Ok, its been a short while since my last post and its not been because i haven't been doing stuff; its just been i've been doing a LOT of different types of stuff on a lot of different cars, so its pretty difficult to put down mile markers and say 'Ok, That is a good place to stop and get all this down'. Also, i tend to only get these down when i start to forget details of stuff i want to remember. That's happening now so here i am. Lets go.
One thing the last event told me was that with the new slider windows that i'd installed made it HOT inside the car, even on a cooler day. I had a spare aviation bubble so I added it to the window to direct some fresh air at me. Hopefully this will move a enough air around the cabin and keep me from steaming up my glasses.
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| Old OEM steering column with tilt Vs. new billet collapsible jammy and FIA disconnect |
I opted for the SFI/FIA approved disconnect, with the larger aluminum disconnect toggle. the FIA approval only apparently comes from the fact that the disconnect ring is yellow. This is mandated so it ties in with the FIA corner worker training. They expect the yellow part of the system to be the 'movable mechanism' if they happen to need to remove the steering wheel for an unconscious or incapacitated driver. Otherwise the SFI and SFI/FIA units are functionally the same.
Normally, these disconnects have an automatic centering key spline that only engages when you the two halves meet at the larger keyed spline, that way you know that the wheel is straight and in the same position every time. I assumed that this was the way they are all made until i got this one on my hands and realized that it 'clips in' at any spline available. I went back through the product info and didn't read anything about it one way or another; so I emailed.
the owner of Woodward was the one that emailed back and said:
"If you had a one-way quick release it was not a Woodward; they don’t use that style in supercar racing. They just make sure the wheels are straight ahead when they stop (if they aren’t, you can’t change the tires)."
So basically, yeah. I'm gunna try it out and see if it bugs me, maybe it will maybe it wont.
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| Quick sizing test fit in the car. |
You can see that I just have the column hanging from the 'dash' cross bar. The cage specs for Super-cars are beefier to account for larger, heavier cars. The inch and a half cross bar that i'm using to tie my cage together and hang my instrumentation from us 1/4 inch smaller OD than what is run in V8 supercars. Because of this i need to have fabricated some tabs with a tube or a 'u-bar' that's notched and welded to the existing cross bar you see here. Then i'll clamp the billet red hangers and re position the choke accordingly. I'll still have to somehow figure out a way to be able to remove the instrumentation cluster with all that welded in place. i have a few ideas, but as always this is one of those things that you have to figure out as you go.
After changing almost everything that had to do with steering, i decided to go all-the-way and jump on some adjustable bump steer steering arms that i have been eyeing. I was going to have to realign the car anyways, so now would be the time to just do it. I 'd been looking at this kit made by Honed out in Australia, Its expensive but I really like these guys data driven approach to development. They plot and publish their testing data to PROVE that what they are making actually does whats advertised. This is rare for Honda stuff and even more rare that they happen to be developing stuff for an EF chassis like the CRX. This alone makes me want to support their effort.
The idea behind this bump stop kit is to realign the arm angle on a lowered car to get back closer to the optimal positioning. Due to design limitations when modifying a road car with components engineered to be a certain way, you almost always tend to screw something up on the quest to make something else better. When all stock components are used things are about as good as it get in a Cost/assembly/performance compromise as determined by the Honda engineers. They put the arm in the ideal spot for the factory ride height so when the suspension cycles {up/down} the changes to the height due to the compression of the shock has the least effect on Y axis. This usually means that the 'idle point' of the suspension at rest has the arm as flat as can be at the 9 or 3 o'clock position on the arc of a 2d plane. Now when you lower the car, you are lowering the 'fixed point' on the rack side of the arm. The idle point of the suspension at rest is now higher on upright side. somewhere at around 10 or 2 o'clock. Now when cycling the suspension; the fixed point and the fixed length means that the arms actually push and pull the only movable thing it can, which is the upright and wheel. This push and pull on the Z axis of the upright is effectively steering the car. You're options are to change arm length of the upright or be able to raise the attachment point of the arm to the upright. Basically the kit replaces the factory arm and lets you shim the height of the attachment point as needed. the goal is to have the bump steering as close to stock as you can get it, which is pretty good.
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| Shim increments. |
To do this you can run a simple suspension cycle test with run out gauges and plot the +/- toe changes that occur when cycling the suspension. Add a shim and repeat until you land at a spot where you've dialed out the majority of dynamic changes to Z. I am currently having Art Water Jet me a plate as seen below so I can do exactly this on my car.
After a couple emails with Honed and a brakedown of my specific components they affirmed that likely the most ideal setting will be somewhere at about 4 shims top and bottom, which is what i have set in the meantime until i can do the testing myself. Its a bit of chicken or egg as you wanna get the cars toe settings aligned to do the testing then you likely need to realign after the test. : / Whatever, ill cross that bridge when i get there.
