Street Car

[MichaelSuch]

MichaelSuch submitted a new DSM Profile :

Street Car


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[MichaelSuch]

The car has been running since June. I am slowly going through some pictures and adding them here with a few comments.

 

[MichaelSuch]

Transmission was rebuilt last year. I kept having issues with transmission pumps failing before this rebuild. Not sure if the used IPT restall converter I had was ballooned or if it was something else. I went ahead and installed a set of JB Straight Cut gears because I planned on launching the crap out of this car (whole reason for going auto), Precision converter, IPT end clutch kit, ported the valve body, ported the case where fluid goes to the pump from the valve body, welded center diff and all new seals. Some of the clutch packs looked great surprisingly. I already had a Kiggly 5 disc front clutch setup and a Translab 175-hp shift kit installed from a year or two ago after the first pump failure.

Last year ended with a transmission pump failure, car would not move in any gear.

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Old IPT Restall I bought used and new Precision converter. The new precision converter was significantly lighter

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Welded center diff by Masfab

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JB Straight cut gear set, these are extremely nice!

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Trans rebuild

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[MichaelSuch]

I am using a Nitrous Outlet direct port wet kit to build boost at the line, it shuts off at 15psi and is controlled by ECMLink. I will play with this more but shutting off at 15psi netted a 1.59 60' first time out with it.

I drilled and tapped the back of the intake. Mounted the solenoid under the intake. For the most part the Nitrous kit cannot be seen unless you are specifically looking behind the intake. I plan to redo the lines with shorter hardlines but this works and was fast to put together.

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Bottle is tucked away in the spare tire well, it cannot be seen when the hatch is closed and the mat is over it.

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[MichaelSuch]

Finishing up the rest of the driveline upgrades from last year. I was going to modify the 2g frame with solid bushings, another diff mount, powder coat, new control arms, FF diff cover, etc.. but once all that was added up it wasn't much cheaper than Paul Volk's (@99gst_racer) rear subframe with new control arms. I went that route and saved some weight. It was almost a bolt in affair with the stock tank. I did have to modify the filler neck some. I cut about 3 inches of the metal filler neck and used a longer rubber hose going to the tank. I can provide more pics of this if someone is interested. Most exhaust systems will also have some interference with the subframe, it is nothing a good exhaust/fab shop can't fix with some cutting and re-routing the exhaust. I am still on open downpipe so this did not affect me. This is probably the nicest part on this car. Well worth the money!

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[MichaelSuch]

I cerakoted my hot parts after getting a blast cabinet. I have no idea if this really helps with heat at all, but it does make the parts look much better. They still look as good as when I coated them!

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[MichaelSuch]

I had a vented catch can setup with two -10an off the valve cover. It worked well but I noticed oil blowing out of the filter on the vented catch can setup. I switched it up and went to a sealed catch can using a vibrant can and also had -16an fittings welded on my thermostat housing and radiator. I did not want the radiator hose blowing off or popping if I ever push coolant in a bad way mid pass and cause coolant to get under the tire.

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[MichaelSuch]

I switched over to a VW Golf MK3 radiator and SPAL pusher fans. It fills the core support nicely, giving me more room to work in the bay and I can go to a bigger turbo without having runner inference with the radiator hose in the center of the stock style 2g radiator.

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[SPConlan]

I switched over to a VW Golf MK3 radiator and SPAL pusher fans. It fills the core support nicely, giving me more room to work in the bay and I can go to a bigger turbo without having runner inference with the radiator hose in the center of the stock style 2g radiator.

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This is a great idea! This is a great addition to my current build. Definitely will help with my engine bay shave and tuck.

 

[MichaelSuch]

I've ran the Golf MK3 setup all summer with no issues other than needing a better way to mount my fans. This is the radiator I purchased:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/For-Alumin...e=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649

I do highly suggest having AN bungs welded on the thermostat housing and radiator, because the thermostat housing neck and radiator neck are different sizes and it will cause leaks.

 

[MichaelSuch]

I went ahead and added a hitch to the car so I could swap slicks at the track and not have to put so many miles on them. Its a draw-tite 24602 and was a direct bolt in.

Just need trailer wiring and a small trailer

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It tucks under the bumper cover nicely.

