The Road to UTCC 2015

[turbosax2]

John, I think we have some spare hoses and fittings for remote mounting if you need them.
@snowborder714 can check later.

 

[952g63t]

SPOILER ALERT

Couldn't help but notice this while I was looking for a dyno in my area.

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[TSiAWD666]

Forgot they put that up. Mach V's a great place to go to if you end up going there. Dan, the owner, started with DSMs probably as far back as me. They don't really work on DSMs anymore but can definitely get you on their dyno at a reasonable price (was $100 for these pulls).

I was there getting a baseline before Summit Point because NASA lost my dyno sheets from two years ago. It dyno'd ever so slightly lower than it probably is because of some ignition problems. Ended up being fouled plugs. The previous dyno sheet was... something just above 380 I think. So I just assume I'm actually at 380-ish should I ever get asked to re-dyno.

 

[TSiAWD666]

I picked up the car yesterday from the body shop. The Optic Armor pieces are installed. The install didn't quite go as planned for various reasons BUT it overall came out very well I think, but you guys can be the judge.

1) Sadly, we didn't get weights of the final pieces. The body shop oddly had no scale around, and I had no time to bring one before they started final install. I did weigh the front uncut piece at about 18lbs, and with having to cut like 1.5" from each side (might have been more) I'd imagine we dropped at least 2 lbs from that.
2) On the side quarter panel pieces... the stock ones are actually realllly thin and light as is so if looking to save money these would be the pieces to skip. Also it takes some creative work replacing these as the gasket surrounding the glass is actually very well bonded to the glass itself and virtually impossible to separate and re-use. This necessitates needing to get creative with the replacement lexan (which you will see in the pictures) and that takes a skilled hand with experience
3) The windows don't come with any window trim painted onto them, so if you want a factory look, you need to create this. Their recommended procedure was to use 180 grit to sand off the coating on the interior of the piece's edge, and then use black automotive primer partially for paint, and partially to promote adhesion of urethane (which I chose to use for installation). I found 3M Single Step primer for this, which reviews everywhere said worked great specifically for this task:

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Well, it didn't. It goes on VERY thin, and somewhat translucent, and dries streaky when applied with a dauber or brush. The body shop guys said when they only had this in place you could see the brush lines when viewed from outside and they really didn't like it. They could have tried multiple coats but they weren't confident enough in that to continue so they took matters into their own hands.

Since they couldn't put another paint over top the primer (as it's the interface for the urethane), they chose to paint the outside to create the oem-like borders to the glass This actually came out pretty well. It's not perfect as the edges on the there is a tiny bit of bubbling, but they'll spend some time next time they have the car to smooth those out (they just didn't have time to work on that once the paint dried). I might be concerned with longevity of the front but I will be using tear-offs (big plastic sheets that are removeable) that will protect the paint there.

I might suggest to anyone else doing this to investigate other primers that might paint on more smoothly/evenly and be less transluscent should you want an OEM look. Or maybe just put on multiple coats. Another suggestion from the body guys was that if you get enough of the primer (it comes in tiny bottles) you could spray it and that would definitely even things out and allow you to thicken it up, but we didn't have time for getting more and trying this out.

OR... you give up urethane and just bolt everything in, and then you can paint with whatever you like on the inside and not have to mess with primer I probably should have just done this haha.
4) The rear glass is 1/8" for weight savings, as opposed to something thicker. The piece I got is incredibly wavy all around the edges. For a show-perfect car this would be a no go. For my racecar it's going to be ok. I'll get in touch with Optic Armor about this but since we had to proceed with the install there's not much they can do about it. I suspect the recommendation is going to use thicker pieces to reduce the chance of the wavy edges as I think it's because of how thin my piece is. You can kind of see some of the distortion in the pictures.
5) Gaskets. We opted not to use any because since the pieces were oversized, we could trim them to obviate the need, and per the body guys the gaskets on the front/rear glass don't really seal for weather anyway. This is a small bit of weight savings as well.

With all that said, here are the pictures:

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The front and rear look like OEM pieces and came out very well. My favorite part though is what they did for the quarter panel glass. Since we didn't have the gasket that goes on the edge they had to get creative. They used the lexan and cut it to take up the entire area. I think what they did for me looks better than OEM. What do you think?

