Hyperblade

On the heat soak topic... I have definitely noticed this, at the moment my car is fairly flat during racing, I've noticed the intake temps have been hitting at least 40c (I suspect the hot air is mainly off the radiators). There was one exceptionally cool day and it felt like a different car, a lot more punch out of the corners etc. I've just ducted the radiators through the bonnet which should drop under bonnet temps, will be interesting to see if it makes a difference on temps, and then on performance. I looked at making an air box, but everything is so bloody tight, I gave up. My current thinking is to put the standard intake back on and chop the runners to fit the ITB's. I haven't measured but the stock manifold runners look just that little bit larger too and also have a curve in them so should end up being longer overall as well.

Following this with interest... Some more dyno charts for you My First Dyno: Blacktop throttles, 75mm trumpets, stock exhaust manifold, sq engineering adapter, good filter socks (didn't collapse) Second Dyno: Blacktop throttles, 75mm trumpets, Custom TRD Copy exhaust manifold, sq engineering adapter, pipercross combined filter. Other car dynos i had collected:

You might want to try changing the sensitivity if your struggling to read them, i.e if they are changing to quickly then they are impossible to read. For digital gauges best use case I think is for something like temps, pressures etc where you want to know what specific value they are running at a glance. For analogue they work best for quick moving values e.g. rpm, or where you are wanting to look for changes over time. However using a standard display for fake round analogue gauges i find to be a waste of time, as the resolution and lack of physical needle makes them harder to read. I ended up with this: Digital rpm value is waste of time while moving (but is useful in odd case where you want to see exact figure), yellow bar however works well as changes to orange then red at set points. The temp and pressure values will change to a red back ground if they go out of acceptable range. This is a really good UI pattern to follow, highlight and make standout only in an exceptional state. For me this works well, the values are there if i want to look, but i'm normally to busy to, so highlighting when something bad is happening is far more useful (bonus for buzzer noise) Driven Wheel speed is really hard to read, but not important in my use case, but for a road car you would want it to stand out as it's something that is critical to operation of vehicle (so in the center with other values around it). Note: Values are at bottom as I couldn't see them over the wheel when they were at the top but I would have preferred them at top as your eye would go past them when going to view speedo/rpm. I modeled it loosely off this dash (Honda City Turbo designed by Mugen) as it's one of the best i've seen on any car to date (improvements would be to get rid of the yellow boxes): The other thing you want to do is remove as many lines/arrows/separators as possible as they all distract the eye from the actual values and if you need them don't put them as a bold colour they should be lighter shade of red/blue so your eyes don't go to them first. For yours I would get rid of blue borders, and make red a much lighter shade (remove a couple of lines and also make them a lot thinner. You will still subconsciously take them in, but they wont distract from the actual data.

I've been holding off doing the aero until I got the engine sorted as I knew it should be making more power and I wanted a consistent car to experiment on. Plus I now have another honda I have to catch which is running 3-5s in front with a 2L engine, i noticed through the corners he dominated me, but down the straight it was similar pace, I don't think I'll ever be as quick as him, but I can hopefully get a little bit closer to at least make it harder for him! The other advantage of glass over ply is it protects the plywood, i'm still waiting on feedback from the guy who's going to do it, to see if it's going to be strong enough. Yep I think running aluminium angle makes a lot of sense for both those points you make. I've read that about standing on it, but it really depends on the use, for us we aren't really doing 250kph+ so the forces are a less, so you have to be really careful not to overbuild it. Thanks for those pictures, it's really hard to find good pictures of decent mounting systems! I like the pin idea (have also seen a slotted version), the only thing I also want is to be able to adjust the height maybe I can use the vertical member to do that. One source I've been using is https://www.youtube.com/user/Kyleengineers He has some good videos that explain what's happening, that plus reading has given me a rough idea on the key bits (low pressure/high pressure) work. He has a good video on beginner aero. He's quite good at simplifying it, he's also just been hired by an F1 Team to do aero so must be fairly accurate... It's actually really hard to find good info, as you have to be really careful what you copy, as a lot of aero is built to the regulations of the class the car is running in and they might design it quite differently if they were allowed to.

