Slow old poop
15+ Year Contributor
- 707
- 7
- Jul 24, 2005
-
Cedar Rapids,
Iowa
Gawd, I love running in the rain. The M3s and twin-turbo 350Zs turn from being ferocious competitors to mobile obstacles, while expensive race cars running slick tires stay off the track. AWD Eclipses rule in the rain.
But let me begin at the beginning...
Last weekend, whilst tuning it for the NASA event on Sunday, we discovered that the number 4 wire, which had to make a tight 180deg turn from the coil pack to clear the fuel pressure regulator, was shorting out. This (we think...more on this later) shorting caused us to lose #4, kill the tach, and throw check engine lights. So we packed it in, ordered a set of Magnecores, and resigned ourselves to missing yet one more race event. All season, it's been like this: two steps forward, one step back, and order parts on Monday so we can work on it next weekend. The car hasn't seen a race track since last October, as we have dealt with mostly electrical gremlins and dumb little problems.
The Magnecores arrived Thursday, so on Friday we removed the coil pack from under the intake manifold (so #4 would not have to make that horrid tight bend and short the wire again). But where to put the coil pack? We searched the forums and found only one other example of somebody who had moved the coil pack on a 2G. Alas, that solution doesn't work on a 1G. So we clamped it to the strut brace (see photo), and fired it up. Dang, it ran good!
There was a test n' tune scheduled the next day at MidAmerica Motorplex in Council Bluffs, Iowa, so we loaded up the car, left Cedar Rapids at about 10 pm, and towed over, arriving at 4:30 am. We napped in the truck and got to the track at 7 am.
It was raining like a double-bladdered cow pissing on a flat rock (as we say here in Iowa). We unloaded the car during a break in the rain. Fortunately, since it was ready to race right off the trailer, we didn't have to do anything to it except wait for the start.
The event is organized by Damian dela Huerta at Find the Line (http://www.findtheline.com) and it is perfect for sorting and tuning a car. Damien recently ran One Lap in his Mazda RX7, and he organizes two or three events like this a year, all at MidAmerica Motorplex (MAM), a 2.23 mile road course just south of Council Bluffs, Iowa (http://www.midamericamotorplex.com). This track is easily reachable for DSMers in the central Midwest, from Minneapolis, Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City and so on. Damian's next event is in August. Hope to see a bunch of DSMs out to run.
Damian allows ridealongs, you can pretty much go out on course whenever you like, and you can get a ferocious amount of lap time, all for $150. You could literally run all day if you like, stopping only to pee, get gas and eat. Damian sets up two or three classes, just to separate the cars (A = ferocious, B= Intermediate and C = Novice), and you can jump from class to class if you like. He usually runs 2 classes, but he had so many cars this time (35), he ran three class.
Because it was the Eclipse's first run since the new engine, we were eager to tune it and shake down the car. Jon Wieman rode along with me to tune the Apexi. We were running 10 psi boost on pump gas which was more than enough in the rain.
On the very first lap, exiting corner 4 in the rain, I got it sideways under power at about 80 and did a couple of vicious tail wags, but that was the biggest problem all day. Driving in the rain is very much like rally driving, where the car dances on the hairy edge of cornering and braking. I was running Toyo Proxes that were nearly slick, but they stuck well enough in the rain. For the first two sessions in the rain, the Eclipse pretty much caught and passed every car it encountered, including a 600 hp M3 and a 600 hp twin turbo 350Z.
Jon was tuning the whole time, and the car was running good. The rain stopped in the late morning, the track started to dry, and we got faster.
We discovered that the new engine, running only 10 psi boost, is equal to the old engine at 20 psi. Although it's not a perfect comparison, we were approaching turn 1 at 115 mph, same as last year. In fact, in one daring late-braking move when the track was dry, it touched 120 mph, the same as I did in my 3000GT. So, there is hope that the car will be a terror once we get it completely dialed in at 20 psi on race gas.
Alas, the gremlins returned. We lost the tach and the O2 signal, and the car started running bad, so we returned to the pits and checked the wiring. The O2 wire (we rewired it earlier this year) ran very close to the coil pack which was ungrounded, and we suspected the coil pack was interfering with the O2 signal. So we rerouted the O2 wire and attached grounding wires to the coil pack. That cured most of the problems, because it fired back up and we had an O2 signal again, but the tach was still jumping around like crazy.
