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Drag Week 2G DSM - 8 Second Street Car

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Got Grip

20+ Year Contributor
289
261
Sep 17, 2002
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

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Cliff Notes: Build an 8 second AWD DSM that can be driven 1000 miles between tracks to race for 5 straight days.

This is going to be a lengthy build with some long posts as I go into a lot of detail on what I'm doing. Feel free to skip the history of how I got to this point and go straight to the build. The entire build will also be documented on http://dragweekdsm.com.

History:


I was basically born into drag racing. My dad has been drag racing since he was 16 and I’m pretty sure I was at Atco Raceway when I was still in the womb. I became my dad’s “Crew Chief” as soon as I was old enough to help out and I used to pick the dial-ins for him in his 1963 Nova bracket car. When I was 11, NHRA started the Junior Drag Racing league and my dad offered to match any money I could make towards building a car. I mowed as many lawns as I could and made enough money to build a Junior Dragster. I raced in that series from ages 12 to 16 when I got my drivers license. My first car was a 1970 Chevrolet C10 pickup that I got from a farm for a few hundred dollars. By the time I graduated high school, it was a high 13 second truck, lowered, painted, etc. It was my pride and joy. Unfortunately, I went to college 700 miles from home and a 13 second, 30+ year old truck wasn’t the most practical college vehicle for a 19 year old so I had to get something better.

In 2001 I purchased my first DSM, a 1996 Eclipse GS just to have something good on fuel to drive to school. I played with that car for a year and I was fortunate enough to meet Paul Johnson (Boost Junkie) during that time and he showed me what a turbo AWD DSM could do. At the time his 1997 Eclipse GSX had a Mutt 50 trim on it, top to bottom flow FMIC and all the supporting mods. We used to take it to back roads in “Mexico” and use our G-tech g-meter to see what it would run. That’s the car that got me hooked on DSM’s and I owe all of that to Paul. I’m very fortunate to have known Paul and I wish he was still with us to see this build.

Almost a year to the day from purchasing my GS, I found my 1995 Eclipse GSX. I purchased it in August of 2002 and it’s been undergoing changes ever since. Paul and I modified our cars together all through college at Clemson and we both had solid 11 second cars when we graduated in 2005, we had a pretty intense rivalry and we would to spend most Friday nights at Atlanta Dragway racing.

After college, I began racing the car in the NOPI drag racing series on a whim. I ended up placing second in my first event which gave me enough money to go to another event. I placed second at the next event which gave me enough money to go to the NOPI finals in Norwalk where I was fortunate enough to win. I spent the next couple years racing with NOPI and then NHRA Sport Compact when they merged with NOPI and placed as high as second in the national points. The car went as quick as a 9.99 at 140 MPH and would run down in the 10.20 to 10.30 at 144 MPH range semi-consistently on street tires.

In 2008, my dad and I decided to build a 4G63 dragster. Over the next 10 years, we focused most of our attention and money on racing the dragster, chasing NHRA points, NHRA records and 4G63 records. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to build, design, tune, drive and partially own one of the quickest 4 cylinders in the world. In 2018 we went 6.47 at 210 MPH. Later in 2018, my dad and I decided to do Drag Week (more on what Drag Week is later) in his 1963 Nova Drag car, the same one I used to pick dial-ins for as a kid. We spent the summer getting the car ready and completed the 1000 mile drive and 5 days of racing and averaged 10.622 seconds for the week. It was a crazy adventure that we both agreed we would have to do again.

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During that same 10 year span, the 2G went through a couple very slow builds but for a majority of the time it was apart waiting for me to get time to put it back together.

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That brings us to today and I’m about to show just how stupid I am. My 2G is essentially a bare chassis at the moment and I’m in the beginning stages of an epic build with the goal of AVERAGING 8’s at Hot Rod Drag Week, 2019.

So what’s Drag week? Hot Rod Drag Week is a 5-day racing and rally style event at 4 tracks across the North East US. This is a grueling drag race where the car is raced every day for 5 days with approximately 250 miles of public street driving between each event. The challenge is, you must drive your race car between each event, on a prescribed route designed by Hot Rod Magazine to be as challenging as possible. No support vehicles are allowed, no follow vehicles, just your race car, a small trailer towed by the race car and the people within the race car for 5 days of racing. It’s a true torture test of both man and machine and it’s extremely challenging to just complete the event.

