So like I was saying, Chuckwalla.
Drove out on a Saturday for the Sunday track day- I really like doing Sunday track days since I can take my time to hook up the trailer up and make the drive with no rush. Chuckwalla is about 4 1/2 hours away towing so I load up some pod casts and just plug along. Normally I arrive around 3-4 and in this case the weather was absolutely PERFECT, the high desert in the 70's at dusk is really one of my favorite places to be.
Once I was unloaded and looked over everything I set up the camp and hung out with Sean and Yukio who had showed up a couple hours behind me. The sunset was beautiful and the golden hour lighting was taken advantage of, I normally don't take pictures of my car outside my one car garage or parking-lot-paddock of a racetrack-- even though this was still a parking-lot-paddock these pictures seem to look a bit more high class than normal.
Once the sun went down Sean, Yooks and I were bullshitting when the wind picked up out of no where. When I say 'picked up' i mean it was blowing so hard we all had to take refuge in our respective tow vehicles for the night. The wind was so strong that i couldn't even take down the tent without sailing away with it. I had to pile everything that i could including the trailer ramps, spare wheels and coolers onto it to keep it from blowing away. I was 90% sure it would be long gone in the morning, even my 5000+lbs truck with attached trailer was being buffeted around by the howling winds all night. Meanwhile our race cars just parked out on the flatop were getting hammered by the blasting sand, worst part being the static electricity that the constant friction produces makes the fine dust stick to everything, especially lexan windows.
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| A very non dramatic picture of a dramatic situation. |
Next morning i awoke to find my tent still standing but filled with sand. The cars were likewise dirty and sandy but most importantly the track surface was about the same color brown as the dirt run off areas. The track crew sent out a pull along blower to blast off as much as possible and by the first session when we got on track it was still like following a Baja truck though the desert. More or less the first and typically fastest session was a scrub. To add to that a brand new Porsche gt3 went off track and bent a wheel on some curbing, he smashed so hard that the tweaked wheel was contacting on the brake caliper immobilizing the car. Instead of red flagging the session they put out a standing double yellow zone- which meant for a good three corners you couldn't go faster than 50 mph. Off to a bad start.
Second session after more cars had been on track and cleared the dust up a little and the CRX felt pretty good. With the long straights of Chuckwalla i could tell that I was down on power from the last time, having something like 35hp less is a big deal in a light car. Also Clockwise was relatively new to me and in the beginning I wasn't as confident on corner entry as I am CCW. By the third session I was knocking on the door to 1:59's but by then the tires had taken a beating, i had to wait to press the throttle on corner exit or just understeer horrendously. In the end the best I could manage was a 2:00.3 just shy of the 1:59 goal. I did have a lot of fun scrapping with some high price cars, even though some have a hard time admitting that the CRX behind them may actually be faster...
Check out the videos below.
Slow on straights, fast in corners. The struggle.
After feeling the front grip was gone I confirmed that indeed I had corded both fronts. I bet with some fresh rubber id be good for a low 59. We'll see, there is always next time- which should be in about 8 months when the temperatures drop back below 113* at 9am.
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| Corded tires. |
Once I got the car back home I pulled it apart as usual and check all the typical areas. I realized that even though I had put a heat blanket over the shifter bushing, it was still literally melting into the nomex fabric.
To address this eventuality i'd already bought some aluminum replacements in case the blanket didn't work. I'm not a big fan as i've seen these cause the bolt to back out and the linkages to fall off while on track, but I decided that i'll give them a try and hope for the best.
An old trick is to put a dab of gasket sealant on the bolt threads before tighting it down. Its softer than loctite so shock loads wont 'crack' it loose and not as sensitive to heat so it wont burn away. Hopefully it does the trick.
A few days after getting home from Chuckwalla I had to pack up for a trip to Japan, I was going out there to meet my girlfriend who was there for work. It was also the season finale of the Attack! time attack series at Tsukuba raceway. I was pretty excited.