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Here's a very old pic of my car showing the OEM pieces:

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So now with that done, all that's left is:
1) Install new rear view mirror (one that attaches to the cage, got a Longacre 14" one)
2) boost leak test for sanity
3) Install more sponsor stickers
5) Wash and wax the car
6) Swap the Finspeed wheels to a new sticker set of A6 tires (I got a great deal from another racer, over 25% off) to give me the best shot at a class record
7) Install windshield tear-offs and banner
8) corner balance and align the car. If anyone's curious I currently run -3 deg front and 1/8" toe out front, and -1.5 with 0 toe rear.

 

[dsmcrzy]

Wow!! It makes the car look more modern with out all the trim/rubber! I think it looks excellent!!!

 

[Atuca]

Loving it John!

 

[twicks69]

I think it turned out great John!

I can't wait to work on my car and do the windshield and rear hatch and door window install! I was just going to tape and spray bomb borders onto the windows with flat black paint on the insides, then mount the puppy in. Did you still rivet the rear window or front window in or did you just urethane 3m window weld the puppy in?

 

[TSiAWD666]

I think it turned out great John!

I can't wait to work on my car and do the windshield and rear hatch and door window install! I was just going to tape and spray bomb borders onto the windows with flat black paint on the insides, then mount the puppy in. Did you still rivet the rear window or front window in or did you just urethane 3m window weld the puppy in?

It's urethane only.

 

[TSiAWD666]

I apologize to the northern Virginia area for waxing my car this weekend and bringing the rain. Sadly I had to drive the car in it as the car's dropped off at RRT for corner balancing and alignment which means I get to clean the damned thing again before the UTCC, doh! Also going to have them swap on a fresh set of A6 tires I got for a steal to give me the best chance this weekend.

Added the Motul and Optic Armor sponsor stickers to the car, and relocated the Meguiar's ones to the doors (they used to be on the quarter panel glass, but since the new ones are so pretty I don't want to put anything on them!). If anyone has any opinions on placement (mainly the Motul ones I'm questioning) please do share

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[TSiAWD666]

The awards this year are:
Tire Rack Ultimate Track Car: Overall fastest time.
Fastest Real Door-Slammer—Big Bore: Fastest car in the big-bore group that has been modified from a road-going example.
Fastest Real Door-Slammer—Small Bore: Fastest car in the small-bore group that has been modified from a road-going example.
Fastest Vintage: Fastest car built in or before 1985.
Fastest Street Production: Fastest street-legal car.
Fastest All-Wheel Drive
Fastest Front-Wheel Drive
Fastest BMW: Presented by BimmerWorld
Fastest Ford: Presented by Ford Motor Co.
Official's Choice Award: The Grassroots Motorsports staff votes on their favorite car in the field.
Competitors' Choice Award: Competitors vote for their favorite car in the field.
Continental Tire Contingency Award: The fastest car in the field running on Continental Tires.
DIYAutotune.com Contengency Award: The fastest car using a MegaSquirt or other DIYAutotune system will receive a $500 DIYAutotune gift certificate.

Knowing the competition I think the only I might have a chance for is the Fastest Real Door-Slammer--Small Bore, assuming it's for 4-cylinders doesn't include 6-cylinders. Reason is I'm competitive with the other 4-cylinder cars, but at least the 2008 Grey BMW 135 is I think a 6-cylinder turbo'd monster at over 700whp (I forget, we talked last year a bit at the awards ceremony) with an all dry carbon widebody, sequential trans, and a lot of other insane stuff and is driven very well. He's easily 5 seconds faster than me. As for the AWD category... I can't win the AWD as long as there are well tuned GTRs in the mix (maybe they'll all fail? haha). I might have a chance at the Street Production award depending on their qualifications for a street car (in the past it only required having a registration, which I actually have).

Amongst the 4-cylinders my main competition that I see are:
2013 Silver FR-S: If it's the car I think it is, this is a shop car that wasn't very fast and ran a 2:12 last year. Might just be a different car from the same shop though, or maybe has some substantial upgrades, and I know from the next car that they can be made fast so it might still be a threat.
2013 Black FR-S: Element Tuning's car. Philip Grabow has been in this game for quite some time racing a high horsepower STi, is a good driver, and currently holds my class's record at VIR with a 1:58.8 in this car. I think I can beat him but it will be tough.
2004 Black Neon SRT-4: 650+whp FWD car driven by Doug Wind. He may have even more hp than that as he just got a bigger turbo (oh how I wish I had Garrett as a sponsor). While he destroys me on the straights (I think he said he hits 166mph on the back, where I was hitting 147 last year), I am much faster in the turns due to his lack of real aero. Last year he ran a 2:04 in the UTCC on some continental scrubs, and I beat it later that weekend running a 2:02.6 on slower Nitto NT01, so I'm fairly confident I can beat him this year. This year we're both running the same new Hoosier A6 tires so it's really big hp and fwd versus aero and awd.