Man this thing is fucking cool, I really need to spend more time with it.
The standard pain in the ass install. this was especially difficult due to the hood slope and limited spots where id be able to attach the anchors.
got about 90% the way through it and had to call it. My back was aching from having to crouch/kneel while looking up. I was also taking a trip to Japan the next morning.
Japan interlude-----
\this thing was COOL. i wanna drive it!
New GTR concept. kinda 'EHHHHHHH' not sure about the color choice for the concept either. shoulda done it in white fellas..
Honda welcome plaza was rad to. Had the current Honda F1 trash on display and some of the MotoGP bikes
Very off the beaten path is the Nissan engine museum in Yokohama. Its small but had some VERY cool stuff on display. Unfortunately we got there just as it was closing and we were hot and sweaty from the 2 mile walk from the train.
End Japan interlude------------------------------------------
So by the time I got back the new wing had FINALLY showed up. Its about 1/3 the weight of the old J's racing wing and a much better 2d aerofoil shape. I got the widths right but the uprights that i was using on my old wing weren't going to work with the new mounting tabs that are integrated into the carbon.
I kinda knew this was coming and that i may have to redesign some things. Good thing i'm proficient in CAD (Cardboard Assisted Design)
Once I was happy with the initial shapes i transferred it to aluminum for a more accurate fitting before sending them off to Art (who is now at Tesla R&D) for water-jetting.
In the series below you can see the adjustment holes effect on AOA. these are for the 'big' adjustments, fine tuning can be easily achieved by adjusting the clevis rods which mount the wing front and back.
Once that was Fed-exed i decided to simplify and change some of the wiring now that i had some more room to work. After the battery debacle at the last Buttonwillow day I realized that i couldn't reach my voltage switch while strapped in the car at the hot pits. I was only really sure about the problem when my tachometer died (knowing it needs at least 10 volts to work) I could have probably at least saved a battery had i caught the voltage drop and charge problem earlier than i did.
To remedy this I decided to utilize the now vacated hole i'd once used for the Sump switch to now house a big dummy gauge with the voltage readout. I'm jumping the signal directly off of the main beaker, so if its hot the gauge will have a voltage readout. This is a separate system to the one i have connected to a toggle switch for spot checking the voltage at the battery without powering up the main breaker.
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| right next to the starter button |
I also put it all in a new 6 pin Deutsche connector and added a provision for an additional camera plug too.
Camera plug here in Black. The voltage regulator box in the upper right is cradled onto the ECU tray once its re installed.
I went and picked up some Hankook Ventus street tires so I could finally start to drive it again without having to look at the weather forecast. Now I was set, I had big plans to start to drive it a couple times a week to work or on errands. I absolutely LOVE this thing and the TQ is something im definitely not used to outside my truck.
Well, wouldn't you know it literally the first day i took it out and drove it over to my buddy Daves house someone hit it as it was parked out front. Some fucker left me a sweet 8 inch dent and gouges down to primer on the drivers side rear quarter panel.
Of course no note or anything like that. This is seriously why we can't have nice things. People in LA SUCK. This kinda took the wind out of my sail on the 'just drive it' plan for a while.
Meanwhile, James over at Ghostwerks was getting to work on my transmission. The plan was since i'd decided go to a hydro trans and ditch the cable to basically just swap the guts over. I was able to find a hydro case from Kristian W from Battlecraft and dropped it off at Ghostwerks. I also ordered the new billet mount from Hasport that would line up with the new mounting hose on the case.
James got busy pulling my 'old' brand new cable trans apart to inspect the damage and lemme know what i could look forward to replacing.
First gear and third gear were trashed. syncros were garbage. It sucks because you can tell that everything was new and in otherwise perfect condition.. but the clutch going kaboom took its toll.
...And i had managed to crack the shifter arm (likely from of all the leverage i had going through it from the tall shift knob)
I'm more than likely going to go back to an OEM shifter stock to avoid this in the future. In addition to the damaged parts the case was sent out to tumble and I had all the bearings and seals replaced. I also picked up a slave cyl and the clutch actuation fork along with a new clutch flywheel and ARP bolts for the crank and pressure plate. When adding the cost for the hydro pedal assembly, new mount and other odds and ends this turned out to be the most costly part of this downtime for SURE. I really don't wanna deal with doing this again for a while.
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| Done and ready to get sealed up. |
Another thing that showed up were these headlight block offs, the carbon plates with the oem corner markers were really starting to bug me. I always though they looked kinda cheap These were a pain in the ass to get mounted correctly but a necessary evil, i think do wonders for the looks on the front of the car.
I had to build the brackets so that they were unobtrusive to the shock adjustment knobs, but firm enough to deal with some one leaving on them at the track.
I've said it here before and ill say it again, I hate doing stuff like this. Its always such a pain in the ass to fab something from scratch when you only have pretty basic tools; then to have to do it the same from left to right. Overall i'm happy with how they came out though.
