Truenotch

Fill that bad boy with vinegar and let it marinade for a couple of weeks. It's the cheapest option for converting rust.

Only milk comes with a blue top. Dad's factory AE86 goes hard for what it is though. It's done ~150,000km and still has the factory air inlet over the radiator. It's no smallport, but it'll do.

Need to see the label on the back of the machine, but the time period for the duty cycle rating will be super short. Most welder duty cycles are based on 10 minute blocks. This machine will be something like "100% @ 232A" based off 1 minute blocks. I also highly doubt that a 13.2kg single phase baby machine like that is capable of outputting 300 amps.

Where does the radiator outlet vent to? You really want the airflow to be slowing down as it comes across the face of the radiator (low to high pressure) and then speeding back up as it leaves the ducted area (high to low pressure). If you're trying to vent the rad air under the vehicle there might not be enough pressure difference to draw air through the rad? Might work better to vent upwards through the deck behind the cab? (Until you load the deck up and block the vent).

@cute wee gem - this is wild. I'm super impressed at how deep you've delved into the project. Will you need to calculate the inertia of the roller so it can be factored into the power readings? If so, any idea how you'll do it? I've been following this dude's stuff for a few years now. He has an inertia-only dyno made from an old electric motor that gets used for motorbikes. It doesn't have any sort of retarder. He was lucky that the motor manufacturer had the rotor inertia specs available for him to base his figures off. He's also created some DIY dyno software called Ardyno that's available fairly cheaply (you have to get your own chips printed, but that's not the end of the world).

Nice work! Is the exhaust an actual softball bat?

This looks like it was a great meet. Well done everyone .

For Aucklanders attending: Blair Cosford is organising a cruise to Drag Day. I encourage y'all to get amongst. Here's the info: https://www.facebook.com/events/181675337005364/

A few photos from the Jarod Carruthers Photography. The car looks like it's behaving itself really well! There's minimal dive under brakes and it's sitting quite flat in the corners.

These ones were my fault. It happens sometimes.

@Bling - yeah, pretty much. I laid an enquiry (probably didn't word it sternly enough), but it was deemed a racing incident by the officials, so there was no punishment made. Unfortunately it goes with the territory in racing. Some people aren't aware that their skill level doesn't match their ego, so things like this happen. Thankfully it's the first incident like this that's caused panel damage to my car in 12 years of ownership... It's a numbers game and can happen eventually. It's quite similar to these two incidents I've had in the past. The first was deemed my fault somehow, the second cost the driver $200 and he had his licence endorsed. This one cost me an outer wheel band:

His Integra broke in the morning, so his father kindly loaned him the central muscle car for the rest of the day.

Unfortunately this is the risk of racing. The guy didn't have the talent to match his machinery, but that's how it goes sometimes! Thanks! There's a few improvements to make, mostly in the brakes, so it might get quicker by the end of the season. The other driver assumed they could out brake both of us into turn 1. He could have avoided the incident by moving left, but instead opted to take to the grass... grass isn't very grippy! I cut the video just as the adrenalin wore off and the fucks came out. I could've possibly avoided it by leaving him space to straight line the corner, but it was his responsibility attempt to pass safely. In which case he might have hit the (borrowed) Mustang and caused a 3 car incident.

More of an update from the past weekend. I had a busy day ahead of me racing the Chariot and the AE86. The races were back to back, which required extra management and a good level of preparedness on my part. Qualifying went well. I laid down a 1.16.4 in the 86, which equalled my best ever time at Manfeild. The setup felt solid and a new set of tyres had the car feeling great! Unlike the test day on old tyres, which was more of a drift session . Here's me looking chuffed after qualifying on P2 for the first race: The first race went OK. I got a good jump off the line, was passed by a 500hp GTR before the first corner and had a great run for the first half of the lap. Then my temp gauge started flickering all over the place. I'd had a few cooling issues in testing, so decided it was smart to pit for a quick under bonnet check. I had no crew, but luckily am good friends with the Hogg family in garage 10, so they had a look in the engine bay, realised it was just a bad connection to the temp sender, reconnected it and sent me back out. The car was going great, and I went back out to set my personal best lap time of 1.15.9. I finished a lap down, but was stoked with the lap time. Race two was a very mixed bag. Had a good few laps and was having a good battle with a fast 350z and Mustang. Managed to pass the Mustang back around turn 7, he jumped me on the straight at the start of the final lap. I attempted to pass him back under brakes, but the 350z driver decided he'd be able to pass both of us under brakes.... on the grass... This resulted in contact, which spun me around and left a big dent in my RR 1/4 and door... I was not a happy chappy. Ouch! It felt much worse at the time and I was expecting a bent diff and ruined rear panels. We jacked it up and everything seemed in order, so I was able to get out for the final race. Race 2 full footage: The final race was good. Track conditions were a bit hotter, so the car didn't come on as well as the previous races. The Mustang spun in front of me on lap 2 and threw gravel all over the track. This made for an interesting run through the esses for the rest of the race! It's a shame about the panel damage, but the door still opens and closes and it shouldn't be too hard to pull most of the damage out. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get it sorted for the second round in January. I guess the exterior tidy up and fibreglass door upgrade has now jumped up the list... it's going to be a busy Christmas!

This weekend was good and bad. The good is i set a new PB lap time and got some great seat time. The bad is that I took some damage in the second race. I'll explain more later. Fastest lap: 1.15.9 And the crash:

Threw a few stickers at it today. Coresteel Manawatu, Tremaine Energy Centre and GT Oil have all helped me out on this journey. I'm super thankful for their assistance.

Bit of dyno tuning this morning. Everything seems safe and the power looks to be similar to the old engine. The tuner gave it a few adjustments and managed to pull a few extra kW up top, with the power holding on until 8000rpm or so.

Ticked off a few more jobs in the last couple of days. My new RCAs, caliper brackets and rotor hats arrived from MRP late last week, so I spent a couple of evenings fitting everything. Old setup - the arms were basically level at full droop (not what you want). New setup - this is much better, but I could possibly go even bigger with the roll centre adjusters. These are 38mm. You can also see the old vs new calliper brackets in these photos. With the caliper installed: Popped it on the trailer and took for an alignment: Pumped the lower lower arms out by a decent amount. Ended up with about 3.5° camber, 6.75° castor and 3mm toe out in the front. Also squared up the diff while I was under there. The extra track width looks tough from this angle. Hopefully it works well too!

Is that the alternate route we used in 2018? If so, it's awesome.

Yeah buddy, I'm in and I believe a few other PPSCers are planning to attend too.

Or possibly from all that loose wind on the weekend.

Whak yeah, great ride yet again. Here's a big old pic dump.

This is @Mitch.W's. He says you can keep it.

What are everyone's plans this eve? PPSC are rolling into WHK now.