Some of the others I've never seen but I'm not too concerned given the years/makes/models.

Here's the drivers list for the UTCC.

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In NASA Time Trials there are two Corvettes, one being the one that beat me at Summit, and a Ferrari 360 Challenge car. Very cool competition. I have heard though that the Ferrari driver isn't cleared for TT and he might not be racing, but we'll see.

 

[TSiAWD666]

Looks like the Professional Awesome Evo is going to make it to the UTCC. That car is fast, and he at least has oodles of power over me. I've seen some videos of what I think is the car with honestly what look like bogus data on g forces (like way exaggerated) but it's a fast car regardless.

 

[TAMA_player]

PTSIAWD666. Can we take a look at that evo videos?

 

[TSiAWD666]

I can't remember where I saw them. It took me a while to find them myself. They don't seem to share much online which I find odd.

 

[TSiAWD666]

Just learned the Dodge is bringing a couple of their new 2016 Viper ACR to VIR tomorrow, and leaving one behind with a driver for the UTCC! Man that is going to be cool to see because that thing looks MEAN and should have the performance to back it up.

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[bmxfelon420]

Have you considered a Borg Warner EFR? I'd think you could get one set up to spool super fast, and also lose a bunch of complexity since they can have an integrated BOV and wastegate too. Cleaning up the engine bay is always a plus when you're trying to troubleshoot.

 

[338vr4]

Just a guess but i think his weekend didnt go to well. there are no times posted of his car...

 

[TSiAWD666]

Heh yeah it was a rollercoaster. I'm waiting on photos/videos before I post a summary from the weekend.

 

[338vr4]

sucks dude. keep on rollin thats all you can do

 

[TAMA_player]

Heh yeah it was a rollercoaster. I'm waiting on photos/videos before I post a summary from the weekend.

+1 on update. Racing is difficult and things can get ugly. So here hoping for good news but anyway waiting for an update on this beast DSM!

 

[TSiAWD666]

Ok finally, here's the story of the 2015 Ultimate Track Car Challenge and NASA TT weekend It was quite an adventure but overall a positive weekend for sure.

We left on Thursday, July 16 to head down to the track and get settled in early. Snowborder714 and Turbosax2, aka Brian and Eric Loose, joined in on the trip to come down and crew for me. Also a good friend of mine (not a DSMer) flew on from Seattle and I set him up to drive my Evo IX on track in his first HPDE ever (something I could never get him to do when he lived here in VA). I had the suv all packed up and we loaded up the trailer that AM and headed down to the track.

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We got down to the track at about 5:30pm, an uneventful journey thankfully, and pulled up to the garages. Really crazy mini-story here. So If you've read any of this thread you know I bought some very custom and expensive wheels from Finspeed, a company out of Missouri. You might have noticed I never mentioned the final wheel weights. The reason for this was that I forgot to measure them before Summit Point. However I did measure them when putting the new tires on for this event, and they came in pretty heavy. The projected weight was supposed to be in the 20-21 lbs. range, and for an 18x12" forged wheel that is very light. Well when I finally weighed the wheels they came in at 22lbs 2oz. I was not pleased. The day before I wrote an email to Daniel of Finspeed, who I thought was a tech there, and he responded within an hour saying he was busy traveling but would try to look at files on Thursday. Anyway that brings me to now in the story.

