DexGT's race car

[DexGT]

Have been busy for the last few days , I even worked on the car on new years day !!
So far I have made new brake lines for the front


for the rear , which involved removing the petrol tank , which had 20 odd litres of gas in it , I reused the factory line to the drivers side , I just shortened it and flared it to suit.


i have fitted the hydraulic handbrake , in a push to use way as I think that will work better for the events I do . It's pretty tight with the gear stick and accusump but it does fit and it only took
1/2 a day to figure it out so it doesn't get in the way but is still easy to use
.

I am waiting for some brake bits to arrive so I decided to reorganize the engine bay wiring while everything was out so out came the heater etc then I spent the last 2 days going from


to this , note there is now no wiring from the middle grommet to the main fuse box , it all goes thru the passenger side grommet now. It's always got in the way when working on / removing the motor / box so hopefully it will be better , after 2 days it friken better be



After 1/2 day sitting on the front cross member I made a mod for comfort



Tomorrows plan is to finish the inside wiring and remove the wiring from the dash and fix it to the cross bar under the dash so next time I pull the dash it's easy

[DexGT]

I have finished fitting the rear brake/ disc upgrade , it has gone from this


to this


this is what it looks like without the disc fitted


so all it needed was a custom hub to carry the AE111 disc and a custom bracket for the wilwood caliper , it sounds so easy when I say it like that
Today is bleed the brakes and start reassembly as I have a race on next weekend .

[DexGT]

This post is for the final update of brake upgrade when I remember to bring camera home

[DexGT]

Here is some videos of the Wallaceville hillclimb I did in the weekend .
this is a mates incar video he took of me.
http://youtu.be/N7HjXhNARls
this is of my fastest run which got me 3rd overall , was trying it mounted on the roof above the drivers door , was a bit wobbly at the start
http://youtu.be/beKre1WWiaE

The brakes are working alot better with the new pads in and some balance adjustment.

[DexGT]

I recently entered the Alexander road hill-climb which was also the final of the New Zealand hill-climb championship.
I got 3rd in class and 7th overall out of 54 entries , I thought it was pretty cool that only 4 of the 20+ evo's / STI's etc 4WD's beat me, here's a you tube of my fastest run http://youtu.be/2M0exqI4CbE

After the prize giving I left the wellington car club rooms and the car made a nasty noise rolling down the driveway , I had a look , couldn't see anything so drove back up to the car park.
After a couple of laps I couldn't hear anything so decided to drive home , I got maybe 5km before the noise returned. I stopped and jacked the front up, and found the wheels turned very notchy , so I rang my mate to come pick me up with his trailer.
The next day I removed the gearbox , split it and discovered that I had blown the TRD lsd ramp cage to bits , it's meant to look lke this

it now looks like this on two ramps and the others are all cracked

A bit of the diff has gone thru the diff pinion and smashed a tooth off so at a minimum I needed a new LSD and a main shaft for the gearbox.
I figure this diff has done pretty well , I got it secondhand in a gearbox (from the old Beano car I believe ) and I have put 70k + km on it .

I have now ordered a new TRD lsd and I have brought a C56 off a blacktop to give me better ratio's and will give it a good inspection / rebuild as necessary when I transfer the gear set into the old C52 case.

I recently fitted new flush mount bonnet pins and have been playing with the carbonfibre vinyl , you can see it in this pic which also shows the new quad lights I'm fitting ( thanks Garreth27 )


I got a phone call last week to say that my 22mm front swaybar had arrived , I originally ordered this about 8 months ago and ended up cancelling it as Whiteline had quality issues as I discovered when I tried to fit the first one.
I have trial fitted the new one and it actually fits without hitting the lower arms (unlike the 1st one) so that's good. I will find out the price on tuesday and decide if I will keep it

[DexGT]

I finished reassembling the new gearbox last night , I now have a C56 gear-set with 4.3 diff ratio mounted in my C52 case with all new bearings though out and a new TRD LSD .
I opened the LSD to make sure it was in 1.5 way and discovered that they have revised the ramp design , and for the better from a stress raiser point of view i.e no sharp corners and no groves intersecting the sharp corners.

Old ramps


Vs new ramps


I also tested the breakaway torque of the new diff and it comes in at 67 Nm so a bit stronger than the old one after the rebuild kit was fitted.