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Strapped down and loaded with tools in the hatch!

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My friend with the LS 350z and I went to Street Car Takeover in St Louis and had a blast. This is what racing is all about!

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Went low 11's that day and drove home. Still a ways from 9s but it goes faster every time out. That was at 24psi and a very hot midwest day.

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[MichaelSuch]

I bought a set of 13LB 16x8 FD RX7 wheels. These required extended studs and a 25mm spacer with the 26x9.5x16 Hoosier QTP's.

I started blasting off the old paint

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I did like the bronze color. I found BMW Pyrite brown on the web, went to my local car quest and they were able to get it mixed by a local body shop.

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The Hoosiers showed up from Summit.

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And mounted. Depending on lighting the color looks bronze as seen in the pictures above or more of a grey. This is probably the last set of wheels I spray. Its just too time consuming to do properly vs having them powder coated and having a much more durable finish.

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[MichaelSuch]

Just an update on the car. At the end of last season I was fighting issues with AFR not staying consistent at WOT. I installed a cheap Autex linear fuel pressure sensor and started logging it. I found fuel pressure was not staying inline with boost and would be 5-10psi off of what it should be. My original fuel system was a Walbro 450, -8AN feed, Fuelab filter, Magnus rail, Fuelab AFPR and stock return. I utilized the factory feed as the stock return, also had -6AN fitting welded on top of the hanger. Last Saturday I installed a new Walbro 450 just to be safe, installed the hat and the return leaked everywhere. Import Faceoff was the next day and I couln't wait to have it re-welded again. I went ahead and JB welded around the fitting and drilled two small holes to run the Walbro 450 wiring through since my factory connector was melting. At one point it wouldn't turn the pump on unless I wiggled the connector. See the top right pin the picture. The JB weld held up and I was able to make it to IFO

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First pass I made at the track I went 10.91 @ 117mph but was faced with fuel pressure problems again. It only occurred when I shifted into third gear. I had 1/4 tank of fuel I topped the tank off at the track with more E85 and all the passes after that were fine. It must have ran the a little dry being that low on fuel. It was a good enough pass to qualify, so I went on to eliminations in the FIS class. I paired up against a Honda running 10.90s, but I pulled through the brakes right before green and DQ'd. Oh well, this wasn't really what we were here for anyway. I just needed some test passes and more practice.

I lowered the 2 step down to 3700rpm, it held pretty good there compared to 4100rpm. Also continued to turn the boost up and the shift points in the Forced four shiftbox. I was now shifting at 8000rpm and 30psi (all I could do with the 15psi spring in the gate). I made 3 more passes and during the last pass I was stopped at the time slip booth, he said something came off my car. I talked to the track officials and they gave me part of my stock harmonic balancer. To my surprise there was no damage to the car. I checked the time slip and it went 10.14 @ 134mph! Huge improvement compared to last year and even the first pass earlier in the day. I am extremely impressed that the auto is holding up great to the abuse with just the few mods it has. I ordered a Fluidampr and heavier waste gate springs. Hopefully I will be back in the next few weeks and break into the 9s with this bolt on FP turbo.

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[bastarddsm]

Get a 1bar map and plumb it into your intake pipe. I bet you need a bigger filter. When you start getting near the compressor limit every bit helps. Also I'd not recirc the breather. Oil vapor causes detonation.

Nice to see you sunday. Good to see the car working well. I got a trailer lined up. Going to do Joliet Sunday. See if I can get some mid 10's only running 30psi .

 

[MichaelSuch]

It was great seeing you too, and driving the car 3 hours there! I'm definitely looking into adding more sensors and I'll plug the pcv like you mentioned.

I was contemplating trying to make Joliet but without a cage I don't think it would be worth the trip, I'm sure they tech harder than Gateway. I may be limited to mostly 1/8th mile stuff this year. And I need to get caught up on some farm work. Good luck Sunday! I hope to see some updates.

 

[MichaelSuch]

It's been awhile since I've updated this. This summer has sure had its ups and downs. On Friday May 18th I went to Neglection 2.0 which is a no prep event held at Wagler Motorsports park in Lyons, Indiana. This was their 2nd annual event and it was a riot. It is a 2 day ordeal, Friday night they host a hard tire class which had 47 cars entered. $10 buy in, only rule was it must be a true hard street tire, no drag radials, slicks or anything and $1000 to win. Then Saturday was a small tire and big tire class. I unfortunately couldn't stay for Saturday due to family events.