We pull up to the garages and I'm just kind of standing in front of them outside the car, and someone yells "Hey John!" on my left. I turn and see someone I don't recognize. He runs up, says hi and I ask if we've met, thinking he's a track worker going to sort me out with my garage rental. He says he's Daniel Finke. I think... Finke... Finke... wait... Finke... of Finspeed? Wait are you the Daniel I've been working with? Yeah, Daniel's the owner of Finspeed. What the heck is he doing there? The Porsche two doors down, some IMSA car or something, trashed two wheels the day before. They paid Daniel to machine two wheels Wednesday night IN Missouri (where Finspeed is currently, they're moving to the Circuit of the Americas soon!) and then fly on their own private plane to VIR to hand deliver them. He happened to see my car and recognize it as we pulled it. I had no idea he was the owner (honestly, not sure how I didn't put two and two together until now), and here he was standing in front of me. We talked about the wheels and he said they were going to cut me a whole new set because they made a mistake. He explained the wheels I have are designed for aero loads of their pro cars in IMSA, including prototypes, and I don't need as much structure. They were supposed to take about 20% of the thickness out of each spoke but that didn't happen, hence the increased weight. They're going to cut me new wheels with the fix. It gets better though. He asks how I like the finish and I said I wasn't too thrilled as the silver is a bit darker (referencing my Enkei's that have a nice bright silver relatively). He said what about their brushed finish, which we had talked about early on but it's done by hand and costs $250... PER WHEEL, and I said that's way too much for just aesthetics though it does look beautiful. Daniel said "It's on me." That's some incredible customer service right there. To make things better we talked more on the phone after the weekend and agreed the wheel width was slightly too wide for these tires, and he's going to reduce them to an 18x11.5" (which isn't an advertised size on their site) to save even more weight. Should be very nice! I think they'll look something like this but this might just be a freshly machined wheel:

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So we get settled into the garage, have dinner, go to sleep. Here's the view in the morning from our room above the garage, overlooking the front straight:

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Racers settled into the paddock, and the staging grid coned off, as seen from above the garages:

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Driver's meeting in the AM on Friday, just like any driver's meeting. UTCC was happening of course, but there were also various test and tune sessions and some others going on that day as well.

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My friend Doug Wind's hat. He drives an Dodge Neon SRT-4 with 680whp that could use more downforce and I guess this was his solution:

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I can't recall if we got our sticker packets and stuff that evening but I don't think so and it probably happened Friday morning. Either way, here's the car stickered up for the event. I only had to add the Tire Rack Banner and the ARP stickers on the fenders. Of course all nice and clean thanks to my Meguiar's products (buy Meguiar's, their stuff rocks!), mainly their Wash & Wax Anywhere product:

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Now the car's pretty much ready to go. The only problem I see is the alignment isn't ideal. I had told RRT to level the front splitter to 4" from the ground. What I had forgotten from last year is that when I do this, I can't get more than about -2.5 deg camber from the SPC setup I have. I need to be lower, which I had been before but totally forgot about this go around with the corner balancing. They trusted I knew this and aligned it based solely on the 4" requirement, hence less front camber. Also somehow they didn't quite get my rear camber right and set it to -1.7 deg, when I wanted -1.5. There was no time to fix this as they were doing me a special favor to fit me in before the race, so I had to go with it. So I expected some push, but at this point I just had to see. Nice thing though is the car is weighing in at about 3180 lbs. with driver, which I think about 90lbs. less than last year? I forget exactly, but it's a lot less.

So this is where the weekend took a downward turn. Got the car out for my warm-up session. Two laps of warm-up because the lead car rode the pace car's ass for the first one, but then we're off. Car feels for the most part fine, but I'm feeling the push from having .5 deg less camber than I should up front. I figure just deal with it. Get through half a lap and am 2/3 of the way down the back stretch, about 7000rpm in 4th and blam... no more pull. Nothing. Car won't accelerate. First though, I toasted the clutch, but then the RPMs should rise with throttle. I check gears, and I have gears, so it's not the transmission. Car sounds perfectly fine, no raucous noises and revs cleanly. I just have no power. I slow way down, stay in third, and pull into the pits and back to the garage. I'm able to drive fine through the paddock. I'm really puzzled, really bummed, and panicking in my head but trying to stay calm and go over what could have failed. I'm thinking boost controller failure or wastegate failure giving me no boost.

I see nothing visually wrong in the engine bay but start scrambling to find contacts to get parts for all scenarios I'm considering. While I'm doing this I ask the Loose bros to pull the intake (or maybe it was their idea, I forget). Either way, I come back to the garage after talking to lots of other racers as well as relatively nearby shops and the bros let me in on the bad news. The 10 year (I think 10 years, not sure when I bought it) FP3150 turbo is toast. The bearings are gone and the compressor wheel can be bounced around significantly. I do not have a contingency plan for this, and I'm really bummed. At this point I could easily get the car on the trailer with little risk, but do I want to throw away all the hard work getting here?