Event Tracks and Dates:

Monday, September 9
Virginia Motorsports Park, Dinwiddie, VA

Tuesday, September 10
Cecil County Dragway, Rising Sun, MD

Wednesday, September 11
Atco Dragway, Atco, NJ

Thursday, September 12
Maryland International Raceway, Mechanicsville, MD

Friday, September 13
Virginia Motorsports Park, Dinwiddie, VA


This is the first entry of what’s going to be a long build blog. I’ll be doing my best to post everything here but I’ll also be working to keep my web site up to date to match this blog, I’ll be setting up my Facebook page and sharing on my Instagram account. Here are all of those resources:

Website: http://dragweekdsm.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dragweekdsm/

Instagram: @tony_turbo4


I also have some AMAZING partners on this build, please support them as they support this community and help make these builds possible. Follow their social media pages, use their products, buy from their web sites. Support the companies that still support our platform:

http://www.fuelinjectorclinic.com

http://www.extremePSI.com

http://www.tialsport.com

http://www.haltech.com

http://turbo4.com


Here’s a high-level overview of what the build will be with some of the more unique touches highlighted:

· 2.0L Aluminum Rod turbo4 engine

· Aaron Gregory DSM Automatic Transmission

· Full DSS driveline

· Tubular subframes

· T4 Top Mount header with S400SX turbo

· Haltech Elite 2500 engine management

· Dual fuel system – small primary FIC injectors on 93 octane, Secondary 2150’s on E98 – Secondaries will phase in under boost

· Drive by Wire throttle body – to help with cruise, startup, idle and drivability

· Extensive coolers to handle everything from stopped in traffic to highway driving

· Extensive weight reduction including

o Tubular subframes

o Lightweight brakes

o Fiberglass doors

o Carbon hood and hatch

o Carbon sunroof
 
To get started, I basically 100% disassembled a good running, 148 MPH trapping dog box equipped, close to full weight 2G. To stay alive for the week, I felt I had to put an automatic in the car so I bought a transmission and all of the required swap parts and shipped the transmission to Aaron Gregory for some upgrades. While the engine and subframes were out, I decided to paint the engine bay, something I’ve been wanting to do for the past 10+ years but just never had the time.

I purchased paint from Paintscratch.com that is a perfect OEM paint color match. I considered the engine bay a test so I bought some rattle cans from them, primer, paint and clear coat. The paint turned out to be a PERFECT match to the OEM color so I’ve since ordered some ready to spray paint for some future work on the car.

The engine bay was very challenging to spray, trying to get into all the tight spots and get full coverage but in the end it turned out really well. To get a little extra shine, I bought Meguires Pro polishing compound and spent a couple hours cleaning things up. I’m pretty happy with how it came out, I hope I don’t destroy it on a week of thrashing at Drag Week!

Onto the pictures!

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This should be awesome! Looking forward to the progress ... Engine bay turned out great!

Thanks! It’s not perfect and I’m pretty anal about stuff so I’ll probably redo it at some point. But it’s good enough for Drag Week.

What is the drive-by-wire throttle body setup?

I’ll go into this in more detail in a future post but basically it’s a GM gas pedal and 90mm throttle body. They’re only tied together through wiring to the Haltech Elite ECU. What this allows me to do is tailor the throttle opening and response how I want. For example, I could make it so that throttle pedal percentage gives me that percentage of power. So like 50% throttle pedal would be 50% power. This would likely be significantly less than 50% throttle opening. I’ll add pictures of the throttle body and pedal tonight.

I have a bunch more work done on the car already so I’ll be posting a lot in the next couple weeks to catch up to the current status. I think my next post will be more details about the whole plan and setup, and I’m hoping to announce a new partner in the project soon. :)
 
hes going to be using an electronic throttle body/ pedal assembly instead of a mechanical tb and cable.
Yes I understand what a drive by wire throttle body is. Just wanted to know how he was setting it up.
 
