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[Truenotch]

*****DISCUSSION*****


History behind the car:

This car was our Family AE86 back in the early 90's and is the first 86 that I remember ever seeing. It was originally a 1984 AE86 GTV with no rust. Completely standard. We had this car (Robin) and a black 280z which we called batman/ the batmobile. So that's where the name comes from.



Then one day an Engineer friend of my dads offered big money for it, so we sold it to him, and he turned it into a race car from there. He probably spent $25k with all his own labour back then. It still had a 4age, t50 etc

Then it went on to someone else who changed the tunnel and mounted a 3sge in it, leaning over, open quads, cams, link.







Specs:
Lexan door and boot glass replacement
Modified Dash
Extended Steering Column
Tilton Pedal kit & Remote Brake Bias control.
Carbon fibre bonnet
Dry Cell Battery
roll cage
RaceTech Bucket seat
Fuel cell

ENGINE:
Gen 3 3SGE N/A
LINK ECU
Kelford Cams (L3\L200) 257 IN 231 EX
Quad Throttle bodys
Big Extractors
T series rear end with TRD LSD
Ratio =4.8
One set of Axles are hardened (Installed) (2 spare set included)
Adjustable coil over shocks all around with front adjustable camber plates.
WILLWOOD SUPERLITE II
300 x 32mm front Discs



So the plan is to get the car ready for the Manfeild winter series, which starts in june, but I'm aiming for July or August for my first round. All that needs doing it bolt on the flares, check everything and run the engine up on the dyno to make sure everything is so sweet.


Now, which colour should the flares be? Red or black? I reckon black.

[Truenotch]

....

[Truenotch]

Took it in for a dyno run today to make sure it wont blow up at the track.



Need to work on the sloppy curves. Probably cam timing and some playing with the link will give me a smoother curve and peak power and torque sooner. But this will do for first testing.

And this is the picture in the logbook from a few years ago:

[Truenotch]

WOW! Rick from Toyspeed had some pictures of it racing at manfeild! This is how it looked las time I saw it:

[Truenotch]

Some pics from today. Still need to get riv-nuts to install the flares.

[Truenotch]

.

[Truenotch]

Went out to Manfeild for testing today and had a blast! The car handles awesomely and is impressive to drive.

Only times were from my second run and did low 1:22's consistantly, May have dipped 1:21's but theres no proof .

[Truenotch]

Found some pics that dad took of the car in the 90's at the onekawa st sprints in Napier.




In other news, I had my first race day in the weekend! Took a lot of work to get there (Finding out it needed a wheel bearing on thurs night and a few other niggles). Ended up getting out for 2 laps of testing on the saturday before the track closed.


Then in a wet race 1, lap 1, I got rubbed up against by a super 6 and wanged into the back of an HQ that had slowed down to avoid the same super 6 who spun on the next corner. Bent me guard, headlight cover and broke both the RH Facelift eye lid and the facelift indercator. Didn't care, just kept racing.



Race 2 was really mint, also wet, Hanidicap start from near the rear of the pack. Had a sweet battle with a pile of Civics, a swift and an E30 Bmw. the fastest civic spun off the hairpin and splashed crap over the cars behind. Was pretty cool.


Race 3 came along and was to be the last of the day, the sun was out and the track was dry. I was put in the group 2nd to last in the handicap start. In between races we had adjusted the brake bias to try and give a bit more rearwards stopping power, it felt great during the warm up lap. This was followed by sitting on the start line, revving and looking forward to a good race... Only to have the clutch give up on the start line. . That sucks. But thats racing.

< Hows that for anticlimactic?!!!

So I now have 4 weeks to do a clutch, fix up the panels and hopefully have enough money left to race.

Watch this space.

[Truenotch]

Second race weekend has just been, and what a weekend for it!

Spent saturday Afternoon testing the car (after a drama over losing the fuel cap and trying to find another fuel cell type cap to borrow!). It was a good day for testing with decent weather and not too many cars out on the track. In a run by myself I managed to do a time of 1:20.8 - nearly 2 seconds faster then my previous best.