Whatever we do the UTCC is shot for 2015 which is kind of sad. I had an interview with the photographer, and he took some pictures in the garage. I may still be in the magazine, who knows He urged me to try to put in a lap but I said since I wasn't sure how much material was in the oil pan I was very wary of going out there like this, and he understood. So with the UTCC a wash, we began to think about what we might do to continue racing in NASA Time Trials for the rest of the weekend because I really didn't want to give up just yet as I've worked too damned hard to be here.

The Loose Bros (kind of like Mario Bros. except they fix cars instead of plumbing) start contacting all their friends for a turbo solution. What complicates things is turbos are not so easy to replace, because there are so many nuances and details to making them fit in a car and work with all the other customer pieces. I won't bore everyone here because people know how different every turbo setup can be, but you should know we had to find a complete manifold to cat solution to really get something to bolt up to my car and be usable. Not likely. They contact lots of people but unfortunately not a ton of luck here. We even tried to drag Ludachris into this as I knew he had this same turbo at one point but turned out he sold it a long while ago for something bigger.

I have the idea to call up Forced Performance. Who knows, maybe they still have this turbo in some dark dusty corner. This is very unlikely though because barely anyone bought the FP3150, a sort of weird garrett 50-trim hybrid dual ball bearing thing in an fp turbine housing, and it was discontinued long ago. Decent for road racing but despite lots of customers asking for it, I was one of the very few that bought it.

Amber takes my call at I think around 11:30am her time on a Friday. She listens to my sob story and... thinks they might be able to help as they might have ONE center cartridge that could be used to make a compatible turbo! However she needs to talk with Mike who is out I think at lunch. I have to wait for Mike's call. As you can imagine time is of the essence as they would have to figure out something package it, AND get it to a shipper in time to get to me on Saturday, and we're running out. I wait for a while, I think maybe 45 minutes or so and Mike calls me up. Mike says he can put together a DSM76, which will basically perform similarly but with even faster spool, have more upper potential boost-wise, and have an FP turbine housing that SHOULD mate up to my o2 housing and of course my FP manifold. The o2 housing is the big question mark though. I have an old custom 3" recirculated o2 housing that FP made with my fp3150 turbo, but when it's fabricated they have everything including the wastegate clamped together to keep flanges from warping during welding/cooling. Well.. see the outlets of the FP turbine housings, while cast, have the outlet flanges still cut/welded at specific heights and it's a complete gamble that what he makes for me would fit the o2 housing I have. Well, we agree to say screw it and go for it. Mike says he'll scramble to build this turbo and get me all the necessary parts and get this out in time for shipping. Even better, Mike says this is going to cost an arm and a leg, so if I will wear some FP stickers he'll agree to a sponsorship and save me some money. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable!!! So thank you Mike@Forced Performance for sponsoring us and saving the weekend!

To add some more fun to the mix, after I get off the phone with Mike we immediately start on pulling the old turbo. After getting it out we find the mani to turbine bolts are seized, and my wrenches on the front bolts (too tight a fit to get sockets on them) are deflecting when trying to loosen them. I can either try to gamble that we can figure this out, or I can just get a new manifold. I call up Mike, and ask if he can send one. He says he can, in a separate shipment... and he will just throw it in. Wow. Just wow.

Here's the old turbo on the floor of the track garage:

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Us wrenching on the car:

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and the car disassembled. Notice all my exhaust manifold studs decided to come out as the nuts were seized to them Fun stuff.

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We... meaning really Brian and Eric mainly... get the turbo out and have done all we can for the evening. The turbo and manifold are with Fedex and slated to come in by 11am Saturday, so we decide to head over to the UTCC Awards dinner at the TMI Autotech facility. TMI produces the Ariel Atom in North America (which you may know from Top Gear, and if not a quick google will find the video).

Here are various shots from the dinner.