Yes I understand what a drive by wire throttle body is. Just wanted to know how he was setting it up.

Did I answer enough for now? If you have any specific questions on it I’d be happy to help. I haven’t set it up yet but I have all the parts and have started laying out the wiring.
 
Did I answer enough for now? If you have any specific questions on it I’d be happy to help. I haven’t set it up yet but I have all the parts and have started laying out the wiring.
Yes you did. Sounds like it will be a good setup. I’ll check back once you get it setup. Looks like you will have a nice clean car.
 
This post isn't as much about the build as cool pictures of great products and showing off an incredible partner for the project. I couldn't do this project without partners like this and their amazing products. With that said however, even without Tial being a partner, this car would still be running a pair of Tial 38mm MV-S waste gates and one or two Tial Q Blow Off Valves. Now those parts just happen to be custom engraved. :) I'll be posting more info from project partners as the build progresses and I ask everyone to help in supporting these sponsors as they are helping support our community.

Welcome Tial Sport to the Drag Week DSM and the Turbo4 4G63 Dragster! We've run their products on both vehicles since the beginning with 100% reliability and confidence. Their waste gates and blow off valves are the best of the best and made in the USA! Now we get to have custom engraved Tial Sport products on our cars! Please support the companies that help support the community.

http://www.tialsport.com

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This post will be to go into some more detail about what the actual plan is with the car. Racing for 5 days and 1000 miles of street driving in between is going to be grueling on the car. We will be towing a trailer with spare parts, tools and slicks. You’re not allowed to have a support vehicle and technically only the people who ride in the car can even work on it. So later in this build, I’ll be going into the trailer hitch, building the trailer and stocking it with supplies, but that’s for a later post. Let’s focus on the car first.

The pictures throughout this post are all of the last build on this car.

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Engine:

I currently have a 2.0L turbo4.com aluminum rod engine for the car. The engine is probably about 7 or 8 years old at this point but doesn’t have a ton of mileage since I kept changing setups on the car during that time. The engine saw at least 5 2-3-2 shifts happening at about 9500 RPM’s so it’s seen in the ballpark of 13,000 RPM’s multiple times. Because of that, I decided to tear the motor down and go through it and it turns out, everything is perfect! I could put the bearings right back in it but since it’s apart, I’m going to put some fresh bearings in it and a fresh head gasket. My dad technically does all the engine work. He really enjoys that work. When it’s going back together, I’ll grab pictures of the build to post.

For the head, I have a turbo4.com CNC ported 1G head along with some fresh Kelford Camshafts. The head also has Manley Performance valves and Kiggly beehive springs. On the intake side I’ll be running a DVDT Fab intake manifold and on the exhaust side a Shearer Fab divided T4 top mount header.

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Drivetrain:

I’m going to swap to an automatic for this build as I think it gives me the best chance of surviving the week. The transmission is currently with Aaron Gregory getting a host of upgrades and a once over by the 5 time Shootout champ. I’ll be getting a Precision converter for the car and I already have the Kiggly 6 bolt in a 2G auto kit. From there, I’ll be utilizing stock 2G front axles for the front. A 300M upgraded tcase, DSS 3.5” aluminum driveshaft, factory 2G auto rear differential and DSS Stage 5 rear axles. That pretty much rounds out the driveline.


Electronics:

A Haltech Elite 2500T will be managing just about everything in the car. I’m using the Haltech long harness as a basis for the wiring harness for the car and I’ll be using an additional fuse box for some of the remaining items. I’ll be using the Haltech CAN wideband, CAN 4 channel EGT box and a multitude of sensors. The Haltech will be controlling everything for the engine, the staged injection, ignition timing, boost control, etc. It will also be controlling the various cooling fans, throttle body, idle control and some other stuff that I’ll go into later.

The throttle body setup I spoke about a bit above, it’s a GM drive-by-wire throttle body and gas pedal wired into the Haltech Elite. What this should do is allow me to have the ultimate idle control and drivability with a throttle body that can handle way more power than I need to make on this project. I could also add cruise control with the DBW throttle body but I’m not if I will or not yet.