So after a lot of research on how racecar aero works, I started on the front splitter. My goals are Faster laptime (from more downforce) Robust Quick removal. Cheap Light There are some Motorsport NZ Aero Regulation's that i have to meet, which are: So measuring the rims I have to keep at least 80mm clearance from the ground, and can't be wider then 1600mm total. A lot of the other guys running starlets have already built splitters so it's great to see some examples. and get ideas. This is a very quick 4age powered starlet. More Info: http://www.themotorhood.com/themotorhood/2016/12/19/si-champs-spotlight-jamie-hodgins-kp61-starlet And a Nissan 1.8 T powered starlet which is crazy fast when the boost is wound up. But you do have to be careful about copying as that first starlet is trying to do a front diffuser (where the rear is higher then front), but it's venting into the wheel well, a high pressure zone, so it wouldn't actually be helping, and potentially is hurting rather then having just a flat floor. Most of the other starlet racers are using sheetmetal and are attaching it to the front aero dam. That doesn't work for me as i want it quick release I also want it more rigid. So to make life simple for myself I have started with 4mm ply to use as a template (so i can make multiple for when I inevitably break one), this made life super simple to cut around the wheels. So currently I've got this: And it extends nicely to just past the steering rack. And sticks out 140mm, which is larger then most, but I'm not going to do canards, so hoping this is about right considering i don't go over 200km/hr at the moment so i want it more effective at lower speeds. I'm looking to add end plates to contain the higher pressure zone on the splitter, and also make sure theres no air getting to the tyre. Haven't worked out mounting but am looking at Stainless Turnbuckles with the pins, but it's really going to depend on how flexible the final splitter ends up being. I haven't decided on the final material, but currently contemplating 4mm ply with a fibreglass layer to give it strength, I don't want to to heavy, but you can't have it bending either so it's a balancing act.

Thanks! I was quite worried about the noise and going over the 95dba as they are really loud, but it turned out that on track they are the same 87dba as the old system, now there's no way it's quieter so it's just the fact they go out the side rather then the back. Going out the side has cleaned up the back a lot, means it should be easier to do a diffuser now which was my long term plan. Plus side pipes are just look cool... I sold the TRD pipes on Trademe, went to a guy in Blenheim. Interestingly the sizing of the TRD pipes is larger then what most guys are doing for their 4-1 race systems, but the results speak for themselves. Fitment wise it depends how far forward and high the engine is sitting, but I think you would have a better chance of fitting them in, they were just not going to work in the starlet without major cutting and reshaping.

As is always the case, of the list of things I wanted to do before the next club day, I only ended up doing a couple... First job was new headers and exhaust, I had been running stock Altezza 4-2-1 headers (shortened at the 2 section) 2.5 inch steel system with two old mufflers under the rear diff and out the back. This was a pain as it was one piece all the way from the headers back and was bolted such that it could not be removed without major work (infact I never had it off as it was to hard). So the goal of the new headers/exhaust was: * Make it eaiser to maintain. * Side exit so no more diff issues * Gain HP * Save weight I was "lucky" when I spotted some TRD headers come up on Yahoo Japan in really good condition. Unfortunatly when we went to fit them, they ended up being 100mm to low, and there was no easy way to modify them to fit However they gave me accurate measurements, so on to plan b which was to get some custom headers made to the same specs. As the TRD ones were meant to give 13kw across the rev range. Being Made: All Wrapped: Next was to get rid of the indvidual trumpet filters. While I would like a cold air intake plenium, I just didn't have the time or desire to make one at the moment, so decided to go with a Pipercross filter and a backing plate to suit. Now space is quite limited in this area, so both the backing plate, filter and firewall had to be massaged to fit in and still allow the bonnet to close normally. Luckily there was enough meat on the filter to take the plastic frame down while still keeping its integrity, it means it's no longer quick release, but it will do the job. So then off to the dyno for a retune. Old Dyno Results: 134.6 kw (180hp) @ 6929rpm, 215 N-m @ 4560rpm (Hub Dyno) New Dyno Results: 149.9 kw (201hp) @ 7250rpm, 235.4 N-m @ 5150rpm (Rolling Road) Very happy with that result! So off to Club Day 4 with some new tyre pressures to aim for too (after advice from someone in the know) now running 21psi hot instead of 24psi. Race 1: Race 2: Race 3: So previously my best laptimes across the 3 races were: Club Day 2 1:39.040 1:41.980 1:40.270 Club Day 3 1:38.824 1:39.307 1:39.911 Club Day 4 Was: 1:37.187 1:37.400 1:37.424 New PB of 1:37.187 down from 1:38.824. What was most pleasing however was in race 2 every single lap was in the 1:37's where as previously they had varied quite a bit, I think that's mostly down to tyres as they used to feel like they were getting slippery in final laps. Car is now lifting it's front left wheel a lot out of the corners due to the grip, acceleration, and in some cases the back tyre was also lifting. It's performing a lot better now, and I can actually keep up with the competition down the straight so have a chance of getting them under brakes, where as before I was just to far behind. Next major items before the last Club Day 5 are around aero and improving the drag/downforce: * Duct cold air to the filter. * Front splitter/tray * Rear diffuser (If I get time)