The winner, with a 1:46, a full blown racing Viper that won the event last year. I still am against cars like this being in the event with them not being based on a production car but GRM seems to like them:

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I was told that with restrictors they run like 550hp, but with removing the simple intake restrictors (which they did for the event) it goes upwards of 800hp. At least I think it was this car... don't quote me on that though

The new turbo Ariel Atom in its final production form:

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Fastest street car, I think with a 1:53? I forget. Very fast car though:

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Another GTR... I can't remember if it won anything or what it's lap time was, but I think because it was in this lineup it did win something:

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Professional Awesome did make it to the event in their Evo. I think they won Fastest small bore but again don't quote me on that. They were having weird engine issues during the event. They kept turning boost up but not getting any more power, yet all their data showed everything was just fine. I spoke with their tuning engineer (already forgot his name) about the car, turns out Andrew Brilliant has been helping them with the aero so maybe that 2g lateral really is a real number. He had heard about my car and stopped into the garage to chat a bit. I think they ran a 1:56 which really had them disappointed but hopefully they sort out their issues soon. Check out that front splitter!

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The 2016 Dodge Viper ACR. Ran a 1:56... on street tires. This thing is so incredibly sick. Just... gorgeous and FAST, with an alcantara interior, nav unit, sound system... insane. I want one I don't recall if it won something.

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You can adjust the OEM suspension through the front fender vents:

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I'll continue with more from the weekend soon, I just have to head out for now. Just know that it does have a positive ending

 

[kamikazeredneck]

How could you just pause the story there! We need more info

 

[Black95TSIawd]

Tease!

 

[TSiAWD666]

Intermission! Here are some pictures around the paddock capturing various cars.

2016 Viper ACR in the garage from Friday:

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My friend Mills Robinson's 1967? Camaro, aka the Trackmaro. Won Fastest Vintage Car again this year with a 2:10.932. He actually broke under 2:10 but had dropped two tires off that session so it didn't count (they dq the whole session). It's really a 1967 body with an Corvette LS1 engine and suspension He participates in the Optima Streetcar Challenge as well so if you pay attention to that series (I think it airs on MAV TV) look for him.

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Some VERY fast cars on track:

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A nice Audi TT that was in the UTCC. It ran a 2:10.183. The E46 behind it ran a 2:12:

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Doug Wind's 680whp Dodge Neon SRT-4. He ran a 1:57.827 this year!!! Really fast for him and well deserved:

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Professional Awesome's Evo on track. Looks like their front splitter/diving-board could use a bit more support:

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Remember the winning Viper of the UTCC? Well the company sells those cars as turnkey race machines, and they had one ready for purchase at the event. Sexy raw carbon fiber and kevlar, plastic still on the lexan:

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Here's underneath the bonnet:

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The joke window sticker they had on it:

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Another RRT car, Neil Simon's 1M. Has a single Forced Performance turbo... I think a 3076, or maybe a 3576, I forget. He was having various cooling issues all weekend. I think he only ran a 2:08 in the event due to those issues this year, though he ran a 2:05 last year. Amazing that he dailies this to work sometimes and has that kind of speed. He even drove it to/from the track with a small trailer for tires.

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Some nice cars that I think were just there for advertising, at least the lambo and porsche. The far left is a GTR that Nissan provided the track to use as a pace car (though it's only for big events I think as we were still using some tiny hatchback). That's Turbosax2 flossing the Motul hat I made him wear:

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Another car that had been vying for Fastest Vintage Car in the UTCC. It ran a 2:03 but... I think somehow Mills won. I need to ask Mills about that...

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If you've been reading this thread you might recall me mentioning my friend Liam Dwyer, the retired marine now Mazda racecar driver. Well I came out of the restrooms, looked to my right seeing what looked like a pro video camera and look who's recording footage for an upcoming race? Liam just happened to be up recording a spot for some races a few months in advance and he explained that's very common. Crazy running into him Sadly he didn't get to do any driving that weekend but it was nice to see him. I think he said the spot was for ESPN but I'm not sure.

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Friday night we got a new garage-mate for the weekend, a fellow going through HPDE to eventually get his competition license so he can race in the American Iron series. I had to take a few pictures because there were some painful things I noticed on the car:

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Notice anything odd here about the canards/winglets? Yes, they ARE horizontal. I was laughing for a while at this. I actually couldn't help it and brought it up to him the next day and he argued they were creating downforce like that. I had to just give up. Brian and Eric said they could tell I was close to laughing in his face

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Next up was this NACA duct in the rear quarter. It's hard to see here but it... goes to nothing. It lets air right into the cabin with no hose or anything there.

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Lastly there were these louvres on the back quarter panels. They are literally plastic louvres bonded onto the metal. The metal is flat and has no holes so these vent nothing. I have no idea...

