Truenotch's BEAMS AE86 racecar

[Truenotch 9,043]

Here's a few before and after shots: 

 

 

It's not perfect, but is good enough for this racecar owner. 

[Truenotch 9,043]

A few things going back into place now. Crossmember, steering column, swaybar and mounts, lower arms, brake lines and struts are all installed.  

I also picked up a new brake light switch, so spent an hour or so making a bracket this afternoon. I won’t bore you with a picture, but it’s funny how many dodgy additions there’s were to my brake switch wiring! Two sets of spade crimps and a twist’n’tape for good measure... no wonder the circuit was unreliable... 

[Truenotch 9,043]

It's all coming together now. Just a few jobs to do before this wrecker motor can run. 

[Truenotch 9,043]

The car is running now. It struggled a bit at first and I was wondering why it wouldn't start and idle. Then I remembered the coolant temp sensor wasn't plugged in, so it had no cold start enrichment. Plugged that in and it fired straight up! 

 

The next job on the list was to fill it with coolant. My radiator doesn't have a filler neck and sits well below the highest point, so I had a friend chop and weld the top water fixture. This gives me the required offset to easily hook up the radiator and has a wee filler neck so I can actually fill it with coolant. I've also added a stainless coolant overflow tank. It's all working out to be tidy, so I'm happy. 

Both radiator hoses were very simple. The top one is just a 350mm straight piece and the lower is a trimmed factory Altezza hose. 

Got it out in the open air for the first time in a long time. It feels great to be able to drive it out of the shed instead of pushing it! The exterior will eventually get a tidy up to match the engine bay. It's fairly ripply and in need of a respray. 

Parked up next to @Mitch.W's AE while he prepared for a drift day:

 

I took the car for a cheeky hoon up the road and it felt good. The engine sounded happy and pulled through the revs well. I'll get it onto a dyno for a safety check and then the engine's basically good to go. 

It's not far from "completion" now.I'm waiting on a few suspension and brake parts to arrive, then it can get reassembled, aligned and hit the track! 

[Truenotch 9,043]

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!

[Truenotch 9,043]

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. 

 

[Truenotch 9,043]

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.  

[Truenotch 9,043]

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: 

 

[Truenotch 9,043]

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!

[Truenotch 9,043]

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. 

[Truenotch 9,043]

Made a start on pulling the dents out. My shed neighbour let me borrow his porta power. Managed to get most of the shape back into the panel. 

The door will be replaced at some stage, so I'm not too worried about getting that straight, but will spend a bit of time getting the quarter panel as straight as possible with a hammer and dolly. 

After some initial kicks and chipping off bog (it's not a virgin panel, haha) 

Then after a poke with the porta power:

It's got a few ripples! But already a big improvement. 

 

[Truenotch 9,043]

Shouldn't be too hard to get it good enough for the next rodeo on Jan 23/24th. It can stay a bit rough and will finish it when I've got new doors to get the lines right. 

[Truenotch 9,043]

I had limited time to finish the panel work, so got it to a level that looked OK, gave it a lick of paint and threw this back together. The door is pretty wrinkly, so I don't think I'll fix it... Fibreglass doors will be happening soon... 

Spent my birthday at the racetrack. I had a cold, so was off the pace a wee bit, but managed consisted 1.17's all day long. The consistency paid off and I came away with a win in the final race! 

I did a terrible job with my camera and didn't have any charge in the batteries, so here's the only vid that worked. I qualified on P2 against some much faster machinery. Was swamped off the line and had a good race to come home in 3rd (one of the guys up ahead received a drive through penalty, gifting me 3rd place). 

Put the car on the trailer on one piece and am currently second in the GT Cup for the summer series. The final round is in April, so hopefully I can get a few good results to have a chance at winning the series. 

[Truenotch 9,043]

I've got a bit of downtime until the next race meeting, so took a chance to get some long awaited fabrication work done. I highly recommend Nick at SAFE Engineering in Palmy for anyone who needs automotive fab work / roll cages / other small engineering jobs taken care of. 

I've been needing to update my harness mounts since the rules changed a little while ago. Nick added a fresh bar to wrap the belts around and keep the harness on a good angle for my new neck restraint. 

While he was at it, I got him to add jacking points to the sides of the car. The vertical tube goes through the floor and is reinforced by a foot plate. This means I don't have to risk crushing my sills or chassis rails when jacking the car up from the side. 

And something I've wanted for AGES. Sill stands. Nick bored the sills and welded tubes in place that I can slot a set of stands into. This will make life far easier at the track and it'll be quicker to get the car up in the air for checks and maintenance.  The stands will be made soon. 

The current state of it: