The Money Pit!

[greddy]

that's much better, glad you have your car at a nice functional ride height! can't wait to see some track footage/photos. when's your first event in the galant this year? also, which harness bar do you have?

[8thLS6]

Nice job with the fender rolling

[wetamup2k3g]

Loving how it came out Bryant! So you just lift the car up, place the bat into position, lower and then roll the car?

[4g63lover]

so aggressive. The roll looks good and the wheel/tire fitment is spot on.

[Ivory8g]

Great job on the roll! The fittment really does look great

[specter6633]

love your car bro. well done

[xd_01]

Thanks everybodyit means alot, i hit the track in 2 weekends but unfortunatley im taking the 330
for the first event this season next week. Its just easier to learn in with out all the big hp and
torque steer. Ill be taking her in april though.

Creg i wish it couldve started for you when you here, turns out it was a loose wire on the starter.
And yea i lifted the control arm with a jack while the coilover was disconnected and that
corner of the car on a jackstand.

[wetamup2k3g]

Ah I see. I wish I could've heard her start up too. Next time maybe, I might have to join you at the track to check her out.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk fam!

[xd_01]

so heres a little update, its been real busy at home helping to take care of the new baby and the 16 month old. its hard to find the time and energy to go track prep the car but I manage to get a 2-4 hours a weekend if I have a free one.

finally though I was able to take the G to NJMP Lighting course in south jerz a couple of weekends ago for one day, the whole family came with me which was fun but also was a part of the reason why I only signed up for one day. I wasn't sure how behaved my kids would be so I kust wanted to kinda test the waters. everthing worked out great though.

the Galant did pretty good on track but I still need to get re-aquated with her, never had boost on the old setup but I do on this one which changes the whole dynamic of the car and driving style (in my opinion). I was paranoid about the car breaking again so being able to drive on to the trailer at the end of the day made me real happy.

a few issues I already knew I had going in to this weekend was the torque steer, on the highway pulls I had tons of it so I was a little worried about the track but I was able to tame it on the front straight at about 120mph, it felt like there was so much going on that it I hardly felt it. next issue was I started to get brake shudder once they got hot enough, that really upsets the car before turn-ins. this worries me more then torque steer so im gonna try to re-bed the pads that's what someone suggested on the forums. if that doesn't work then ill go for new rotors. speaking of brakes I managed to lock them up a couple of times on the front straight which gets a lil scary when your doing 120 down the front straight going into a elevated corner with a blind crest but its all a part of learning the car, they call that brake threshold or basically knowing how hard and much brake to apply before they lock up on you at high speeds. another issue was the shifter, i have an extension on it so i don't have to move my hand too far from the wheel when i shift. well i don't know if it was me but i never had that problem in the streets or highways but as soon as i got on track my shifting got very sloppy. so for the next session i removed it and guess what now it felt too notchy and hard to get into gear, i even missed a shift going into the front straight. lol well im guessing the problem is me so im gonna try again with shifter extension.

so that's pretty much sums its, the tune could use some tlc but its not hurting my driving right now so ill bring it for a dyno run after the next event. no overheating issues yet, my fastest session the water temp got up to 230* but I wasn't really flogging the car. well see what happens next event.

track photographer pics







NJMP is a new track for me so I didn't quite come out of my shell on the track (only had 3 sessions) but hopefully next time ill be more confident. I was probly one of the slowest guys on the track but being at a new track with a car that has a new setup and being a novice also makes things a little difficult lol. either way I had a lot of fun and that's what its all about I cant wait to go back.

next one is Hyper Fest at Summit Point on fathers day weekend. that's the weekend last year were the adjustable cam gear bolts backed out and fell to the bottom of the lower timing belt cover getting wedged in between the moving timing belt snd the crank angle sensor wiping the sensor completely out and shutting down the car. I think i only got around the track 3 times.

ok so on with the technical shit, lately ive been working on wheel alignment, camber and and leveling out the car. its sort of a trial and error thing when aligning but in the end you get the hang of it after you do so many times.

ive been working on this for a while so some pics may not look like they were taking with the same camera or even same day.

so first I start out by placing the car where i need it to be in order to be able to close the door in case i don't finish and need to leave, my garage is space limited. i make a mark on the floor at the center of all four wheels, this will be my permanent spot for the car during alignments.



next I find exactly where im gonna place each four corners by measuring the garage width which i think was 12' so i divide that by 2 which is 6' and that's the center line. now I measure off the wall 6' in two places and make my marks. now I have reference mark for center of the garage. do the same for the car by measuring from center of tire to tire, i think it was in the ball park of 6' so divide by 2 again which is 3' to find center of car, now that is a very rough measurement but it will be close enough for the car placement. so now i measure from center line of the garage out 3' each way make a mark and that's where the track of the car will sit. since i have my wheel base marks already i just set the marks for the track width and draw squares on the floor. this is where the tiles will sit and will also be where tires sit when i pull in. i know all this sounds like a lot but really it isn't, once you start it all makes sense.