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Ok back to racing...

 

[TSiAWD666]

Oh I forgot to include this picture from the UTCC. The photographer was able to get this one:

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and another from another good photographer friend Michael Wheeler (I suggest finding his photography page on Facebook if you like great track photography):

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Saturday morning we wait patiently and just after 11am I get a call from my friend Don, manager of the TMI on-track store, that my packages have arrived. If you need racing gear please consider TMI http://www.tmiracing.com/store/ as they will really do their best to take care of you We rush over there and tear open the boxes and amazingly about every thing we asked for is there. Forced Performance is AWESOME!!!

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It looks tiny! It's a much smaller compressor housing than the FP3150. Has me wondering but we can't really worry about this now

We rush over to the garage and get to work. No doubt we had little hang ups here and there. The biggest issue was getting the o2 housing to mate to the new turbo. The Loose Bros messed with this for like 30 minutes. Turned out over time my flange on the o2 housing was warped out of round and just wouldn't sit flush on the new housing, yet magically the heights of the wastegate and main outlet flanges were close enough. So they took my dremel and went to town and amazingly got it all together! The turbo bag I had on the old fp3150 for a few years had disintegrated in a couple places but Brian managed to use safety wire to kind of sew it into place. We did notice a huge crack where the wastegate recirculation pipe was welded back into the main o2 housing which would become an issue later.

One thing I was concerned about was bearing material destroying the engine. Mike@FP said typically the pieces would be too big to get through the strainer so I should be fine, but still recommended pulling the oil pan after the event to empty completely. There definitely was material in there because I found some in the old turbo's drain line (but the chunks were nice and large). We saw no bearing material when we drained the engine's oil the night before which was a good sign. Per Tim Zimmer's recommendation I pulled one of the magnets he had added to my transmission on the underside of the oil pan in hopes of catching any ferrous materials. We changed oil filters (running downtown to grab a Fram filter I think) and with that decided to just run things as is.

We somehow got through all these problems (I'm skipping a bunch I can't remember) with five minutes left before the LAST timed session on Saturday. I rush out to grid and realize I have no official time, so I have no offical grid spot. I have to negotiate with everyone up there haha to get me into a position so I won't be held up in my hot lap. Fortunately I know most of the guys, and the ones I don't respect that I'm not lying about my projected 2-minute time so they let me up near the front, I think in the sixth position.

I go out there on what I think will be a lower boost setting because I have no idea how the turbo will work with my tune nor what boost I'll get. Here's what I noticed:
1) Boost control is eerily similar. I ended up being at like 23-24psi at settings on my evc 5 that would have given me similar boost on the fp3150.
2) The turbo DOES spool faster than the FP3150. About 250rpm sooner, exactly like Mike@FP said it would. New aero tech in turbos really does matter!
3) Power curve feels similar, which makes me think it's still a turbo that's going to drop off in the 6500rpm range and up. Not what I would want ideally, but at least it's matching the FP3150 so it's good enough. Perhaps tuning will change this though, or my butt dyno is fooling me which it is prone to do.

On-track, now sporting FP stickers:

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We complete the warm-up lap and we're off. I had switched to the Hoosier A6 tires on the Finspeed wheels despite having no real practice time because I figured we might as well go for everything. Man these stick like glue, and I wasn't used to it and had some real learning to do in order to take advantage of them fully. I still try to drive decently fast but the lack of camber is still noticeable, and being down on power a bit is as well. I make the first hot lap thinking I should adjust things and bam... BRAAPBRAPBRAAPAPAPAA. Lots of breaking up any time I get into the throttle. Uh oh.

So I only got one hot lap. I also had some liquid on my windshield on the passenger side, I could smell oil burning, the car was starting to overheat, and alternator voltage was lower than usual. I had to come in immediately. I was pretty bummed thinking I couldn't have run a decent time, thinking I ran maybe a 2:06 or something slower.

We came in and looked things over. Lots of little things we found:
1) Gooseneck was leaking. It had been removed to get room to remove the turbo oil feed line (on my car it's in the way due to a custom mount for the swirl pot). Well it had RTV as a gasket and I didn't re-do it (I'd actually re-installed it without re-doing it countless times, guess this was the last one though). So That had to be scraped off and fixed.
2) The new turbo oil feed line filter has three sections to be tightened: banjo fitting, filter fitting, and the AN line to the filter housing. Well... whoever installed that didn't know these are loose when shipped and never tightened all three, and all three were leaking oil.
3) Wastegate line was disconnected. At first just assumed it was because the line was cut short during reinstall and tension caused it to pull/tear apart. (this was wrong, but we didn't figure that out until Sunday afternoon).

