My fuse box relocation (project log)

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

When i pull my spark plugs out on my daily i get red deposits on them but small. I use fuel cleaner every few months so is just a side effect of that

 

[Justin DuBois]

Is it stinky? like sulpher?

 

[FIBA M - EC17PSE]

Is it stinky? like sulpher?

Nah its just a fine like powder that burns on. I not noticed any smell from it. The ceramics tend to go red/brown vs staying while or light tan. Im not sureif i got my old plugs anymore but if i doni shall snap a pic.

I have not opened up the system on my daily to see how far if any it goes back. Some cleaners are worse then others. But i dont know from one to the next as i only ever use 2 versions myself

 

[turbosax2]

Ooof, well it would be interesting to know if there is metal degradation under it.

Many questions:
Does it come off easily?
Is just iron reacting this way or is it all exposed surfaces?
I'll bet your WB02 gets some residue - do they last long?

I'm guessing your fuel setup is way reactive - like corrosive - at high temps on iron.

I'm usually only cleaning it from the tailpipe and it cleans off easily with wheel cleaner and a brush. I'm also able to clean it off the o2 housing etc. with some brake cleaner or solvent like that. The wbo2 sensor gets coated just like everything else, but I'm on the same NTK production grade sensor I've always had with the Ballenger Motorsports AFR500 since 2015. In fact, every time I go to calibrate it (which is once or maybe twice a year when it's convenient), it never needs adjusting. In comparison to how many sensors I went through with the Innovate LC-1, I love this thing and have no idea why more people don't use it!

 

[turbosax2]

So last we left off, I dropped my hot parts off at the machine shop 4/17. I hadn't heard anything from them by last Wednesday, so I called them up to see if the parts would be done that day. They knew I was heading to Pocono Friday. Well, the guy said they wouldn't be done that day but at least they would know if they could even machine them. I get a call an hour later saying the parts were "hard as shit" and they wouldn't be able to do it. So I immediately went to pick the parts up. They only managed to surface the manifold flange to the turbine housing and said they had to change their tooling twice to even do that. Rather than trying to find another shop that could do the job literally overnight, I purchased a belt sander Wednesday night, had some ceramic belts shipped from McMaster, resurfaced all the parts myself Thursday night, and reassembled the car the same night. We got the car running shortly after midnight and decided to wait until Friday morning to test drive it.

Friday morning I took it for what I thought would be a quick spin just to make sure everything was fine. I immediately hit boost cut and the boost jumped up from 21/22 to about 24/25 psi. Odd. The flange surface on the O2 housing between the two holes was very wore down, at least 1/8" of an inch low. To avoid taking too much material off the flange while resurfacing, I actually welded up that area to bring the height back up. I thought maybe it being so worn previously could explain the boost loss. But the fuel cut didn't hit due to boost (the limit was set to 30psi), it hit due to load factor. Even more odd. A quick comparison to logs from a couple years ago shows my load factor is higher now than it used to be. So I raised that threshold because I didn't have time to mess with it, lowered the boost a bit to be safe, and the next drive was successful. Close enough, on the trailer it went!

We had a good friend crew this weekend: Brian in the Miata, Camaro, Thunder Roadster (friend previously with the Evo), and an NB Miata (friend previously with the GT4). And of course tons of Corvettes since this event is put on by the local Corvette Club every year.

The first session had a couple weird hiccups with boost levels spiking, but the bigger concern was when I got back to the pits, the hot parts were glowing red. I don't remember ever seeing that before! Looked at the logs and found that timing was peaking at like 10-11 which I'm assuming was leading to crazy high EGT's. Thinking back, my VE table got tweaked sometime last year and isn't exactly ideal right now, this increased the load factor, this got me into a part of the timing table I'm not normally in with low timing. So although my parts weren't ever glowing red before, it's quite likely my timing has been too low for some time so I'm sure that some of the exhaust gasket failures were due to my negligence on the tune. Live and learn! I got it to a safe enough place to run the weekend and all was well, but I do need to retune it at some point to clean things up properly.

Other than that, the car was pretty good all weekend. I did put some RTV on the top of the trans near the weld bung but it's still leaking, so I'm going to try replacing the crush washer for the reverse sensor next. And after my test drive Friday I noticed a tiny rattle sometimes - one of the exhaust hangers is touching the metal on the carrier bearing. It was really close before but resurfacing the flanges must have been enough to move it just enough so that hanger needs to be bent. It didn't cause any issues but I'll get it fixed soon.

