Milestone!

So closest to CR190, when your running counter clockwise, you come down a hill and into the long back straight. I am around 85-90 mph in 4th gear through that straight. Near the end you can see what looks like a little jog, which is actually a crest, flatten, crest, that drops down about 6 feet and then there is that hairpin. I keep it pinned in 4th gear and deal with it until I launch off the top, then I brake as hard as I can and go to second and hope I can slow down enough and make the hairpin (which I do most of the time.) One friend said, "I thought you were going to be the first one to really wreck your car here," after that section, the other friend said, "Fuck, you had me scared in that straight away." It's always been a little competition of Mark and I's. To see who can hold it the longest. The new goal is to be able to take the downhill corner flat out in third gear instead of having to lift. Mark went off trying it this weekend, but we both believe it to be possible. If so, I can probably maintain enough speed to pull 5th and get over 100 and probably won't be able to hold it flat over the crest.

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Grant Hughes

Holy crap - that's an awesome facility!

I'm gonna have to see how long a drive it is... Any chance there's an event the week prior to PPIHC?

So Grant - how much time do you think you can pull out of that car? Looked like some pretty fast cars that come out too - looks like a complete blast.

Rabin

I'm very confused. Are the high speed runs and rallycross the same thing, or were you also doing some "testing" on site while you were at the rallycross.

I've maybe, MAYBE shifted into third ONCE on a rallycross. And usually it's faster to just bang off the rev limiter in first than to shift to second. Mind you, it's been a few years since I've run one.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

There are five courses at the facility. You can see the rallycross course and what we refer to as the rallysprint course in the google overhead. The Rallysprint course is a 2 mile faster course with some hairpins, some sweepers, up and down hill sections, and some fast sections. The rallycross course is lame and is a rallycross course. Mostly 1st and 2nd gear. There's another course that I call the go kart course (because it was originally designed for off road go karts, then widened later for cars), though it's fairly fun in rally cars with super steep up and downs and superbly blind crests, but lots of hairpins so most people don't like it. The buggy course is cool, but the jumps are impossible in cars so we don't bother. It's four miles. There's also a dirt oval somewhere that's okay to do for about one lap. Then he's got a mud bogging area and a rock crawling playland, as well as some motocross stuff, though the moto guys have more fun just running around the facility and hitting anything and everything they can find.

The place is open pretty much every weekend. Annual unlimited pass is $250 or day passes are $20 per car. We don't do any events on the sprint course because we don't need to and just focus on using it for testing. The rallycross guys have 4-5 events in their 11 event series out there due to it's close location to Denver. It's about 50-60 miles east of town. There's a huge new public road race course that is going to be built about 10 minutes away too.

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Grant Hughes

bean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I'm gonna have to see how long a drive it is...
> Any chance there's an event the week prior to
> PPIHC?
>
> So Grant - how much time do you think you can pull
> out of that car? Looked like some pretty fast
> cars that come out too - looks like a complete
> blast.

It's probably about 90-120 minutes from Colorado Springs to get out there. If you're around the weekend before though we could take the Merkur out and play.

I'm not sure what you mean by time I can pull out. I was able to keep fairly close to Mark Malsom, who is one of the fastest guys out there, though he did have a bit of an off, but I also had his dust and the bad brake bias to contend with.

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Grant Hughes

Some pics like John requested. I've lowered the spring seat to 3/8 above the end of the threads, which reduced ride height around 1". One of the rears (same one that I had trouble with before) is still not moving.

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Grant Hughes

And a few more.

You can see the ghetto plasma cutting job on the rear outer bracket. That rides about 1/4" from the wheel.

You can also see how the spring seat can't go down too much further because the lock STA stops it about 2" above the bottom of the threads. Dropped the one side to as low as it will go, and ride height came down a bit. But now the front is about the same as the rear.

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Grant Hughes



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/09/2008 01:22PM by NoCoast.

Im sick i want to get mine done yesterday love it looks great any one need a kidney i need some cash. good job!

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TSSFAB.US No HYPE just parts!!!! And check us out on Facebook!!!

Well the T5 swap is almost done. Weighed the stock flywheel. 21 lbs. The Fidanza aluminium one I replaced it with weighs only 9 lbs! Spent the most amount of time trying to get the old pilot bearing out. Took the risky approach and welded a nut to the pilot bearing and then used a long bolt to pull it out. Method worked well though. Had to not finish it last night though because we wanted to go watch the Avalanche destroy the Minnesota Wild. Heading back down to the shop in a few minutes to finish it. Slightly regret not getting a brand new clutch to put in it, but if you're broke, you're broke. Plus it's really not very difficult to pull this tranny and I have a few months break between events.

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Grant Hughes

Your method sounds great, and waaaaay less risky than my "take a series of punches and chisels in there and hopefully don't destroy the metal on the crank surrounding the bearing as it gets chiseled away" style. I usually end up having to spend some time in there with emory cloth and a file after I'm done yanking those #@$%@#$ pilot bearings.

But I am a hack. Still seems to go better than the slide hammer approach or the fill the hole with grease and hammer a peg/bolt/dowel in the hole and hope it'll pop out.

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY

The method I'd read was to use a washered bolt that was just big enough to fit in, put it all the way back and then crank it sideways so it wedges into the bearing. Then thread into it and pull out the bearing. But I couldn't find one that was the right size. Welding to it was scary. A little off and the pilot bearing and crank could become one.

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Grant Hughes

What nonsense the clutch 'adjuster' is. Regardless, all I can really say now is 'BRILLIANT!' With the light flywheel, good gear ratios, and more boost (around 1-16 psi now) the car feels amazing. Hopefully the engine lasts. It's smoking (and has been for weeks) really bad. Hopefully it's just the turbo, but I have a feeling it may be rings. Only time and 2-3 miles of flat out will really tell. Probably do leak down and compression tests this week just to see.

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Grant Hughes

NoCoast Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The method I'd read was to use a washered bolt
> that was just big enough to fit in, put it all the
> way back and then crank it sideways so it wedges
> into the bearing. Then thread into it and pull
> out the bearing. But I couldn't find one that was
> the right size. Welding to it was scary. A
> little off and the pilot bearing and crank could
> become one.


Best method I've used is to fill the pilot bearing hole with grease, find a socket or something that just fits the hole, then whack it hard with a hammer. Grease hydraulics the bearing out. You need a tight fit, and you usually need to refill with grease once or twice - but it usually works very trick.

Glad to hear your tranny swap went well, and the car is running strong - aside from the oil burning...

Rabin

It goes away once it gets warm.

I'll probably start on a new engine to have a back up plan just in case. It also seems to smoke worse when it's not warmed up and at idle though. Oil pressure sits around 60-65 then when it warms up goes to between 40-50 or so. Oil temps never get very high, but my temp gauge is also after the oil cooler. Water temps take forever to get up to temp as well. Of course, this has always been on relatively mild days. Sunday will be the real test as it will be probably around 70 or so.

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Grant Hughes

If the engine has been sitting, you may just have valve seal issues. Haven't done them myself, but I don't think they're that bad to do. Compression OK?

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Andrew Steere
Lyndeborough, NH
KB1PJY