After a pretty chill flight to Haneda airport I woke up to a week of hitting up all of my favorite spots in Tokyo. On my first visit to the Honda welcome plaza they had the NSX GT3 on display. I had seen this thing a few times before in the states but I can always sit and stare at it for a few hours.
After a few days in Tokyo we took a trip down south to Kyoto to visit some family and hang out. Osaka and Kyoto are really some of my the best places in the world to spend time getting lost. Didn't even do a ton of car related stuff while down there but it was still extremely fun none-the-less.
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| Hojicha latte and Mt Blanc. yes. |
Once back in Tokyo I took another trip over to the Honda Welcome Plaza, when I was there a week before I saw the they had the promotional material for the new Type R TCR racecar on the wall but the car itself was not on display. This second trip back as i'd hoped it was there! In fact, I could see it from across the street as I came up from the subway underground. I was really excited as this was the first time that I got to see it in person.
Every detail about this car is awesome, and every time you go back to look at something you notice something else about it. If you were to honestly offer me either the CTR TRC car or the GT3 NSX i don't even know which one that I'd pick, even though the GT3 NSX is about triple the price.
The fit and finish on factory racecars is always something i respect. Everything is just perfect.
Also my soft spot for 4-door cars with roll cages is heavy with this one.
Tiny-weenie rear rotors.
Reverse- reverse swan neck wing mounting..
There was also the interesting Mugen concept type-R here to.
With equally intresting rear bucket seat and in-yo-face cage set up. Donno how I feel about this one.
Dry carbon bumpers, hood and MASSIVE calipers are flippen awesome though. This car also apparently has a full composite under tray that produces some significant downforce. Giant SKIP on the horrid wheel design and 21" inch tire **puke**
RWB Porsche in the wild at the scramble-crossing. really liked the color contrast against the neon. I literally just happened to be crossing the street and snapped this picture when walking by.
The weekend rolled around and I was picked up by Sean and Seki at my hotel and we made the cold long drive out to the countryside to see Attack!. I'm so thankful that Seki had agreed to pick me up on the way from Yokohama as getting to the track on public transit is almost a non-starter.
Photo-dump from attack!-
Full carbon Autobahn sc300.. probably one of my top favs of the day.
N2 Ae86 are always a winner with me. Eveytime I see one I want to build another- then remember how close my project was to completion before it was basically pulled out from under me. I donno know if there is any coming back after that. Its all detailed somewhere in the history of this blog if you care to look.
All the way from Osaka, now the fastest FF at TC2000
Fire Ando's evo 8, fastest car of the day.
Yes please.
Yes, yes! please!
Pretty rad experience overall, it was made even more special after I got a press vest. Seki came back out of the track office and just threw me one, very unexpected but really cool to see the track from different perspectives. We spend about half the day walking around the pits marveling at everything that caught our eye (the good and the..erm 'questionable' of which there is a lot) The other half of the day was just tagging along with Sean and Seki as they shot pictures for Naritadogfight.com.
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| Outside turn1 |
Once back in the US I was recharged to start working on the CRX (not that that's ever really a problem) but I had an event coming up that Saturday- and I landed on Wednesday- so I needed to get to work while battling the jet lag.
It had been raining quite a bit since I'd left and the weekend of the event didn't look much better. I'd replaced the 2 corded tires after the Chuckwalla event and the rears still had 70% on the outer shoulders so were flipped around. I also grabbed my rain set up from my storage unit in case.
On that Friday after getting home late from work and putting the car back on the ground it started to rain again and didn't look like it was going to let up. After checking the weather app obsessively it also looked like there was a real possibility that the Grapevine may close due to snow. Looking at the water streaming off the trailer then looking at the S2000 i decided that the CR would be the safer bet for the rain. I'd be giving up the HFF points because I wasn't going to be driving a FWD in the competition, but given the circumstance i'd rather not get stuck on the grapevine with a 2wd truck and a trailer if i could help it.
I was bummed because I was really looking forward to driving the CRX at Buttonwillow again. Not a huge deal, i'd just have to wait a few more weeks.