Race day came and the weather stayed good. I run in "allcomers saloons" in the 1:23 and faster class, so this sits me mid / rear of the pack for normal style grid starts. Started in 21st for the first race and swapped position with quite a few people, to finish in 21st . Fastest lap on race day was 1:21.4 which I'm happy with. Had a really good battle with the orange Macbuilt Corolla (also 3SGE powered, and my 3S conversion was also done by Macbuilt), managed to stay ahead of it until he spun into the hairpin. This car has been my "target" so I'm really stoked.

Pics:








Small vid (sound sucks!).

[Truenotch]

Vids!

Testing on the saturday:;


Race 3 on Sunday:

[Truenotch]

Bought a "trademe special" bumper... was cheap enough. It ended up having a warp in the RH corner and needed fixing up. Also made a mounting setup that is quick and easy, so it can come off to go on the trailer.

How it looked when I got it:


Spent ages repairing the bumper. No pics of the process but it came out looking good. What I did was sand the lump down until it was even with the rest of the bumper, then flipped it upside down and layed out about 8 layers of fibreglass for a base. After that was dry I flipped it over and used newtech to give something to mould. Following that there was a lot of sanding, spray puttying and more sanding until it came out looking pretty good.

Now 2 bombs of primer, 2 bombs of gloss black, 1/4 can of matte black and 2 cans of gloss later it looks pretty good. Could do with at least 2 more coats though. Might just do it at home with some laquer and my new compressor.

Also made up a couple of lenses up out of perspex. Painted the front ones red and the corners flatty B.






The repaired corner:

[Truenotch]

As requested, I've matty-B'd the bumper. Going to do the flares and paint the sills black tomorrow / sunday.

[Truenotch]

Blacked the sill and bottom of the door earlier today, and added a fresh coat to the flares. Looks much better! It kind of makes the car look lower and the wheels look a bit bigger. Going to lower it another 30mm or so next time it's in for a setup.

[Truenotch]

Had a trackday in the weekend, it was good fun. Track was dry but slippery, and the drifters didn't make it any easier.

Pics:





In car video:


The car that hit me from behind was a friend in his Integra type R, we hadn't had a chance to "race" each other until now, and he had joked about the fact that he was going to "take my rear bumper"... Turns out he wasn't wrong! But thats racing, and we are friends so no hard feelings. It was a misunderstanding, he was going to go low and try to pass me but I defended and he couldn't stop in time.

His car:



Looked a lot worse just after he hit me, but we got it straightened out well, and fixed the radiator for more thrashing.

[Truenotch]

4th page dig up... must be time for an update. Better get some pics ...


Ahh, thats better.

Anyway there are a few things to update since last time... I bought more wheels, they're Simmons.


Have had quite a few little issues lately.

First, I went out testing after getting my brakes skimmed and did 3-4 runs. The car felt pretty sluggish then mid corner theres a big BANG and the steering gets really heavy... "Wonder if that was a flat tyre"... Turns out my LF wheel bearing had lunched itself and melted the end of my stub axle!!! Result: Get another strut to re-make coilover.

Then when I had the strut out something didn't seem quite right... That shock from that same corner was bent! I re-assembled and decided that there was little choice (as there was an event the next weekend). So I did the sprint and was trying out some softer springs, which made the bent shock a lot easier to notice. It turns in OK, then part way though the corner it starts to shunt, the inside rear wheel picks up, back slides round and the car turns the corner. Using the chassis as suspension = less than ideal. There was 40mm of travel in the shock with no load on it, so minus droop (20mmish) and there was only 20mm of travel in my left front corner! Anything should be better than that. It explains why one of the previous owners told me they could never get it to turn in propperly... and also why it had 650lb springs in the front. It probably had a bent shock all along.