Wing endplates came back from Art, we'd always joked that my CRX is basically a space shuttle, and now it seems to have stuck. We decided that what would be more appropriate than the old school NASA 'worm' logo from the late 80's and early 90's
Slight problem with this first round was that the logo was too high and obstructed by the mount tabs.
Also they were also juust to wide for the mounting channels. That was my bad. I called Art and he was immediately down to change up the design and make replacements.
A week or two later the new ones showed up with better logo placement and the thickness milled down on the bottom edge to accept the channels. For the first time the new wing was on the car solid, During the test fit i'd determined i was gunna paint the uprights black to blend better with the look of the rest of the car. I'm Also still deciding if i want to cut taller delta end plates.
I took the picture below at a Laguna Seca event I attended. My buddy Jareds car died and wouldn't turn over after being on track, after some searching around I had a hunch and pulled off his distributor cover for his coil on plug system. As i suspected some of the wires for the removed igniter that were now floating around in the dizzy caught in the hall sensor pick up and chewed up his harness..
After 5 months of waiting i FINALLY had the motor back from the shop. I had the whole top end rebuilt- Springs and retainers, LMA's, rockers, valves, keepers guides. Also a new head gasket and now crank bearings and Timing belt to be safe.
The take offs from the inside of the head had the same weird damage pattern on some of the exhaust valve retainers. it looks like they had been chewed up. I have a few theories about exactly what caused this but its really impossible to tell. Basically all i can do at this point is put new stuff in it spec it all out and go from here.
Based on the damage near the keepers at the top of the valves it looks like I was really close to dropping a valve. Yikes.
Now that both the motor and trans were back I had to assemble it all to get it ready to go back into the car. For the assembly i borrowed 2- for a total of 3- tq wrenches and had my buddy Cory come help me double check everything i was doing. I was taking every precaution i could to avoid anything similar to happening to this motor.
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| torqued and marked |
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| Clutch aligned ready for the Pressure plate |
I had to slowly turn down the pressure plate onto the disk to seat it flat then go around the Pressure plate and tq everything to spec. I did use blue loctite this time on everything, even though it says i don't need it- i'm not taking any chances.
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| Seated with ARP bolt tq'ed in place |
Lubed the throw out bearing and installed the clutch fork.
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| Mating the motor and trans. Its a matter of leverage and hydrolics when do all this on your own. |
Once I had all the new stuff and drilled out the ear I was able to assemble the rear bracket onto the trans.
I also cut the hose to length and mounted the clutch reservoir
Getting the motor in itself was not that big a job at all. Its tricky but with the right engine hoist and leveler you can have it in in less than an hour.
After draining everything again and pulling off the 3AN on the slave i realized that the fitting that they'd sent with the Hush performance kit was a Chinese piece of crap and the zinc coating was literally flaking off where i'd tightened it into the seat of the hose end. As far as Banjo bolts, i have never been a fan of those where they aren't absolutely necessary. I decided to go get a new slave fitting and a new house made so I could get rid of the banjo bolt altogether.
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| You can see where the coating was cracking on the inside dish of this fitting |
I also roughed of the face of the Slave cyl and wet sanded it down as far as i felt comfortable with. The picture below is before and you can see small fissures in the metal.
Now with the new 90* fitting and soft aluminum crush washer
The slave fitting was swapped out to a quality one and i re bled the system, now everything is holding tight and the clutch is working like it should.
In my scheme to simplify things i pulled out the oil cooler and built new lines with a 180 deg fitting to the remote filter. I saved the old lines and cooler element but i am going to see how the oil temps do with out of during the fall season without them.
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| line clamps and routing back to the block |
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| Black was a good call on the uprights |
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| New wing is looking mean. |
As a side project while waiting on my motor i was wiring up Cory's insane TimeAttack Prelude for him. He'd been battling electrical gremlins and some other nagging problems all last season that make him want to do a top down redesign of the car. We'd spoken about my set up in the CRX at length and he wanted something similar. Since he's changing EVERYTHING on his car the timing kinda made sense. We spec'd out what his requirements as far as chassis power and wire length and i gave him a list of parts to buy. Once we got to a good place i built what i had envisioned for his car in my hacked schematic program.
When it got time to put clippers to wire I put in a solid 80 hours of work after i got home at night for a couple weeks, i made revisions to the schematic as needed and Cory took care of building all the brackets and mounting the hardware while i focused on layout and building him looms.
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| Rough mock up stage |
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| Maybe 30 hours deep in schematics and starting to figure out the mains. |
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| Coming together, maybe 60 hours |
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| And finally in the car and all hooked up. Not 100% done but nothing left is that difficult to do. |
I have another post coming real soon, i thought about adding it on here but this one is already to long. I'll type it up in the coming week or so so be on the look out.
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