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Start with the bad....
1) Took a while to get the car on the dyno. Killed a thermostat from sitting for so long.
2) Definitely more of a ***** to bleed the coolant system with the heater core out.
3) Car is about 15whp off of where it was before on ethanol.
4) Unfortunately the diff is dead...like completely open. Strange since it felt completely fine the last time it ran, but I digress. I had not even tried to test the lockup before Sat morning.
Good:
1) Car still makes good power for a bolt-on DE.
2) We ran almost 100 miles on the dyno without a single hiccup
3) An opportunity may have presented itself for a better product for the rear diff. I'll update when I know for sure.
Summary:
It's now unlikely the car will make it out before April, but MAYBE the trackdaze event at VIR in a few weeks. I'm not at all crazy about the idea of running the first shake down event 4+ hours from home, though. Next chance to run the car would not be until early-mid April. Also rather sadly, it will mean the car has zero time at VIR before UTCC, which is a one day shootout event. Not ideal in the least.
Would post a video but embedding seems to never be the same here any more. All methods taken from prior embedding no longer work it seems and I don't feel like trying to figure it out.
Diff is in and the car is corner balanced...more or less. Used stuff to ballast for the missing bodywork, etc. The overall weight is probably pretty close to post session fuel level and with me in it...
Bag of mulch, etc for ballast to act as hood/bumper/splitter ...
Need to paint the splitter/cage, get some tires mounted on the 18" RPF1's and a bunch of other little things, but should be on track at Summit on April 11.
The car made its first shakedown run this past weekend. Honestly, ran much better than I had expected. I was just hoping to get 8-10 laps and make sure everything was tight. The set-up on the car was a total swing in the dark, mostly because I had planned to run 18's and hoosiers, but the weather forecast was for 50's and rain. Of course it was 65 and sunny all, except the first session. That said, only ran on some WAY past dead NT01's, but pounded around in a Mercedes F1 like 53 laps . Initially the car was pushy as **** with the smaller front wheel (9.5) and too much rear wing. Also, I wasn't happy with V1 of the splitter for the V3 bumper so I just braced my old auto-x splitter set-up, which is far from ideal and very shallow on the splitter. On the 17's it is also LOW, so I had to stay away from the curbs. Once I backed the rear wing down to 2-3 degrees it was surprisingly good.
Results: Well, the car was really really easy to drive, but it is down on power. I had a light on for the evap system, so not sure if it was in limp mode, but I was only around 130-131mph on the front straight at Summit Point, which is 7-8mph under where I should be. 2-3mph of that is probably on exit of 10 with the **** tires, though. Overall lap times were about 3.5s off TT3 track record, which is closer than it should be at this point. There is another .5s in the suspsension set-up, another EASY .5s in power/weight and the rest will have to be from sticker A7's/larger front wheel and manning up in the drivers seat.
Sadly, I couldn't run the final 2 hour open, uber session because the diff was puking fluid after the prior 30 min session. I'll have to run 5-6 lap sessions from here on out until I can figure an overflow solution or cooling set-up.
As long as I don't find anything when I go over the car the next few days, I'll run the car again this weekend at Summit. This time, still on 17's, but with some older, although fresh A6's. Goal for the weekend is 1:20.0, but we'll have to see with power issue, small front wheel and lack of real front aero. I still think it can do it, but we'll see.
I didn't think the day would be video worthy, so I didn't take any. If some folks from my session post, I'll link it here.
Only two pics:
Start of the day....
End of the day....
Last edited by 03threefiftyz; Apr 13, 2016 at 04:08 AM.
^ Nice! Sucks about the fluid. Maybe I missed it, but do you have an extra-capacity rear diff cover? Or have any idea what caused the diff to lose its fluid?
^ Nice! Sucks about the fluid. Maybe I missed it, but do you have an extra-capacity rear diff cover? Or have any idea what caused the diff to lose its fluid?
It's just overflow from it getting hot. I use the Z1 cover.
Car ran reasonable well all weekend, until the ABS failed and flung me off into the grass.
Replaced the axle (had a reman in there) with a Nissan unit and drained a little fluid out of the diff after Monday's end of the day issues. Good news is that problem did not come back over the weekend. Also turned the codes off for the cruise, evap and something else I can't remember.
Overall ran DE3 on Sat and first session on Sun, then TT the second and a little of the 3rd session. Was hustling along to an easy 1:20 on cycled R7's, but went off the only chance I had to an open lap ending the weekend.
Next event is GRM UTCC at VIR. Need to figure how to keep the ABS from killing me, but no other major issues. Have some parts on the shelf to get me back to the power I need to be. I had issues getting by TTB/C cars on the main straight at Summit. Also need to finish the new front aero set-up. I ran the old BSP autocross aero again this weekend. It is draggy and probably doesn't offer much, if any, downforce.
Pic:
While still clean on Saturday (NT01's)
The After....got lucky, except for flat spotting all 4 tires to the point they don't hold air:
Video from the car behind...can skip to 2:30ish when I come around:
...
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