Looseunit

So i'm really slack at updating this. I basically just raced this all season, didn't really make any changes other than subtle suspension tweaks. On the very last meet when the air was quite a bit colder that it had been it seemed to pick up power and grip and i was very suprised for the times top drop quite a bit eventually doing a 11.34@121mph. I was also a bit slack at pressing play on my camera, best in car I got was of a 11.69, I pulled this off facebook so quality is average but I couldnt be bothered going searching for the original file. So the issues I faced over the offseason were the fact that the body had not liked all the abuse, mainly around the triangulated top link mounts of the body, cracks etc had started to appear and I wasnt really that suprised to be honest. So I set about welding up the seams around that area and also welding in some plates above the link mounts and running a brace each side from the roll cage down to the plates. This should hopefully stop the area around there flexing, I also added some welds to the mounts underneath the car just in case. Other problem was in the pics below, the car squats hard on the right rear side and picks up in the front left meaning its always hitting the left rear tire harder, to compensate i wound the right rear coilover up heaps which got the car going straight but theres definately still improvements to be had. So to stop that happening, and to also stop the car ever going around a corner ever again i ordered one of these http://www.jegs.com/p/JEGS-Performance-Products/JEGS-Drag-Race-Anti-Roll-Bars/3125600/10002/-1 a drag specific solid sway bar. These seem to be standard equipment in any decently setup drag car and in theory will stop any twist in the body and hopefully if setup right will improve 60 fts. Ive pretty much finished putting it in, it was an absolute mission to fit due to the lack of space and it wasnt the funnest of jobs but you get the gist of whats going on with it in the pics. Ive also bought some convo pro 15x4 and some mickey thompson front runners as Ive also bought some 24.5x8 Mickey thompson ET Drag for the rear. The plan is to drill the rims for bead screws to stop them spinning on the rim as the radials were moving a little bit on the rim last season. Thats a job thats still yet to be done and im not really looking forward to it as it will be fiddly. Finally ive just had it on the dyno yesterday, Ive made the switch to E85 and also changed the turbo to a newer tech Turbonetics TNX30/52 which I sourced through Barry. Along with a billet compressor wheel it also has a V band exhaust housing which is just a hundred time better than the nissan flanged housing that was on it. Was hoping for more power and better spool and it did not disappoint. Old setup went 280hp on 18 psi and the turbo was clearly not happy running out of puff at 7k rpm. New turbo and e85 combo yesterday made 297hp at 14 psi! and 345hp on the final power run at 20 psi, its also on boost around 500rpm sooner so is a massive improvement. If it can hook up and stay together on the high boost setting it will be rather rapid, should make for an interesting drive thats for sure. Red line is the old setup.

So i've been incredibly slack at updating this, but have been busy with the car. The meet last year told me stuff that i already knew. Suspension was far too hard and I needed seat time. I made the decision to do things properly with the rear shocks first time so I spent my money on a set of QA1 double adjustable coilovers with spherical bearings top and bottom, and also some 12" 110lb springs to go with them. Putting them in wasnt super hard, had to drill out the bottom mount to 1/2" and had to ditch the tophat and weld on some brackets for the bearing as below. I had to add some 5mm spacers as the tires were very close to the spring platform. Next was the front. The brakes had a bit of a wobble when i had it at the strip last year and i decided that they were still far too big for drag racing so I bought another set of front struts and the stock brake setup and started over with the front suspension. I decided to go 110lb in the front as well as in a drag car its really just holding the front up and the more weight transfer to the rear the better, so i ended up with the same as the rear, 12" 110lb springs. I bought a coilover sleeve kit and put together a pretty simple setup with a bit of pipe sleeved over the strut and plug welded in place for the threaded sleeve to sit on. I reconditioned the stock calipers and put it all back together. I forgot how crazy tiny the stock brakes are but I only have to stop once, plus I saved quite a bit of weight. A few driveway launches confirmed that it had made a huge difference to the setup, the front was lifting up as I had hoped and it had heaps more grip on the drive way as it had previously. Off to the first meet of the season I went, first run was a pretty soft run but felt pretty good except it was till pulling to the right a bit as it had at the last meet, brakes worked fine. Gave it a bit more on the next run off the line and it went straight down to a 12.2. Still pulling to the right so went and asked a couple of the on to it guys what they thought and they suggested preloading the right rear spring more to counteract the body twisting up on the launch. I wound the platform up 10mm and went out for another run which was much straighter and ran a 12.04@119mph. i wound another 5mm into the platform and next run was 12.03 and the car felt like it went pretty much dead straight. Played with the damper settings on the shocks for the next run and went 11.88@119. Needless to say I was stoked to be in the 11's so quickly! Discussion - http://oldschool.co....983-5efte-kp60/

Plenty of suspension in the tires anyway...

It certainly sounds alot better than the old setup in the ep, goes alot better too, used to be really peaky which made it a bit of a pig to drive.

Made a mess of my 2 runs on Sunday, got knocked out first round and that was that for the season. But at least I know what needs sorting for next season, instead of waiting and hoping for the best.