Then later that day I took off from the line, slammed into second gear and the diff exploded! I pulled onto the infield and realized that it was seized up in the rear... So it sat there for the rest of the day. It was easy enough to get on the trailer by pulling out the axles and pushing it (floating axles rule!). Turns out the crown wheel and pinion lunched themselves. Dropped the oil and took handfulls of shit out of the housing.... Which meant dropping the whole housing for a thorough clean.

Bought a 4wd liteace van for it's front diff and used the CW&P to re-build my diff. So have gone back to 4.77 ratio... but bought another van diff with 4.556 just in case.

Solved the shocks problem for now by borrowing some Koni's from Julian at Motorsport Manawatu. Only issue is they take up to 400lb springs so I've borrowed some softer springs to work with them as well. Hopefully we'll see better times from this setup... Having weight shift for braking and turning has to be a good thing! I'm also buying some 2nd hand slicks so will hopefully get a chance to try those in the weekend as well.

First meeting of the United Travel Race Series this weekend and the car is almost ready! Lets hope nothing goes wrong at the test day on Saturday...


viewtopic.php?f=18&t=14421


Oh..... And my wallet is nearly empty.

[Truenotch]

+ another pic with new wheels.

[Truenotch]

Just had a fiddle in the dark... involving a torch, an open garage and 60 seconds. Then I was done.

[Truenotch]

Went out for testing today... and did 2 runs.

After the first run I decided that it was unacceptably slow... so we set to find the problem. Suspected issues with the balance of the quads - checked it out and an adjustor bolt had fallen out. Put another one in and tried to balance them up. Cranked the idle down to nothing and closed all the valves.... Why is it still idling? On 1/2 cylinders... Spray brake cleaner at exhaust manifold *dies* . Theres the issue!

The intake manifold was cracked nearly all the way around runner number one! ohh noe! Pulled off and went back to Palmy (again) to get it welded up by a friendly engineer (Tony McConarchy aka - Mr Hayabusa starlet)... He did it for free and said he was glad to help. Stoked.

Picked up my slicks from mag and turb and went back to manfeild... by this time it's about 3pm. Damn - missed the last test session for Saloons. Poos.

Fitted the manifold and quads, re-balanced and put the slicks on the car. Managed to get out for 3 laps while the "sponsor rides" were going on. Couldn't see shit cause of sun strike and didn't manage to get the tyres up to temp but the engine felt better. Still slower than it used to be but better.

Upside is that it turns in now, so yay for that. Will fine tune the setup tomorrow.

Only pic from the day:


Edit: found another:

[Truenotch]

Fuck.

Probably had my worst weekend at the track ever... Spent most of it doing something like this:


For starters the throttle link bar (with spring clips + ball joints) kept falling off on decel at a certain RPM... Tried to qualify, but it fell off and I watched from the lime road.

Race 1, thought I had fixed it... and it fell off just out of pit exit...

Race 2, was going to start off the back of the grid. Had lock wired the link on and all looked mint... car felt good on the slicks during warm up.... then got to the hairpin and *POOOOO* lost power and ran on 3 cylinders... New issue? WTF! Vaccum pipe had fallen off the back of the quads.... again, watched from the middle.

Started it up after being towed in and drove to my garage, seemed fine. then went to start it up again (after cable tying the vacuumm pipes on) and it idled ok... but give it some gas and *POO POO POO PUH POP Die* ... Kick wall...

Checkover wiring etc, alternator wire has fallen out of the plug.... Looks to be the charge light wire. twist together with the other wire and start.... Alternator light comes on. Not charging.

I know Link ECU's don't like having low voltage, so maybe it's been a problem for a while. The alternator light hadn't been coming on before start up (like it should, but I didn't notice) and the battery has been losing charge. I normally charge it before a race meet but didn't this time so the voltage may have finally got low enough to make it not run propperly.

Heres hoping that fixing the alternator and repairing the wiring will set it right! Might unlock more power with the added spark....



It WILL be ready for round 2 on the 28th

[Truenotch]

Went for a test in the rain today... Interesting.




Race day tomorrow.