier the othe way. Atleast this way
youll have some basics down once your car is ready.
To bad you dont live closer, we could hang out for the day and I could give you a ride-along if you wanted
although its usually not a fun ride for the passenger, I guess its the whole control issue. Or if anybody in there area wants to come down to hang out or even give it a try by all means hit me up. We usually bbq too so theres that to look forward to also.
Were headed to VIR June 19-20 and then well be back at Summit Point in August unless I decide to go on a mission
and head to Road Atlant that month but thats probaly not likely.
Learning to conserve momentum is the biggest part of being fast on a track, which is easiest to do on a slow car, that will barely accelerate and really talks when its on the limit. Which is why the Miata has been so popular.
Hopefully I will get out to Heartland park this summer. I've got a friend with a turbo 6.0L RX-7 who needs to start getting seat time in with the monster he's created.
So what are the next plans for the car?
I got a bunch of little projects on the list but I have to pick my battles with this car in order to keep it ready for the track weekends. At the moment its just fill with gas and drive which is the way I like it but Im a gear head so Ill eventually stick my hands in there and change something. Maintenance wise I have to change the front pads, oil change and drain the anti-freeze and replace with distilled water.
whats up everybody, we've been house hunting for the past month and finally went in to contract on a real nice house near us so I haven't done much to the car. I was able to have some bungs welded on to the coolant system for my wastegate but that's it. Sucky thing is I filled it with water today then started the car and the ports were leaking on the wastegate. I overtightened the fitting on the wastegate and the 8mm washer spread out enough to leak water. So I gotta go look for something tomorrow to fix it cause I have to flush and fill the coolant system by end of tomorrow. I have event next weekend so its gottta get resolved some how.
Heres the thermostat housing, tapped for 1/4 npt
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps5437b4ab.jpg
back of the housing I had capped off since it was part of the HVAC system that I don't have anymore.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps3d4d21b7.jpg
the inside where they put a slug in order to to get it very hot while welding with out damaging the cast.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psb7627345.jpg
here you can see were the old stock turbo coolant line was cut and capped and a 1/4 bung was welded on the opposite side for the wastegate. Next to the nipple for the throttlebody was a nipple for the hvac that was also cut and capped.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...pse8e89619.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psb7302852.jpg
and on the opposite end a 1/4 bung was welded on for a coolant temp sensor, its not for a gauge but for a warning light that will be installed later on at the gauge panel. At 225 degrees its lights up nice and bright.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psdcc76c75.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps12b58253.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps56dbabf8.jpg
hard to see in this pic but there a 1/4x-4 90 threaded into the bung.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps65590e7a.jpg
Done
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps91a87742.jpg
Car is looking good B!
Hells yeah!
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Wow, this is really amazing. The abilities some of you guys possess is jaw dropping and the vision displayed here is really inspiring. Thoroughly entertained reading through this, can't tell you how many times I said OMG, and passed it around the room, lol. I do some work over at Rockville Lexus once in a while, I would love to see it.
Thanks for the props, just hit me up when ever your town.
Fantastic looking welds on both the thermostat housing and the coolant pipe. Hope all goes well on your event coming up! Get some good pictures and videos!
I saw those water-cooled wastegate before. What is the true benefit of being cooled??
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Longevity
I know I know longgg read!!
I haven't had any good luck with the car since the last event at VIR back in July so I really havent had anything good to talk about. No accidents If that's what you thinking just mechanical.
1st session I was bedding in new brake pads so it was a throw away session, as soon Im done with the break-in procedure I pull it in to the paddock and let the pads cool down for 30 min. It was waste of time though because I was getting brake shudder later on in the day which means I didn't bed them in properly.
During my first session though I notice I was getting some boost spike exiting certain corners leading into some long straight aways where I would normaly start to go flat out.
Being that I was not doing any hot laps I was a lil worried what the rest on the day would bring.
2nd session I miss the warm up lap but doesn't matter cause I usually warm it any way if Im late, I let everyone by and Im still noticing some boost spike even though a was going fairly slow. Once I completed a lap I start accelerating hard when I feel a sprinkle of water going up my arm, Im like what the fvck and immediately pull it into neutral right before turn 1. Im like fvck it Im gonna keep going, at about turn 3 I start feeling water spraying on my ankle and of course I wasn't wearing any socks so now Im starting to get a little worried lol. I pull back to about 5/10's and about halfway around the track the water temp is getting close to 225, I pull it back into the paddock.
Turns out that ONE of TWO rubber lines left in the whole engine bay that weren't converted to braided lines decided to blow off, theses were coolant lines to the t/b and I guess the stock clamp was too tired and had no more tension left. Luckily the race store on sight had one small overpriced worm clamp left in stock. Oh well at least I didn't have to leave the track for one but the funny thing was when I was trying to install it I dropped it and it got lost in the engine bay for like 30 min. I had to jack up the freakin car just to get a better shot at finding it. So I finished that and filled with water, took about a gallon and it only takes about a gallon and half so I lost a lot of water during this whole fiasco.