My understanding was for WOF's you need adjustable seat rails (locking on both sides if used on track under motorsport regs) authority card however allows you to run fixed... Might want to double check the regs. Could also drop your rim size down to save a bit of weight from the rim/tyre combo. Factory front calipers on cars are also normally pretty heavy, so going with an aftermarket brand could save you a couple of kg's each side (if you haven't already). Obviously all $$$, plus changes to cert plate which is a pain.

Here's a small build thread of my car done by original owner. http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~quibel/Starlet2c.htm He got the engine to run with stock ecus and dash. There's wiring PDFs on there, let me know if you need any other diagrams as I have a copy of most I thought I would need(have gone to link now) Edit: found my Google drive folder, more stuff here https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-vnGydBzxEXdGhpcFRWdXRTb3M

So the club day 3 went well, always good when can drive the car back on the trailer. Positives Back no longer hurts sitting in the car, new seat works well, although has blocked my rear view vision a bit. Car only hit 96c engine temp, while in traffic (28c day) so very happy with that. Brakes were lasting better. Handling was much better after corner weighting the car and fixing the cross weighting Negatives Car felt a bit sluggish with the new diff (4.3 from 4.7). Car felt like throttle was sticking (was idling higher in pits until i gave it a rev and it dropped), even though it wasn't. However looking at my best laptimes from the 3 different races vs the last club day, paints a different story. Club Day 2 1:39.040 1:41.980 1:40.270 Club Day 3 1:38.824 1:39.307 1:39.911 So in a considerably hotter day, I've actually gotten faster. Even though it felt like i was slower. So the next job's to do before the next club day. New side exit exhaust system with new headers (currently running stock exhaust manifold) New cold air intake, getting rid of the trumpet socks Replace the fuel system with a fuel cell which also means new fuel pump, filter, FPR (can do it after I get rid of exhaust) New Tune Replace the cheap aliexpress idle up valve with a genuine one as I think it's staying open when it shouldn't. Buy a filter for the go pro so that you can actually see the track. I'm hoping to get a little more HP out of those changes, especially nice would be getting some top end back, as it's sluggish after 7000rpm. Long term I need to lighten the car some more to ease the load on the brakes (most of the race starlets down here are around 700kg or less and have to run street pads as they can't get enough heat into them). Currently it weighs 880kg with a 55/45 (front/rear) weight distribution. Videos:

