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Last run of last year got a bit wet, and I was on slicks and kept going off on the last turn coming onto the straight. Rest of the track was doable. Gonna have to hike it up on one side to pressure wash it, turn it around, and repeat until clean. Unless you're talking about it being sandblasted down there.
Last run of last year got a bit wet, and I was on slicks and kept going off on the last turn coming onto the straight. Rest of the track was doable. Gonna have to hike it up on one side to pressure wash it, turn it around, and repeat until clean. Unless you're talking about it being sandblasted down there.
I had a C5Z that I would chassis clean. Jack up each side and simple green and pressure wash after a track day.
With a painted tube chassis now I just white towel and simple green underneath between races.
Get's my hands on anything that needs checking occasionally.
Last race had pig mat around a bad back of engine oil pipe fitting.
Supercharged, I've been struggling to find a functional spoiler like yours for road racing and auto-x. I believe the original manufacturer blainfab has been out of the game for awhile. Did yours come with the car when you bought it? Any tips for finding one? You've been in the game much longer than I have.
I had a C5Z that I would chassis clean. Jack up each side and simple green and pressure wash after a track day.
With a painted tube chassis now I just white towel and simple green underneath between races.
Get's my hands on anything that needs checking occasionally.
Last race had pig mat around a bad back of engine oil pipe fitting.
A white frame? You're a brave man! I think for the C5Z undercarriage wash I'll just hit the local touchless wash. It's pretty clean down there right now though.
Originally Posted by Catfish Prince
Supercharged, I've been struggling to find a functional spoiler like yours for road racing and auto-x. I believe the original manufacturer blainfab has been out of the game for awhile. Did yours come with the car when you bought it? Any tips for finding one? You've been in the game much longer than I have.
I believe my car was the mule for the Blainefab wing. Like you, I've been unsuccessful at getting a hold of him as well. He used to make all sorts of good stuff.
Well I have a spare transmission now, so as long as this lives in the trailer I'll never have another transmission issue with the car ever again right?
Well I have a spare transmission now, so as long as this lives in the trailer I'll never have another transmission issue with the car ever again right?
True if you bring a spare to the track you won't need it.
If it's a local race weekend and it breaks something big Saturday that may take 2 guys 4/5 hours to repair and hopefully would be ready for a Sunday mid day race, in that case I'll pack up and fix it when I get home.
BTDT, I'm not the guy anymore that breaks something big Saturday and starts chasing parts all over the pit area and local race shops to get my car up for one race on Sunday.
I will still do the Pit area scavenger hunt when you need some obscure inexpensive fitting or small part to keep it going.
I've had the transmission out so many times now I'm immune to it. Would likely only bring it along for a non-local event given my current space constraints. But I'm mustering up some motivation to add to my storage in a way that helps the balance. I have most of what I need on hand already.
I did end up adding to my trailer storage capacity.
It's all screwed down now. I got over 150# off the nose of the trailer, and everything that stayed went down between the axles. Then I gave the trailer a bit of a purge, it's soooooooo much less cluttered in there now. I should have purged a long time ago, I've never done one to the trailer it's just accumulated more and more crap for the last 9 years. Once the trailer was back together I was able to use it again so I did so and hit the Dyno last Friday.
Same 35mm restrictor plate as last year, easy peasy. I need to measure my ICL and retard it a bit, that hp peak at 4800 isn't doing me any favors. I think the wallered out LT4 chain was helping my top end all these years. I got the rest of the fluids changed out, chucked the sheet metal screws from the coolant overflow jug in favor of bolts and rivnuts, tweaked the hood pin bolts, and zapped 2 failed spot welds on the floor of the car. I'm going to need to disconnect the fuel lines to weld more on the bottom of the car to get it to stick. Same thing I ended up doing on the passenger side.
I dunno, the 380ish my Z06 makes puts a bigger smile on my face, but 260 is easier on the consumables. I am very happy with how the storage came out. I'm also pleased with my decision to keep the access hole smaller than the compartment, at first I was planning to have the opening full size but decided against it as the floor was going to have to break on that piece of 1X.
As for the floor, I just pulled the fuel lines down and taped over the plastic bits to save them from any slag, but this new Fourney wire doesn't spit near as much as the Lincoln wire did.
You can see them all on the other side so there's good penetration there. Middle one too good, it blew through, but I was able to fill it back in again. It's all red now. Car's loaded up and ready for the first race and trailer is the cleanest it's ever been as I did some more shuffling and purging. Time to get more crap I guess, there's plenty of space for it now!
The reason for the lack of updates here is simple: I bought a truck and then a plow for it, it's been hogging up my resources as it's a bit of a fixer upper. I did race back in April, our group was down 4 motors for that race 2 in the week leading up to that race. The track ended up being decent for the races, but all Saturday morning was crap.
Sunday was alright. As I was loading the car up after the last race, I noticed a grinding sound with the clutch in in first gear. Same sound I got back in December, but this time without the drivetrain slipping action. The few of us who could have made the May race decided not to, and we reconvened last weekend. I decided to drive up Thursday night so I could practice Friday morning before the rain. It came in at 3:00 and was still going when I called it at 9:00 like an old man. It also rained all night Thursday, and again Saturday afternoon. By June 21st we had broken the rainfall record for June and also rainiest month of the year. It's been absolutely ridiculous here and the weeds in my back yard are loving it. But it's been good for all the grass seed I've put down as well. So Friday's practice was largely to try and characterize that grinding sound. It never got hot enough to do it Friday or Saturday, but it did do it Sunday when the sun finally decided to show up. It sounds like when you grind a gear trying to find it, but it does it when you're completely in a gear. I swapped pressure plates and will see what happens next month. I didn't see anything concerning on the pressure plate and back in December when I had the trans apart saw absolutely nothing wrong. I'm at a total loss here as I'm anticipating the pressure plate will solve nothing. Next I blew a bunch of rocks and tire turds out of the radiator and tomorrow I'll do a brake fluid flush and fresh rear pads. That's about it before the next race.
