98 GSX Time Trial build

[gsxitement]

I've been working on the plumbing for the electronic boost control. Went with the Mac 4 port solenoid. Running tube to the wastegate, and then changing over to steel braid to the chassis mounted solenoid.

 

[gsxitement]

Also made a bracket that will support the tube and hose connection. Should have some pieces by the weekend and I can finish this up.

 

[gsxitement]

Finished most of the boost controller hardlines and braided hose to the solenoid today. Just have to mount the solenoid and run the boost signal hose to it and wire up.

 

[gsxitement]

Update time: I got in touch with Johnny over at Nine Lives Racing in March about making a proper rear wing setup for my car. After an insane situation with the USPS, he finally got the Spyder trunk lid I sent to him, and we've since moved forward with the design and building of the wing. Whether the wing will be ready for Road Atlanta in July, I'm not sure. Hopefully so though. I decided I'm going to run most of the factory cluster, as far as tach, speedo, and alternator light so the alternator charges. So I started working on a harness for that. I also had to redo the front bumper mount as for what ever reason, after I got down with the original, it left a huge gap between the hood and bumper. So remade that and it's good now. Just have to remake a part of the header plate so it's nice and sealed again. Been working on the tune a little bit with my buddy Ken and Black sheep tuning. Hopefully getting it on the Dyno next month. Also finished the boost controller setup and have it all wired up and ready to go.

 

[mountain_man]

I saw the post you made on FB regarding the wing, but can you start a thread on DSMtuners as well? I'm sure the community would be interested in following this process and potentially procuring a wings as well.

 

[gsxitement]

I saw the post you made on FB regarding the wing, but can you start a thread on DSMtuners as well? I'm sure the community would be interested in following this process and potentially procuring a wings as well.

I plan on doing a full write up of the wing process as soon as it moves forward from where we were in the post above. Johnny over there at Nine Lives has been very busy, so not even really sure they're at with my wing at the moment. As soon as the situation is update-able, there will be as much info on it as I can get out there, including installation and setup.

 

[gsxitement]

Had to do some work on my truck, so I had to pull the eclipse out if the garage. Gave me an excuse to take some pics.

 

[gsxitement]

Update time. Been busy with a bunch of things around the house and being back at work full time. But, this what's been happening.

Had to cancel my trip to Global Time Attack Road Atlanta that's this week. Cars not ready and taking a 15 hour road trip for the cars first time out wouldn't be smart. Luckily, Jason at GTA sent me a credit to use as my entry for GTA NJMP in August. The first weekend in August is going to be NJMP lightning with EMRA. That'll be a nice two test essentially, getting the car ready for GTA a couple weeks after. But first, the car has to go to the dyno, which will happen later this week. Had the car running a bit here and there and the alternator took a crap. So got a new 98 Galant alternator in there. Also got a bunch of aero goodies from professional awesome. Fender vents and their quick release splitter mounts. Really excited to just get on track again and have some fun. Really looking forward to it.
Also added a check valve for the accusump to keep the accusump putting oil into the engine and not back feeding towards the oil pump. Also got the car aligned and corner balanced. 2875 with me in it which is horrendous. Really need to cut weight from this thing. Mostly going to be the rear hatch and glass. And the sunroof. Hopefully be able to get a carbon hatch and lexan the windows. But, making progress. Hoping the dyno goes well. Updates soon.

 

[NWHTanK]

Carefully with the rpms I fried my gallant alt. Im going to have mine rebuilt and modify a kingly under drive for it.

 

[gsxitement]

Carefully with the rpms I fried my gallant alt. Im going to have mine rebuilt and modify a kingly under drive for it.

Yeah I've been running Galant alternators for a while and generally fry one a season. I shift at 7K, but the heat and abuse, the alternators just can't hang. Looking at doing maybe a full custom setup for next season, depending on budget.

