98 GSX Time Trial build

[gsxitement]

Continued work on the splitter. The professional awesome quick release mounts are situated. This weekend, hopefully start trimming it to how I want it to fit, and then add the air dam, splitter tunnels and support rods.

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[gsxitement]

Got a little ahead of schedule for once . Splitter is pretty much shaped the way I want. Added my splitter tunnels from professional awesome. This weekend should be finishing it up. Need to add the air dam and splitter rods. Then decide if I'm going to paint it, stain it or what .

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[gsxitement]

My splitter support rods came with some pucks to keep the splitter from bouncing off the track. The supplied hardware was too short to fasten through the splitter and they're a tapered Allen head bolt, so I had to make my own. Took some pan head Phillips, 8×1.25×30mm screws and chucked them up in the lathe at work. Cut them into a 45 degree taper. Hopefully this weekend, get it all assembled.

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[gsxitement]

A little more splitter progress. Started working on the air dam yesterday. Just mocked up for now.

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[gsxitement]

Got to spend a little time yesterday on the splitter. Started working out the splitter support rods. Professional awesome stuff is great. But I do have one complaint. The clevis mounting for the splitter side of the rod is 8×1.25. Fine. No biggie. But the clevis on the chassis side is 5/16ths 24. Like, not only is it a pita to have to have two different size bits of hardware, but one metric and one standard? That's kinda ridiculous. So I got it all mocked up. I'll drill holes and finalize the the support rods today.

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[gsxitement]

Had to adjust my placement of the support rods, but it's up!

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[UKNOWHO]

Looks good from here!!

 

[gsxitement]

Looks good from here!!

!!!

 

[ec17pse]

I think you need the whole family to stand and test it with you

 

[gsxitement]

I think you need the whole family to stand and test it with you

I'm fat enough .

 

[gsxitement]

Well, just about done with the front end. Splitter is pretty much finished. Air dam is mounted. I made plugs for the holes in the bumper to help keep the front end smooth. Also ran some tube to blow on the alternator to try and keep it alive. Hope that works. 2 1/2 weeks till NJMP.

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[gsxitement]

Got the car on the ground. Have to make some adjustments and clean everything, but pretty happy with how it all turned out! Hope it performs as well as it looks.

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[AndrexZ]

Awesome build!! Taking note.....!

 

[AndrexZ]

Where did you get the 2 black tunnels??

Where does the right side tunnel take the air from?

Do you have an air duct for the alternator?

Thanks man! Keep it up!

 

[gsxitement]

Where did you get the 2 black tunnels??

Where does the right side tunnel take the air from?

Do you have an air duct for the alternator?

Thanks man! Keep it up!

Thanks! Appreciate it! So the splitter tunnels are from professional awesome. Right side tunnel? And yes, I have a duct in the bumper that has a hose attached that blows on the alternator.

 

[gsxitement]