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| posted up in one of the big garages for the night. |
The usual suspects came out for the event, most of them driving though the rain on competition tires, braver men than I. Turn out was pretty healthy considering the conditions and everyone made the best of it.
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| My CR and Donuts car. His integra is FULL ON BEASTMODE. |
During the Saturday event I had heard from people in passing that they'd been considered skipping the Saturday event at BW on account of the rain and instead going out to Streets Of Willow the day after. After hearing this, and as the day went on i started to formulate a plan. Rough plans was to head home at around 3:30 Saturday from Buttonwillow. I'd get home and unpack the car and transfer everything over to the 4runner. The next morning at around 8am i'd load up the CRX, hook up the trailer and head out to the Speed District day at Streets Of Willow. What had made me really solidify this plan was the fact that they'd be running Streets Clockwise. For some reason the last 4 events I'd gone to at Streets had been CCW where i'd come within a 10th of a second of the overall NA FWD record. It's well known that CCW is a bit slower than CW and likewise i'd found out that the record had been set on the CW configuration. Now would be my chance to run the CRX on CW with a new set of front tires and a motor that was working. The only downside to my plan was i'd have to wait until the morning on Sunday to load up the trailer which would set my arrival time to the track to around noon-therefore i'd be missing the fastest sessions of the day.
After waking up, loading and getting to the track I unloading the car i went though my checklist. I figured for this first session I'd just get on track scrub the new tires in then wait for the cooler afternoon sessions before setting any real hotlaps.
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| Before session 1 |
Of course once I got put my helmet on I decided to give it a go right away. After a warm up lap I easily lapped in the low 23's, then hit two back to back 1:22's and another low 1:23 to stamp authority on it. I believe that consistency is the key, I see people running times a few seconds off of their PB and then just put together a miracle lap and never come close again. I don't want to be one of those guys.
Check out the video here. You can probably notice it was my first session, and not having driven this direction in about 9 months, and so much changing on the car in the meantime, I was still working though the best place to be in what gear.
I dialed it in by the end of the day and improved top speeds and average speeds but by then the track was to hot to do any better and a 1:23.1.
I had not only accomplished the goal of beating the NSX time at Streets that I'd set when I first got the car, but I'd also achieved my Pie in the sky goal of getting the record. It had been a long road to get here and I was pretty stoked for the weekend overall.
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| Right after the session. |
After I got home and downloaded some pictures from the event i noticed something that I had suspected was happening. On the high speed sections of the track there was so much downforce that the splitter was deflecting on the edges. I was sort of aware that this was happening because in some corners I could hear the scrape plates skidding along the ground.
Now with these pictures I could see what i'd suspected, and knew where i'd need to add additional support.
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| bendy bendy |
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| flattens out on touch down |
Got the car home and pulled off all the panels, no leaks and everything looked good but it was time for some maintenance. I installed more gold foil on the pan and radiator. With the new engine cover everything the the bay was getting much more radiant heat than ever before so I wanted to keep the oil from baking in the pan as much as I could.
I also decided to try some Motul gear oil in the transmission, its not the cheapest or most easily found but i have heard good things about it. It comes out of the bottle like syrup.
I also did a full clean and inspection of the System1 reusable oil filter.
Inspect the o-rings for cuts and tears before reassembly and changed the oil with some new BradPenn 10w-30 while i had everything apart.
I also inspected the spark plugs and did a valve adjust since it had been about 5 events since running the motor.
I also added another type of thermal barrier onto the header directly under the oil pan, not that temps are alarmingly high at the moment- but like I was saying any little thing helps.
After seeing the deflection issue with the splitter and doing some poking around I knew that I would eventually need to move on from the aluminlite blade splitter. I had been in contact with a company back east that does custom aero and carbon work and after some back and forth I had been convinced (and convinced myself) that I would really benefit from stepping up my game here. The flat under panel that I had built on the floor of my garage was doing OK but was probably not the most efficient, same with the diffuser and same with the splitter. In reality this whole bunch of parts id built separately needed to work as a package for the best results. First step was to get the dimensions over to the aero guys so they'll have the foot print to work within. I built a cardboard 2d version of my splitter and diffuser and gave the overall measurements of the car. There are all sorts of things to consider when having something built like this, and thankfully I was walked through the process.