Good luck diagnosing the rattle in the drivetrain.
Only one time at Big Willow in the winter it was around 40 degrees and that is the only time at 125mph I felt a little cool air through my fire suit.
I've read freezing temps can damage some slicks.
Next event for me late summer and the desert heat will help my older harder slicks work better.
Heard any explanation about Jim Crown and his fatal crash over the weekend at Aspen motorsports park?
Do you race there too?
I didn't realize Aspen Motorsports Park was a thing, had to give it a Google to see. So no I didn't hear about that fatality either. I wonder if that place turns a decent profit?
I ended up flushing the brake fluid and changing the front pads, not the rear. Somehow the rears are lasting twice as long as they usually do but the fronts suck up on me and were toast. They were PFC08 pads I installed back in June of last year. They got replaced with some PFC11, hopefully they're the best blend of bite, feedback, and longevity among the pads I've tried so far. I also added a USB charger, cord, and GoPro case with a hole in the side so I don't have to do the dance of removing the camera to charge and remembering to put it in the car for every race.
The new GoPro case is great, too bad the cord already died. It was briefly nice to not have to worry about remembering to charge the thing between sessions.
And as for the PFC11, after 2 events I'm in love. They have that initial bite I was wanting with the fade resistance and longevity to boot. What a hunt that was to find a pad to check all those boxes. Now watch them discontinue the compound for something inferior. . .
3 weekends left to get this thing ready for the season, I guess I better get cracking. I started by yanking the transmission as 3rd gear seemed to have left the chat at the last event. First thing I noticed was this.
If you zoom in on that pilot bushing you'll see 2 distinctly different inner diameters on a bushing with exactly 1 season on it. Got the trans apart and I think I wasted my time there. 3rd gear is as it was last I had this apart and every bearing is in the same condition as well. I got to wondering about main shaft end play being the cause of this thing murdering a pilot-anything that I install. Prior to scattering the trans I wiggled the input shaft in/out and side to side. Side to side seemed excessive while there was no discernable in/out. According to this video I'm a bit loose.
I got to thinking about setting this up by feel and I now believe that's going to be the right way to go. I have a 46 thou shim in there now and I found a 49, 51, and 53 thou in my bag of shims so will give those a whirl tomorrow. Next up is to order and adjustable timing set and when that rolls in yank the engine, set up the degree wheel, and get a before/after. Peak hp at 4800 is weaksauce! According to EFILive my 350 Vortec truck peaks north of 5000! I'd like to shed a few ft/lb so I don't have to carry extra ballast whenever that bleeds north of 310 wheel.
I ended up with a .060" stack on the input/main and added .007" to the cluster gear shim to get just a hint of preload. I would say I'm in disbelief at how far off I was, but I really didn't have much confidence in the process when I set it up the last time. It was also suggested I check to see that the bell is centered, so I think that's a worthwhile endeavor too. Though after seeing how far off the shim stack was that seems the more likely case here. Adjustable timing set showed up so next I'll yank the engine to get to that. And clean all the soot from the engine bay from when my mechanic didn't secure the fuel return line properly and tried burning the car to the ground.
I ended up with a .060" stack on the input/main and added .007" to the cluster gear shim to get just a hint of preload. I would say I'm in disbelief at how far off I was, but I really didn't have much confidence in the process when I set it up the last time. It was also suggested I check to see that the bell is centered, so I think that's a worthwhile endeavor too. Though after seeing how far off the shim stack was that seems the more likely case here. Adjustable timing set showed up so next I'll yank the engine to get to that. And clean all the soot from the engine bay from when my mechanic didn't secure the fuel return line properly and tried burning the car to the ground.
Was gonna say that checking the bell housing is centered might be a worthwhile chore.
I still need to order that thing to check bellhousing centeredness, but in the meantime got the trans mostly buttoned up. Gotta yank the front plate to seal it and torque it, but that's easy low threat stuff. Today I yanked the engine uneventfully and yeah, it's a mess in there.
But I already knew this. The pic doesn't do justice. The crank sensor has been pissing and it looks like the front cover in general has been as well. Since I had to yank the bumper skin and structure for this I figured I may as well pull the broken fender off and deal with the crap fitment of my driver's door. This car went into the wall at Cal Speedway back in the day and the a pillar still shows damage. I ended up redrilling the door to space it out.
I should have grabbed a before pic, it was tucked in at the top and sticking out at the bottom. And another new wound that came with the breaking of the fender was this.
That aluminum used to lay flat and be riveted in. That is until some ****** douchebag in a lone Spec Miata decided he wanted to go back and forth on the infield with a couple of much heavier f bodies. So the guy I was chasing passed him and got dive bombed back and repassed and likely saw red as I would. I got a small run on him and he made a very unpredictable move to swipe back across to the other side of the Miata. I locked the brakes to try and miss him but couldn't and he (Camaro) went in the tire wall. Not how I wanted to beat him and thankfully his car was OK outside the body damage done by the tire wall. Needless to say our tolerance for this particular Spec Miata is extremely low, that guy has a history of pulling that crap with everyone and anyone so he can expect the favor to be returned if he ever causes us any sort of asspain in the future.
02-03-2023, 08:18 AM