my garage space is small so ill im tring to do at this point is give my self even spacing around the car so I can work comfortably. if your garage is real big then this isn't a problem, just roll it in where you want it then a draw a square around all four corners then place your tiles.

heres what it looks like








and all tiles set including the inner four corners i use to level out the car using the pinch rails



i got to that point using a dewalt self leveling cross line laser, i set the laser in one spot and did not move it until i was completely done other wise i would have to start from scratch if it did move.



so first i found the highest point of all four corners with the horizontal laser line which happened to be the front left. i placed two tiles there and measured again to the laser and wrote down the new measurement.



using the measurement from the front left corner i go around to the other three corners and matched the measurement by adding tiles as needed. these tiles are 1/8 thick so my tolerance is under 1/8. close enough, so when your all done every corner should be with in 1/8 of each other.


next i rolled the car in and i jacked up one side at a time and placed the tiles under the tires. the front set of tiles gets a layer of sand or salt under the top tile so the it can rotate easily while under load when making adjustments.







now for the hard part finding the center of the car, for the front I dropped a plumbob on the outside edge of the forward most part of the frame rails. I measured the exact location on each side so it would be consistent.





so I mark the floor on both sides and measure in between, take that dimension and didved it by 2 and that's my center for the front. I measure in from either side of the frame rail marks and make a mark for center.







so for the rear I took a wild guess (and also stewi mentioned it) the jack point under the spare tire well just happens to be the center of the car.



so I dropped the plumbob as center as possible at the jack point made a mark and checked that my using the frame rails again by dropping the plumbob again on the outside edge of both sides in the same plane of the jack point. made more marks on the floor, measured in bewtween divided by 2 wrote down the dimension the measured from frame rail mark to jack point and it was the same.







ok so now that I have center I need to run the laser from front to back. I take a piece of 2x4 draw a black line on it with a speed square and place it on the jack point mark with the black mark exactly over the mark on the floor. I place the laser at the fornt of the car and using the vertical laser line I begin to line up the two marks. once that's done I measure a certain distance (i used 45"s) going away from the laser line on both sides of the car, front and back and make four final marks on the floor. so now i have 4 marks on the floor parallel to the car (i hope).

but first i need to lock down the steering wheel cause if i don't im just wasting my time. my setup is just long piece of 1x1-1/2 (or something close to that) wood and some clamps, i straighten the wheel out then i clamp it down.



so now that's done i can align my laser with the marks on the floor, again i use the 2x4 at the other end to make it more visible



so now starts the process of of measuring, adjusting, rolling back and forth and measuring again until its were i want it.

i put a piece of masking tape across the center of the wheel so i make sure i measure in the same spot each time. i take a measurement from the back and front of the wheel and write it down. so for example if both measurements are 8"s then that wheel is straight, i want a little toe out to aid with turn-ins so i adjust the tie rods for a ballpark of 1/8 of an inch. i say ball park because its pretty hard to get it exactly were you want it. so my measurement would look like this

front of wheel 7 15/16
back of wheel 8 1/16

that would be toe out, now i don't know if this is how a alignment shops chart would read but this is good enough for me.





this is how i remember which way to turn my tie rods



so now after ive done both sides i have to roll back the car forth and then re-check everything with the measurements i wrote down before. i set up the tiles for leveling behind the tiles the tires are actually sitting on plus some run off ramps in the rear in case something bad happens





so basicly that's it, i write everything so next time i do it i can compare any changes and its just a great idea when taking so many measurements that i need to refrence during the whole process cause i have abad memory. heres a pic of the chart i made up the last time, if you see the letter "H" after a measurement that means on the heavy side of that measurement.

[kylecanthurdle]

sounds about the same way i check the alignment measurements for the modified. gotta make sure the floor is level and blah blah blah. i like how you can use those tiles as toe plates too. i bet they pivot on eachother very well.

[xd_01]

yea there ok, there the next best thing to actual toe plates and scales like you probably have for your modified.

well today I prepped the car a little for next weekend, bled the brakes and adjusted the coilovers again to sit more level. now im sitting within 9/16's from front to back measuring off the pinch rail at the jack point locations in all four corners. were headed to hyper-fest at summit point in west Virginia next weekend for some fun!!

[6G72gearhead]

Look like your season is coming along really well. Just fyi, BFG Rivals are freaking awesome, if you get the chance to try them I highly recommend it. I've got a couple dozen runs on my set now and I'm in love.

[xd_01]

So last weekend was Hyperfest 13 at Summit Point WV and things went good finally. Saturday was like a circus at the track they had drift ride alongs, 24 hours of lemons at the track next to the one on we were on, roll over contest, rally ride alongs, ricer contest, car show, food, daisy duke contest and on and on. There was so much going on Saturday that we couldn't see it all, we made time for the food vendors though lol!

