Popular Post Roman Posted February 20, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 20, 2014 Soooo top of the page! So back to pictureless ranting about tech related gibberish. There's been a lot of speculation about what the factory Toyota ECUs can or cannot do, in terms of being self learning etc. Since I've had the OBD diagnostic program hooked up, and then using the program called 'Torque' on Android, I've had access to an unparalled WEALTH of nerdy information about the engine. You can set up virtual gauges, or datalog ANY engine parameters you can think of. So something I've just found it useful for just today, is testing an injector size swap. The standard injector size for the Redtop 3SGE engine is 315cc. The standard injector size for the Altezza 3SGE is 340cc. One of my redtop injectors busted itself, and they are difficult to find. So I thought I would swap in a set of Altezza injectors and see what happens. Being a larger injector, you would obviously expect it to cause the engine to run rich. I set up two gauges on my tablet, one which monitors the short term fuel trim (this is like real time adjustments via the oxy sensor) and the long term fuel trim (This is where if something is lean or rich often enough at a particular load/rpm, it will adjust the actual value on the map)I fitted the new injectors, and took the car for a drive. After a while it showed that the engine sensed it was running too rich, so was incrementally reducing the amount of fuel going in.-1%.... -2.4% .....-5% etc and then eventually settled on -7.8% and didnt budge from there.Which is interesting, because....340cc * 7.8% = 26.5cc340cc - 26.5cc = 313.5ccThe ECU successfully guessed the size of the new injectors, to within 1.5cc and compensated perfectly for it, within an hour of driving the car.Mind blown! 23 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted February 24, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 24, 2014 God damn, it's good to be at the point of a project where you can start doing some fun stuff again!I took my Dad for a bit of a drive around yesterday, he's helped me out to no end on this project and so it was pretty cool to go for a drive and celebrate how far we've managed to come with it. I've got a trackday on April 14th at Taupo (All welcome, PM me for more details or see the thread in the 'upcoming events' subforum for more info!) So I've been trying to suss out what would be the best camera angle, which shutter speed and FPS works best, etc etc. My Decent microphone has run out of batteries so there's only some muffled doort noises from the onboard mono mic on my DSLR in this vid but just to get a bit of an idea: And with a time setup I took a few long(ish) exposure pics on the way back:Who needs a supercharger whine, when you've got my diff? lol.Looking forward to getting the exhaust remade so it's a little less raspy as well.I will work on getting some better sound quality, I've got a few tricks up my sleeve! I think I might mount a mic in the engine bay near the airbox, and have the right channel recording off the DSLR mic and the left channel from the engine bay. Or something like that, will have a bit of a muck around and see what works well.Generally speaking I think the most enjoyable in car videos are ones where you can see what the driver is up to, as well as being useful feedback for how you were doing things wrong later on. So might rejig the angles a bit so there's less roof and more gear shifter etc.I've got a pretty grunty spare tripod so I might get all 'Misery' on it and give it some different feet that wont move.So it mounts in the car nice and sturdily without any worry that I'm going to cop a DSLR in the face at 180kph if (when...) I spin out.discuss //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/21625-romans-cod-piece/page-6 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Sooooo I went down to Taupo on Friday, and me and the old man put some beatdowns on the Carina. It was pretty spectacularly rainy at some point, on the first and second stint 4-5 cars hit the wall! Madness.My Dad only got in one run, because it was so rainy he didnt really want to take it out again after that.It was never quite dry on the day, my fastest laptime on this track is a 1:57 which I did in an SW20 MR2 with a beams motor many years ago. This time around I managed a 2.03 with some pretty sloppy lines, a damp track and old tires.So a bit more practice and some better tires I reckon I'll be in the high/mid 1:50s no sweat Just prior to trackday I made a bracket that holds my laptop and GPS unit (tells me laptimes in realtime, soooooo useful) a fire extinguisher and camera tripod. So the idea is that it all bolts to the normal 4 seat mounts, so when I want to switch back to 'normal' I just unbolt the whole thing and put the passenger seat back in. Easy! Next on the to-do list is to get my failspec exhaust replaced, with something that flows and sounds better.Get some better tires, and increase the front camber a tad.As it's currently deeeestroying the outer edges of my tires, as I needed to have 0 degrees camber to pass cert... Silly rule that one.Millions of fun was had though! Track day is best day. