DexGT's race car

[DexGT]

I did a hillclimb in the middle of wellington up Alexandra rd on Mt Victoria yesterday. I got 3rd overall out of 54 cars , I only got beaten by a very fast Evo and a turbo RX7 . Heres the incar youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnBLgR7b-_8

[DexGT]

Did the 1st round of the road and track series at manfield on sunday and while the car is still not going as I want , I did get a new PB lap time of 1:19.91 so have finally broke into the teens . I got 3rd in class and 6th out of 74 overall so I'm pretty happy and I have a list of things to do , one of the 1st being to refit the big brake setup I have

[DexGT]

I did another hill-climb in the weekend , got 3rd overall in what may as well have been a gravel event . The road had been resealed 6 weeks ago and as you can hear in the video clip there's lots of gravel , the car was feeling really loose coming off the power
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeKYvdU7iFY

I am making a oil separator and will post some pic's when I get a chance. I have also discovered my TRD LSD is quite worn , not too surprising really when I've done 70K with it and it was secondhand when I got it , I have ordered a rebuild kit which I thought was quite reasonable at $250ish.

[DexGT]

Seeing as there's no racing for a while I decided to do some mods to the car , the exhaust has bugged me since I made it that it hangs down below the floor , but the handbrake cables etc were in the way. The pic shows how much it hangs below the floor , and yes I realize it's not that much but it rubs on the ground when I autocross in paddocks and makes the muffler hit.


1st up I made some 40mm spacers to lift the lever up , and a stainless plate to cover the hole.


Then I removed all the brackets from in the tunnel and remounted them inside the car. I hole-sawed a new hole for the cables to run , and you can see the spacers I made to lift the fire extinguisher to clear the cables


I will get some after pic's when I have finished rebuilding the exhaust

[DexGT]

http://youtu.be/2Omc423rx-o
Found this vid of me at pukerimu hillclimb a few weeks ago , pitty they didn't stay at the bridge for the second run , they would have got me going up the bank after the bridge .
As can be seen towards the end , it was very slippery , nice drift I thought

[DexGT]

I have just about finished my oil/ air separator . i have upgraded the hoses to 19mm inside diameter so there should be plenty of breathing capacity . here's some pic's




And here's a slim line cover I made for the Ariel hole , can you tell there's no racing on at the moment ?

[DexGT]

here's the finished exhaust position



and here's the original setup again , not much difference I know but after a vigorous test drive it doesn't hit anywhere and it certainly won't hit the ground like it did

[DexGT]

I am in the process of pulling the motor and box to do some work on them . I am overhauling the LSD as it is getting weak , not that surprising as it's done 70K since I've owned it inc lots of racing and it was secondhand when I got it
I got a TRD rebuild kit off Toyota ( thanks Mark) , and I want to be able to test the breakaway torque , both what it has now and after I rebuild it , so I made these out of some old inner C.V's I had .
If anyone knows what sort of torque range it should be , please let me know.


Before I pull the motor I though I'd look at adding a 4th engine mount like the corollas have , I found one off a AE101 at pickapart so started trial fitting it today.
Here's a pic of how much I had to cut out to get it to fit in the space. You can see where I tacked it back together after removing the bit to the right.



and here's how much clearance it has to the radiator



and to the dump pipe


So as you can see, enough but only just
the fun part will be making the bracket to attach it to the crossmember , theres going to be some thinking involved , and on a weekend too

[DexGT]

I have rebuilt the LSD , old breakaway torque was 33 Ft-Lb , after is 54 Ft-Lb . the plates and spring washers were showing a small amount of wear .
I ordered some wilwood calipers for the back seeing as the exchange rate is so good , the 2 calipers and wilwood pads inc freight cost NZ$340 ish ,
the plan at this stage is to fit them as a separate handbrake system and in the future use them to replace the factory calipers


I have also ordered some v-band clamps for the exhaust so I don't have problems every time I remove the dump / exhaust.

[DexGT]

I have finished doing the LSD rebuild and reassembled the box , painted it , then finished the sump mods , if you look at the sump in the exhaust cutout area you can see the drain channel I put in . In the next pic you can see the oil drain I put in for the oil/ air separator.



I have also been making a cover for the gauges on the dash , mainly to stop reflections , especially at night with the lights on , as you can see , it needs a lot of work , but the basics are there.