The car did really good no issues so far, water temps didn't get past 220 on the track but started to go up when I hit the paddock and waited for the turbo to cycle the oil through before i shut it down. No brake shudder this time out, I put back the shifter extension and I was able to shift fine no mis-shifts. Still trying to manage the torque steer in the straights especialy when I pass other cars (don't want to torque steer into anybody) but im getting more use to it and im starting to get some fender rubbing but not too bad so im gonna have to massage the fenders again.

my instructor for the weekend races an evo 8 in wheel to wheel comp. and time trials so he was able to give me good advice on throttle control with a turbo charged car, made a huge difference. The only bad part was that I bought a new camera for the car, a Contour2 and set it up for the last 2 sessions on sunday but when I uploaded it to the computer I somehow deleted them. I was pretty pissed but got over it.

Next stop is Pocono in the three weekends, cant wait to drive clock wise on part of the "tricky triangle"

[xd_01]

got the pics from the free lance photographer

behind a quick Miata












off track in the w2w competition group. there were at least 5 big accidents all weekend in the comp groups and one of them was a roll over.


My instructor for the weekend


the drifting competition




the crowd


and a lil bit of rally


there where pics of the daisy duke contest and other things but then I would have to make this a NWS thread if I posted them lol

[Chevelle71_05]

Cool pix! I just learned last week that there's a road course somewhat close to me. I'm pretty sure there's a NSFW thread on here, I love daisy dukes! Lol!

[DEADEYES]

That rally one is totally going up as my wallpaper!
Also that crash pic is a good pic, I mean sucks bout the crash but that is a good action shot.

[Ivory8g]

That's some good photography! Your car looks at home on the track

[xd_01]

thanks, yea he takes awesome pics, if you wanna see more go to his website http://finishlineprod.net/nasa/index.htm

[wetamup2k3g]

Badass photography! Gotta feel good to get the G on the track and she perform pretty well.

[xd_01]

So a couple of weeks ago we went to Pocono Raceway, its a 3.5 hour ride for us so we stayed in a hotel near by the night before and rolled out to the track in the morning. it was so foggy in the morning that you couldnt see 30- 50' in front of you. the morning sessions were closed until the fog lifted which it did at noon then things got busy.

I was there the year before on the North course and had a blast, Pocono has like 4-5 different configurations so I got to try out a couple more tracks this time. the south east course which is a brand new track and the long course which is like 3/4 of the tri-oval (nascar speedway) plus a short infield course with about 5 corners and you enter that part just before turn 3 of the oval and exit just before the exit of turn 2 of the oval.

the long course is by FAR the best experience ive EVER had on track, I don't know exactly how fast I was going because my speedometer only goes up to 120mph but if I had to guess it would be in the +/- 130 ballpark. I was pissed though cause my camera was acting weird when I turned it on somewhere between 2 and 1 and only recorded for 10 seconds. boy I was pissed.

basically the lap goes something like this, your going around the oval about a car width or less away from the outside wall at about 120+ mph, you brush your brakes just before turn 1 and you start your turn in at still well over 100 mph. if you turned in at the right spot your right wheels will go over a white patch of paint, hold your steering input and then your right wheels should roll over or very very close to another patch of paint at about mid corner. finally exiting the corner with your steering input opening a little your left side wheels should go over another patch of white paint. so now that you've exited turn 1 and opening the throttle down the front straight you look for your brake zone and hit the brakes after doing 120+ mph, slow down to enter the road course, find your turn in point in the corner of your eye and turn. it all happens fast and scary, for a split second you cant even see the entrance because all the walls are white and your looking for a little patch of asphalt and grass that's almost looks like its not there but you have to make sure you turn in at the same place every time in order to get it right even if your eyes are playing tricks on you cause if not then things turn ugly. so after you already commited to your turn in you start looking for a patch of white paint on the asphalt again and that should be just to the right of your tires. the infield course I could've done better, I think I was turning in just a little to early on basically every corner and holding the brake just a little too long going into the 2nd corner. the exit of that short course into the oval is tricky too cause if you turn in too late your into the wall, I came close lol. so back on to the oval building speed and almost as soon as your back on the oval your entering turn 2 but no need to brush the brakes since your not going fast enough so you just keep opening that throttle, gear changing and building speed headed for turn 1. felt so so good!!!

the south east course is new to everybody this year since they just built it, even the instructors were learning it. I took my time trying to find the line and get my shifting points correct so I wasn't too worried about going fast but now that I review my vidz I wish I would've pushed harder but with my limited experience I was a lil shy on track. if I had an instructor I wouldve felt more comfortable but still I think it was good that im starting to be able to run new tracks solo and be able to find the line. south east was a lot of fun though and I cant wait to go back.

the car did good no hiccups internally

issues:

tires rubbing big time in the front, need to start cutting fenders

axle boot ripped, slung axle grease all under the tranny and sub frame. picked up a new one last night.

wish I had pics of the fog

a few days before leaving, bleeding brakes. I do it before every event.







wifey and oldest boy



a couple from the infield of the long course from the free lance photographer



south east course



my parents came out for the day since it was only about 2.5 from Long Island plus they wanted to see the kids. so these pics my popz took with his super lens hd camera when I was on the long course at turn 1.











going home





ripped boot on axle





next event mid August at summit point in west Virginia, my favorite track