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted April 13, 2014 Author Share Posted April 13, 2014 Oh also, trackday made my diff whine mostly go away!Great success //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/21625-romans-cod-piece/page-6 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted July 5, 2014 Author Share Posted July 5, 2014 Havent done anything particularly noteworthy with this... apart from drive it! Have done almost 5,000kms since cert with minimal issues. I've always been wondering how it would stack up weight wise though. The benchmark I wanted to match or better was my previous car, an SW20 with beams motor. Which was 1030kg with about 1/3rd tank of gas. Put the carina on the weighbridge today, and it was 1040kg with 1/2 a tank. I was a little bit surprised that even though it's got so much more weight in the drivetrain (Engine>gearbox>driveshaft>diff) compared to a transverse setup it's comparable weight overall. It's got MA61 seats at the moment which are quite heavy, and full glass... the glass in the rear hatch is quite heavy, it's why the factory weight of the coupe is actually heavier than the sedan. The factory 4age version Carina was 1100kg+ I think, if it was fully specd with power steering etc. IRS adds weight too. Might rig up one of my spare rear hatches with Lexan for trackday stuff, and without passenger seat it would be under a tonne fo' sho' Until I hop in it, at least haha. -The to-do list over the next while is: -New tires, back to 205s instead of 195. maybe semis cant decide. -Replaced the only-good-for-skids Cusco 2 way LSD with a Torsen and maybe 4.1 ratio instead of 4.3 (Sucks doing 3600rpm at 100kph...) -Redo the exhaust, because it's pretty shitty and sounds less than great. -Possibly Version 3 megasquirt, and if so possibly back to ITBs or maybe setup a factory manifold with staged injection. Picture unrelated: 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted July 20, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 20, 2014 So as per above, I'd been looking at changing the diff ratio and changing diff type.After doing the maths on the diff ratio, in order to keep the tire sizes I want (195/50/15 and 205/50/15) and get 3000rpm at 100kph I would need to drop right down to a 3.7 ratio from 4.3. Changing to 4.1 would make bugger all difference for the effort, so 4.3 it is!Regarding the diff, after doing some homework I found that the Cusco units are VERY adjustable, and from factory they are on the highest settings for everything.At the moment it has too much preload (how much the clutches are pushed together / locking the diff when nothing is happening)Too much locking under accelleration (Annoying trying to put power down on corner exit, acts like a locked diff)Too much lock under braking/decel (Makes the car understeer on corner entry, and partly responsible for doing 720 spins into turn 1 at Taupo a few trackdays back!)Some people would suggest just adding more front camber to the car, but that just means each end of the car is fighting each other and so you're scrubbing away grip for nothing. I'll be adding a small amount of camber over it's Necessary-to-pass-cert 0 degrees setting to negative 1-1.5ish.After pulling the diff back out it looks to be the Type RS model, which is the less aggressive compared to the MZ version and thankfully it's a lot easier to adjust the preload. The preload is set by a bunch of springs holding two halves of the unit apart internally, that you can see here:The MZ type has cone washers instead, which are even more aggressive and not very adjustable from what I understand. phew!There are slots for having up to 10 springs in, mine had 6. So took two out, respaced them evenly and used the reccomended minimum of four.There are also notches in the sides, which determine whether the diff is set to one way or two way:I've changed this from two way back to one way. So when I'm not on the throttle, the car should drive like it doesnt have an LSD at all, apart from the preload force which should hopefully be a lot lower now.aannnnndd the final thing that I can adjust, is the order of the clutch plates.Basically half of the clutch plates hold on to the shaft which the axles slot into, and the other half grab on to the outside of the housing. So they either have 'tabs' on the outside or inside circumference of the plates. They are normally one then the other, however if you stack two of the same type of plates back to back, in the order prescribed in the manual you can reduce the effective friction down to 60% of what it was to start with. As explained by this excellent diagram:With everything restacked, it just needs the housing plonked back on, and the two halves are only held together with 4 phillips head countersunk screws.The reason being that they are just there to hold the halves together until the crownwheel is on, they dont need to be done up super tight...Then add the crown wheel and torque it all back up to factory settings, and back in the housing.From here it's no different to the process for installing any other type of diff. It looked pretty intimidating seeing the exploded diagram, but they've done well to have the minimal amount of parts and super easy to adjust or service.Here's a Gif of how it stacks together:This is all yet another tick in the box towrads the idea of going to an easier to work on car than previous... I shudder at the thought of having to make the same changes