So a fair bit of work has gone on for tomorrows race day. Previously the brakes had been overheating front and rear, you can see how tight a space it is to work with So off to Brent at Palmside to sort out the brakes as that's beyond my ability. Some nice backing plates later it all fits in quite nicely. While it was in the workshop it was time to finally get rid of the old seat, it had a sprung base and back so my spine was bent in it, and I would get a sore back straight away when I tightened the belts. Also my head hit the roof, so in an accident there was a high change of breaking my back. Fitting a race seat to a starlet can be a challenge, but the Racetech 4009THR ended up fitting perfectly, it's dropped me a lot lower, and with out the cushion I now have 10cm + of head room, which is a small miracle, as it's frustrating hitting your head on the roof/rollcage. Brent put in some proper mounts (the nuts on the old ones were starting to pull through floor) so it's really solid now, need to get the steering wheel slightly closer but that's easily sorted. While it was there new 4.3 crown wheel and pinion was fitted to replace the 4.7, which will stop me hitting the rev limiter just after the start finish line. Got the splitter and flares painted and all fitted up. One of the big issues I had when i was last out (23c day) was engine cooling, it just kept climbing and eventually the ecu started limiting the revs. So time to fit an oil cooler to free up some of the cooling capactiy of the raidator (engine runs oil to water heat exchanger). At the same time i've opened the front of the car up by chopping the bumper, and fitted blanking plates to force the air into the raidator/oil cooler. Chopped the engine cover cos racecar/stop heat building on the coils. So with the race day looming the only day to practise was yesterday, when the temps hit 33c, with trepidation, but knowing it would be a good test of the car went out for a couple of runs to make sure everything was in order. It was really really really hot in a 3 layer suit, however the car performed really well. In clear air the coolant temps didn't go over 92c, the brakes didn't overheat, and I just lasted the distance. So really happy with that. Pretty Graphs! Last Race (23c) Shakedown (33c) Will see how it goes tomorrow, but the next major items are a new exhaust and cold air intake with filter (so can remove the trumpet socks).

I'm looking at getting a quick release steering wheel adapter like yours, how are you finding yours? Any issues/things to watch out for? Quality holding up ok?

Thanks, I had a talk to him and he seem to know what he was talking about, the flares and splitter are now in with them being painted. Gave me a worst case price and will charge under that if it's easier which is great. So will see how it goes.

It's a Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/tablets/thinkpad/thinkpad-tablet-2/ I got it as it has the 2 USB ports which makes life easy. I have it so it auto logs in, and then automatically runs PCLink on startup, which is then configured to auto connect and go full screen, this means if the tablet has an error, it should automatically restart and eventually get back in to displaying the dash (startup from cold is a bit slow).

I need to get some fiberglass flares and a splitter painted for the car. Not looking for the cheapest job, just someone reliable who isn't going to charge over the top. Does anyone have any recommendations?

Wow, that would not have helped, impressive as it was!

That's concerning I think i'll leave mine at 7800 then!

Out of curiosity what rev limit were you running? Stock 7800?

So while I was deciding what I was doing with the front splitter I sorted out a few other odd jobs. First one was a decent rear view mirror, I got this mirror bar locally, but the mounting wasn't great, so AliExpress to the rescue for some fog light brackets and a bit of chopping, i now have a really good mounting, here's hoping vibration isn't to much of an issue. Can now see out each rear side window from the drivers seat, where as before I could only see out the rear window. To finish off the side windows I painted a black border on the inside, definitely worth doing they look really sharp now. Got the hole cut for the Naca duct. And all finished. Managed to get out to view the Speed Festival on the weekend, great turn out of starlets for Shellsport and SS Cup. (and also saw @pe-arce's Beams powered escort battling it out on track which was awesome after following the build online). I took my tape measure out to measure the front splitter height on the starlets and most were running around 80-90mm clearance to the ground, (some were on 13 inch tyres some 15inch) so with that to aim for I finally got mine sitting right at around 92mm (at some point I will install an undertray and I can always lower the car more as I have more clearance on the tyres) I just have to finalise mounting to the guards (slightly off the old rivnuts so have to remove them all and nut and bolt for now) but making good progress. Next club day is 10 Dec so everything has to be done before then!