On with Friday night. I made the trip by myself since my friends had plans and the girlfriend had to work. I was a little skeptical about going since there was a lot of rain in the forecast. It didn't rain at all during the drive but sure enough as I was pulling in the pits it started sprinkling. It rained for about 30 minutes and sprinkled on and off most of the evening. About 8pm the rain had stopped and they dried the track. More rain was coming in and they wanted people to get their two test runs in as quickly as possible. As luck would have it, it started sprinkling again before my first test run. They were really trying to get the event in tonight so we were making passes on a wet track. It was NUTS. The car spun so bad I thought I broke something the first pass. I learned real quick how to pull power out of the car and add it back in as after the first two test passes it had stopped sprinkling. They dried the track again and it really came around after the first couple rounds of eliminations. We were paired in the staging lanes by pulling 2 out of 4 cards when you were next in line to pull on to the track. To make a longer story short the car ended up going 7 rounds to win, and one was against a very built Cummins in semi finals. The semi finals video is here

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I ended up making it home around 3AM that night but I met so many great people and racers.

 

[MichaelSuch]

On Sunday May 27th there was another no prep event about an hour and a half away in Sikeston, Missouri. It had the same three classes, Hard tire, Small Tire and Big Tire. This event was much smaller but still was a blast. There were 6 cars in the hard tire class (I didn't bring enough fire power for the small tire guys) that I entered. A very quick 6.70 diesel pickup was supposed to run in the hard tire class but was a no show so this was a pretty easy win. I was the only AWD car there, which must not happen very often. A track official came by when I was loading up and had no ideas what the car was or how it was capable of getting down the track on a true street tire. This was the first event my girlfriend and her daughter were able to make with me this year and they enjoyed it a lot even in the 95 degree heat.

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[MichaelSuch]

The end of May came along and I decided I wanted to turn the car up some more. I found in the summer heat it likes nitrous more than it does more boost as the FP Black is probably close to being maxed out. I added a dry 50 shot so I could use to build boost at the line and use the direct port kit with a 100hp+ shot when I needed it. The dry 50 worked great. I wired it up to the left horn button (right horn button still functions as a horn as some street car classes still require this), and the direct port kit is trigger by ECMLink. I may end up swapping these around so I can hit the button if someone is pulling on me and this will automate the nitrous being sprayed at the line for a more consistent launch every time.

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And a shot cleaning the car for Street Car Takeover St. Louis on Saturday June 2nd. Ultimately SCT did not go as planned. First test pass the FPR reference line had cracked and blew off. I made a clean 2nd pass but the car was low on power it seemed. It was running high 10's so I signed up for 10.0 index class and made a few changes. First round I paired against a GTR who ran an 11.0 and I went 10.9. The car was way down on power even after adding 2psi. It started raining and they called the event which ended up being a blessing in disguise. I noticed that the coolant overflow tank was full. I loaded the car and went back home. I did a compression test and the results were 150-125-150-120 cold. I went ahead and pulled the cylinder head and found the gasket was blown into coolant ports on 2 and 4. Which explained why air was coming from cylinder 4 back into 2 when I was doing a leakdown test. I couldn't pull the radiator cap at that time since the motor was really hot. I ditched the cometic MLS and installed a Felpro.

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[MichaelSuch]

The next weekend I went to North Alabama 247 drag strip with some family and ran at their Cash Days event. The first two test passes seemed ok after the headgasket failure. I turned it up a little and went into round one eliminations. It bogged bad right after launch, I was able to get back in it and get the W. I reviewed the log and it lost fuel pressure.

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Went into round two against a very nice turbo Mustang GT500, he treed me big time so I loaded the car back up. It was a fun time out there and met a lot of very cool people.

I attached some logs of the fuel pressure dropping during passes (yellow line). I believe this contributed to the blown headgasket earlier.

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[MichaelSuch]

I decided it was time to upgrade the factory tank and internal pump to the Frontline Fab bolt in cell and bosch 044 external pumps. I mocked it up and it was extremely tight fighting around the Volk subframe but it fit!

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