Tuesday, July 17, 2018

New digs



Ok, I need to update the blog because i'm forgetting things that happened. So here we go.
    We left the last one off right as I was preparing the car to go to Las Vegas for the HFF Challenge event at the outside road course of LVMS, this was also our first go at HFF/S2K  GRUDGEMATCH where the two series (one composed of FWD honda battle for time and honors against some RWD Honda s2000's).  Most of our group drove out Friday for the Saturday morning event, needless to say trailering a car to Las Vegas is sorta a pain in the ass, especially when doing so among the hoards of tourists on the Friday rush. We hit all the typical traffic spots but eventually made it, albeit behind schedule, to Patricks house where he was kind enough to let Nick and I store our trailers overnight while we stayed at our respective hotels off of the strip. Bright and early the next morning we met up at his house, picked up our rigs, and headed off to the track. I'd never driven Las Vegas Motor Speedway before and apparently its pretty rare that they open it up to anyone not associated with club racing sanctioned events. I'd watched some videos online but found i'd lose the plot halfway through a lap and figured I would just have to learn it once I got there. At least it was a level playing field as most all HFF regulars were in the same boat.
7am we the first cars in the paddock so we were able to nab a great spot.

The track was pretty fun, it took me about two sessions to figure out what i would need to do to be fast here. It was MUCH more of a horsepower track than I had expected it to be as there were plenty of momentum killing hairpins followed by long straights for me to lug out of. There were few spots with tight transitions that let me eek back some time from heavier, more powerful machinery. Balance-wise the CRX has some seriously nimble feet but on the straights I feel as if i'm dragging a boat anchor. 

In the video below you can see the last session and the only one that counted for Grudgematch HFF/S2K challenge. This was my fastest of the day which got me a 3rd place podium against some seriously quick s2000's. It would have been a winning time in HFF as well if id only managed to run it in a session that counted towards that competition (only session s2-3). Since i didn't I had to settle for a second place finish in HFF behind Nicks K-powered Dc2, but us two and the third place local guy were only 4 tenths off each others times. That's some pretty stiff competition. 



 All in all I had fun and cant wait to go back. I especially like the back esses section when I would jump the curbing at around 90mph.



To the victor the spoils. Hot champagne.

Headed back to LA on Sunday.

Once thing that I had learned was the 90* FOV camera that I had put on the car in place of the rear view mirror had MUCH to narrow a field of view for the track. After looking around online I found another camera, its got two cameras side by side, one with a 120*FOV and the other with a 170*FOV. Since I have a monitor that can handle selection between two outputs I can switch it right on my monitor, one for backing out of the pit spot or the trailer and one for on track. I had to cut the rear light garnish a bit more to fit it but was able to use the same mounting location as before. 


You can see here between the fire bottle and the battery I have all the connections hooked up and watertight in a clean box. 

For about the past year I'd been looking at moving into a new place with some more room. The place i was in had a small one car garage and about 800 sq feet of space. That was fine for just one person but after my girlfriend moved in it was pretty obvious that we needed more space. After looking around for about half a year we came across a place that was basically perfect (which is rare in LA) it had a big garage and a HUGE driveway and back yard and the house was just refinished. After a few weeks of application stuff I was finally able to bring my CRX to the new spot.

First thing I moved over was the CRX and the trailer.

After a couple weeks we were pretty much all settled in. It was a PITA unpacking and building shelves and hanging blinds but eventually I got everything squared away and i could turn my focus back to stuff that i actually enjoy doing. I'm really stoked to be in the new place and am already doing things that I wasn't able to do in the old 1 car garage- All that is coming up in a near future blog post.




 Ok- back to car stuff. After Las Vegas I felt like I wanted to change up something with the differential. The one in the car is pretty good, I've been playing around with oil weights to help the plate engagement recently,  after building the lower engine cover the bay temps considerably higher than before, to the point that after coming off track I can make water sizzle on my transmission case. While its working pretty well now I still felt like i should step it up.  I picked up an OS Giken clutch type LSD and an OSG 4.6 Final Drive. OSG was kind enough to set the ramp in of the clutch plates specifically for racing on my unit.  These new pieces aren't in the car yet, i'm saving the hassle for when everything is already apart when the new motor goes in. Until that time i'm just keeping them on ice in storage. 

It sure is pretty stuff though. More explanation on the 4.6 Final drive later in the post.





After the short break to get the house situated I had the car prepped for Streets of Willow. I did all the typical maintenance and got it ready only a couple days before the event. 
 
It was a typical early summer day at SOW, Warm weather in the morning with the wind kicking up around Noon. We had up to 35mph gusts of head wind coming down the back straight, it sucked, and pretty much no one at the event PB'd. I was over a full second off pace with a 1:24.1- it was still the best time of the day out of all cars at the event, and let me take home first place in HFF.

Seans bad ass EK coupe.

After I got home I pulled the rear hatch off the car so I could take it to the carbon guy. I had this planned for a while and was just waiting for his schedule to clear up. 