I was chasing a big bad M3 all day. I got him in the rain, no contest. But as it dried out, he got faster. I'm not sure what's in this M3, but it was used as a model at Orr Motorsports during a NASA car prep forum in Minneapolis. I hear it has a $6,000 head, completely adjustable suspension, and tons of other goodies. I could almost run with him in the dry (there's a video of this, shot by Damian from behind, which I am trying to get). Alas, during the last session of the day, I started missing the 3-4 upshift. Pull the shift lever back, and the trannie goes into nowheresville. No gear. Shift back to 3rd, try again. After 3 or 4 tries, I'd finally get 4th. The M3 ran off and hid while all this was going on.
Is this symptomatic of something? A hot transmission, maybe?
We ran two more sessions after lunch, but decided NOT to kick the boost until we cured the other problems. All in all, a very good day. Very productive, the motor is tuned, and we know we can run with the big boys. When we kick the boost, it should be even more competitive.
Problems yet to fix:
Wacky Tach – maybe it's the coil pack not being grounded. We get a good rpm signal in the data logger, but not the tach.
Ground the coil pack – Right now, it's just sitting below the strut brace, held in by tie wraps, with two ground wires running to the engine. I like the location, so we will probably fab up a bracket so it can continue to sit right there. But how to ground it? The ECU throws a Coil Pack code, so we are assuming the problem is a bad ground.
Water temperature sensor – The temperature gauge on the dash appears to work properly. It heats up from cold and goes to the center when warm, then stays there all day. The ECU is not getting a temperature reading, so it throws an engine code and uses the default temp of 199 F permanently. We are not sure how to fix this. It's probably one of the wires in that goofy wiring harness (we had to reroute the O2 sensor wire for the same reason). Is this something to worry about?
4th gear – What causes the 3-4 shift to suddenly go bad, after working fine earlier? I plan to follow Greg's advice and change the trannie fluid after every event. We been using Syncromesh – you guys recommend anything else?
A bunch of photos follow. I dunno how to weave the pix into the copy like some of you do, or in what order they will come up. The first photo (I hope) shows the relocated coil pack; the photo of us in the hot pit lane was when the data logger came unplugged and Jon had to run around the car and plug it back in; the shot from the back end is entering the front straight; all the rest are shots from around the track. Note the lack of other cars in the images -- that's because there were never more than 10-12 cars on track at any one time.
Rich
But let me begin at the beginning...
Last weekend, whilst tuning it for the NASA event on Sunday, we discovered that the number 4 wire, which had to make a tight 180deg turn from the coil pack to clear the fuel pressure regulator, was shorting out. This (we think...more on this later) shorting caused us to lose #4, kill the tach, and throw check engine lights. So we packed it in, ordered a set of Magnecores, and resigned ourselves to missing yet one more race event. All season, it's been like this: two steps forward, one step back, and order parts on Monday so we can work on it next weekend. The car hasn't seen a race track since last October, as we have dealt with mostly electrical gremlins and dumb little problems.
The Magnecores arrived Thursday, so on Friday we removed the coil pack from under the intake manifold (so #4 would not have to make that horrid tight bend and short the wire again). But where to put the coil pack? We searched the forums and found only one other example of somebody who had moved the coil pack on a 2G. Alas, that solution doesn't work on a 1G. So we clamped it to the strut brace (see photo), and fired it up. Dang, it ran good!
There was a test n' tune scheduled the next day at MidAmerica Motorplex in Council Bluffs, Iowa, so we loaded up the car, left Cedar Rapids at about 10 pm, and towed over, arriving at 4:30 am. We napped in the truck and got to the track at 7 am.
It was raining like a double-bladdered cow pissing on a flat rock (as we say here in Iowa). We unloaded the car during a break in the rain. Fortunately, since it was ready to race right off the trailer, we didn't have to do anything to it except wait for the start.
The event is organized by Damian dela Huerta at Find the Line (http://www.findtheline.com) and it is perfect for sorting and tuning a car. Damien recently ran One Lap in his Mazda RX7, and he organizes two or three events like this a year, all at MidAmerica Motorplex (MAM), a 2.23 mile road course just south of Council Bluffs, Iowa (http://www.midamericamotorplex.com). This track is easily reachable for DSMers in the central Midwest, from Minneapolis, Chicago, St Louis, Kansas City and so on. Damian's next event is in August. Hope to see a bunch of DSMs out to run.