I was supposed to have a student this weekend but he had to cancel, so I rode with a few different students throughout the weekend and gave some rides for instruction. This car was awesome - Factory Five Type 65 with a Gen 3 Coyote. The guy was a little hard of hearing and the car was ridiculously loud so he really couldn't hear me even with the comms system. But he literally had ONE MILE on the engine and entire build - brand freaking new car. He had some issues with the clutch in the first session we went out and I'm actually not sure if he got out again. He's working on getting it titled - it has a full sound system and everything.

The weather was surprisingly good (for Pocono) and we only had a couple slightly damp sessions. We convinced them to let us have open passing with point by at the end of Sunday and we all had a blast in the sessions that we all ran together. It's fun going fast, but even more fun playing around with friends on the track

I did manage to put down a 1:58.90 which was the fastest lap for most of the weekend to my knowledge. Although there was an orange C7 ZR1 running towards the end of Sunday and I would be stunned if he didn't go faster.

Hot lap videos coming soon. The next event is Memorial Day Weekend at NYST with EMRA so that will be another fun event with good friends!

 

[turbosax2]

 

[turbosax2]

We were at New York Safety Track over Memorial Day weekend with EMRA. Brian and I were both instructing again and were actually leading the student classroom sessions on Sunday so we missed out on some track time because of it. But it was still a decent weekend. We got there early on Friday and had the opportunity to walk the track.
Foreshadowing:

I was instructing a guy with a turbo Miata on Saturday - fun little car! The extra power definitely helps make it more fun haha. EMRA is a racing organization, so in addition to enjoying HPDE time we were also competing in time trials. I'm in the ST-GT class (the highest one) due to the power/weight ratio plus all of the mods I have done. So I'm never expecting to be competitive, but I did manage to put down a 1:40.60 on Saturday to get third place! This was an improvement of a little over a second since last year. First place was this fully race prepped Corvette running 1:32's and second place was an LS swapped NC Miata with aero running 1:36's.

During the third session on Saturday, I guess I didn't brake quite enough going into T10 and couldn't quite get the car composed enough. I intentionally kept the car straight and went two-off left rather than trying to muscle it to keep on track and risk spinning. Unfortunately...the way I ended up straddling the curbing with my left wheels in the grass and right wheels on the track did some damage. A lot of the grass dips down pretty good from the pavement and the high grass didn't help with being able to visually see obstacles off track. At first I was OK in the grass then all of a sudden I felt/heard a big bang and knew I hit something. We later saw on the Camaro's camera footage that it was the start of the curbing that got me. I got back to the pits and saw that I had just barely grazed the bumper cover, dented the FMIC up just a slight bit (I don't think it damaged the rows), barely grazed the oil pan, but my downpipe and RRE under brace took the brunt of the damage. All in all I guess I got lucky?

I took the downpipe off and tried bashing out the dent unsuccessfully but this made me sit out the last session. One of our little brothers and his family showed up for the last session so I was really bummed I wasn't able to take them out for a ride, but at least he and his wife both got a ride in Brian's Miata. The transmission continued to leak from the top all weekend, so I kept putting RTV strategically. I'm fairly confident it's the backup light switch (even though I just put a new crush washer on it), so I picked up some Dowty seals to try instead of the crush washer. I did find some fluid even made it to the backside of my brake caliper so yeah, I definitely want it fixed.

After deliberating on it, I slapped the downpipe back on as it was, left the brace off, and ran the two sessions on Sunday I was able to make between instructing and classroom sessions. The car ran fine, everything felt good, but it sounds like it has an exhaust leak. I kind of think it just sounds different due to the dent and isn't actually leaking, but I have yet to work on the car since we got back. I couldn't see any obvious damage to the subframe or surrounding parts but I need to check closer. Anyone have a cheap Megan Racing downpipe for sale?

On Sunday, a GT3 cup car was bumped out of race group and into the ST-GT class due to not enough cars in the race class. So he ended up in second place and dropped me to fourth.

Brian had his own off-track excursions Saturday and Sunday as well . A tire wall did the fender damage which was easily remedied with a dead-blow hammer over lunch.

 

[Ludachris]

Looks like a lot of fun. Are there any RRE downpipes still being sold these days? Glad you didn't hurt the oil pan, that could have really sucked.