While that was gone, I FINALLY took delivery of the carbon fiber splitter and diffuser that I'd ordered all those months ago. This is some seriously nice quality stuff, at the time of writing I'm still waiting on a few pieces that I need to complete my order, i'm assured these will apparently be mailed out to me shortly. I'm really excited about the changes coming to the car and seeing if and how much they will make a difference.


The much bigger and more efficient diffuser pictured below will get tied into a raked under tray, this will likely be the biggest gain as far as aero efficiency.


Current and new, comparison. 

Splitter diffuser detail. Like I said, really nice stuff.

So i think I was mentioning before how I was deciding if I wanted to try and run a 50 series side wall over a 45 series tire profile. I have hears good things about the sidewall grip and consistency of pressure with a larger volume of air in the tire. Also, I feel like I run out of gear in some critical corners of Streets and Buttonwillow. My choices to change the shifting points are 1.) my current 4.7 Final Drive paired with a larger profile tire. (reserving the ability to get shorter gears from the likes of ATS or the like)  2.) A shorter finial drive and maintain the shorter 45 series sidewall- (hence why i bought the 4.63 OSG finial drive you saw earlier in this post.)

To this end I had Katman bring over his set of 50 series and I mounted them up. They kinda look balloony but kinda I feel they may look just right once I have all of the aero bits on the car- Since i'm about to lower the side skirts an inch from where they are now and add the new diffuser and splitter I would like a little bit extra ground clearance considering the cost of the new parts. : ]. I'm going to have to recorner balance and align the car anyways so I may as well try the new tire size along with the other changes. For some reason I'm still on the fence about it





45 profile vs 50 series profile.

 



After a month or so wait I got the call to come pick up the carbon hatch. Like I was saying before its got no structure but is extremely rigid and light weight, about 8lbs or less as opposed to 40+lbs of the OEM one, even with the lexan windows installed. Its an unfinished piece so I still have a pretty substantial bit of sanding and buffing to do on it before it looks somewhat finished. Who knows, I may get tired of sanding it smooth and just wrap it in vinyl,. I may also just take it to a body shop and let them deal with it.


 I also had a wing extension with gurney flap made that will be trimmed and affixed to the carbon hatch.
Never mind the Spoon car in the back ground, well get to that.

Forgive the picture, i was trying to hold it with one had and work the camera with the other.


Meanwhile I'd also begun to get the NSX in shape to take up to Thunder Hill for the 2018 NSX/ITR Expo. I've been invited to be an instructor again and wanted to drive this car up to the track with the other NSX's that will be attending.



After some poking around and driving it about a week I decided I'd like to run a higher spring and also change the tire compound. 
I got some Swift 9kg that i'm planning to run with some new 8kg rears. I have yet to get these on the car but the plan is to get the rates swapped, some new tires and do an alignment before the late September deadline.

I also took the car over to Corys house and had his dad Bruce show me how to fix the R12 AC. Luckily for me Bruce has all the tools necessary and a propane tank sized jug of R12 (thats probably worth 3k by now). After bleeding down the system and holding a vacuum for a couple hours we had established that the system itself was perfectly fine and all it needed was a recharge. I was so thankful that i didn't have a blown o-ring or broken compressor. The NSX has AC again and I couldn't be happier. 


Around this time I picked up the Spoon car and brought it home. I was FINALLY able to start to get a plan of attack together of what I would need to do to get it ready for the track. This is something that I've been looking forward to for quite some time, but since the car had been stored about 2 hours away from me for the last year or so I rarely got a chance to do anything about it. Now, Finally, I had it home and started to draw up some plans... and spend some money.

The process has already begun- but I am saving everything that has to do with the Spoon car for a blog post of its own; because its A LOT. I'll get to writing that one shortly after I publish this one.


Some other big news I wanted to cover in this post- I got a new tow vehicle.
1988 Chevy Dually with a 454 BIGBLOCK

A buddy of mine had send me an ad for this truck that he'd seen on a SoCal time attack forum. The guy basically stated that he had built this beast from scratch Crate motor rool on bes etc and had just been  dumping money into it until his wife said she was sick of looking at it in the driveway and it had to go. Coincidentally i'd been looking for something like this for a while on and off, not that I needed another tow set up but the cool factor on ramp trucks at HUGE.

I called and spoke with the owner and told him I was interested, but i'd have to make sure that my racecars fit onto it without having to remove any of the aero bits. He agreed to bring it by for a test load of the cars I had at the house.

First car to pull on was the Spoon car, like I was saying i'd already started to work on it so at this point it was a non running shell, we were able to wench it up onto the deck no problem.


Similarly I was able to get the CRX onto the deck; but with a little more fiddling with wood ramps and the like. The real kicker is im able to pull the truck out of the way and into the parking spot I have behind my garage, which was awesome.


The weekend after buying the truck there was our annual event at Laguna Seca Raceway. I figured what better way to see if the new beast needs anything other than to drive it 645 miles though the 108* degree heat of the central valley. The Thursday night before i left I loaded the car up, this time I ended up taking off the splitter, wrenching it up, then reinstalling it once it was secured up on the deck. it is a slight hassle but much less stressful that tacoing the front splitter the night before an event while attempting to do something the 'easy way' to avoid loosing a couple bolts.