Thanks for letting me know! They are stored in Google Photos, and the forum software was being smart and linking rather then copying them, looked fine to me as I was logged in. The other ones were hosted on a public img host. All fixed

So up to present day. The rears are AE86 disks and have a shield around them which holds the brake line and is also attached to some steel which the caliper is bolted to. Time to get rid of it so the hot air has somewhere to go. So some very careful cutting with an angle grinder we end up with this. That should help, if it's not enough then might have to look at vented disks. At some point I want to get fiberglass doors which will have windows that won't go down, so driver cooling will get worse. So time to duct some fresh air. So first need to fit some Polycarbonate rear windows. I now have a NACA duct being fitted to the passenger side which I will then duct to the dash and point at me. So for the front brakes, I've been holding off cooling them as I have a new body kit to go on (as the front splitter has brake cooling holes built in. The car came with a kit that doesn't really fit, you end up taking a section out of the middle of the splitter to reduce the width as the splitter does not fit nicely to the flares, the angles are all wrong and it's all under stress. I also want to be able to get spares so I got some new ones locally that are made for the bug eye and which I can get more of easily. As you can see, miles off from fitting. Now having never done this type of work before, cue much swearing as I try and get them to fit. So 2 weeks later (many nights of just walking away before I make this worse) this is currently where I'm at. It's close but not quite right (and of course doesn't line up with the old flares mounting holes), you can see however the fitment of splitter to flares is 100x better. I'm currently trying to work out if I can get the front higher without chopping to much of the splitter or chassis rail seams (which stick out).

So normally you would sort all the issues out for the next race, but I got busy, so did bugger all on the car So next club day came around, and it was stinking hot, 23c... So me in my 3 layer suit was siting on the dummy grid thinking I really should have got round to the driver cooling... Race 1 went ok, but I noticed the temps were getting up on the car, and driver, and brakes. Race 2 was the first time the car has ever been behind another closely for extended time, engine temps really didn't like that (104c) so the rev limit dropped on me (safety mechanism when the car gets to hot) first time it's happened to me and really annoying. Race 3 wasn't great, I ran with the fan on the whole time, but temp's just kept climbing and the rev limit lowered for the last lap which was the worst timing. Looking at the temp paint, the front's were no longer coping. There isn't a whole lot of space for the calipers in the wheels. It looks like with the higher ambient temps during the day, the brakes got hot enough to expand and gouge my wheels :/ The car is still fairly heavy (full glass and doors) so that's not helping the brake situation either, other guys with starlets are running street pads and no cooling. So new list of items that I must sort out for the next club day in December Cool Brakes Cool Engine Cool Driver

So 1 new car trailer later And a new tow car... My brake upgrade to bring costs down was ready to go... So out for a frustrating couple of test days, where the brakes were spongy one corner and rock had the next, finally tracked it down to the rod going into the master cylinder (which i had replaced) was slightly sticking so the pistons were staying out, once that was solved the pedal felt much better. So onto the first Canterbury Car Club - Club Day 1 where I had an awesome 3 races. Oh so close to winning the handicap race, pipped just before the line. Car was handling much better on the new size tyres, and brakes were more consistent although I noticed some fade. With the new smaller wheel size however i'm now hitting the rev limit not far after the finish line in 6th, so have to feather it at the limit, which is annoying. So once back home had a good look at the temp paint. Front: Rear: So looking at the paint colour change (we want between green and orange) we can see the didn't set off the 550c paint on the front (which has no cooling) which is great. Rears however started to set off the 630c paint which is not good.

Nope still has battery as well. I happened to talk to the Link guys out at the track and they said noise on the USB power line can cause issues with computers. I've also had it lock up when i unplugged the USB power so I generally leave it plugged in now. I have a dedicated 12v from battery which I can switch on separate from ignition so I tend to leave that on the whole time i'm out at the track. I use a similar system for the GOPro but it doesn't have the battery any more. On the dummy grid the blue screen happened when i started the car while it was already getting power through the USB, so noise does make sense as the cause. It took the whole warm up lap to collate data to send to microsoft before rebooting, nothing like driving around and watching a progress bar...

Absolutely no latency or lagginess once PC Link is running. The 8inch tablet was a 1.2 ghz quad core processor and 1gb ram and that was fine too even on battery. There is a delay when PC Link starts and it loads all it's resources but that lasts about 5s then it's sweet from then. I did have the tablet bluescreen on the dummy grid, but I've set it to restart automatically, login then load up PC Link so it came back just as i started the race. Oh and Windows 10 auto updates are a pain (so slow to update and sometimes fails), but if you don't have wireless connected it can't do anything.