First things first you have to decide is how much aero grip you want. Its easy to say "as much as possible" but you have to realize that the cars effective weight increases at speed. unless you have some serious HP to pull you along you'll quickly limit your top speed and acceleration. In my car with only around 200hp little things make the difference, I had to strike a balance of aspect ratio, aero balance F/R and limiting drag surfaces. More or less you want the car as slippery as possible through the air but generating enough downforce to help it stick through the corners you want it to.
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| rough sketch of my initial designs, yet to be tweaked by the pros. |
Once they received the templates they came up with ways to optimize the designs to achieve what i'd told them I needed, which in a nutshell was a package with low drag, mid-downforce and decent ground clearance.
One of the changes that they made to the design was instead of the front splitter kick-up al la 458/488 challenge Ferrari, or like the one pictured on Novaks car here:
They instead placed an inverted wing element that would be molded into the carbon front blade. After modeling both ways it was decided that the less draggy way to speed up air into the raked venturi tunnel was this shape
Also since I wasn't building to a specific aero rule set (pretty much anything goes in unlimited) it was discussed that the best foot print of the splitter blade would be to make it a hammer head design. This way I could extend the flat faced wing profile to the edges and increase the splitters effective ratio.
Also built into the design were new S shaped end plates that would promote flow attachment that culminated in a strong vorticity exit.
Also molded into the splitter would be a venturi throat with an angled exit that will create substantial downforce with very little drag. At the same time they'll blast the high pressure zone off the front of the tire.
Detail of the edging radius into the hammerhead extensions. The rigidity of this blade will be about 50+ time that of a 1/4" piece of alumilite and the plan is to mount it similarly to how I have my current one .
Another project that i decided that I would tackle was the gap between the rain tray and the slanted hood. To get the clearances I needed over the valve cover I needed to run a higher slant on the hood than comes stock. I'd previously sealed off the bay with some crush foam and runners but this still left a pretty abrupt transition from where the hood stopped and the window began. All of the turbulence that created was causing some unneeded drag and disturbed airflow over the windshield onto the rear wing.
After making a few cardboard templates and settling on a design I transferred it over to some carbon sheets I had. I decided to build this in two halves as not to waste a big sheet of carbon by messing something up. Trust me cutting radius like this you will ALWAYS mess something up.
Once I transferred the form I had to lay it out and mark accordingly. This type of thing is all pain. You have to taking measurements, check, mark, measure repeat. Something this dumb take days of work to have come out looking halfway decent. The fact that I was trying to cut it so the carbon weave was flowing the same direction as the hood added a bit of complexity.. which is why I pretty much abandoned that idea when I built the passengers side.
Building the stands for the cowl was another practice in patience. Since the whole rain tray part is curved and has gaps at different intervals they all had to be cut, drilled, bent in the brake and fitted one at a time. I riv-nutted both the cowl attachment and the bracket attachment into the car this way they could be angled for fitment once the cowl was attached.
Once everything was lined up and the hood was off and on about 600 times, I finally 3M taped the transition gaps and put down a strip of sealing foam on the mating surfaces.
I then built some aluminum drop down on the edges and attached them to the cowl to block any wind from getting under the sides. Once the hood is on and clipped into the mini-latch's it compresses the whole thing down and seals quite nicely. It turned out good, but definitely wouldn't want to build something like this again.
I wanted to recreate my old helmet design but this time have the blank gaps under white where the carbon fiber would be peeking out from under the paint. I started to slowly plug away at it every night while watching Netflix documentarys, it took about 30 hours but i eventually had the striping design work done.
Once I had the design work all done I masked off I sprayed it with white enamel and put it in a homemade dry booth that I make out of some blankets a cardboard box and a space heater.