[DexGT]

Time for a bit of an update.
After the gearbox upgrade I found a way to lighten the crank weight by 1.6 kg , I only use the crank pulley to drive the water pump and alternator so when I found this pulley at pickapart it cost all of $8 to go from 2.7kg to 1.1kg awesome

then there was the double hillclimb weekend and a test day at manfield , The car went really well at the test day apart from not selecting / holding 5th , which turned out to be proof that assembling a gearbox after 16 hours at work = not a good idea. I managed to grab the wrong circlip to hold on 5th gear and then "made " it fit , so at the track it came off and 5th gear tried to vacate the box . I also cooked the turbo oil drain hose so made a new one to keep the hose further away from the turbo

For the hillclimbs I just removed 5th gear and selector etc as 5th is not needed and patched up the drain hose.

The next day at the 1st hillclimb the car was feeling good until just before practice when it started making a knocking noise and that was the end of the weekends racing , it turns out I was very lucky to not wreck the motor as somehow it got 2 bits of steel inside number 3 cylinder that stuck in the head between the inlet valves without hitting the valves or going down the side of the piston , you can see the bits in the second pic below



After fixing the damage and putting the motor back together I got the car ready for my favorite sprint , Kahinau road which I have won the last 2 years.
For the 1st time in a few years the weather was good and I was confident of doing a good time, so in practice I took a mate who hasn't been in the car for a few years so he could see how much better it is.
First we got stopped a 1/3rd of the way in due to the car in front having a "moment" into a fence , unfortunately I stopped the camera at this point and forgot to start it again . After a while they let us continue so I decided to try some things out seeing as the time was meaningless , I got to a short straight that you start in 2nd and was impressed that I got into 4th then remembered that at the end of the short straight which was approaching very fast at this point there was a 270 degree off camber corner .
I proceeded to lock up the brakes and went though/ under a fence hitting a gate post then a second fence before stopping , amazingly all I did was smash a indicator and the carbon fibre mirror, bend the front corner of the guard and gave the car 30 odd mm of toeout . the rear bush brackets from the front arms are a bit second hand now but have straightened up ok

I adjusted the steering arms till the wheels appeared to be pointing straight and went out for a test run to see how it was going , it was ok but needed a bit more tweaking for the next run.
About 500 meters from the finish the oil pressure warning light light flashed on for a second and shortly after the car lost power, it turned out the turbo had seized so that was the end of that day
Needless to say , the painting budget has been reallocated yet again and I now have a new turbo which I'm quite excited about , a garrett GTX2863R and I decided to upgrade to a G4 storm ECU which lead to these coil on plugs being fitted.

[DexGT]

I am currently in wait mode due to Link having run out of G4 looms and for my old exhaust housing to be machined to fit the new turbo so I have been getting ready , so after the COP fitting ,I modded the dizzy cap and I'm very happy with how it came out

I have fitted a Nissan idle control solenoid so I don't have to sit in the car till the motor warms up like I do now .

I have also ordered a pressure transducer so the G4 can keep an eye on oil pressure and shut down the motor if needed.
I am also looking at getting a cheap tablet pc to use as a screen for the G4 in the car.

[DexGT]

Continuing on with the upgrade now the loom is here ,I have the G4 mounted with some relays and fuses on the glovebox lid.


and I have made a new panel for the wideband head unit and mounted switches for various things


I spent around 15 minutes getting the wideband plug through the firewall gromet , and I still have to get the link loom through too so I think I'll make a spreader to open it up.

I have changed the resistor in the tacho ( thanks Siren676) and after a fair bit of loom unwrapping I have found the sender wire to hook up to the G4 output.

Hopefully the turbo is finished and back this week , the old exhaust housing is being machined to fit the new GTX turbo , also hopefully the wiring will finally be done cause I am so over it .

A list of things being changed / added so far is;
G4 storm ECU, COP ignition , sequential injection , oil pressure transducer , speed sensor for boost in gear adjustment , ISC valve fitted , wide band fitted , GTX2863R turbo inc changing how the comp side connects to everything , modded the dizzy cap , and a bunch of stuff I have forgotten

[DexGT]

I now have the new turbo fitted , the new loom done and the G4 configured. It is truly amazing to be able to turn the key from stone cold and have the car instantly idle at 1000rpm . It is going for dyno tuning on Tuesday so I hope it is as successful as the idling.

I made a lower brace / 4th engine mount today , it came out really well I think.