Well, we start working on a plan, but with no more sessions Saturday there was no rush so we planned to work on things in the evening. We could just head to the awards dinner and relax at least for now. Before that though I decided to head over to get the official time sheet to see how we did. It seems I was not the only one who had issues as there should have been five total cars in TT2:

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I was kind of in shock. Everyone broke except the Ferrari 360 Challenge car. So by some crazy stroke of luck, for the first time ever, after all the hard work we all put into this car, this happened:

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Crazy huh? I mean, it's a bit hollow without most of my fellow competitors running, I have to say, but it still felt pretty good to have some validation. I did still beat a Ferrari as well Here's footage from the race:

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Things got better on Sunday though and helped justify things a bit. After dinner we went back to the car to work on the issues we saw and went to sleep.

 

[TSiAWD666]

Ah here's my competition, forgot to post this. The Ferrari 360 Challenge car. Owner was new to TT so still has quite a bit of learning to do. He improved to a 2:09 on Sunday!:

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Sunday. We took care of everything we noticed from the day before and got the car out for the first session. Car was feeling alright in the first hot lap. Unfortunately the car started heating up and after the first hot lap the wastegate line disconnected again. Alternator voltage was going a bit low probably from exhaust heat as well. No es bueno. But...

I ran a 2:00.119 which is almost 2.5 seconds faster than last year's fastest. I still was driving a bit sloppy due to little seat time this year here, plus power wasn't quite right either. Also later Gs were like .5 or more below what they should be probably thanks to the camber goof. With all this in mind I think I can definitely beat the track record of a 1:58.8 held by Element Tuning's turbo FRS. Also, the track's really hot this weekend which isn't helping anyone. Heck the FRS in the UTCC only ran a 2:01.755 so that says something about my relative speed. This is very very good

Another frame of reference is this car that runs in the higher class, a C7 Z06 (650hp). He ran a 2:05 I believe:

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Here is footage from this lap (for real this time):

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As for the issues:
1) Alternator - No real solution here because I was pretty sure this was due to the crack in the o2 housing. It's gonna get hot and fast, and I can only hope my heat shield saves it.
2) Coolant leak - I tightened down one of the bolts holding the gooseneck in place as it was slightly loose. I couldn't see anything else (this ended up being it).
3) Wastegate line - this ended up being installer error. My wastegate uses banjo barb fittings and when it was reinstalled someone thought it was slightly loose and torqued it. Well they didn't realize they torqued it to an angle that allowed the wastegate line to touch the v-band clamp holding the wastegate to the turbine housing, and the line was melting there (though the line looked torn, not melted). Re-angling this fixed it.

So with this lap time we took first place again for Sunday. Only a BMW M3 joined the party that day but I think he ran a 2:06.

I took the car out for a second timed session but with the temps getting hotter and the alternator cooking (I think I was at battery voltage before the end of the hot lap) I had to come in quickly. However Eric let me use his Hero 3 on the splitter so I put together this cool video showing an alternative view of things. I still ran like a 2:00.5 I think officially so it's not terribly slow, but I wasn't pushing it yet on that lap either.

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After coming in I found that the red rubber boot on my alternator battery cable had melted completely and was a pile of red goop on top of my intercooler pipe down below That's HOT! Fortunately after cooling down the alternator recovered to full voltage.

Brian Loose was able to make a bit of time to get some exterior footage during the day and while he might need to cut back on the caffeine, it shows some neat angles:

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After the two timed sessions I really wanted to take Eric out on track so we went out for a brief session in HPDE3. Brian snapped some pictures of that for us:

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And with that the weekend was over. I didn't set a new record this weekend but I think with some recovering from the turbo disaster and alignment changes I am confident I can do it. So right now we're planning on getting the car back to VIR in October for cooler weather and giving it another shot.

Here we are packed up and ready to go. I like this picture only because of the rear driver's corner sticker addition. Been a long time coming

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Until next time VIR!

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Thanks to Brian and Eric Loose for sacrificing their Trackcation and working tirelessly on the car to make success happen. I couldn't have done it without you guys.