BLACK'98DSM
5+ Year Contributor
- 4,451
- 1,889
- Feb 9, 2019
-
Alabama
Which event are you attending?The first event is exactly 3 weeks away.
Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
This site may earn a commission from merchant
affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Which event are you attending?The first event is exactly 3 weeks away.
The best way to set this is doing the chassis method! Get a digital angle finder like a wixey and level it on the subframe at the top which is chassis level and then on each setup attach it to the brake rotor! This gives you 100% chassis camber for static and works very well! I started doing this a while ago and had it check out on a hunter system and its bang on, this way also means if your on an angle surface your specs are always measured to chassis and not floor.The first event is exactly 3 weeks away. I have been slowly chipping away at my to do list. I had to pull all of the suspension back off and change some of the spacers under the new top hats to get the ride where I wanted it. Kind of a crude way to change the ride height without coilovers. But I got that all squared away.
New tires are on the way and will be here by the end of the week. I'll get those put on the new Evo wheels next week.
I've been working on setting up the alignment the last few days. I have been trying to come up with a way to set rear camber. My best thought was to use shims to make the floor level. I used a machinist level to get it as close as I could. Then hung a string from the fender and measured to the wheel. From there I can calculate camber. I tried to use a digital level at first, but I wasn't able to get repeatable results. So I thought this would be a little more accurate.
Does anyone else try to align their own car the diy way?
The alignment specs I plan on starting out with:
Front camber - Not adjustable
Front toe - 1/8" toe out
Rear camber - negative 1.25 deg
Rear toe - 1/8" toe out
View attachment 593302 View attachment 593303
That was a pretty wide open, high speed course. Looks like fun.
Race season has finally began for us in the southeast. First event was 6/9. I was really excited to see how the car was going to perform with all of the changes made.
The night before I checked the car over good, made sure nothing was loose and all of the fluid levels were good. Drained the catch can from the last few events. This car really likes to shoot oil out of the valve cover vents when on the throttle during a turn.
View attachment 603778
I should have taken more pictures of the event but it just slipped my mind. I only got 1 of the car right as I was leaving. This was a Tuesday night event, so started about 530 and ended at 11pm. Because of the virus situation, the event was capped at 60 cars, meaning we each got 8 runs in. The event did not count for point, so basically a test and tune.
View attachment 603779
The car ran perfect, had no issues with it whatsoever. Using launch control off the line worked out really well. The car launched hard for a FWD and not lifting for the shift to second kept the car pulling hard. Handling wise, the car felt pretty good. My driving wasn't the best, I made some poor line choices that really cost me a lot of time. One of my friends was also running the event and was recording video and GPS so it was good to compare our runs. He is a better driver than I am so maybe I can pick up some pointers. I picked up a 10hz GPS over the winter in hopes to get some useful data from it. I thought I had it all worked out, but it was a huge failure during the event. I had it paired to the trackaddict app to record the run, and also to megasquirt to record position. And I think that was the issue. Both logs show GPS signal totally dropping out throughout the whole run. All of the data it collected was useless. I'll get that sorted out before the next event on 6/30. This one is also not for points.
This is what 1 of my runs looked like, it missed the whole first section and then cut through the tree line.
View attachment 603794
Here is the video of my fastest run. Ended up 1st in class out of 2. But mid pack overall. I spun the car going into the first slalom on my second run, the rear just didn't have enough heat in it yet, and it made me a little nervous on that off camber sweeper, so I babied the car some in that section. They run this same course all year on the night series, so I'll get another shot at it. This is actually the same course as last year to.
Comments and tips are always welcome.
The long overdue update. The 2020 season was pretty much a bust for me. Between events being cancelled and my schedule, I was only able to make it out to 1 more event late in the summer. I am sitting in grid and start the car to let it warm back up to prepare for my first run.. and the alternator decides to go out. I had no idea how the tune would be running at such a low voltage, so I just packed it up and had the car towed back home. AAA free towing has paid off once again. I put a new alternator in the car and all was well again. This pretty much ends 2020 as the car just sat for the rest of the year.
This was taken at the last 2020 event.
View attachment 624436
2021 has brought a new autox season and hopefully some good racing. The first event for us started March 9. I had a short list I needed to complete before the car was ready. The passenger side compression arm bushing was trashed, this arm was replaced years ago but not with an OEM part, I think it was dorman, and the bushing was just a POS. However, I did find that you can buy just the bushing for these arms. I settled on a Moog part, pressed out the old bushing and put the new one in.
View attachment 624437
View attachment 624438
View attachment 624439
I also changed the oil, checked the alignment, boost leak tested the car. The throttle body shaft has a pretty bad leak, but I didn't have time to fix that. Its a speed density car so it doesn't hurt the tune any. The night before the event I was packing up the car and doing my normal bolt check to make sure everything was tight. I found a turbo to manifold bolt that was loose, I tried to tighten it, but what really happened was the threads were so bad in the housing that it was just spinning. So out came the welder to just weld the stud in the housing. This didn't work out well as the weld just popped as I tried to tighten the nut back up. No exhaust was leaking so I just decided to send it with only 3 bolts holding it together. Thankfully this ended up being good enough for the event and I'll just pull the turbo and helicoil the housing.
The first event turned out great, weather was a little cool, around 50F, but the car ran flawless. The course setup was really good and played into the strengths of the car. I normally have issues getting down to low in 2nd and it takes forever for the car to pull back out of it. This course I was able to leave it in first to get past all of the slow corners, then the course opened up some and I was able to keep the speed up enough to keep the turbo spooling fast. The video is below, its dark and hard to see, but its better than no video. I ended up 1st in SMF and placed 16 out of 70 cars raw time, which I was really happy about.
When I was reviewing the videos, you can see the oil pressure gauge drop on just about every right handed turn (middle gauge on the pillar). Its hard to see how low its going, maybe down to about 20psi. I'm really not sure how long this has been going on since I always ran the video outside the car, but it is something I need to work on. I plan on pulling the pan and adding some baffles to try and keep the oil around the pickup more.
Holy crap - never done an autocross at night. That looks challenging, and wildly entertaining! I bet it's a rush. Good for you.
Hopefully the low oil pressure isn't anything bad.
You might want to look at buying or making a vented oil cap then. I'm glad I did.@BLACK'98DSM The car loves to shoot oil out of the valve cover breathers. I drain my catch can after every few events and I get about 6-8oz of oil out of it. If I am on the throttle in the sweeper I know oil is going into the catch can. Crappy VC baffling I suppose.