[DexGT]

Here is new dyno graph

[DexGT]

Have just done hutt valley motorsport clubs triathlon weekend which consisted of a street sprint , a motokarna and an autocross.
I got 5th in class and 9th overall out of 50 at port Rd sprint.
here's me 2 wheeling it

there was an incident with a GTR and a sign , the guy walked away with bruises , the GTR not so much
http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i66/g ... kyline.gif

today ( sunday ) we did the motorkarna then the autocross. I haven't seen the motorkarna results yet but I did pretty well I think .
In the auto cross everyone did 3 runs then there was a shoot out , it was top 10 ,then 6 ,then 4 ,then 2 to find the winner.
I won the autocross and the shootout from 19 other entrys , here is a vid from the front of the bonnet
P.S I love my hydraulic handbrake
http://youtu.be/740m4mwZk0Q

[DexGT]

I discovered a few weeks ago that I had bent the front suspension when I crashed into the fence a an event a while back , so I decided to get it pulled straight .
It all turned to crap last week when the panel beater managed to pull the captive nut out of the body on the drivers side front arm front bush


What it meant was that by the time I'd fixed it and got the car wheel aligned it was Thursday afternoon , and I was heading to hawkes bay on Friday for a couple of hill climbs so way closer than I would have liked

The 1st event was on the saturday and was to start at 12pm , everyone was standing around and hoping we would get finished before the rain came.
There was 32 cars entered ranging from an imp , corollas , civics , a 911 GT3RS , various V8's and a few single seater race cars.
The starlet was going well apart from the brakes not working as I wanted , they have no feel and give me no confidence which isn't a good thing at the speeds the starlet gets to at these events. This 1st event I got to 178km/hr going into the valley.
I got 1st in class and 2nd overall in this event and also in the sunday event , both days I got beaten by a jedi hill climb single seater , these weigh around 500kg with a R1 motorbike motor in them and are seriously fast
This is the 1st event incar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v-Q2c4L7 ... knQl4RC7Hg

This is the sunday event and on the "straight" at the top you can see me hook 5th gear and soon after I get to 198km/hr which is well exciting
on this narrow road
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eLd1Ws3 ... knQl4RC7Hg

I am going to change the front calipers piston size to sort the no feel issue hopefully .

[DexGT]

I spent the last week getting the car ready for the double header hill climb weekend in wanganui .
1st I fitted the new front calipers and refitted the original 3/4" master cylinder to the front circuit.
Here is a comparison of the piston size difference


I then discovered the accusump braided line had dropped down , knocked the cover off the alternator positive terminal and melted all the braid / damaged the hose


so I got some new non metallic braided line to replace it and made up a new cover

sadly one of the fittings wouldn't go on properly/seal and so I had to block off the hose and run without the accusump for the weekend.

I also did more work on fitting the 4th engine mount like the corollas have. I have made a brace bar that incorporates the mount

The brace / 4th mount needs some more work as you can hear the buzzing from it over 5k rpm in the videos.
i fitted it with the standard rubber insert and it lasted 2 runs before the center ripped out , so I modded the housing to take some suspension bushes , you can see the torn rubber center.


I went the the test day at manfield on friday to test / set up the brakes and they are much better than they were .
Then we headed to Wanganui for the hill climbs
The 1st days hill climb starts downhill and the last 2 corners were catching people out all day . Here is my fastest run which got me 2nd in class and 7th overall out of 42
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE7lAY9J ... knQl4RC7Hg

Then on sunday I got 2nd in class and 5th overall out of 48 entry's and I think I now have the 4th fastest class time ever
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Phb7_DR ... knQl4RC7Hg


one more hill climb this year next week just north of dannevirke then wait till the end of january for it to start again

[DexGT]

I got pissed off with trying to reassemble the auccusump hose so brought this ready made for $66


I then went and did the final hill climb this year , it was up past Danevirke at Blairgowrie rd where I got 1st in class and 2nd overall out of 28ish cars inc 6 4WD turbos.
I was beaten in the end by a evo 8 tarmac rally car but I made him work for it , I don't think he could believe that a starlet was pushing him
here is the incar of my best run before it started raining.
It's an awesome bit of road , flowing and quite fast , on the last straight I'm getting just over 160km/hr and 140 + in quite a few other places
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rshU0abv ... knQl4RC7Hg

This weekend I have been playing with vinyl wrap again and the can now looks like this, I wrapped the door and handle , pity it makes the rear guard look really crap


From this


and originally like this

[DexGT]

as mentioned in other posts I have spent xmas covering a fair bit of the car in vinyl wrap and it is now pretty much finished bar some sponsors graphics and door numbers.