Damian allows ridealongs, you can pretty much go out on course whenever you like, and you can get a ferocious amount of lap time, all for $150. You could literally run all day if you like, stopping only to pee, get gas and eat. Damian sets up two or three classes, just to separate the cars (A = ferocious, B= Intermediate and C = Novice), and you can jump from class to class if you like. He usually runs 2 classes, but he had so many cars this time (35), he ran three class.
Because it was the Eclipse's first run since the new engine, we were eager to tune it and shake down the car. Jon Wieman rode along with me to tune the Apexi. We were running 10 psi boost on pump gas which was more than enough in the rain.
On the very first lap, exiting corner 4 in the rain, I got it sideways under power at about 80 and did a couple of vicious tail wags, but that was the biggest problem all day. Driving in the rain is very much like rally driving, where the car dances on the hairy edge of cornering and braking. I was running Toyo Proxes that were nearly slick, but they stuck well enough in the rain. For the first two sessions in the rain, the Eclipse pretty much caught and passed every car it encountered, including a 600 hp M3 and a 600 hp twin turbo 350Z.
Jon was tuning the whole time, and the car was running good. The rain stopped in the late morning, the track started to dry, and we got faster.
We discovered that the new engine, running only 10 psi boost, is equal to the old engine at 20 psi. Although it's not a perfect comparison, we were approaching turn 1 at 115 mph, same as last year. In fact, in one daring late-braking move when the track was dry, it touched 120 mph, the same as I did in my 3000GT. So, there is hope that the car will be a terror once we get it completely dialed in at 20 psi on race gas.
Alas, the gremlins returned. We lost the tach and the O2 signal, and the car started running bad, so we returned to the pits and checked the wiring. The O2 wire (we rewired it earlier this year) ran very close to the coil pack which was ungrounded, and we suspected the coil pack was interfering with the O2 signal. So we rerouted the O2 wire and attached grounding wires to the coil pack. That cured most of the problems, because it fired back up and we had an O2 signal again, but the tach was still jumping around like crazy.
I was chasing a big bad M3 all day. I got him in the rain, no contest. But as it dried out, he got faster. I'm not sure what's in this M3, but it was used as a model at Orr Motorsports during a NASA car prep forum in Minneapolis. I hear it has a $6,000 head, completely adjustable suspension, and tons of other goodies. I could almost run with him in the dry (there's a video of this, shot by Damian from behind, which I am trying to get). Alas, during the last session of the day, I started missing the 3-4 upshift. Pull the shift lever back, and the trannie goes into nowheresville. No gear. Shift back to 3rd, try again. After 3 or 4 tries, I'd finally get 4th. The M3 ran off and hid while all this was going on.
Is this symptomatic of something? A hot transmission, maybe?
We ran two more sessions after lunch, but decided NOT to kick the boost until we cured the other problems. All in all, a very good day. Very productive, the motor is tuned, and we know we can run with the big boys. When we kick the boost, it should be even more competitive.
Problems yet to fix:
Wacky Tach – maybe it's the coil pack not being grounded. We get a good rpm signal in the data logger, but not the tach.
Ground the coil pack – Right now, it's just sitting below the strut brace, held in by tie wraps, with two ground wires running to the engine. I like the location, so we will probably fab up a bracket so it can continue to sit right there. But how to ground it? The ECU throws a Coil Pack code, so we are assuming the problem is a bad ground.
Water temperature sensor – The temperature gauge on the dash appears to work properly. It heats up from cold and goes to the center when warm, then stays there all day. The ECU is not getting a temperature reading, so it throws an engine code and uses the default temp of 199 F permanently. We are not sure how to fix this. It's probably one of the wires in that goofy wiring harness (we had to reroute the O2 sensor wire for the same reason). Is this something to worry about?
4th gear – What causes the 3-4 shift to suddenly go bad, after working fine earlier? I plan to follow Greg's advice and change the trannie fluid after every event. We been using Syncromesh – you guys recommend anything else?
A bunch of photos follow. I dunno how to weave the pix into the copy like some of you do, or in what order they will come up. The first photo (I hope) shows the relocated coil pack; the photo of us in the hot pit lane was when the data logger came unplugged and Jon had to run around the car and plug it back in; the shot from the back end is entering the front straight; all the rest are shots from around the track. Note the lack of other cars in the images -- that's because there were never more than 10-12 cars on track at any one time.
Rich
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