Rhyscar

Pretty cool stuff. Example is with copper, and eventually the heat capacity of the gel will be exceeded, but it looks to be pretty effective.

Hey OS, I've got a job on the Levin that requires a bit of welding finesse, so wanting to query the collective brain of OS before I charge ahead and screw something up. I decided to solve my rear tyre rub issues properly by cutting out the offending sheetmetal, which will be replaced by 1.6mm trailer guard material. I've cut the inner guard approx 25-30mm up from the lip, which will butt into the inner of the trailer guard. Car is fully painted/finished so need to be careful to avoid massively screwing up the exterior. Inside the car it's not in a noticeable area so I'm confident I can tidy it up. Was thinking something like this; A few questions I have before I embark 1. Can either Tig or Mig it - which process produces less heat? Mig? Any tips/tricks? Planning on a few stitches in the sensitive areas, then panel bond/seam sealer on both sides. 2. Also after experience/opinions on heat sink options to draw heat away from the paint; Welders Putty/heat blocker? Wet cotton pillowcase full of wet sand?? Wet cloth/towels? Any others? Thanks in advance for your help!

Just doing a quick google search, ae101 LCA's look almost identical to EP71 (note there are 2x different styles of LCA on ae101). Might be worth getting a set and measuring up? 10-20mm extra track width would make a reasonable difference to camber adjustment options.

Levin got out of the shed for Toyota GR festival. Good to have it in it's finished form - itching to get it out on track for a proper shakedown/testing now! All in all, great day out. Heaps of positive comments from people who have been following for ages. Great milestone to reach for sure. I love seeing my car through eyes that aren't my own. Always looks way cooler in other peoples pics. Got a few casual runs around during the parade. Gave it the beans once or twice. Put a massive smile on my face. Shifter was phenomenal, the gears were spaced slightly different, but very positive feeling engagement and felt natural. At this point, it's a better show car than a racecar. Time to change though - bump stops have arrived, so I will whack them in one night this week. 4nR is running a derp looking event the same weekend as Taupo supercars that I'm thinking about. Dumb format (4x 15min grip sessions over 2days, and a bunch of cruise sessions), but would be a great chance to get 5000x more use than it's had over previous years. hah. Just got to figure out if it's worth committing a whole weekend for that much track time, however, other trackday/test session options are limited for next month or two - my wife is doing some travelling (Queenstown and USA), so I've got a lot of parenting to do in April/June, and we're planning on competing in rally Waitomo with the Ke20 Corolla in May. So if I don't get some track time in next few weeks, it might not be until July! Bloody first-world problems. Toyota fest was Sam-approved. South Island next year?? Had great barry yarns with Richard with the Toms Corona BTCC car. Unfortunately I didn't see it run as he damaged a radiator, but good to look over the engine bay and details. Makes me feel pretty proud of the packaging I've achieved.

Yeah that's definitely the right approach, do the numbers and go from there. It's crazy that the setup is so wrong, being custom built. It's like they didn't consider the geometry at all during assembly. This is definately the point of club racing where it requires a lot of finese to put a car together well. It's not just a matter of A+B = fast. 10" rims in the front is huge! What's that a 265 tyre? Geez! Agree with Markku's comments ^^

Big thanks to @Geophy for boring the centres out, and shrinking in a set of fresh skateboard bearings. This may be a bit of an overkill as it puts unnecessary pressure on a small bearing casing, but there's definitely no way they are coming out! Throw turned out to be perfect - selects all the gears, more accurate, and less slop in the action. All round a great upgrade. God damn it looks great too. Now I want to re-do the 2x remaining levers to a clevis-style dual bearing arm.

I'm no ford connoisseur, but I don't know if capri steering and suspension will be an upgrade. Seems like there are a lot simpler, small mods you can make that would sort out the ackerman. For example - less roll centre would help, Shorter steering arm, different angle on steering arm, adjustable steering arm (I think what Markku suggested). The way I see it, you've only got 1 geometry problem to solve, while avoiding a large negative impact on the others - but I'm sure theres some room for others to be 'worse' without being 'bad' Roll centre - OK? Ackerman - Very Bad Camber - OK? Bump Steer - OK? Interested in how you came to that conclusion, and willing to provide some intellectual challenge to avoid a ford-doom hole.