and a better look at the roof


While doing the vinyling I changed the rear hatch to the standard one with no wing , wiper or garnish and saved 6.5 kg I also changed the passengers door due to damage from crashing at an event last year and that ended up being 4kg lighter due to having no intrusion bar in it.
I decided that I was never going to make a mold off my GI bonet so I fitted it to the car too.
I am very happy with how the car now looks , as the fun of having a car that went fast but looked like crap had well worn off

I did the port road street sprint yesterday and got 1st in class and 2nd overall so very happy with that.
This is my fastest run of the day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iafbLa0l ... knQl4RC7Hg
I am still not 100% sure about the brakes but I didn't think about them while racing so they are definitely better with the new calipers.
I am considering if / how I will run E85 as my motor is quite seriously det limited.

>>>>>added a clip of the 1st corner on the 1st run , a bit slippery me thinks
http://youtu.be/sIRskawS2ao

[DexGT]

I had another event last weekend , the Wallaceville hill climb , 34 entry's inc 2.5 turbo skyline , TRD supercharged V6 MR2 , type R integra etc .
I held off the skyline to win by 1 second overall
incar of the fastest run complete with passenger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlJDT67b ... knQl4RC7Hg

[DexGT]

I went to the clubsport national champs last weekend , they where held at the Bay park speedway complex.
It started with a motokarna on the concrete car park , the hydraulic handbrake was awesome , sadly the gearbox refused to select reverse for what seemed like hours ( 5 seconds really ) on one test and dropped me down to 14th place.
I have not had a chance to sort out footage for the motokarna yet but I do have footage from the autocross and bent sprint.

The autocross was also held in the car park and was huge it was lots of fun trying to go as fast as possible and I ended up 5th overall.
This is my fastest run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXkM05cO ... knQl4RC7Hg

There were 10 of us up from wellington mostly staying at the same motel which makes for a very social event .

On the sunday the bent sprint was held on the speedway track , basically it consisted of 5 laps of the track with a couple of chicanes thrown in .
there was lots of debate over which tyres to run and most people went with semis in the end.
I needed to take more brave pills , but after watching one person hit the wall I didn't want to join them http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa_knT5y ... knQl4RC7Hg
. I got 6th overall in the sprint and ended the event in 8th place overall , and my team got 1st place.

Now I have a list of improvements to make to the car , mainly the gearbox ,suspension and maybe a redesign of the handbrake.
Next event is Alexandra road in wellington up Mt Vic in a couple of weeks .

[DexGT]

I have been looking at the suspension since the nationals and managed to get 2 deg caster , 2.4 deg neg camber and went from 1mm toe in (no idea why it was like this ) to 2mm toe out , it seemed to work well at Mt Vic hill climb.
I did a measure up and discovered that while I had lowered the center of gravity 30mm when I lowered the car , I had lowered the roll centre 80mm . I have worked out the I need to make roll center adjusters to drop the arm 30mm (probably not a coincidence that its the same as the amount I lowered the car ). While I am doing this I will try and add some more caster as I want to try the car with 4 deg , I have some ideas on how I will do it but more investigating needs doing first .

Did the Alexandra road hill climb up Mt vic in the middle of wellington on Sunday , unfortunately the rain didn't hold off long enough so only practice and the 1st timed run were dry.
I have a few moments in practice and knew I had to get a good time in on the 1st run. I did have a good run and ended up as fastest 2wd and 6th overall.
Here is the 1st timed run http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vmhEC7O ... knQl4RC7Hg

[DexGT]

Since last post I have done a few events , 1st up was a grass motokarna / autocross where I wanted to try out my new 195/50/15 dirt tyres

unfortunately half way through the 1st motokarna test I blew a CV , after cleaning it up it was clear that it had been wearing for a while as you don't get this sort of wear instantly

The balls are not even round anymore if you look close

I have brought some redline synthetic CV grease to see if it helps the CV's last better .

It did mean that when I went to the Salisbury road hill climb in hawkes bay I didn't have CV issues .
The weather held off and stayed fine all day , there was a smallish field so we got practice and 5 timed runs .
I ended up 1st in class and 2nd overall by 0.8 of a second. At the fastest point I got to mid 190ish KM/hr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JOPTNsF ... knQl4RC7Hg

I have decided to run on E85 so have started getting the stuff needed to upgrade the fuel system , starting with some ID1000cc injectors