 

[gsxitement]

Welp, went to the dyno on Friday. The numbers were pretty awesome. Had my buddy Ken McDonald Remote tune it. If you've been around the scene, you've hopefully heard of or talked to Ken. He's someone who really studies tuning. Understands the art of it, and wants to be regarded as a great tuner. And his talents shown through at the dyno. We had done a couple baseline street pulls just to get in the ballpark.
Strapped to the Dyno, our baseline was decent but not great. The previous tune on the old setup had netted us 370ish whp, and 290lbsft. Decent HP but not nearly enough torque for road racing. After several pulls, and Ken working his magic in increments so as to not hurt the motor, we finally got some pretty serious numbers. 30psi on 100octane, we got 465whp and 432lbsft of torque. This Xona rotor turbo is super responsive. Max torque at 3800rpm. Should be an animal getting off the corner. Excited to see how it feels in track.

 

[gsxitement]

Splitter is almost done. This is basic splitter with tunnels in place. Got the driver's side mount done. Just needs to be cleaned up and painted. Then I can do the passenger side and make the rear mounts. The mounts are gonna be pretty easy. Just some flat stock with a piece of of square tube that can fit in the back of the splitter frame. There's gonna be a situation there that will allow for the splitter angle to be adjustable. Everything in the pic below is loose just for mock up so if it looks wonky, that's why. Then I just have to make splitter rods up front, and the splitter will be done for the most part.

Nines lives emailed me yesterday and said the mounts are on the CNC machine, so hopefully I get the wing before NJMP in two weeks.

Getting excited to to get back on track. Ordered two trailer tires, should have those soon. A couple other things to do with the trailer and we'll be ready for the haul down to NJMP. Can't wait!

 

[gsxitement]

We race next weekend!! Splitter is pretty much done. MadeJMade my splitter support rods yesterday. Then just some detail work nees to be done. This week will be going over everything, getting 2 trailer tires mounted and balanced, going over my gear. Very excited.

 

[gsxitement]

Didn't have the best weekend at NJMP a couple weeks ago. The new tune with added boost promptly showed us the weak spots of the setup. Mainly the couplers. Actually exploded one into total oblivion. The coupler wasn't a nice silicon one, so my fault on that one. But even after we made repairs, I tore the brand new extremePSI coupler that was in the car. So I've ordered some nice couplers from silicon intakes and made the charge pipe from the turbo to the intercooler one piece. So less opportunity to blow couplers.

Also, my Nine Lives Racing Wing came it. It took forever, but being that it was the first one made, kinda should've expected that. Quality is excellent and mounting was a breeze. Definitely going to have to add some reinforcement under the trunk lid to spread any loading the wing will produce at speed. Very happy with the outcome and can't wait to try it out.

GTA NJMP got cancelled due to Jerseys quarantine protocol, which really sucks but I get it. Safety first. So the next event we get to do is Lime Rock on September 26th. Really looking forward to going back there and seeing what the new setup can do. Confident I'll get under a minute there finally.

 

[GSXbooster]

Big wang gang! Haha! Looking good buddy.
I'm curious, what made you change up the wing? Were you feeling the rear getting squirrely going faster?

 

[gsxitement]

Big wang gang! Haha! Looking good buddy.
I'm curious, what made you change up the wing? Were you feeling the rear getting squirrely going faster?

Well, I figured with the added front downforce, I'd need to try and balance it out in the back. And that little 50 dollar eBay wing just wasn't gonna cut it. This......this will cut it .

 

[gsxitement]

Got the car on the ground and out of the garage. Got my fender height measurements. Gotta make some adjustments. But getting ready for Lime Rock in two weeks. But man. That wing .

 

[gsxitement]

Getting ready for my buddy to come by and balance align the car today, so spent some time cleaning the garage up. Also did a test fit of the splitter now that I cut the mounts a bit to get higher off the ground. Worked well. Raised it up about an inch. Should be good now. It's four inches off the ground and I have about 2 1/2" travel in the suspension, so shouldn't have any significant issues with the splitter rubbing. Hopefully. Lime Rock in two weeks, so need to buckle down on a couple things. But should be an ok outing. Don't mind the bowing on the sides of the splitter. Some the airdam hardware is hitting the bumper and just needs to be cut down to fix that.