So have been spending almost every spare moment on this of late trying to get it ready to race at the last Masterton Meet on the 11th and 12th, which I managed, just! Had alot of annoying things to do like driveshaft hoop, fuel cell enclosure etc. And they have a no primer rule and that a car must be of consistent appearance, so i had to get some paint on it. Panel beating is not my favourite thing so I am completely over it, and I am also not as good at it as joining bits of metal together. It was all a bit rushed but its all now one colour and looks not the worst, ok for a drag car anyway. Used Enamel for ease and cheapness. Proof that I made it into the staging lanes! And proof that it actually went down the track, sound seems to go a bit wierd at points not sure why. Unfortunately its the only video that we got, amongst our group we have 4 people racing so everyone is quite busy most of the time. The one thing that I didnt have time to sort out was the hardness of the suspension, I still have the springs that came with the car, was just a time issue in the end. The suspension is hard as hell which is less than ideal for drag racing, had some issues with tramping in 2nd gear which i initially thought was the motor cutting out but appears the tires were doing the work the suspension should have been doing and were squatting down hardout and doing wierd shit. But other than that everything else seemed to do what it should, other than me, who was rusty as hell having not raced in around 3 years and changing from fwd to rwd. Pity its the end of the season now, just need lots of seat time in it to get used to it. Best time was a 12.60@116mph which was still a pretty messy run, which means theres plenty left in it, and havent put all of the power into yet either.

Car went on the dyno yesterday! And it survived. Car tuned up well with no dramas. As i suspected, the turbo is not really up the task, pretty old tech t04b. Its completely maxed out at 18 psi. The refreshed motor with the issues sorted now brings boost on about 700rpm sooner than before and has a much fatter powerband, and sounds way more crisp. Should be way easier to drive, and keep it on song down the strip. Limiter is set at 8000rpm so it doesnt need to rev out quite as hard as it did before. Power figures were 234hp at wastegate boost which is 11 psi, 264hp at 15 psi and 281hp at 18 psi. Not really going to try and compare it to previous dyno figures as it was previously run up on dynapak hub dynos. Really happy with Gareth at Pulse performance, knew was he was doing and overall was very good to deal with. Here is one of the dyno run pulls. Car is crazy loud, video doesnt really do it justice. Dyno Sheet

Started it up a couple of days ago, no major dramas. Touch wood lookign good to able to get it out this season. Video of first, well about 3rd start up here, once i'd ironed out the kinks.

Been going hard on this lately but been slack with the updates. With some help from my Partners father we straigtened the diff. Got it to 1mm toe out and the was measured over a metre or so so stuff all really and 0 camber so much better than a factory one. Painted it all up and thats ready to go. Also got this for the diff, no shithouse shimmed hilux lsd going in this car If the car is ever to run 10's I need to either have a steel bellhousing or a scatter shield or blanket. Ive opted for a blanket due to the pain in the assness of making a 1/4" plate shield and also the actual weight of the thing. The blanket is kinda a pain in the ass due to the slave cylinder but ive made a shield that bolts to it so the balnket will go around it without affecting the operation of the slave and fork. I finally got my engine back which meant I could start putting everything back together. I wrapped the manifold and exhaust and got a blanket for the turbo and started putting everything back together. Starting to look like an engine bay again. I then finished off the rest of the exhaust, or lack thereof, because drag car, and also the screamer pipe, which was acually a bastard as I havent left myself alot of room down there. Happy with the end result though, its going to be quite loud.... And then proceded to do all of the little annoying jobs to get it all finished. As of yesterday I have the engine bay around 98% finished. Wired up the plugs for the ID1000's yesterday and put them and the fuel rail back in etc. All thats left in the engine bay now is a throttle cable which I need to get shortened and hook up the fuel lines and a couple vacuum hoses, but otherwise complete. Next step, make it all work.

They have been really good so far. Alot more fussy about getting everything right.

Head was machined at Kelfords.... Nah its all being done at Colliers this time, wish I'd gone there from the start!

Yeah after i make sure it doesnt try and do flips down the drag strip, for now id just like to have it running without any more dramas. Every time the phone has rung I have been thinking oh crap whats wrong with it now.

Yeah its all fixed just cost a heap more than i budgeted for. By sheer sheer luck when they took all the measurements for the new pistons they measured on the low side, so I still have the compression that I specified. I also had to add an adjustable cam gear into the mix as when they straightened the head it messed up the cam timing. Its pretty much all done, am going up next week to pick it up.

All the wiring is pretty much done now, got the odd sensor to hook up but need to wait until I get the engine back and in place to finish those off. Which should be next week by the sounds! The whole thing turned into a nightmare, multiple errors during the original build, the worst of which being the head, when machined was machined 1mm on the piss length ways meaning I had around 10:1 at one end and 9:1 at the other end. With all the problems found and now hopefully fixed, its a suprise the engine even ran, let alone made 231kw. Not hugely exciting, but radiator now has a fan mounted on it. Slightly more exciting is the line lock is now mounted and plumbed up. Will be able to use this in the burnout and also as a way to stop the car rolling forward when I stage.

All the in car wiring is now pretty much done so it was time to start on the engine bay side of things. I have my junk old buggered 4efte sitting in the shed so am using that to dummy stuff up. I spaced the coils up 20mm to allow for the extra height of the 5e block. Spent all day working on it today and pretty much finished the charge circuit side of things. Next is the link loom and a few small things and the wiring will pretty much be done. Todays efforts