Final product looks pretty cool. you can really see the carbon under the white paint like i'd hoped. I'm currently on the fence about needing to clear coat. I ended up forgoing it on account that I need to use the helmet the coming weekend and I didn't want it to reek like fumes while i had it on my head. I can always go back and spray it in the future if i feel it needs it
This set up lets the side of the splitter skid along the ground with some upward give if they need to, but the wire set up keeps it tight once there is downforce acting on the top of the splitter. These wires and ends are rated for 350lbs, so more than enough for the pressures im likely seeing while at speed.
Now that the car was all ready again for a track day I loaded it up and went out to Buttonwillow with Speed Ventures. This wasn't an HFF day but would be the last day i'd be able to test everything before Vegas.
It had rained the day before and during on the tow out, but we awoke to a clear sky and a warm morning. My first session was stuck behind some very slow traffic that really shouldn't have been gridded in the faster red group. Like i'd said, the previous day had rain which convinced some of the Saturday drivers to move their track day to the next day where conditions were forecast to be more pleasant. Because of this there was an overflow of Saturday drivers in the Sunday green group, and to keep the car counts manageable SV decided to bump some people into the red group that likely should have not been there. To top it off I had developed an leak out of the vtec solenoid in the first session, when I pulled in and popped the hood and saw oil everywhere i thought I had blown a head gasket. After looking it over I saw that 2 bolts had backed out 1/4 inch and simply needed to be tightened down again.
Second session was better as some people got shuffled around and we were all gridded by laptime. I was able to string together some clear laps and I was immediately running in the low 1:56's which was pretty exciting because a 1:56.2 was my previous personal best time. Within two laps I had gone 1:56.0 and then down to a 1:55.9. The car was very easy to drive and stable through the higher speed corners, brakes were good and motor sounded healthy. I could tell once again that the power was going to be the limiting factor, so again, I worked hard to be clean on my driving and carry as much momentum as possible.
As with the Streets of Willow event it took a few sessions to reformulate my lines and shifting zones but i ended up gaining a higher average speed in some sectors and was up .6th of a second in a couple laps. The wearing tires caused me to lose time waiting on the throttle in sweeper, amazingly I still managed a 1:56.0 with degrading grip by just driving more efficiently. Again i'm excited to come back with new tires and try it out on a cool morning.
I cant wait to see the car with the new aero installed.
Once I got it home again I checked the plugs again and re-checked the tightness of the valve nuts as a precaution.
I also whipped up this quick breather box plug retainer. Sense its just an o-ring plug with a friction fit it has the possibility to blow its self out of the block with enough crankcase pressure. It also happens to be right over what would be red hot exhaust if that were to ever happen, i figured this was a good cheap easy insurance that it would stay in place. Conveniently there's a beefy, unused threaded hole right near to the plug that's easily hijacked to secure the bracket
Also looking like the new splitter stays are working exactly as intended and the splitter is staying straight as a board. Seems like i'll be ready for the Vegas event in a couple weekends.
The camera itself is heavy duty weather sealed in an aluminum/steel housing. it has a built in sun shade and swivel mount, which is nice.
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| version 1 |
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| and version 3, finial CAD rendering |
Also since I wasn't building to a specific aero rule set (pretty much anything goes in unlimited) it was discussed that the best foot print of the splitter blade would be to make it a hammer head design. This way I could extend the flat faced wing profile to the edges and increase the splitters effective ratio.
Also built into the design were new S shaped end plates that would promote flow attachment that culminated in a strong vorticity exit.
Also molded into the splitter would be a venturi throat with an angled exit that will create substantial downforce with very little drag. At the same time they'll blast the high pressure zone off the front of the tire.
Detail of the edging radius into the hammerhead extensions. The rigidity of this blade will be about 50+ time that of a 1/4" piece of alumilite and the plan is to mount it similarly to how I have my current one .
I've been collecting parts for a full under body redesign and the mounting of the new hardware. So far the plan is to lower the side skirts another inch to accommodate a rigid mounting structure for the raked tunnel that will terminate in the new diffuser. Chris over at Wisecraft and I are both looking forward to the delivery of the new stuff so I can get it on the car and test it. The process of building these is slow and intensive, large foam blocks must be first milled to spec in a CNC machine with the resulting peices used as blanks to create the mold. Only then can the carbon be lay'd up, sealed and autoclaved. I'll start to expect these to show up in the coming month to month and a half.