 

[turbosax2]

The downpipe is Megan Racing and they since changed up the design, but it looks like they're discontinued anyway. I did find that CXRacing might have the same one I have now but I'm not positive.

I doubt the RRE bar is still available so I'll probably just make my own at some point. And yeah, reallly glad it didn't take out the pan!

 

[Ludachris]

RRE bar, not downpipe... yep, you'll likely have to fab one up. Downpipe should be easily found I'd think.

 

[Justin DuBois]

Check your head studs and manifolds for damage.
Hit like that - energy goes everywhere - all attached components.

 

[fourgsixty3]

The downpipe is Megan Racing and they since changed up the design, but it looks like they're discontinued anyway. I did find that CXRacing might have the same one I have now but I'm not positive.

I doubt the RRE bar is still available so I'll probably just make my own at some point. And yeah, reallly glad it didn't take out the pan!

Bummer dude. Glad it wasn't worse. I have a RRE lower brace I don't need if you don't feel like fabricating one.

 

[Stapl3]

Megan Racing and they since changed up the design, but it looks like they're discontinued anyway. I did find that CXRacing

These are two 'companies' that live in China and wouldn't know what a DSM was if you ran them over with one. They seriously have probably never seen a DSM in person.

Any datalogs from this to weed through?

 

[Ludachris]

Check your head studs and manifolds for damage.
Hit like that - energy goes everywhere - all attached components.

Good point - the hit was before the flex joint on the dp. The whole engine felt that.

 

[turbosax2]

I thoroughly inspected my subframe and compared measurements to Brian's. We couldn't find any damage to it so I got lucky there. I didn't bother making a new underbrace, I'll get to that later. But I decided I didn't want a crunchy downpipe so I ordered one from CXRacing. Well...I remember from wayyyy back in the day that some Megan Racing downpipes/exhausts had flanges that didn't line up (I might have even had one at one point?), but I think I got a weird setup. The CXRacing flange didn't line up at all with mine.

And I didn't realize it was meant for a 3" o2 housing flange. So I just decided to fix mine. I cut out the damaged part, made a homemade backpurge setup since I don't have a dual regulator, and welded in a patch and fixed the bracket that cracked. I used DEI Titanium Knit Exhaust Sleeve this time instead of regular header wrap - this stuff is nicer IMO and doesn't fall apart as easily.

Bolted it back on the car just to find a crack at the flange.

Welded that up. Back in again just to find the flange was warped (maybe from welding, maybe from before?) Resurfaced that. Back in again just to find these cracks on the exhaust manifold that were leaking way more than what they look. At this point I'm definitely questioning why I decided to fix this downpipe instead of modifying the new one.

Welded those up with 308L since I didn't have 309L. This is all the day before leaving for NJMP, mind you, since I procrastinated.

And finally, found the turbo gasket leaking on the passenger side. I was tired of fixing stuff so I just shoved a spare piece of turbo blanket next to it .

This past weekend was EMRA's "Heat Wave" event at NJMP Lightning and it was a scorcher! We've been in a decent heat wave for the area and temps were mid 90's both days. They actually told us not to pull off track in the event of an issue because the grass has been catching fire from brakes/exhausts.

I was instructing a guy with a 2021 STI for the weekend. He had previous experience from 15 years ago and it came back quickly, so it was a pretty easy weekend of instructing.

Overall the weekend went pretty well. The backup light sensor is still leaking - the dowty seal helped some but not enough so I'll keep trying on that. The oil temps were getting hot pretty easily so I would usually get a few hot laps in, a couple cool down laps, then one more hot lap. I'd let them get up to about 240F before cooling down so it was in the safe limit but I didn't want to push it. During a few sessions the coolant temps got up to mid 220's but I didn't let them go any higher. And the trans temps were good staying below 200F all weekend so I'm calling the cooler a success.

This car was fast all weekend and got FTOD on Sunday, really cool guy to talk with as well.

Another DSM (non-turbo)! Unfortunately...there was an Audi that dumped p/s fluid on the bowl towards the end of Saturday that they suspect the Talon got into and put him into a wall. The gentleman was physically ok but they took him to the hospital in the ambulance and he didn't return until Sunday. I'm told that he didn't remember the incident or much from Saturday at all so it was a hard hit. Once the ambulance left they had to shut down the track for the day since they weren't allowed to run without one there.

Watching F1 qualifying in the classroom Saturday night.

