Whelp, no posting for a while but only because i've been so busy working a real job and wrenching on the CRX. I meant to put something together after the last event but between bigboy work and car work i never found the time, and when I do find time id much rather be doing than writing about doing. This is exceptionally annoying because I actually forced myself to sit down recently- and after 3 hours of organizing pictures and typing *POOF* it disappeared. fuck.
Here I am again, still nothing has slowed down but I'm making the time because i'm starting to forget the specifics and small details that i'd like to have logged here. Remember, when I started this it was more for me than anyone else. Because I'm always tinkering and changing I forget the specifics of why I changed something in the first-place. It's a "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it" type thing but the bonus, it seems, is that people are also enjoying reading it.
Ill try my best to go chronologically (again) from where I left off..
After the event at Streets I last posted I was happy but also mentioned that there was still some immediate work too be done. For one, I realized that the rear pivot bushings that the PO installed were literally flopping around in their hole. They were the billet BLOX type bushing that need to be held in by counter sunk screws in the rear trailing arm, anyway, the countersunk screws were LONG gone but the PO had drilled yet another hole in the trailing arm and was holding the bushings in with piece of scrap metal bolted flat against the bushing too keep it from walking its way out. Problem is, the bushing has so much play that it had worn itself round on the edges and had about a 1/16 of movement fore and aft and maybe about 25* of rotation before it blinded enough to give any resistance at all. The toe link, rear shock and the upper camber adjuster were the only things keeping it somewhat centered and not falling off, to make matters worse they were still the stock oem rubber bushings holding on for dear life. Needless to say this was not and optimum set up too let the shocks and springs do what they were designed for. Instead all of the bumps and cornering G's energy flow through the path of least resistance- which in this case is worn out rubber and sloppy fitted parts. The same types of problems were apparent on the front ball joints and inner tie rods. After looking around and bugging the shit out of Katman with part numbers I was able to locate some Hardrace components that would show up in time for rd.2 of HFFchallenge. I had a week and a half to order and get everything on the car. I didn't get the solid bushings because i really had too watch my points as not too get classed out of the Mod points total in HFF challenge. Hardrace makes the next best thing which is rubber-rubber (not poly) and it's 120%-150% times stiffer than the OEM rubber and comes with adjustability. I've had Hardrace components on a few cars and have always been happy with the quality, easy choice.
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| Toe link from a Del Sol fits the CRX |
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| Wasn't sure if I had DC2 or SI trailing arms so I bought both and returned the one that didn't fit. turns out I have SI rear trailing arms, good to know. |
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| Got rid if the Ebay camber adjusters from the PO and also replaced them with Hardrace arms While I was there I swapped to the latest version of the Skunk 2 front camber arms. They have the adjustment nuts on the bottom and come with fresh ball joints for the upright. The old arms are prone to slipping, with fresh rubber it would only be a matter of time before they would ruin a track day so I made a preemptive fix and swapped them over while the car was up in the air.
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After looking at pictures of J's racing CRX I decided that I wanted to do something to 'spice" up the front 1/4 of the car. Honestly I've never been a big fan of the CRX body style. Its got an iconic shape, sure, but too me it was just always 'eh'. You'd see one in a Vons parking lot and never look twice. I figure I could start to do some small things that wouldn't cost any points to bump me out of Mod class but would help me live with my decision to actually own a CRX.
After looking at the car a while i figured if there were any improvements too be made that didn't have a points penalty attached it would be at the front fender. Venting the air that gets trapped inside the wheel well would help with both brake cooling and front end lift. I built a smooth vent that riveted flat too chassis and built a stand off flap with about an inch of separation i then bent the lower flap back.The hope is this would create some low pressure air pocket that would effectively help too suck the air out of the wells. After that I used vibration dampened standoffs to affix the fender which i pulled out another inch to give me a bit more wheel and tire clearance and allow for more air to escape in front of the door. I also spaced the rear of the hood up to help draw some of the hot air out of the bay. That and it just looks cool.
On track previously I'd noticed my oil temps climbing and plateau at around 137f, which is fine really, but by simply building a surround I could increase the cooling capacity of the exchanger. You notice the spill ledge at the bottom of the surround. Its purpose is too meet up with the edge of the bumper when installed, this is so there is no place for the air to roll off, it has to cram itself through the matrix of the cooler if it wants to escape. The whole thing is sealed around the cooler with closed cell foam.
With the bumper installed.
Another thing that had too be fixed was the header that came on the car, its a nice piece but a CRX with a b18 already has ground clearance issues... add a over-under 4/2/1 piping layout and you find that the header is the lowest part of the car. This makes loading the car onto trailers hard, jumping apexes dicey and dropping 2 wheels at streets of willow potentially disastrous. Last thing i want is to crack head studs and tear up the bottom of the car if that were to happen, so it had to go. Already the header showed pretty significant battle damage.
I replaced it with a Spoon rep, everything I read was saying that the quality was decent and it had the most clearance with my chassis and motor combo. I looked around for a Real Spoon header and couldn't find one that would get here in time, since the price was low I jumped on the rep so we'd be able to check fitment and figure out how much the exhaust would need to be modified. The different collector design meant the header length was different and therefore the exhaust needed to be extended. Also, with the new angle it needed to be swung out of the way of the Fastlane shifter lower poviot arm that id installed previously and sits about 4 inches lower than stock. I don't know why I didn't get a picture of this but Art at Nitradyne threw in some nice pie cuts so everything played nice.