What did I learn from this? Cover up the holes in my fire wall lol ASAP
3rd session set the tone for the whole weekend I was getting boost spikes so bad exiting corners that the whole car would start to buck back and forth. After the seesion I started looking for anything obvious that would cuz this like a disconnected vacuum line or something but everything looked fine. The rest of the weekend was spent trying to make the best of it, wasn't pushing the car has hard as I would've like to, trying to stay out of 15 psi cuz as soon as it hit that number it spiked passed what the gauge actually reads. My videos are super boring to say the least, spent most of my time behind a couple of miatas Im friendly with.
Now I had 4 weeks to get this resolved till my next event so I thought I had plenty of time, I waited like a week and half to bring the car to the shop and they couldn't work on it until the following week. After they did all their troubleshooting they narrowed it down to the wastegate. They put in the softest spring to see if it would keep spiking and it continued to spike. Next they contacted Tial which is difficult to do because they don't provide a phone number everything is through email. After all the back and forth emails they told my shop to send it in so they can inspect it. They made the repairs and Im not even sure what they repaired because these things aren't that complicated, its a valve with seals and most parts are available for people to repair themselves so Im left wondering. They did say this thing is getting very hot and I might want consider relocating it so its possible they had to machine something but who knows but now I have another thing to worry about. Either extend the wastgate or just buy a different manifold which might leave me with re-fabbing a down pipe, dump tube and intake. Three things I don't want to do right now.
Well after all the back and forth emails with Tial they asked how fast do we need it back, my shop said overnite and they haven't heard back from them since and still no wastegate. So now I missed my track weekend which was today and yesterday, Im out registration fees and hotel. Im not blaming anyone but me for that since I should've brought it in sooner but Iam pissed with Tial. I mean what kind of customer service is that? Not even having a contact number? Cmon man its 2014, Im sure certain folks get a number but either way I don't think Im gonna buy anymore products from them in the future cause of this.
So there you have it, a long read for those interested and if you even made it this far thanks for listening lol. I wont be on track till October, feels so far away.
Ill try to get some pics of the July event
Just wow. Crazy. Dam galants. Lol. Sucks things are happening. Thats what happens with modified cars. A lot of variable for errors.
1. U dont need the coolant line to tb. Is there for really cold weather so it could warm up the tb so the butterfly dont freeze and get stuck. Take it off/ bypass so you could cool the tb and intake mani for better denser air. I dont know why is coolant on tb. Defeat the purpose to have a anti-cooler.
2. Boost spike. Where do you have your WG vacuum line. On intake mani vacuum. Or by the turbo compressor tubing? Do you have manual boost or electronic? What is your spring rate?
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Yea modified cars suck at the track, sometimes I wish I had a nice stocker of sorts that doesn't require as much tlc. I know I don't need the coolant lines but it helps cold starts plus there already there so I might as well use them. I still would have to loop them which would leave me with 2 less connections that could blow but at the moment its a big deal. Just have to make sure my clamps aren't fatigued and the coolant system properly bled, that's probably what blew it off anyway. I did a coolant flush prior to that weekend.
I don't remember what the wastegate springs are but I do have EBC and the vacuum line comes off the compressor housing.
tial wastegates are a dime a dozen in my crowd. im surprised you didnt have a friend who would let you borrow theirs for the weekend. i let guys borrow things off my spare kart all the time even if they're beating me in points. that def sucks, i never like seeing someone miss out on important seat time with their car. hope to see it back up and going soon and you in that drivers seat!
The coolant lines in the throttle don't really do anything other than keeping frost from forming under certain conditions, so that is about all that needs to be said there.
I'd be super pissed on that deal though. For the price of your hotel and entry fee's you could have just bought another wastegate.
Have you thought about taming the system down a little bit? Less pressure, little less power and just focus on conserving momentum?
If I can put together the money I will hopefully be running Hallett this year with a few friends. Should be a fantastic change to what I'm used to, I've never tracked this car on the current set up.
So is the radiator cap not the highest point of your cooling system? Even with the turbo cooling tubes added on I wouldn't think it would be that prone to capturing air bubbles.
U need to know you spring rate in EBC. Lets say if you have a 10 psi spring you need to set on ebc to about 7-8. U cant put or set to 10 because u will have boost spike big time.
Coolant line not need it. Dont help with cold start. Pcm set idle to 1500-2k for warm up. If you having warm start problem you need to mess with the injector adder not to dump so much fuel at crank. Depending of your injectors cc.