Jon is one of the EMRA leaders, love the wrap on his car. I got my fastest time of the weekend following him Sunday morning. I didn't place on Saturday but got third place on Sunday with a 1:17.20. My Mausberry power supply for the RaceCapture Pi crapped out Sunday afternoon so I ran a session without my main dash and just used my phone screen. Anybody good with electronics want to help me figure out how to fix all these junk Mausberry's I have?? I fixed it with a USB cable to the cigarette lighter plug but then our last session got cancelled since a Subaru oiled down nearly the entire track for the second time Sunday. And they had 45 minute open session at the end so we all drove a few laps in the Miata and practiced pit stops and driver changes. We're signed up to race it in ChampCar later this year and wanted to get some initial practice in.

Due to some technical difficulties (Brian's truck deciding it didn't want to crank and then another person's alternator trying to leave the car), we were the last to leave the track on Sunday.

We don't have much scheduled over the next two months but might try to fit another weekend in.

 

[Justin DuBois]

All of that is awesome. Thank you for sharing. Good you got the impact damage in hand.

Regards F1 Qualifying - How were you able to see it? I've got Hulu with live channels, and I've been flagging all the F1 sessions, practice, quali, and race - but For Barcelona, Spain, quali was not included with the 3rd practice sessions, and quali never showed up on the schedule. I didn't get to see how Norris managed a Pole position. Glad to see Hamilton back at the front, and back on the podium for the first time this season.

 

[turbosax2]

All of that is awesome. Thank you for sharing. Good you got the impact damage in hand.

Regards F1 Qualifying - How were you able to see it? I've got Hulu with live channels, and I've been flagging all the F1 sessions, practice, quali, and race - but For Barcelona, Spain, quali was not included with the 3rd practice sessions, and quali never showed up on the schedule. I didn't get to see how Norris managed a Pole position. Glad to see Hamilton back at the front, and back on the podium for the first time this season.

We got an F1 TV subscription this year. After years of watching races on bootleg websites, it was well worth the cost.

 

[gsxitement]

Man I swear I’m gonna make an event you’re at this year. Wild to think that I’ve been to so many EMRA events, just the last two years I’ve been focused on GridLife, and didn’t make any EMRA events last year. I do believe I’m going to be at Lime Rock with them at the end of the season. I busted my ass to try and make that NJMP event, but just had way to much to do. And yeah, Steven with the Civic is bad fast. Think he’s in the 56’s at Lime Rock. Good weekend though! And two DSMs!!! Holy smokes! That’s so cool.

 

[Ludachris]

Great update Eric, thanks for sharing. I'm living vicariously through you guys right now.

 

[turbosax2]

Man I swear I’m gonna make an event you’re at this year. Wild to think that I’ve been to so many EMRA events, just the last two years I’ve been focused on GridLife, and didn’t make any EMRA events last year. I do believe I’m going to be at Lime Rock with them at the end of the season. I busted my ass to try and make that NJMP event, but just had way to much to do. And yeah, Steven with the Civic is bad fast. Think he’s in the 56’s at Lime Rock. Good weekend though! And two DSMs!!! Holy smokes! That’s so cool.

I hope so! We're probably not going to make Lime Rock - too long of a drive for just one day there. If they did a full weekend we would be in. But we'll be at one if not both of the Pocono events. And we were planning on doing the Shenandoah event but I heard they're cancelling that one. Makes sense with it being in November and a really far drive for most of you guys. Summit Point is only 1.5 hours from us so it's super convenient.

 

[gsxitement]

I hope so! We're probably not going to make Lime Rock - too long of a drive for just one day there. If they did a full weekend we would be in. But we'll be at one if not both of the Pocono events. And we were planning on doing the Shenandoah event but I heard they're cancelling that one. Makes sense with it being in November and a really far drive for most of you guys. Summit Point is only 1.5 hours from us so it's super convenient.

Not sure I’ll make Pocono. But I may try if for no other reason than to get some rollers of the cars on track

 

[turbosax2]

Since the last event, I replaced the turbo gasket since it was leaking badly. It mostly fixed the leak but there was still a small one that I had to live with for now. The exhaust manifold had another crack at the same spot so I welded it up some more. I also slapped a bunch of RTV around the backup sensor to try to prevent that from leaking when the trans pump kicks on. And I got rid of the Mausberry on the RaceCapture RPi and just wired it to a hard-wired cigarette lighter USB power source instead. A fresh set of G-loc R16 pads were installed in front since they were getting low. Maybe a couple of other small things but that was basically it. And my vanity antique plate finally came in. Brian has "GST" on his plate so I tried to get "GSX" to match but somebody already has that and I had to settle for "2GSX". We're only allowed four characters on antique plates in PA.

