[Peter92lx]

I finished up the bulkhead in the trunk this week. I'm happy with the way it came out. I still need to cut out around the spare tire area.

I took the car out for a 50 mile drive. It went pretty good. I didn't have any problems on the drive but the oil temps seemed higher then they were before so I'm not to sure what that was about. They were staying around 220 to 210 the whole time. The water temps were around the same. I still have the top of the radiator I need to fill in right now. I also still need to close up the bottom to see if just have it run as a front feed will work better.

I made this piece pretty quick not much to it.

I still have to figure out what to do with this area.

I'm also going to add sides to the oil cooler brackets to tunnel it to the radiator. The cooler sits around 3/4 to an inch away from the radiator which I think is to far.

I was sitting back looking at the car yesterday thinking how far it has come in the 3+ years when I look at one of the first photos I took when I brought it home out of storage.

 

[petmotel]

What is your impression of the car's street manners with your current suspension configuration? Is it unbearably stiff on the street, or is the independent/coil over set-up compliant enough to make it tolerable? If you took the wife for a ride what would she (or did she) think?

I marvel at the transformation this car has undergone since you first started on it. Hardly anything left of the original driveline/suspension/brakes.

Jay

 

[Peter92lx]

What is your impression of the car's street manners with your current suspension configuration? Is it unbearably stiff on the street, or is the independent/coil over set-up compliant enough to make it tolerable? If you took the wife for a ride what would she (or did she) think?

I marvel at the transformation this car has undergone since you first started on it. Hardly anything left of the original driveline/suspension/brakes.

Jay

Its stiff on the street if this was a car that was going to be more of a street focused car I would lower the spring rates and soften it up a bit and run a MM damper on the car. Its hard to say she wouldn't complain about it but she would notice its stiff and just not care. She would care if she had to drive it all the time. My wife is also a person that when we went to get a car that had more room then the GTI she was driving so we could haul around a stroller instead of the Outback we were planning on getting she went with a stick shift WRX with the sport package that had a loud exhaust. The Outback was to much like a minivan which she will never allow.

Its kind of crazy to see how much it has changed. I was looking back on it and realized I might have went a little overboard with the car. There are a few minor things I'm going to do with the car but all in all I think its done. Its really going to be maintaining the car from this point. The only thing I'm not sure about is the rear brakes. Its going to be a year of track days in 2021 and I'm not sure how well the cobra rear brakes are going to hold up.

 

[Peter92lx]

I finally finished up the lower part of boxing in the radiator. Now it will only be front feed so we will see how that works. I'm not going to know until next weekend. I used some HVAC sealing tape to seal up any gaps that were around the edges.

Since it looks like its going to be a year of track days I added brake ducts to the car. I looked around and Kenny Brown looked to fit the bill so I bought it and it installed fine with no mods to make it fit.

This should help to keep the front brakes cool. I will just have to figure out a way to block them off at the autocross if I run any this year.

Right now I'm signed up for a track day on Jan 2 so there is a few things I want to do to the car to get it ready. I know the diff temps car be an issue with the IRS so I'm going to wrap the exhaust to help keep the exhaust heat off of the diff. I have a torsen in the car so its not as much of a worry but anything I can do to help the temps is a good thing. I really don't want to add a diff cooler to the car. I was hoping to get an autocross in before its first track day but that's not going to happen. I was hoping to get a feel for the IRS on something more slow speed. Hopefully the car holds up fine I have beaten it up at a few autocross events but I know its nothing like a track day. The event I'm going to we're having 5 20min sessions which seems like allot. Its not a really high speed track so its a good place to start. Now all I need is a trailer to tow it to the track. I have a few in mind right now unfortunately none of them are in town.

I'm going to try and keep this more updated then i have for the past few months as I get it ready for the track day.

 

[petmotel]

The Crowd Control '95 Cobra in the Road Racing section has been successfully using Cobra rear brakes even during endurance events. They have added cooling ducts to those brakes, but still they have held up better than I would have expected. Certainly worth giving them a try.

Biggest problem that team has been having with reliability is the T5 transmission.

Jay

 

[Peter92lx]

The Crowd Control '95 Cobra in the Road Racing section has been successfully using Cobra rear brakes even during endurance events. They have added cooling ducts to those brakes, but still they have held up better than I would have expected. Certainly worth giving them a try.

Biggest problem that team has been having with reliability is the T5 transmission.

Jay

I'm going to run them see what happens. I'm going to remove the dust shields since a few people said it helps. I have looked at some how ducting cooling to them but not sure how.