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Yea kyle I was offered to borrow a wastegate but I didn't want to damage it in case the manifold design is indeed overheating wastegate. That's the great thing about paddocks though, everyone is eager to help, even people racing against each other.
I wasn't pissed though for some reason just disappointed, I mean I even considered a spec e30 rental and I was offered an TT Evo8 at the last minute but I backed out. Its a tough spot either lose money or spend more money not to lose money. Either way its not the end of the world and like my wife said everything happens for a reason. She was actually more worried about me using a car that I didn't prep myself (like Im some kind of pro LOL), but thats mostly the reason why I backed out lol.
I haven't thought about knocking the boost down, Im pretty comfortable with the car now and I wouldn't be happy not having less power. Im gonna try to work on this issue and possibly a newer more updated manifold in the near future. Possibly buy a back-up wastegate, I know it sounds dumb after how bad I said Tial's customer service is but its a quick fix and cheaper then a track car rental just to get some seat time.
and yes the radiator cap still remains the highest point.
I hope you do sign up for that event gearhead, Ive never tried autocross so I cant really compare the two but its a lot of fun once you get the hang of it and Im sure you with your experience would pick it up quick.
Maybe next time I drain the coolant Ill loop the t/b lines. Thanks
I didn't know if backing off the power slightly would keep heat down, I know you also had the issue with the gearbox breakage, so backing off a little might get you more seat time with less issue's to distract you from improving as a driver. I know one event I had an issue with the crank sensor wiring on my car during my second run, so I had to fix it in my 5 minute technical and struggling to get that done kind of threw me off for the rest of the day.
I like running different cars, getting a feel for what others like in a vehicles performance and such. I'd like to one day be able to get in anything and be comfortable close to or at the cars limits. Its certainly not fun to be thrown in a totally unfamiliar chassis and be given a pace to hold, its just too steep of a learning curve to pick up without a little orientation.
You should go to a couple autocross events, it makes you drive much quicker than a road course. You don't have as much set up time and you have to learn the cars limits on the course very quickly since you only have a few runs and the course is always different. I know some don't like it as much as a full course, but I feel like it gives you many skills that are transferable and advantageous to being a serious competitor on a road course. I know a number of the guys I race autocross with also run road courses and they always point out that autocross gives sharpened reactions that have kept them out of the wall or their competitors at road racing events.
I've taken my Galant out on Heartland Parks 2.1 mile course, and it was a blast, very relaxed compared to autocross in the sense of how often I had to change direction, but the increased speed made it much more hair raising in the corners. That was on an old set up though, I'd like to get a bit more power out of it before I do Hallett, but when the offer comes I'm going to take it either way.
You make a valid point on lowering the HP but Im not ready to turn down the boost yet. Well see how the rest of the season goes and then Ill make a decision then. I just picked up the car today and they gave me more info on the situation and there actually going against what Tial said and saying the part was defective. They don't understand how that could happen with only 4 hrs of usage. Well see.
Ive only driven two cars on track, my 330i and the galant. Two totally different cars but I loved them both, the only difference was the one car pushes you around the track and the other pulls you.
Honestly I will probably never do any auto-x, Ive visited a couple of SCCA events over here at FedEx before I started track days and I liked what I saw then I did a track day and I was hooked.
Its just a thought, if you only got 4 hours of use out of that wastegate than it was probably defective out of the box, unless you are dealing with a lot of heat, but you look like you have everything wrapped and shielded appropriately.
I'm scared to drive my Volvo on the track, its about the total opposite of the way I've built the Galant. The 185/70/14's just don't grip well at its power level, add in stock suspension and its a handful on 20 lbs, where as the Galant is pretty much only suspension and handling mods.
Road courses are a blast, don't get me wrong, but autocross will make you quicker as a driver and sharpen your reflexes for when the back end steps out, or someone starts to lose it in front of you. It is for those reasons that I believe a good road racer should spend at least a little time with autocross.
So we've been in are new house for almost 4 weeks now and we still haven't unpacked everything, but who who cares cause the garage is in full swing lol. I don't have much room but Im making it work. Future plans are an air compressor and a mig welder for now but besides that I have everything I need to keep the car running.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps2f856848.jpg
Ill be headed to VIR next Friday night for the weekend, hopefully I have better luck this time. Come to think of it though it always rains there so It always gamble.
^^^ Congrats on the new place. I too have been moved from an apartment to a house and still haven't unpacked everything. Move went down on labor day weekend.
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If you go for a wire feeder, try and find one that is compatible with a spool gun, the gun alone is a grand from Miller but the ability to MIG aluminum is pretty freakin awesome.
Garage looks good man, you should also look into a plasma on down the line, they are soooooo handy.