This past Sunday, we were at Pocono with EMRA running the South Course. I've only ran the North Course there before so this was new for me. We got there Saturday afternoon, unloaded the cars into the garage, then helped set up cones on the track. This was my first time doing that as well and it was nice to be able to get a sneak preview of the course at low speeds. I did try finding the course on Assetto Corsa beforehand to practice but it's not available in the South config.

I was supposed to be instructing a 2019 Camaro but he didn't end up showing until the afternoon, so I was with a 2012 Fiat 500 Abarth instead since his assigned instructor wasn't able to make it. Turns out my student is a YouTuber for car content as well as other stuff, so he's going to be making a video about the track day. I even did an interview for him haha. He had some experience already so it was nice working with him and a pretty easy day of instructing and helping him refine his style rather than starting from scratch. I didn't take many pictures in general during the day so this is one from his social.

The day started off overcast with a damp track and it started raining about halfway through the first session. The track didn't start off with great traction but it got immediately worse once the light rain started. It was kind of unreal how fast it switched (at least for me). I had some sideways action on one of the turns the first "wet" lap and then even got sideways there again on my cool down lap! When I came back in, my buddy pointed out my car number plates were both missing! I had noticed some white signs out there during my session but had no idea it was me . One of them stayed on the Nascar track nearly the entire day.

It started raining a lot more so I sat out the second session. The third session was still very wet but only lightly raining. My tires were hating life. I was just pushing everywhere, just couldn't get any traction. I don't know exactly why because my student had the same tires (on a much lighter car, granted) and his were handling fine. I still have good dry weather traction but my tires are definitely past their prime at this point.

After lunch, the rain cleared out and the weather was beautiful. The first session after lunch restored my faith in the car and I loved having traction again. I hung with an S2K the whole session, what fun that was! We were nearly dead even on lap times and we both pushed hard the entire session. After a while he gave me a point-by and I led a few laps, then let him back in front again. I had a good chat with that driver afterwards, really cool guy, and he was loving it too

The second afternoon session was where I got my fastest lap. I think the track was faster the previous session, but I focused this session on prepping the car better during the session to be able to run a fast lap rather than hot-lapping the entire session. I did have some difficulty getting into fourth gear and some others sporadically so I'm not sure what that was about, but I'll bleed the clutch before the next event in case that helps.


And by the last session I felt pretty comfortable that I locked in second place, so I went and played with Brian most of the session instead of going hot.

One of the EMRA photographers got this cool shot.

During the one-hour open session at the end of the day, we all practiced doing a few laps and driver swaps in the Miata to practice for ChampCar.

Looking at the data post-event, I was a little low on boost at 20psi. I must have lowered the boost in ECMLink at some point and forgot but oh well. I think the RTV helped the trans leak a lot but with it being wet out it was a little hard to tell. I'll check more into that when I look over the car for the next event. All in all, it was a good day! Our next event is Pocono Southeast 9/28-9/28 and that will probably be the last event for the car this year. And then the weekend after is our ChampCar debut with the Miata - super excited about that!

Some of the few pictures I did take just since this car was gorgeous.

 

[gsxitement]

Hell yeah!! Hoping to make more EMRA events next year. Hope to see you at an event. We got my car and Paul’s car together at Lime Rock a couple weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. That NASCAR T1 blows my mind. I remember going through there at like 100-110 and just thinking about the cup guys flying into the corner at 207 and going through there in the 160’s or something .

 

[turbosax2]

Hell yeah!! Hoping to make more EMRA events next year. Hope to see you at an event. We got my car and Paul’s car together at Lime Rock a couple weeks ago. It was pretty awesome. That NASCAR T1 blows my mind. I remember going through there at like 100-110 and just thinking about the cup guys flying into the corner at 207 and going through there in the 160’s or something .

Yeah, I was definitely jealous seeing you guys at Lime Rock! Those Nascar turns are definitely no joke, I can't imagine going through there at the speeds they do...

 

[turbosax2]

J-Rose Photography was kind enough to send me some pictures.