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| new header clearance is level with the oil pan. |
Also now that i had the extended chin spoiler on the car I'd realized that the tow hooks on the Innovative front radius bar would be behind the bumper and impossible to use. Tow point are a very very good idea so after thinking around we settled for a spot on the front crash support and made up a piece out of steel to weld into place.
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| purdy rainbow |
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| with the bumper notched and installed |
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| view 2 |
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| "no one ever pays attention too me anymore" |
I'm sure there were other little things I did but everything gets vague for me around here, the few days before an event are always hectic and thing kind of blend into one another...
For tires I was going to use my ooollllddd ass Nt01's that i had come on the car (date stamp of 2006) with a set of 15x8 front and 15x7 rear wheels. Since this would be the first day running ButtonWillow cw13 (the track of which all SoCal cars are measured by) i was anxious too see how if felt, especially being so used to the NSX here. Up too this point I had only driven this car on the slower speed Streets Of Willow and was curious how it would feel to have such a short wheelbase on a higher speed circuit where stability is a factor in laptimes.
Sure enough first session, first lap warm up, on a cold track some IDIOT in a Cadillac decides to brake going through the chicane before Sunset, this unloads his rear tires and he proceeds to drop two wheels off track. At this point I think hes going to just straight shot off into the dirt; but he decides that he'll try and correct and get back on track. I have seen this a million times and 999999 of them the guy spins back onto the racing line and almost (or does) get T-boned. While all this is happening i'm trying to decide if I am going to be the T-bone(er?) or if I can even take evasive action to not hit him. By now i'm going over 100 mph and turning into the last chicaine tires are still cold and this moment of hesitation by me not being on the gas just SNAPS my rear end around. I do my best to correct but touch the dirt and It loops sideways over a service road and flatspot the holy hell out of my new tires. Sweeeeeett.
I come in to the hot pits get a walk-around out by the workers and get sent back out. On my outlap everything feels weird. My alignment no doubt fucked, brakes felt squashy and i have a crazy vibration in the front from both the splitter mounts being broken and flopping around, the dollar bill sized blistered flat-spots on the front tires. I felt it out going up on-ramp but pulled off the racing line and limped it back to the garage to examine everything more closely. After determining the extent of the damage, tires done, splitter toast, brakes full of sand I got to work trying to salvage something out of the day. Thankfully Katman had brought a spare pair of 15x8 gramlites with RA'1's to use after he corded the set of tires that were on his car. He was nice enough to let me use the pair for the next session so I could at least put a time in the books for the HFF competition.
Grid up, go out.
With the new wheels and tires strapped on I did 4 laps before my brakes completely failed going into bus stop. I managed not to toss it too far off track and limp back around to the garage with no brake pressure. Double fuck. On the slow drive back around I noticed that i had ran a time of 2:03.8 on one of the only 3 flying laps id managed to do. I had my fingers crossed that if i had to call it quits for the day that it would still be good enough for some solid points in the competition.
These pics were taken session 2, filthy and no splitter. : /
After I came back in and bled the brakes, said Katman needed his wheels back. I decided to check out the tracks tire shop or maybe a used set of take offs or a pair of new ones. They didn't have any replacement Nt01's but they did have some 225/50/15 Toyo RR's. After talking to a few people and reading online review on my phone I decided to drop the cash and get a set fitted so I could at least get some seat time. I couldn't use them for competition but it'd be cool to have a set to play around with for non-comp days in the future.
For the next session the car felt awesome, Grip was obviously hugely better than my clapped set of Nt01's i had on the car (even before the flat spots) within my first couple laps I dropped my times all the way down to 2:00:224, just shy of the elusive "sub 2" mark. Video here:
I was glad to be getting seat time and I was able to settle into the car a little bit, finally. Even with shooting in the dark on tire pressures and having forgot to stiffen the dampers to compensate for the new tire compound, I was pretty excited with how the car was doing. I did find there was a very vague feeling mid corner and under hard braking that i'd want too look into. Just as I was starting to get brave after a few laps I got a big puff of white smoke out of the driverside wheel well when coming over Phil Hill. Then the acrid smell of burning axle grease. I pulled off track and the steering was pulling to the left on decel; I knew id blown an axle and since I'd not brought spares that was the end of my day.
That next session my buddy Nate blew his motor, double bummer, in order for us to get his car home without a call to AAA he swapped his axle onto my car so mine could be driven home and his could use the trailer. Dems the breaks for both us, but we pulled together and no man was left behind.
In the end of the day my time from the second session of 2:03.8 that I had run with fading brakes, no splitter and borrowed tires was still good enough for the HFF mod class win by about half a second.
These pics were taken on the front straight just after the awards ceremony as we were literally getting kicked out of the track, you can see I'd already swapped wheels from yet another friends car so I didn't have to drive home on the brand new Toyo RR's
I've gotta say my car is BY FAR the ugliest car in the picture, no idea why I was put in front.
Next update is coming real soon- from here till now is a BIG step forward
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