I reckon the wheels look great - fit with the theme of the car and a different retro style. Its as good as you could of managed from whats available new thats for sure! Slotting the hub bolts or adding camber bolts would be my go-to in this situation. Can get 3-4deg of change out of them if using top and bottom. And less impact on your CV travel.

That is a good point on both fronts. Who is silly enough to think it was a good idea??

Shifter linkages showed up. Off to @Geophy tonight to get machined for a shrink-fit onto the skateboard bearings (this may be a little over the top, but may as well). Very impressed with the design. I can't bend/flex them in any direction, so they should work. I realised I made a mistake with the large one though - it's approx 40-50mm shorter than the previous (which I changed to reduce force, but didn't think about throw grrr) - this will increase the side-side throw on the lever. I'm hoping it has enough range spare to deal with it. If not, I may need to reprint this one.. all part of the development process A little disappointed that the print quality was a bit poorer than last time, maybe due to some of the smaller features, but won't impact functionality - will get in touch with supplier and see what they want to do.

Next job was a bunch of missions to retain my airbox filters, and to glue my strut brace together (fully functional now - no longer a show piece!) So I wacked an M4 rivnut through the carbon, coated inside and back with some epoxy (same as strut brace stuff), and made some nice stainless tabs to hold the top. I think it looks tidy enough? I also fabricated an alloy plate to hold the bottom of the filters in place. This attaches/removes with the grill. I also intended it to seal off the airbox entry from the area behind the bumper. I suspect this will funnel more air into the filters rather than filling the low-pressure void behind the bumper. I did a small test of the HPR25 Toughed epoxy on some spare parts I had lying around. Cleaned them coated both pieces with a small lick and stuck together. Went really well - after 24hrs I couldn't move/budge it (1wk to cure fully), and I found it cleaned up nicely with Acetone so I could manage any extra blobs. Made a few blobs (better to have too much than too little!). I glued in in-place so all the angles were exactly right. .... and the finished result tidied up. Pretty happy with the result and I can't wait to see how stiff it is when set.

Lots of small jobs being ticked off the list to finish this thing. Hoping for some track time in the next month or two. Redesigned the shift levers and sent them off the be Aluminium 3D printed in China. These are much wider, and take 2x skateboard bearing per lever, so expecting the axial stability to be much improved. Quite an interesting problem to solve the mechanical strength when you're not constrained by manufacturing technique. Will be interesting to see how these turn out - all the thin sections are 3mm which I think will be plenty. I picked up a second hand set of Hankook RS4 a while back, with the idea to use them as road/storage tyres. Didn't like the idea of my car sitting on good Nangkangs all day long + trailering etc. Got the car out to Frankton thunder to support my Tyre shop who look after me very well (I tend to buy a lot of tyres from them too!). Good chance to get the Family out. Finished off the external pull cable system for my fire extinguisher. The common issue with external cables is they aren't very waterproof, and end up rusting from water ingress (but still WAAY more reliable than a electronic push-button!!). So I decided to split the cable under the dash, so I'll only need to replace 1m of cable instead of 4m. Joining the cable was an interesting challenge I had to get creative to solve.. I've got some 5x racing bump stops showing up this week hopefully. All going to plan I should get these in before toyotafest. I had initially hoped to do some track time, but these tight timeframes and the format meant I pulled out and will try to do a few basic track days at Hampton Downs in the next month or two instead (and mayne a sprint!). It's my birthday this week, so taking the day off work (kids at daycare, wife at work woohoo!!) to put the finishing touches on this - if the 3D print and bump stops turn up that is!

Thats awesome news. Just the right lifespan for a season of racing - ideal!

I can't wait for AI to regurgitate your previous gbox post when some poor unsuspecting Altezza owner asks chatGPT 'how to rebuild J160'. Great result from the racing and bonus to get a points advantage. How are the Nangkank slicks holding up? Bit soft?

You're 100% right. All the Targa guys hate doing stages at the tracks as part of the events. All these mega-built cars setup for all manner of bumpy roads and are massive boats on anything smooth.