Fuel System:

The fuel system is another “unique” aspect of this build. The stock fuel tank will be utilized with a Walbro pump and some small Fuel Injector Clinic injectors in the head. This will be the primary fuel system that will be used 100% of the time. I’ll be able to fill the tank with 93 octane and drive the car around on this system as much as I want. A small fuel cell is being added for E98 with twin Bosch 044 pumps, a secondary rail on the DVDT Fab intake and Fuel Injector Clinic 2150 CC injectors. At a pre-determined airflow or boost level, the Haltech will turn the 044 pumps on, then shortly after it will begin injecting fuel with the 2150’s.

Chassis:

The chassis is a mostly stock 95 Eclipse GSX with an 8.50 certified cage that was installed by Ken’s Kustom Chassis. It is also getting tubular front and rear sub frames and tubular control arms. The car will be running on JIC FLTA2 coil overs all around. It’s also getting Wilwood 6 piston front brakes and BrakeMan single piston rear brakes.

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Weight Reduction:

The car has most of the usual weight reduction items done already, removed AC, heat, power steering, etc. I’ve also removed the sound deadening and any unused misc items I could. It’s had a carbon fiber hood on it for years and for drag week, I’m adding fiberglass doors, a carbon sunroof and a carbon hatch with a lexan rear window. The tubular subframes and the brakes mentioned above are also a very large weight savings. I also have Kirkey seats in the car and a majority of the interior will be gutted for this event. Prior to this, I always prided myself on having a 100% full interior “street” car but in an effort to keep this alive, the interior is going.

Cooling:

The engine cooling is via a Scirroco radiator and I’m considering adding a secondary coolant cooler in the stock intercooler location. I also have large oil and transmission coolers on their way, both with fans. I’ll be documenting those installations once I get to them.


I’m sure I’ve missed a lot of stuff in this write up and there are a few items I’ve intentionally left out for now also. I’ll be going into much more detail on all of these components as I work on the car and progress with the build.


Feel free to ask questions and I’ll do my best to answer.

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Wait, it is you!?
I was reading and while looking at the pics I was thinking this is Tony's car.
Can't wait to see this in action.
 
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Thanks everyone! I got a bunch more work done, pictures taken, etc. I just need to get some time to do some writeups to post. I've also secured a new sponsor that I can't wait to reveal. :)

Feel free to ask questions about anything and I'll do my best to answer, there are still a couple things that I have to keep to myself for now but for the most part I'll share anything.

Also, please follow my sponsors on the major social media sites. They're the companies that help make stuff like this possible.

TiAL Sport
Fuel Injector Clinic
Extreme PSI
Haltech USA
Turbo4

New Mystery Sponsor to be revealed soon!
 
Very cool!

In the past, reichen had issues with his 1g towing a trailer. Killed is converter/trans.

Granted it was a small tiny uhaul, but heavy none the less. I hope you ate planning something no larger and heavier than absolutely necessary.

In the 50's there was a pop-up camper, that bolted to the bumper on each side, and use a single large caster to support the weight and maneuverability. With almost zero drag or mpg degrease.

One other thing you have going, is the possibility of a lockup torque converter. I hope you are planning on using that feature.
 
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Very cool!

In the past, reichen had issues with his 1g towing a trailer. Killed is converter/trans.

Granted it was a small tiny uhaul, but heavy none the less. I hope you ate planning something no larger and heavier than absolutely necessary.

In the 50's there was a pop-up camper, that bolted to the bumper on each side, and use a single large caster to support the weight and maneuverability. With almost zero drag or mpg degrease.

One other thing you have going, is the poaapossibi of a lockup torque converter. I hope you are planning on using that feature.

What's up Graham..... couldn't this problem be overcome by just using a large cooler on the trans? I am only assuming it died from getting too hot.
 
So that is a question that has many variables to answer.

I think what the killer was, is that those uhauls weigh close to 600lbs or more. If not 1000, (and it wasn't one of those tiny little pup aero trailers either)
Now if the whole kit n caboodle weighed 1000 lbs with everything in it? I bet it wouldn't be nearly the issue it was.
And it was a 1g, no lockup on the converter, and it died while cruising, not at the track. So a part of me says, it needed more trans cooler and a much lighter trailer.
 
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