to a diff buried inside a transaxle!There are a few other things to do while the the diff is out. I found that the brake discs were pinching on the outside circumference of the axles - so they werent sitting completely flush against the axle face. This pretty much busted the near new wheel bearings on the axles, so will need to replace those again. Bummer!Easy and not too expensive problem to solve though, I'm relieved it wasnt a bent axle instead causing the problem.When towing the car on the trailer I've had to be careful about throwing strops over the diff as well, as the brake hard lines are in the way. So I'll be redoing these in a more strop friendly location, then painting the diff housing finally, then mash it all back together.This should take a competent and motivated person maybe 3-5 nights after work and a weekend to complete. So, ETA is December Thankfully most of this work I can do on the bench in the garage instead of scrounging around under the car, which isnt particularly appealing at this time of year. Fred: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?showtopic=21625#p614135 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted August 11, 2014 Author Share Posted August 11, 2014 Soooo my diff has always had a bad noise under decel, from day one... After I paid money from a reputable Auckland workshop to install the LSD and set it all up many moons ago... Called them up when I got the car running (however many years later lol) but they just said "Yeah nah its sweet, will just be how its setup to be strong" Since I've had it apart though, I've tried and failed a few times to set the backlash etc since reassembling the head as above.The reason I havent been able to set it properly is that I've now found that the pinion gear had end float of 1mm or so... When it should have none and a preload on the bearings. So I take the pinion gear out to inspect it... First thing I find is that the flange nut has been bukakk'd with loctite which has gotten pretty much everywhere inside and out. Secondly, the crush tube which sets the preload for the pinion gear bearings by tightening/crushing it, had been hammered back out 'straighter' to try and reuse it. Despite the manual saying several times to never reuse one or back off the flange nut if you've gone too far. Which is most likely why there's end float, and a noisy diff from day one. It's scary to think that my utterly amateur workmanship can be better at following basic instructions than someone who's paid to do it professionally. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted August 24, 2014 Author Share Posted August 24, 2014 Aaaahhhh yep this has all been a kick in the balls haha. About 5 weeks off the road which isnt too bad I guess.Completed: -Diff set to one way, preload reduced, clutch friction reduced-Replaced axle wheel bearings -Reran the brake hard lines so its easier to get the calipers off -Fixed the issue of the discs pinching on the axles and not sitting straight-Fixed the issue with the Pinion gear having end float instead of preload on the bearingsSo there was actually a fair amount to do, I guess I'm glad I pulled it out and found these things rather than have them fail somehow later on.Good news is though... Diff's on it's way back in! I've got the housing mounted on the 4 links loosely at the moment, doing it with axles and everything else off has definitely made the job a lot easier.Fingers crossed that nothing leaks/breaks/whatever, hopefully the diff now turns the car better, not noisy under decel, and hand brake should work a bit better too.Cant wait! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted August 28, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 28, 2014 Woooooot! Car's all back together, and HOLY SHITBALLS! It drives so much differently with the LSD adjusted. Previously, you would make a suggestion along the lines of "Please, may we turn this corner" and the car would be all like "FUCK YOU BATMAN" then you're all like "NO FUCK YOU" and then it turns. where as now, the steering effort seems about half, and it turns in soo soo much better.It doesnt single wheel peel either, and the diff noise has completely vanished so great success all round!It's still got miserable traction, but I'm due a set of fresh tires. Traction brackets might be the only thing that will really help though. I've been looking at the options of either R888, Toyo Proxes T1R, Achilles 123 or Nitto NT01. It's just a toss up between whether I want faster laptimes but shittier to drive any other time, or nice to drive but overheating tires.I think for now I'll go with the T1Rs (which I've used previously and found to be awesome) and then keep an eye out for a spare set of wheels that fit before getting semis perhaps.Either way, pretty happy right now!Fred: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/21625-romans-cod-piece 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted September 2, 2014 Author Share Posted September 2, 2014 Soooo I got some T1Rs fitted yesterday, now running 205/50/15 all round instead of 195/50/15.Some may dissaprove of a 205 on a 7" rim but such is life haha.Car feels so much different! Previously had Bridgestone RE001s on front and Direzzas on the back.It has soooo much more grip now! Even without traction brackets I can hoof through 1st and 2nd without wheelspin which is great. One unexpected thing though is that turning has become a bit more sluggish and it understeers a lot more.The front/rear balance has previously been pretty good (if not on the oversteery side) with less grip. Which is why I've never fitted up the rear swaybar.But now that grip levels have increased it might be time to look into fitting it to get the balance right again.So I'll get that underway and increase front camber in 1 or 1/2 degree increments till turns nicely again. Might dump some friction modifier oil in the diff as well.Either way I'm pretty stoked to have some decent grip! Cant wait to drive it again after work today. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted September 25, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 25, 2014 I've had a mix of problems for a while, where the engine runs good under full load, but is a total dog at cruising or idle. I've been chasing around just about everything trying to figure this out. Well, it turns out that I've had the wrong knock sensor, which has been causing the chaos! When knock happens, it makes a certain frequency vibration in the engine block. The frequency differs depending on the bore and stroke, similar to how a trumpet makes a different sound to a big tuba or something. So the problem that I had, was that I had a knock sensor from a smaller engine. It was listening out for knock on a different frequency, and not hearing it when it happened. The ECU thought everything was dandy, so was smashing in shitloads of ignition advance because it thought I was running some wizard magic fuel that appreciates 50 degrees advance in all scenarios hahaha. Today though, I managed to find a knock sensor from a gen 3 3SGE at Zebra. Got home and swapped this over, reset the ECU and disabled all changes from the fuel computer. Took it for a run, and... sweet jesus! Idle problems and low load problems instantly solved. Idle has gone back down to 10 or so degrees advance, and the idle is stable at 950-1000rpm when previously it was running 12-1300.At low load cruising it's now doing 30-35ish degrees advance instead of high 40s. I took the car for a bit of a run out to the airport and back, the average for the trip was 8.5litres per 100km.Which is a lot better than the 11/12l per 100 that it was getting before. It can now sit in 6th gear trundling along at 1600rpm or so at 50-60kph with no worries. Previously I'd have to go to 4th or 5th.Pretty happy with the economy! It's a lot quieter in the cabin when the motor is running properly too, so pretty happy all round. An unexpectedly successful fix!Taupo trackday is next weekend, and I caaaannnnnn not wait 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted October 5, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 5, 2014 Woot! Just had a Taupo trackday today, and had a blast!First time using the truck for track duties, it's my Dads for towing his fishing boat - but we fitted a towbar so it can double up for track duties too.The recent changes (add front camber, adjust LSD, new tires) have made a HUGE difference...Last trackday I was running the 'fast' corner off the straight, this time the slow one... Yet I was still over 6 seconds a lap quicker now.Awesome! The car was handling sooo good, it was really neutral handling and for the first time ever it was not scary when it starts to oversteer. A few times when pushing hard I was oversteering in a rather precarious direction but it just composed itself and got back to business. Which really helps give you so much more confidence.In absolute terms, my new PB of 1.57.3 isnt earth shattering, but it was so much fun and we just had an absolute blast.Surprisingly the weakest link this time was the 4 pot brakes - the brake pads were getting nuked, I'll need to spend a bit more cashmonies on some decent pads for next time. Anyone got hookups on pads / reccomendations on pads for the R32/33 4 pots? They're easy enough to swap pads so I dont mind buying a set of track dedicated pads.We ran the car the whole day though with no real problems, my clutch started slipping on one run as I think we'd done so many stints back to back with ruthless gear changes that the whole thing was just getting rather hot. After a bit more of a cooldown it came right again.But I'm happy to leave the clutch as the weakest link in the car as I'd rather blow up a clutch than anything else.I've had a few pointers from some good drivers on where I was going wrong on a few of the corners, my gps shows that with some revised lines I was holding a solid 15-20kph higher speed through a lot of sections which is great.Maximum speed was 186kph and it felt really stable at that speed, and nice under braking too.So the plan from here is to get some better pads, perhaps some ducting to the front brakes and then do some more trackdays over summer Grin factor 99! Had the best time Fred 13 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post Roman Posted October 7, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 7, 2014 TL;SUR WARNING:(Too long, Shut Up Roman) Trackday debrief! Had a precautionary look at a few things giving issues on the day. Brake pads, as suspected were FUBAR! Lesson learned, avoid the weetbix brake pads if they are going to be hot for a long time.Checked all four of the tires, it