 

[petmotel]

The event I'm going to we're having 5 20min sessions which seems like allot.

Once you are on track and hauling around the course, a 20 minute session goes by in what seems to be seconds. Exhilarating and very addictive!

It takes some time to get close to the car's handling potential, I'm confident you will learn how it's going to react well before you reach it's limits.

Jay

 

[Peter92lx]

Once you are on track and hauling around the course, a 20 minute session goes by in what seems to be seconds. Exhilarating and very addictive!

It takes some time to get close to the car's handling potential, I'm confident you will learn how it's going to react well before you reach it's limits.

Jay

I'm looking forward to it I haven't raced the car in almost a year so it will be nice to get it out.

 

[Peter92lx]

Did some work on the car to get it ready for the track day. I decided to swap out the spark plugs on the car since I hadn't and I wanted to look at them. The plugs looked good so I just put in a new set. I also wanted to wrap the tail pipes to help with the heat on the IRS center sections.

I already had the wrap so it was a pretty easy the hardest part was getting the tail pipes out of the car. I also wanted to add a breather or a catch can to the IRS center section. I only had a short piece hose connected to the IRS diff cover so I decided to connect it to a AOS I had that I took off the engine. I bought some new ones for the engine that were easier to drain. Its also sealed and vented to the outside of the car so I don't have to smell gear oil. Its over kill but I won't have to worry about diff oil getting pushed out the breather.

I also wanted to add an AOS to the valve cover breather so I ended up getting two of the new generation saikou michi catch cans for the motor.

I'm going to try and take it for a test dive tomorrow if I can get a chance. I still need to hook up the brake ducts to the saleen air dam but that turning out to be harder then I had planned. The side ducts come straight out into the radiator core support. I got some offset ducts but getting them to mount and look clean is going to take a bit of work.

 

[Peter92lx]

Track Day

I kicked off the New Year with a track day at Chuckwalla. It was a blast had a great time with friends from autocross. The track is allot of fun if you get a chance to go I recommend it. I ended up spending about 80 minutes on track running 4 20min sessions. the car did good felt really good was happy with how it performed.

The good
The car ran good felt awesome on the track really well balanced. I had allot of confidence in the way the car handled. The rear of the car felt planted and I could turn into the corners without worry. I will say I wasn't pushing it 100% I was probably more in the 80% range maybe a little less. Neither the front or the rear of the car felt like they were going to break loose. It felt really neutral I really like the spring rates in the car. I decided not to make any changes to the car throughout day and just left the shock setting to the MCS recommended starting point. The body roll in the car wasn't bad at all didn't feel like it was leaning all that much. I feel like the car has a great foundation to start with right now. The water temp stayed between 200-210 all day long even when it started to get warmer out.

The bad
When I started to push on it harder going full throttle all the time the oil temps started to get high. The last run the I had the oil temps up to 280 when I decided to back off which was fine since the session ended when I was planning on going in. I do have an oil cooler for the car that I haven't hooked up yet but I plan on doing that before I take it out again. The brakes felt pretty good I never had a problem stopping the car was going from just over 100mph to 50mph pretty easy lap after lap the only part that felt weird was the pedal would be firm then soften up. It was consistent it was like that every lap every session it just felt kind of weird to me. I haven't had a chance to get the car on jack stands to see what the temp gauge say on the calipers and rotors. The pads in the car now were great autocross pads since they had really good bite when cold but they might not be a really good track pad. I also really need to track down the vibration I'm getting from the car. It was making me nuts. it was bad enough to cause me not to want to run the car to red line. If rev the car in neutral I can feel it. Some people mentioned it could be something with the flywheel and clutch being out of balance. Before this event I got a Mcleod aluminum flywheel and Mcleod clutch that I had the guys at Mcleod spec. They also balanced the clutch and the flywheel together.

All in all the event went great was really happy and it was fun to get the car out and drive it hard. I'm going to try and make all the events for the NMCA autocross events and the more track days at chuckwalla and a couple of the other tracks in Southern California.

 

[Peter92lx]

I've been doing some small things to the car for the past few weeks after the track day. The brake pads on the car got pretty chewed up it looks like I almost lost half the front pads. I put temp paint on the rotors and they got up to 1000 degrees even with brake cooling. The rotors are a bit chewed up so I'm going to put some new ones on the car before the next track day which won't be until April. Which is good because the rotors are out of stock until the end of February. I talked with Nick at Road Race 1 and he mentioned for the autocross and track use I should go with the ST43 Raybestos pads. The rear of the car worked fine but I think I'm going to switch more bias to the rear I think part of the problem is the fronts are doing most of the work.