The motor is back in , I just need to hook everything back up , the Wilwood's are back on at the front , ready for testing .
The wilwood's I got for the rear are proving more challenging than I had hoped , I need to run bigger diameter disc's for wheel clearance , or run the pads half off the disc which isn't an option really. I will have to think about the next move

[DexGT]

I spent the weekend fitting the v-bands to the exhaust and it's finally done , just 3 nuts to get most of the exhaust off




while it was off I weighed the exhaust and from the turbo back it came in at 19.2kg which i thought wasn't too bad for a 3" pipe

I also decided to lock wire the compressor exit adapter on as it had come loose , and the dump pipe to turbo ,
drilling 1.5mm holes though stainless cap-screw heads sucks real bad , i ended up paying a toolmaker friend to do it .


obviouslly I need to replace the cableties as I suspect they won't handle the heat

I should have the front of the car fully back together this weekend , then i can start re-organizing the inside ,
I really need some racing as this working on the car is starting to be a drag

[DexGT]

Did a hill climb on Sunday at Kaihinau Rd just out of Shannon near Palmerston north.
I got 1st overall by 3 seconds from 25 other cars inc late model STI / EVO rally cars , quick track cars etc, on the run in the clip which was my 1st timed run I was 10 seconds faster than the second fastest car , I have added the start of my 3rd timed run to the end of the clip , I missed the bank by less than an inch , I seriously though I was going to take the front off
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a59-g2OdEu8

>>Edit<<
Here is a link of me in practice I think
http://youtu.be/dL9s_XFG25Q

[DexGT]

I decided a few weeks ago to change the mounting bushes in my rear beam axle from


to


I decided that I would try to do it on the car as it looked like way too much work to pull the beam out of the car

I made up a manual puller that basically used a M12 rod to pull the bush out , it looked like this , note the long RHS on the spanner


and it was a failure , the threaded rod started stretching before the bush started moving , so it was on to plan No 2.
I hunted around work this morning and found this set up


This was more like it although after doing the 1st one I decided that earmuffs were needed for the 2nd one due to the loud bang as the bush came out


So the back end should be better controlled now as I could deflect the rubber bushes with a lite pull on a screwdriver , and can't do it with the new bushes ,

so I now have WRX parts in my car but they were a straight fit

[DexGT]

Here's a outside view of me at Shelly Bay sprint in the weekend (Thanks to motorsport central), I got 6th overall and 3rd in class behind 2 RX7's , one lexus v8 powered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzDNMu6Y ... rofilepage
I will get the incar video edited and put that up in the next few days.

[DexGT]

Here is the in-car from my fastest run at Shelly bay a few weeks back ,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErXSB-N5cr4
and here is the in-car from Blairgowrie rd near Dannevirke last weekend, this is an awesome bit of road ,I got 3rd overall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvyxLYv94Aw

The car is currently sitting in a barn north of Dannevirke till I pick it up this friday on the way to hawkes bay to do 2 hill-climbs this weekend.

[DexGT]

Last Friday I picked the car up and went to hawkes bay to do 2 hill climbs ,
1st was Te Onepu hill climb where I got 4th overall ( 1st in class)after just getting beaten by a GT3 Porsche http://youtu.be/KxRLOq8vAVk ,sorry about the sound my video camera seems to be playing up.

Then it was Seafield Rd hill climb where I got 6th overall (1st in class) , it's the 1st time I have found the new diff ratio to be an issue , was causing me to have to change gear when last year I didn't
http://youtu.be/BniHwbCanA8

[DexGT]

I did the Port Road street sprint last weekend , there were 55 entry's and while it was drizzly to start , by the last 2 runs conditions were good.
I was having a good battle with my mate in his STI and going into the last run was about 0.3 sec behind him. Here is the incar of the last run , unfortunately the small issue at the 1st barrel meant I ended up 2nd in class and 7th overall , there was less than a second to 3rd overall so that 270 deg spin really cost
Sorry theres no sound , but the mic in the camera has packed a sad
http://youtu.be/nzQjb3EpW00
I'm not sure what caused it but it felt like the brakes stuck on , I will inspect them this weekend , damm sliding calipers , really must finish the wilwood upgrade

[DexGT]

I have ordered a dual master cylinder brake pedal , 2 cylinders and a remote adjustment knob for the xmas brake upgrade project , I hope to have everything ready and all parts etc by mid december .

Last weekend I did another hill climb , this one over in the wairapara at Admirals road , here is a link to my fastest run which got me 3rd overall.http://youtu.be/BPzwdiYiBHM
Had a bit of fun on the way home over the rimutaka hill with a guy in a merc SL500 who definitely didn't expect a starlet to be faster than him

[DexGT]

Here are the parts collected so far for the brake upgrade at xmas , I also got a 22mm sway bar to try with some different coil over springs , and some locking flush mount bonnet pins , looks like I'll be busy over xmas

[DexGT]

I have started the brake upgrade on the starlet.
1st up was removing the dash which took all afternoon on the 1st day, the wiring will definitely be getting a sort out before it goes back in
Next up was to remove the motor/box so I'd have room to work, I finished that day by removing the old brake pedal.
Today I started with this


Then I did this ( after quite a bit of thinking , theres no going back , not easily anyway )


By the end of the day I had the new master cylinders mounted along with the new pedal including a brace bracket for the pedal


I will get more pic's as I go along