looks as though it's only the front right which had a really hard time. The tread on the other three seems more or less fine. But you can see that the entire side of the tread V shaped tread blocks have worn away, there's now only about half of it left that touches the road now:Just too much heat through the poor old T1Rs. So great on the street though! There was also a ticking noise that got a lot louder at the end of the day, maybe 3pm or so... I'd had my fun and the car wasnt going to get any quicker with the brakes fading so I was happy to call it a day. Had a look into this today, the first thing I suspected was that perhaps the valve clearances had tightened or loosened up (or I'd fucked it up to start with!) But a quick rummage around with the feeler gauges confirmed they were all still within spec. Which was good! Until it made me think that it might be a bearing or piston making the noise instead haha.It turns out that the racket was just coming from a gasket in the exhaust manifold which had blown to smithereens from too much awesomeness. Phew! It was good peace of mind to check the valve clearances though, as I havent checked them since doing them initially. And also, holy shit this is my new favourite piece of software: https://screentogif.codeplex.com/downloads/get/909048Here are a few gifs comparing some sections of the track of my best laps between last time and this time.On the first corner of the track, I've found that it pays to pull it in tighter on corner exit... You end up getting a way faster run into the next few corners as you can see comparing the two here: Not having the 2 way diff that was pretty much a locker would have been part of the reason that I was able to turn tighter though, made a huge difference to how the car drove! Also found from watching previous videos, that I was always oversteering coming out of turn 7(?) which was slowing me down. But I was never using the full width of the track. So I made a point of keeping as wide as possible on the exit instead, you can see how it's helped.. And keeping a tighter line through the next part saved a bit of time too. And the part of the track which I've always found especially tricky! The sweeper.This time I was aiming to keep the braking zone as straight as possible and then just make a sharp turn at the end.This shaved HEAPS of time off my laps, as it ended up making for a much faster run on to the straight as well as the time saved in braking. Here's a look at the speed comparison through the sweeper part, by taking the straighter entry.. huge difference! If anyone's a regular for trackdays and wants some GPS software that's good, the program Racechrono is quite awesome. Although any GPS software is a really handy way to learn better lines a lot quicker than you would otherwise. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted October 12, 2014 Author Share Posted October 12, 2014 Havent used solidworks in ages, so thought I'd do some nerding. I've got a spare rear hatch that I've been thinking about putting some lexan or whatever in, and bang it on for trackdays. And then have been wondering if a wing or spoiler or whatever would be useful while I'm at it. so I drew a 2D model and ran it through the wizard machine thingy at 150kph.Air pressure: Air velocity: The air in the blue areas is only travelling between 0 and 50kph... If you've ever noticed raindrops only slowly crawling up or down your front or rear windscreen, this is why.A wing doesnt acheive much without airspeed flowing over it... (I reran the model with and without the lingling spec spoiler as pictured, it essentially made zero difference) Putting anything on the rear hatch similar to the TRD AE86 wing is likely useless because it's in dead air.As much as I utterly hate people putting roof wings on everything, because they look awful... It would actually help on a car of this shape. TL;DR: I should have spent this time in the garage doing something useful instead. Like start/finish remaking the exhaust. Chase Distributors in Penrose are GCs for exhaust parts by the way! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted October 19, 2014 Author Share Posted October 19, 2014 So after a weekend of remaking the exhaust, while feeling dead sick the entire time... I remember why I like to muck around with CAD and so on, it's much easier to daydream about things than actually do them haha. Denham and Dave Sentra were ultimate GCs this weekend with helping me get this sorted, especially when I was suffering brain fade from about 9am each day with the flu. Thankfully Denham was happy to let me hold the dumb end of the stick while he worked some magic on remaking the exhaust! BrockLee and a few others helped out too which was all much appreciated. Now it's all 2.5" with mandrel bends, a resonator in the middle and a straight through muffler at the rear. I was expecting this to be on the obnoxiously loud side of things, but it's actually pretty sweet. The car's actually quieter at idle and low load, and sounds a LOT better. (less tinny)But I'd say it definitely picks the volume up a notch when you put your foot down haha. The rear muffler is flanged in a way that makes it super easy to swap out for a quieter (triple chamber) type of muffler instead if need be. I'm suspecting that the above mods may have freed up a bit of top