I decided to look into the vibration more in the car. I decided to try a new harmonic balancer on the car. I didn't think there was a problem with the PowerBond dampener I was running on the car but I did pickup a ATI Super Damper. Really easy install only to about an hour to get it swapped out.

I honestly didn't think it was going to do anything but I was surprised to find it actually made a difference. The engine is smoother then it was before running it to redline wasn't a problem. Not saying it all went away but it did make enough of a difference that I didn't think buy it was a mistake. I think it was a step in the right direction. I still need to get the flywheel and clutch installed so I'm hoping that will also help.

I did get some more work on my engine oil cooler. I finally got the shroud built to go from the cooler to the radiator. I have a couple of adjustments to make but its almost done. i also started to run the lines to the sandwich plate but need a couple new fittings to make it work right. I also got a new oil dipstick that actually reads right.

Once I have the new fittings I'm going to get the lines finished up so I can prime the oil cool with oil and get the lines connected. I'm hoping to get it done before the next outing in the car which is in a few weeks. There's an NMCA West autocross series event at California Motor speedway. Its a 2 day event thy make some fast courses so it should be a lot of fun. Nice thing is you get a lot of runs and you don't even have to work the course like a SCCA autocross. The next one will be in March but I'm also going to try and get some SCCA Cal club events in between the NMCA events. I'm also hoping to branch out to some more track days.

 

[Peter92lx]

Got some new tires for the NMCA event. I wanted to get a set of the Falken RT660 but they were on back order so I decided to get a set of the Yokohama A052 in a 315. I think they are a bit wide for the 10.5 wheel they really need a 11 inch wide wheel. They are kin of pinched on the wheel but they should do fine. I think if I had to do it again I would go with the 295 I think it will fit better.

I need to get them on the car to make sure they don't rub anywhere.

 

[RedFox418]

I hear those tires are awesome. The car is an inspiration for sure! Do you still have the Forgelines?

 

[Peter92lx]

I hear those tires are awesome. The car is an inspiration for sure! Do you still have the Forgelines?

I can't wait to give them a try heard they have a lot of grip. I'm hoping that the pinch of the tire doesn't hurt there feed back. Thanks the car is coming along really good its been a fun journey now I'm ready to do some racing with it. I don't have the Forgelines anymore I ended up selling them about a year ago to another corral member.

 

[thadude]

I can't wait to give them a try heard they have a lot of grip. I'm hoping that the pinch of the tire doesn't hurt there feed back. Thanks the car is coming along really good its been a fun journey now I'm ready to do some racing with it. I don't have the Forgelines anymore I ended up selling them about a year ago to another corral member.

Believe it or not that was 2 years ago, time
has flown by

 

[Peter92lx]

Believe it or not that was 2 years ago, time
has flown by

Wow that was two years ago. No kidding time has flown by. Its crazy to think in June it will be 4 years since I started this thread.

 

[RedFox418]

Believe it or not that was 2 years ago, time
has flown by

I wondered if it was you who got them. 😄 I constantly look on eBay and some forums for a set.

 

[Peter92lx]

Got more work done on the oil cooler. I finally got the lines made and everything hooked up. I ran into a couple fitment issues which made it take longer then I wanted but it's finally done. I still need to make sure there's are no leaks in the system and test drive the car. I'm shooting to get a test drive in next weekend.

I'm hoping this will keep the oil temps under control at the next track day. The next San Diego region track day isn't until April but I might try and get into another track day with another club.

 

[petmotel]

Dying to know (well not really dying, but rather very interested) how the oil cooler works out. Does your adapter have thermostatic control? If I understand it correctly, you want the oil to reach at least boiling temperature to remove any water condensate that might be in the pan.

Jay

 

[Peter92lx]

Dying to know (well not really dying, but rather very interested) how the oil cooler works out. Does your adapter have thermostatic control? If I understand it correctly, you want the oil to reach at least boiling temperature to remove any water condensate that might be in the pan.

Jay

The adapter has thermostatic control. I think its the best option to make sure the oil doesn't stay to cold and not burn off water in the oil. It does let 20% past into the oil cooler so the system doesn't surge from the adapter opens and it doesn't shock the system with really cold oil when the thermostat opens. Its a nice system can't wait to see how it helps at the track. How are your car projects coming?