NJMP update.
We were at NJMP (New Jersey Motorsports Park) over the weekend for rounds 4 and 5 of the North East Time Attack Series presented by EMRA. I knew coming into the weekend we had a really good chance of gaining points in the championship. One, I love both tracks there and have a lot of confidence. And 2, the guy I’m racing for the championship wasn’t coming to the event. So it was the perfect time to maximize points.
Went out for first session. Again, had an issue with the alternator. I installed a bolt gauge just to keep tabs on it, and on false grid it wasn’t charging. Made the pace lap and came right back in. After freaking out for a couple minutes, my good buddy was like “let’s eliminate the plug, cause it looks awful, and at the very least we’ll take that out of the equation of possible failures.” I resisted, but ultimately went with that. Turned out that was the problem.
Went out for second session, and first time coming down the front straight, the professional awesome splitters rods failed and the splitter dropped to the track. Came back around, my awesome guys got the splitter off the car and had me back out with enough time to turn a 1:31 lap, which was already 2 seconds faster than my previous PB. I had been able to stand on the splitter, and I’m roughly 210-214 pounds, so the splitter was making more downforce than that. Luckily the splitter survived with minimal damage. The chassis mount broke so I’ll have to make a new one. As for the splitter support rods, I’m just going to continue using the proawesome splitter clevis’, but use threaded rod instead of the compression style fitting they use.
Went out for the final session, and the car was cranking. My guy Ken from Black Sheep Tuning came up from North Carolina with his brother to tune the car. I’ve been having trouble with my PiLink, so he would make changes based on my comments after coming in off track. So with a combination of his tune up and the new A052 tires, the car was really hooked up. Had ultimate confidence in the car. That confidence allowed me to push hard and ended the day with a 1:29.433. Which won 1st in class and fastest time of day! Still really stoked on that.
Sunday, we were at lightning. Went out first session, did my warm up lap, one flier and and a cool down lap. The whole weekend, the car was getting very hot under hot lap conditions. Getting up to 250 water temp. I’d see it get to 250, I’d cool the car down to 210, and start another flier. The water temp would skyrocket almost immediately, so after my 1st flier of the day, I pulled in. We discussed the situation and determined that we might be lifting the head. So we decided that after the motor cooled, we’d retorque the head. As we were retorquing the head, we did find some loose studs nuts. More like 70lbsft instead of the 90 we run. So we’re bringing them back up to 90 when we noticed one stud wasn’t taking the torque. Turns out the stud had pulled the threads out of the block. So we were done. But, my one flier was a 1:13.7 something, and that was fast enough to give us the win in class! I’m confident that if we didn’t have the issue with the stud, we would’ve gained time and had another fastest time of day. But, it wasn’t meant to be. But we’ll take it! We now have a 25 point lead on 2nd in the championship with one event left in October, so there’s no chance 2nd place can catch us. Overall an amazing weekend, with amazing friends, doing racecar things.
We’ll make repairs to the car before Lime Rock in October and go out and try to get fastest time of day again. I’ve been stuck at the 1:00 flat lap time there for a little bit, for one reason or another. But I’m confident with the tune and the tires, and the front splitter setup and working, we’ll see some significant gain in lap time. At least I hope.
Lime Rock is October 16th! Hope some of you can make it!!

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[talon77]

This is awesome to read overall in spite of the issues, keep it up man! Reading progress stories like this really make me want to get my car back up and running again to hit the track

 

[gsxitement]

Got the cylinder head off last week. Everything looks ok. Cylinder walls are unhappy, but that’s something we’ll address over the off season. Only one more event to go so I’m not going to go crazy. Not burning oil, and compression is perfect, so just going to repair the block and get ready for Lime Rock in October.

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[GST with PSI]

It's hard to tell in the pic, but the cylinder walls don't look horrible to me.

Nice work on the track. Persistence is the key, and you keep going back at it. Love the progress and updates.

 

[gsxitement]

It's hard to tell in the pic, but the cylinder walls don't look horrible to me.

Nice work on the track. Persistence is the key, and you keep going back at it. Love the progress and updates.

They’re pretty banged up. I’ll measure out of round and taper after the last race and see if I can get away with a fresh hone and new pistons or what. Thanks!! I feel like the car is really rounding the corner on reliability and the development of everything. When the car works, it works great.

 

[gsxitement]

Got my helicoil kit in yesterday, so hopefully I can find the time tonight or this weekend to get it all repaired and back together. We’re getting ready to do some renovations on the house, part of which is redoing the garage floor, so everything has to come out. We’re starting August 30th, so the car has to be mobile by then. A neighbor offered to let me put my stuff in her garage while the floor is done, so that’s a big help. We’ll see if that happens though.

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[gsxitement]

Helicoil in and done. Hopefully get the car back together and running this week.

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[gsxitement]

This is the only footage I got from the entire weekend at NJMP. Very sad.

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[GSXbooster]

Great bit of video there nonetheless! So much awesomeness!

 

[gsxitement]

Great bit of video there nonetheless! So much awesomeness!

Thank you! Turns out that the lap that I started in the vid was actually one of my two fastest laps. Irritated, but still got the time and the win. So in the grand scheme of things I’m happy.