end restriction, as after taking it for a quick drive I am shifting too late from 2nd to 3rd as it seems to zing there a bit quicker now. Pretty stoked! I've only got a tradgedy of a cellphone picture to show for the weekends efforts though, as I sold all of my DSLR gear last week to focus on a few other things over this coming summer. I've paid in for a Hampton Downs Twilight session on the 29th of this month (which is a Wednesday) if anyone's keen, a bunch of OS'ers are going so come along! Starts 4pm onwards. Here's a thread for it: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/37070-hamilton-monthly-meet-october-29th-hampton-downs/ After that (assuming the car holds together) I'll be heading down to the OS Leadfoot event that weekend, then the OS drags in December for a rort down the strip. Hopefully it wont be too embarassing down the strip, but it could probably do with some traction brackets prior to then to help it get off the line a bit better. I'd be happy if it ran somewhere in the 14s. Super happy to have the car running again though! It makes me wonder how I kept any motivation while it was off the road for so many years. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted October 23, 2014 Author Share Posted October 23, 2014 Drag day is coming up so I've been trying to get some sort of baseline idea of how this thing might go. Using some GPS data from trackday (with the previous exhaust setup though), I've got a good idea of how fast it accellerates in a straight line in the 100-180kph range.So with some dubious maths, combining this with some 0-100kph testing looks as though this should currently do about a mid 15 at 140kph. The MR2 had a lot better traction than this car, it could launch from redline no problems! 2 second 60 foot times.The problem that the car has currently, because there's miserable traction the ideal launch rpm is in a torque hole. (1500rpm or so) So if I launch above this speed, it wheelspins. If I launch at or below this speed, it bogs. Both options kill time... bugger.By increasing the amount of traction you are widening the 'launch window' (The rpm range you can launch at, without excessive bogging or wheelspin) It would be nice to have a 'launch window' from 2500-4500rpm perhaps... Hopefully some traction brackets and low psi in the tires will be enough to get it to hook up nicely off the line. Will hopefully get enough runs in without issue to test out my theory. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 Went to a Twilight session at Hampton Downs this afternoon with a few OSers... A++ would attend the shit out of more of those!Got an awesome amount of tracktime for only $75, definitely worthwhile.Unfortunately though the clutch slipping issue came back, but again only after two stints in reasonably quick succession and lots of ruthless gear changes haha. The brakes were fantastic though, new pads worked well. When the car cooled down again the clutch came back right and it drove home fine.So I think I'll stick to road driving for the next while, as I CBF pulling the motor out again just quite yet.The clutch is perfectly fine for the road, just not up to track spec continuous beatdowns.I got about 5 good laps with no traffic or clutch slipping, managed a 1:26.38 as best lap time.Pretty happy with that for starters, there will be a few more seconds to chop away at that with some more practice, better lines and a better clutch! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 Just a bit of an update on the aero situation... and why you cant trust just a 2d profile!I was down in Coromandel this weekend, woke up at 6.30am and the car was completely covered in dew/frost.So, the interesting thing about this is that the dew clears quicker when it has airflow over it. So the areas that are in dead air will keep dew on them, and vice versa. Ordinarily I'd avoid this situation, because 80s Toyotas are made out of dehydrated rust.After going for a bit of a drive, I could see that the dew down the centreline of the car it looked to be the same as the simulation.BUT the air coming from the side of the car wraps around the rear of the hatch too, which left this V shape on the rear hatch because the air must flow around it:So it may very well turn out that the rear hatch area DOES have useful airspeed over it... Just not directly down the centre of the car.Clearly more over analyses of a non existent problem is required.In other news though the clutch was slipping a bit more, which is a bit of a bummer.The current setup is something like this:A really nice TODA CNC'd flywheel, with the worlds shittiest clutch and cover plate. Lesson learned!So I'd been considering what my options are, because it's the same sort of problem as the front brake pads...It doesnt need higher clamping pressure or whatever, it just needs more resistance to heat.While looking for some options, a good deal came up on an ORC single plate setup! Same as Truenotch's.These are a bit strange, because it's in more seperate parts than a standard single plate clutch: Basically because it's a racing oriented unit, instead of having a cover plate that's a big single hunk of metal that you throw away when it's worn out... The upper friction material ring is seperate to the cover plate. The clutch plate is cut into quarters to stop it from warping and