Another project that i decided that I would tackle was the gap between the rain tray and the slanted hood. To get the clearances I needed over the valve cover I needed to run a higher slant on the hood than comes stock. I'd previously sealed off the bay with some crush foam and runners but this still left a pretty abrupt transition from where the hood stopped and the window began. All of the turbulence that created was causing some unneeded drag and disturbed airflow over the windshield onto the rear wing.
After making a few cardboard templates and settling on a design I transferred it over to some carbon sheets I had. I decided to build this in two halves as not to waste a big sheet of carbon by messing something up. Trust me cutting radius like this you will ALWAYS mess something up.
Once I transferred the form I had to lay it out and mark accordingly. This type of thing is all pain. You have to taking measurements, check, mark, measure repeat. Something this dumb take days of work to have come out looking halfway decent. The fact that I was trying to cut it so the carbon weave was flowing the same direction as the hood added a bit of complexity.. which is why I pretty much abandoned that idea when I built the passengers side.
Building the stands for the cowl was another practice in patience. Since the whole rain tray part is curved and has gaps at different intervals they all had to be cut, drilled, bent in the brake and fitted one at a time. I riv-nutted both the cowl attachment and the bracket attachment into the car this way they could be angled for fitment once the cowl was attached.
Once everything was lined up and the hood was off and on about 600 times, I finally 3M taped the transition gaps and put down a strip of sealing foam on the mating surfaces.
I then built some aluminum drop down on the edges and attached them to the cowl to block any wind from getting under the sides. Once the hood is on and clipped into the mini-latch's it compresses the whole thing down and seals quite nicely. It turned out good, but definitely wouldn't want to build something like this again.
A month ago I had bought a new Bell gp3 carbon version and it had been on back order everywhere, I'd almost forgotten about it when I finally received it in the mail. The original plan was to have a friend of mine paint this helmet but after looking at the condition of my old Bell I decided that i needed to get this thing in rotation sooner than later.
I wanted to recreate my old helmet design but this time have the blank gaps under white where the carbon fiber would be peeking out from under the paint. I started to slowly plug away at it every night while watching Netflix documentarys, it took about 30 hours but i eventually had the striping design work done.
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| unfinished edges before masking |
Once I had the design work all done I masked off I sprayed it with white enamel and put it in a homemade dry booth that I make out of some blankets a cardboard box and a space heater.
Final product looks pretty cool. you can really see the carbon under the white paint like i'd hoped. I'm currently on the fence about needing to clear coat. I ended up forgoing it on account that I need to use the helmet the coming weekend and I didn't want it to reek like fumes while i had it on my head. I can always go back and spray it in the future if i feel it needs it
I had decided to do a last min Buttonwillow day as a test before driving all the way out to Vegas for the third HFF event. I was on the fence about getting a brand new set of tires for the HFF/S2Kchallenge event and decided the best way to make up my mind about it was to just go burn the rest of these current ones off.
Because the carbon fiber aero wasn't anywhere near getting delivered, much less installed on the car I would have to figure out a fix for the current alumilite splitter deflection issue. After looking around at what was available I came up with a pretty simple fix. I bought some wire rope, 2 shaft collars, some swage crimp ends and furrels. I then got some turn buckle ends and screwed them through the splitter with a giant recessed washer on the bottom.
I drilled out the swage ends to accept the 3/16th inch turnbuckle peg and clamped them onto the wire.
A 3/4 hole saw through the bumper in a direct path up to the 'headlight' frames. where I furled the ends of the wire tight and clamped them in place. I used the shaft collar so they wouldn't be able to shift under load.
This set up lets the side of the splitter skid along the ground with some upward give if they need to, but the wire set up keeps it tight once there is downforce acting on the top of the splitter. These wires and ends are rated for 350lbs, so more than enough for the pressures im likely seeing while at speed.
