[Peter92lx]

Small update on the car. Since the last event I've mainly focused on getting the surge tank installed in the car. I also added a access panel so I could remove the in tank fuel pump from the car without dropping the tank. I decided to mount the surge tank right where the spare tire tied down to. This meant I had to move the Accusump back closer to the rear of the car. Which also meant I had to move the breather for the rear diff to the side to make room. Wasn't a big deal moving everything around since I didn't have to change any lines on the Accusump.

I also lucked out that the fuel lines that ran to the tank fit perfect with the surge tank. I didn't have to remake the lines they had the perfect length and fittings to work. I only had to have two lines made for the for the lift pump. I was going to buy the lines but JBA has a really good guy that will custom build lines for you and test them. I gave him the lengths and he made them in about 30min and pressure tested them for me. They don't need to support a lot of pressure sine it's just a lift pump and a overflow but it's good to know they are tested. I also added a second pump to the surge tank that I can use as a back up just in case I have issues with the primary pump.

Now it's back to the dyno to make sure everything is working properly. I was running the Pro-M crank trigger on the car but was running into issues with starting and getting trouble codes due to cam sync. I was also have hot start issues that we just can't seem to overcome at this time. I decided to go back to the distributor and disconnect the crank trigger for now. I'm not giving up on it I plan to try it again since I think it's the best way to go with the car. It's just nice that the car starts right away whether it's cold or hot doesn't matter it just runs and doesn't throw codes.

 

[Peter92lx]

I ended up putting the surge tank to the test this weekend. I ran the car lower on fuel then I ever had on e85 and never had an issue with fuel delivery. Which leads me into this weekend. We had the final event at Auto club speedway Lot 6. It's sucks to see it go and were hoping this wasn't the last event at that lot but it's not looking good right now. The car felt good this weekend. I worked on the front of the car to get it to work better at this event and it did I was much happier with it. I was able to put down a good time on Saturday that put me really close to the top runners. I really need to work on my throttle control. I'm spinning the tires to much and loosing time. This is my fastest run from Saturday and you can see by the finish I was putting in to much throttle input.

Sunday was looking good with the car. My first set of runs were looking good but still needed to work on my throttle control because I know I'm loosing time. I was hoping to improve on my second set of runs but luck wasn't with me since it started to rain just before I was supposed to go out and made the course very slick. I ran the car in the wet anyways because I figured why not I wouldn't mind seeing what the car would do in the wet.

It was a good weekend looking forward to the next one with the SCCA in two weeks. It will be a tighter shorter course but my car works pretty well on those types of courses.

 

[Peter92lx]

Another autocross in the books this weekend. This time with the San Diego SCCA region. It was a fun course pretty fast with a good flow. The one thing about this lot is the grip level is high and all the work I had done to the cat to get it to work at Lot 6 in Fontana didn't work very well at this event. The car had a big push in the front I was able to dial some of it out with turning up the compression setting on the rear shocks but didn't have a good feeling with the rear of the car all day. I also need to work on more of my driving I think a big part of my problem is I'm not hitting my marks very good. I might also need to look at the setup of the car. We spent the past 2 years getting it to work on a low grip surface but now trying to run it on a high grip surface and its really changed how the car works. I also need to get some confidence in the grip level of the car. I just wasn't feeling confident in the back of the car this weekend the front of the car was working really good once I got some of the push dialed out.

I have a few thing to work on with the car before the next event. The rear brakes are getting pretty chewed up and they need to be replaced. I might have a small oil leak from the back of the oil pan which sucks. I might also need to look at spring rates in the car. Since we have a made a lot of changes to the suspension I want to also check the bump steer in the front and rear of the car. I haven't checked it in a long time and it might be a good idea.

 

[RedFox418]

Nice job man! I would definitely get another event or two under my belt at that location before I changed too much.

 

[Peter92lx]

Nice job man! I would definitely get another event or two under my belt at that location before I changed too much.

I'm going to try and stick with shock settings. I do want to check the bump steer in the front and the rear of the car to make sure it's good. I'm also planning on putting it on the scales to see what the corner balance looks like.