Mig welding aluminum with a spool gun is HORIBLE, it down right sucks. I have the 180C by Lincoln and I like it i guess, but for the spool gun capability it sucks. and $1k for a mig thats is capable of doing aluminum is only $500 off from some pretty good entry tig welders. If I had to buy a welder again, I would get a tig welder. Way cleaner IMO ( aka doesn't spatter at all and alot more control)
Thats funny we moved the same weekend, sh!t sucked lol. I still miss my aprtment though but ohwell.
As far as the welder Im gonna go for the lincoln 145, it gets a real get review for the home hobbiest which is
right up my alley. Im not to worried about welding aluminum just yet but later on I will get some combination
tig/ stick welder. Stewi has one and has been doing some amazing things with it.
Haha I don't miss my apartment one bit.
It was our cozy first place and we made some nice memories. But other than that very happy to be out, no bad experiences or bad neighbors or anything, I just couldn't tinker with cars. Still can't since the garage is full of things that need to be unpacked/thrown out or just plain given away.
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You sure you had the current set on AC? The Miller spool guns I've used have been pretty fantastic, the only issue is fitting them into tighter spaces. I like the control of TIG, but it just takes too much time when you have to do big long welds, or lots of welds.
There is lots of killer equipment out there, just gotta find what works what's best for you.
So I cant complain too much about last weekend. The event schedule changed on me last minute so instead of me leaving Friday night I left early Saturday morning thinking I wasn't supposed to grid till noon but I missed the morning session due to schedule change. All together I only had 3 sessions on Saturday, Sunday they didn't have us gridding till 12:30 and that was way too late for me since I have a 5hr drive home and need to get back at a decent time so that was out the window.
On the good side the car behaved and I got some quality seat time. I did manage to put 4 off twice in the 2nd session which was kind of scary since its kinda of the first time I did that NOT on purpose, fear of over correcting a steering input caused this but looking at the video I probably could've corrected without failure. Either way this is the sorta thing I have to learn by mistake, Im still a newby and VIR is a very fast and long track and I cant wait till next year to shave off some seconds off my lap time!
1st session
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fc9N...m-upload_owner
damage control:
inspected the car once it got home and noticed the turbo blanket had a hole burnt through, once I got it off I found the 2 front bolts of the turbo flange had backed out and were just laying in the blanket. I rocked the turbo up and down and didn't budge which is probably a good thing but when I go to install new bolts this weekend Im gonna stick a feeler gauge in there to see what I was dealing with. Not that its gonna fix the problem but I wanna see how much of gap there was.
Also driver side axle is making a lot of noise during slow turning so I ordered one from Rock Auto yesterday afternoon and showed up this afternoon, I was pretty amazed since I did ground shipping, thumbs up to Rock Auto!!
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps0e9d0ca0.jpg
The bolts
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps61c326f6.jpg
VIR
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psea0cd35c.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps7bcd6adb.jpg
end of the day
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps406e569e.jpg
1st car wash of the year last weekend
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psf3935182.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psbac8d243.jpg
Last event for me this year is November 8-9 at Summit point West VA. I had high hopes for making it to Road Atlanta and Daytona this year but it will have to wait next year. If anyone is interested in coming out for the Fall Finale event hit me up, if you sign up soon you can get on track for one session for $50 to get your feet wet or free if you just wanna spectate and hang out.
So jelly!! Looks like lots of fun. Did a track day on my street bike and that was intense. Giving you props boss. Good job!!!
^Good Looks Homie
So I know Ive been slacking on the thread, I guess Im just lazy when comes to updating but trust me I have been working on it. I haven't gotten as much done as I wanted but sometimes that's how it is when you got other things going on around the house.
Prior to my last event after I fixed all the other problems I discovered a water leak. It was coming from the coolant pipe, theres a bracket welded on that attaches to the block. Well it must have cracked while tightening the AN line and since I didn't have much time to replace it I decided to use JB weld. Well it didn't last more then a couple of sessions at the track lol. To make things worst I over heated the oil and the turbo was smoking. I decided to go for broke since it was the last weekend of the season and run it the next morning, it over heated immediately and pulled it back into the pits after 3-4 laps. Wouldve been earlier but I wasn't paying attention to the gauge lol.
You can see all the sloppy JB weld and the crack extending past
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps4170b8eb.jpg
new one
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps2a0cfdf4.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps2eed816d.jpg
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps2ee4f970.jpg
Next I started to see how I could trim the engine harness, there are a few levels to this project and the first is to rid all the wires to the egr and auto tranny that I don't need any more.
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps84fc44e8.jpg
here you can see where all the water was spraying from the coolant pipe
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...psf9f883ac.jpg
so little by little I thought I would just pull out the harness, luckily its super easy since I don't have any of the HVAC to block access
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t...ps1342f607.jpg
Theres more to show but Im tired, Ill add some more tomorrow. Thanks
I don't know if I have ever asked this. But what clutch master are you using??
The master is from a 3g
It has a mounted reservoir on it??