It had rained the day before and during on the tow out, but we awoke to a clear sky and a warm morning. My first session was stuck behind some very slow traffic that really shouldn't have been gridded in the faster red group. Like i'd said, the previous day had rain which convinced some of the Saturday drivers to move their track day to the next day where conditions were forecast to be more pleasant. Because of this there was an overflow of Saturday drivers in the Sunday green group, and to keep the car counts manageable SV decided to bump some people into the red group that likely should have not been there. To top it off I had developed an leak out of the vtec solenoid in the first session, when I pulled in and popped the hood and saw oil everywhere i thought I had blown a head gasket. After looking it over I saw that 2 bolts had backed out 1/4 inch and simply needed to be tightened down again.
Second session was better as some people got shuffled around and we were all gridded by laptime. I was able to string together some clear laps and I was immediately running in the low 1:56's which was pretty exciting because a 1:56.2 was my previous personal best time. Within two laps I had gone 1:56.0 and then down to a 1:55.9. The car was very easy to drive and stable through the higher speed corners, brakes were good and motor sounded healthy. I could tell once again that the power was going to be the limiting factor, so again, I worked hard to be clean on my driving and carry as much momentum as possible.
As with the Streets of Willow event it took a few sessions to reformulate my lines and shifting zones but i ended up gaining a higher average speed in some sectors and was up .6th of a second in a couple laps. The wearing tires caused me to lose time waiting on the throttle in sweeper, amazingly I still managed a 1:56.0 with degrading grip by just driving more efficiently. Again i'm excited to come back with new tires and try it out on a cool morning.
Post Buttonwillow. I ran every red session and the 30 min bonus session in its entirety. Motor is running like a champ!
I cant wait to see the car with the new aero installed.
Once I got it home again I checked the plugs again and re-checked the tightness of the valve nuts as a precaution.
I also whipped up this quick breather box plug retainer. Sense its just an o-ring plug with a friction fit it has the possibility to blow its self out of the block with enough crankcase pressure. It also happens to be right over what would be red hot exhaust if that were to ever happen, i figured this was a good cheap easy insurance that it would stay in place. Conveniently there's a beefy, unused threaded hole right near to the plug that's easily hijacked to secure the bracket
Also looking like the new splitter stays are working exactly as intended and the splitter is staying straight as a board. Seems like i'll be ready for the Vegas event in a couple weekends.
In addition to the front splitter under tray and diffuser i also have plans to get a mold of the hatch made out of a 7 layer sheet of carbon fiber. Since it wont prop up on the gas shocks anymore it wont need any sort of structure, the plan is also to not run any windows in the back and instead replace them with a rear view camera.
It took me a while to find a camera that was made as a rear monitor camera and not a back up camera. The difference between the two is the FOV, typically back up cameras have a 170* to a 130* field of view, this is good if you are trying to get a wide angle view of a relatively small space, but anything farther away from the camera than 15 feet will be small on screen and get lost at such a wide angle.
This camera on the other hand has a Sony lens with a 30* field of view in color HD. That translates to a 20mm lens which will have a much more orthoscopic view of the area in front of the camera. Basically it'll show you what you'd see if you were peering out of the back bumper with your own two eyes.
I decided the best place to mount it to be the least obtrusive and best positioned was straight out the back light garnish. After finding center I taped off a square to cut.
Once that was done it was a matter of filing out little sections at a time into the camera fit snug. It was bolted to the sheet metal of the chassis itself and the cords were run through a silicone grommet to keep from chafing.
I mounted the monitor in the same spot as the rear view mirror was, mostly to be high and keep shaded for glare. I'm considering moving it down to where the lap timer currently is, I guess well see once I can have a go with it on track. Hopefully its as intuitive as a mirror, but again well see.
I ran into a small hiccup when bench testing the fuse board and signal coil, after giving it 12v I heard a loud BANG and the fuse box literally blew open. A component had literally blow its stuffing out.. a quick customer service call and a replacement one is on the way, once its here I can finish up the wiring in time for its trial run in Vegas. Fingers crossed!
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