let it dissipate heat better.Also the clutch fingers are removable, so if any one part craps itself then you just order/replace just those parts.Overnight parts from Japan, job done haha.The downside to this setup though, is that because the inner parts are floating they get a bit of a rattle going on when you've got the clutch in... Which is exactly why I picked this up for cheap, previous owner would have either been sick of it or thought there was something wrong. Same way I got my cusco LSD haha. Hopefully it's not tooooo annoying.Since this design allows the coverplate to be a hell of a lot lighter than the pressed steel designs, as well as that the flywheel itself is lighter than the TODA one... It could be a few KGs of rotating mass lost. fingers crossed that my idle speed will still be fine.But I'm looking forward to doing another trackday once this is swapped across and not having to worry about cooking it.Another heat related problem that I've been having is that I cant get any sort of gasket to hold together for the join between the 4-2 section and 2-1 section of the extractors.There's no correct gasket available, I've tried a few different things which are all fine for the road but I blow a gasket every trackday which is annoying.So next thing I might try is either annealed copper or see if I can get thin stainless sheets lasercut or something and make a multilayer steel gasket similar to what holds the manifold on to the head.Any suggestions on what works/doesnt work appreciated! 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 I went to Gaspex in Penrose to get a custom gasket made for the exhaust, awesome service and price! $27 for a custom made gasket copper lined on both sides that should hold up to some trackday punishment.Tonight I went for a drive with the exhaust fixed up... 7.7l per 100km on a trip to West Auckland and back, pretty damn happy with that!My last daily driver could never manage below 10l per 100 so it's pretty awesome to have a weekend car that I dont feel guilty about driving haha.My clutch turned up today, and it's damn pretty! If anyone buys an ORC 309D clutch and gets stuck for info:(309D is the 'up to 300hp' generic clutch that they sell for everything basically) Standard clutch plate thickness is 4.7mm (Mine is 3.5, so will replace) and it looks as though the best place for replacement parts is the website rhdjapan.com. For comparison's sake when I take the other clutch out eventually, approximate comparison of weights: Clutch cover plate ~2kg Clutch cover friction plate ~1kg clutch plate 1kg flywheel - 5.5kg total: ~9.5 - 10kg assembledSo not bad considering now the entire clutch assembly is less than the weight of the standard Altezza flywheel by itself. I had a retard moment tonight though, when I realised it's possible that my clutch fork is being preloaded by the pushrod from the slave cylinder... The slipping issue might be caused by the clutch being ever so slightly depressed, when your foot is off the clutch. D'oh! So great news if this is the case, as it means I might not actually need to change the clutch just yet.I can go do some more Hampton twilight testing for slippage before committing to a Taupo trackday where it's a lot more of a waste of a day if something goes wrong. My existing clutch has only done about 8,000kms since new, so it would be nice to save changing the clutch over after at least getting a bit more life out of it. Fingers crossed! 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roman Posted November 11, 2014 Author Share Posted November 11, 2014 Checked the clutch pushrod - way too long! Trimmed maybe 5 or 10mm off it, before it had a little bit of free movement. Thought I'd go for a drive, just to be sure... High rpms good, up hills good, high load low rpm up hills good... Clutch slip gone! Awesome!But of course, owning an old car isnt that straight forward is it I get to the furthest part of my journey away from Auckland (Kaiaua) to have the fuel pump crap itself. Argh! Serves me right for thinking that using a 30+ year old fuel pump would be a good plan. While diagnosing the issue, I managed to lock myself out of the car. While it was starting to rain So I then went on a mission to get back in, managed to open a door, hard wired the fuel pump to 12v and took the fuel return line off - nothing coming out. Also noticed that the fuel pump sounded fucked as well so wrote off the idea of the filter being the issue. Ended up getting towed with a rope, all the way back to Howick which was pretty scary at night time in the pouring rain! On the bright side though I'm stoked not to have to change the clutch over just quite yet.I am also stoked that the pump didnt fail at the Leadfoot weekend, or at a Hampton trackday! Or at Nats coming up.I've got a spare MA61 fuel pump somewhere that should get it back up and running, but I get the feeling that fitting something brand new is going to be the best plan from here. Any suggestions on a fuel pump for 200ish hp that will be an easy fit? Thinking about finding something factory fitting that's available brand new if possible. Not interested in future proofing for 500hp or whatever as this car will never have much more power than it currently does. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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