 

[gsxitement]

Update. Lime Rock was a mixed bag. First session out, did my warm up lap. Getting on to the front straight decided to give it the beans. When I was lining up for my entry into T1, the splitter grabbed the grass and got ripped off the car. And that's why it was made out of plywood and not something more expensive . When the splitter got ripped off, it knocked an oil line loose. Got back to the paddock and was able to make repairs. Got back out the next session, and the car was feeling ok. The BOV spring is too soft, so modulating throttle results in a pretty drastic cut in power, which in turn creates a ton of weight transfer, so the car was really unbalanced for the first part of the session. And then, tore ANOTHER coupler. This time at the outlet of the turbo. I think this was a combination of two things. 1: the intercooler on the car (some godspeed ebay junk from 2006) just can't keep up with the turbos efficiency. The turbo flows so much air so quickly, that the intercooler becomes a restriction creating a situation where the couplers really expand a lot, and 2: there was was deflection in the tubing getting on boost, so with the coupler swelling and the pipe deflecting, it cut the coupler. Didn't burst it entirely, just put a cut enough so I couldn't make even spring pressure. On the front straight, I'm usually in 5th gear at around 140+ when I get on the brakes for T1. But because of the coupler being torn, I couldn't even get out of 4th, so it really hurt my time pretty badly. Still came home 2nd in class even with the issue thanks to setting a pretty quick lap before the coupler tore.

Picked up a new intercooler from my buddy. A 4" core with much better heat sink capabilities. Should definitely be a nice step up from the junk core that's been on the car forever. So I think with this bigger intercooler and doing some bracing of the charge pipe, we'll be ok for next season.

So that's it for this terrible 2020 season. Learned a few things, and whatever seat time I DID get was great. Had a really great battle with a C4 corvette racecar. Was totally all over him in the corners, but with a torn coupler, he just pulled me heavy on the straights. But I know if the car was making the power it's supposed to, it wouldn't have even been a battle.

Time to start getting ready for the 2021 season. Gonna put the car on hold for a little bit while we await the arrival of my daughter in the next month. I have some ideas to make the car turn every lap next season. Just gotta see how the budget plays out.

 

[gsxitement]

Not much to update. Been very busy with our new baby. Had a baby girl last week. Very happy about that. Prior to her showing up, I started going over the front wheel wells and removing the seam sealer and checking the rust situation with the strut tops. They're actually in really good shape considering how bad I've seen them get on other cars. Decided to also do some seam welding to stiffen the chassis a bit. Then gonna POR 15 the wheel wells to keep any more rust from forming. Fun little projects. The rockers and pinches under the car are in really bad shape, so going to have to address those as well this winter.

 

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

This is a horrible job. I been here and it sucked so much .

 

[gsxitement]

This is a horrible job. I been here and it sucked so much .

Oh my God it's the worst . That's why I'm only doing the fronts for now. Then next off season I'll do the rears. The rockers and pinch welds are gonna be serious work. I'll take pics of those when I get to the garage at some point.

 

[Vegas Smith]

Good luck getting any work done with that baby here. Congrats. They are such precious creatures.

 

[gsxitement]

Good luck getting any work done with that baby here. Congrats. They are such precious creatures.

Yeah. I haven't been out there in two weeks. Going through withdrawals . I'll get back out there soon.

 

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

Oh my God it's the worst . That's why I'm only doing the fronts for now. Then next off season I'll do the rears. The rockers and pinch welds are gonna be serious work. I'll take pics of those when I get to the garage at some point.

Mine was not as bad as yours in the wells but even then its tricky. I ended up poly sealing all the joints so no more water can find its way through causing issues. Its a very messy job and i got pics to prove how messy it can be and is on my page. Wear a hat and full face covering i say as i ate so much grit. All i can say is enjoy the job as i dont ever wish to do it again!!!! EVER!!!! HAHA