Gas station pic 3 hours into the drive. 
Now I had heard that the 454 big block was a very thirsty motor and I was prepared to have to fill it up once I was over the grapevine. Turns out, by the time i'd made it all the way to the highway 46 cut over I was only down to half a take of gas. After some consideration I decided to not push my luck on the functionality of the fuel gauge and fill it up before the no-mans-land to be safe.  So far so good.

I was averaging about 75mph so far at around 15mpg- which is fucking awesome for towing a race car and a bunch of tools. Try that in CA with a tow along.

Try that with a trailer in CA

 I made it to Laguna Seca around 4 o'clock, It was nice temperate weather as usual, and i rolled in without so much as a hiccup from the truck.
Unloading the CRX for the night. 
It was surprising how many people would stop by and just wanna chat about the truck and tell me how cool they thought that it was when i passed them on the freeway. I have to admit it looks pretty good with the aluminum Alcoa wheels, which I was later told were around $3800 a set.

 Earlier in the week I'd bought some bins and organized the tools. I was still getting used to what goes where and developing a process to load and unload the car, once all that's second nature i think i'll be able to have this thing loaded and ready to go in 15 min flat.  After unloading the car I went up to the campsite and pitched my pop up on the deck of the truck. It was a it windy so i used some ratchet straps to hold it in place. The next morning for the event I didn't even have to break down camp- I simply got into the truck and drove it back down to the paddock tent and all. It was really cool.

Now i'd never been on Laguna Seca in a FWD car as the crx was always to loud for the track but this time I was prepared. If you remember from a previous posting I had made and subsequently tuned the car for use with the Laguna Seca exhaust extension. I was still a bit nervous that I wouldn't be able to pass sound as it was a 92dB limit which is not very loud at all. The first few sessions I spend learning this car on track and what as well as progressively giving it more and more throttle past the sound booth at the track out of turn 5. 

After a few laps the first session i didn't get black flagged for sound, so that was a plus. I pulled into the hot pits and checked over the exhaust mounting just to make sure it wasn't coming loose, this was after all the first time i'd ever used the extension on track. It was doing the job it was built for and being nice and quiet but I have to admit it made the cars revs feel sluggish and really felt like it was capping the top end power. It also doesn't help that 50% of Laguna Seca is uphill. Again I had to make all of my time in the corners only to get blitzed on the straight by a car with more HP. Laguna particularity is a big risk big reward track, unlike most other tracks around here its got a fair share of intimidating walls right at the track limits, adding to that is the deep gravel runoffs that were put in for the MotoGP races it hosts every year. You really don't want to go off here.

After my 4th session I felt like I had a pretty good read on the track, I knew where I wanted to push and where I didn't. Unfortunately due to a shipping SNAFU I didn't get the tires I was expecting in time and had to make due with some Toyo RR's that were already pretty long in the tooth. I swapped front to back and went out for my last session. The weather was cooling some and i had clear-ish laps so I went for it. I was able to achieve my personal goal of a mid 1:44 back to back and got a second place for the day in HFF behind a really-really fast local driver.


All in all the car once again didn't skip a beat. temps and pressures were solid all day and I was just able to turn out the laps. I'm really excited for the changes to the aero in this next iteration. The rough plan is to do the aero and continue to drive it with this same stock motor so i can track the improvements. Once I finish the Spoon Car and clear up space to take this one apart i'll pull the motor and swap the new one.


Sunday morning I packed up, ate some lunch, and headed back to LA. I did about 80mph all the way to the Grapevine to find that a car fire had traffic crawling.  Were talking 110* degree temps. I said to myself "well if its gunna overheat and die, now is the time." I watched as the water temps climbed up to about 215, then leveled off and held-  I spent about 45 min in bumper to bumper traffic towing a car up a 10% grade. Really was the worst case scenario. As i climbed higher and higher out of the valley floor the heat was slowly replaced by much cooler air and everything settled back down. The truck had passed the ultimate test. There are a few things that I am going to do to it relatively soon; I want to go through the wiring, build in some kill switches and get some proper gauges and cabin lights. But all in all its a champ and I'm stoked to have found it.


Now that I had the car home i did my typical post event tear down and look over.

 One thing I noticed is the rear tire wear indicates quite a bit of surface shearing. I think i'm going to dial in significantly more rear camber to try and get the contact patch to sit as flat to the road surface as i can to eliminate this roll off.


Second thing i found that was more sketchy in nature was behind the dead pedal.  I found the clevis pin that attaches the master cyl rod to the brake pedal. It had somehow unclipped itself and wriggled itself out. Laguna Seca is NOT the track you want to lose brakes on. (none of them are really, i suppose)

Below is where the clevis pin is SUPPOSED to be.. I cleaned it off re-lubed it and reattached it, this time I added a metal zip tie around the shaft that also holds the sleeve clip in place. Now, its not going anywhere, and is on the top of my post-event check list. 




Here's me literally right after finding it explaining to my Girlfriend just how sketchy the situation could have been.

 OK, i think i'm about caught up now. Next episode should come sooner than later and will deal exclusively with the Spoon Sports CL7.  Can't wait.