 

[Peter92lx]

I decided before the next event on March 12th I was going to make a couple changes to the rear suspension on the car. It's nothing rally major just a small ride height adjustment since the rear of the car is sitting to high based on my measurements and a toe change. The car has been running a ton of toe in for a long time. When I first installed the IRS we went with a small amount of toe in but it increased during the first year I had the IRS in the car. I was told and it made sense due to the mounting of the IRS cradle it will move under load. The fact the lower control arm is mounted so low verses where the cradle mounts to the frame there was a lot of leverage on the rear of the cradle making move under hard cornering. This movement can cause the outside tire to toe out and the inside tire to toe in kind of like rear steering. One way to fix this is adding toe in to the car so the outside tire won't toe out under load. I decided to address this issue with the cradle mounting. I didn't hard tail mount it but added some bracing. These are things I posted up before.

First was the "Mathis brace" named after the guy who came up with it.

The next was reinforcing the upper mounting bracket.

We also welded the two spot welded pieces together and boxed in the open end of the bracket. I also have delrin bushings for the cradle just haven't installed them yet. The car had around 1/4 inch toe in on each side. Normally you would want around a 1/16 to an 1/8 each side. So I decided to get out my string alignment tool and set the toe in to 1/16 on each side.

Part of the reason for the toe in is the last time it was on an alignment rack they couldn't get the car to toe out at all. I decided to check the toe first before making any adjustments to the car to verify where it was before I took the toe links out to see why they wouldn't adjust in any further. Once I had the base measurements I took the toe links out. That's when I noticed an issue. The driver side toe link was snugged down but not torqued on the cradle side. When I got the toe link out you could tell it had been moving around. The spacers were marked up like they had been rubbing together. How much it was moving not sure. It would explain the way the car would feel on corner entry especially under heavy load. When I first installed the IRS I did a couple track days and the car was fine. I'm not sure if this is something that loosened over time or what all I know is it wasn't torqued down.

After I got the toe links out I took them apart and shortened them up as much as possible. Then reinstalled them into the car. Then I got it back on it's wheels and ride height and now the car has toe out. I left the toe link jam nuts loose and set the toe to 1/16. I guess we will find out how it works at the next event.

 

[Peter92lx]

I was looking forward to a Sunday of racing this weekend but some *******s decided to steal are regions equipment trailer.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/159507817415701/user/100063674635076

 

[RedFox418]

I was looking forward to a Sunday of racing this weekend but some *******s decided to steal are regions equipment trailer.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/159507817415701/user/100063674635076

Wow! What a bunch of a-holes! Hopefully it will be found and recovered unscathed.

BTW, if you don't mind me asking, what are the specs on your wheels? I'm considering doing the fenders like you have, but I will be staying solid rear axle so I may have to make some adjustments for that, but that would give me somewhere to start from....especially for the front.

 

[Peter92lx]

Wow! What a bunch of a-holes! Hopefully it will be found and recovered unscathed.

BTW, if you don't mind me asking, what are the specs on your wheels? I'm considering doing the fenders like you have, but I will be staying solid rear axle so I may have to make some adjustments for that, but that would give me somewhere to start from....especially for the front.

The wheels I have on the car now are the Konig Hypergram HG18514155 it's an 18x11 with a 15mm offset. When I ran another set of wheels that were 18x11 with a 22mm offset I had to run a 3/4 wheel spacer to make them work with the factory fox body width solid axle. I also had to run them in the front since I had fox length MM control arms. I also ran a 8inch front spring to give me more clearance between the wheel and the spring. I you went with the same offset wheel I have you could run a 1/2 inch wheel spacer.

 

[RedFox418]

The wheels I have on the car now are the Konig Hypergram HG18514155 it's an 18x11 with a 15mm offset. When I ran another set of wheels that were 18x11 with a 22mm offset I had to run a 3/4 wheel spacer to make them work with the factory fox body width solid axle. I also had to run them in the front since I had fox length MM control arms. I also ran a 8inch front spring to give me more clearance between the wheel and the spring. I you went with the same offset wheel I have you could run a 1/2 inch wheel spacer.

You're a scholar and a gentleman. I'm taking my car by a body shop to see if they can roll/push my stock fenders just a little bit more. I get just a little bit of rubbing with my 18" wheels when I hit either medium to large dips in the road. I'm running 285 tires back there at the moment and I really don't want to go more narrow than that. Hopefully this will cure the issue. I really don't need much more clearance. Like maybe 1/8"?

So while I'm there, I'm going to get a quote on having the carbon fiber fenders done with the option of painting the entire car. If that's entirely too expensive, then I'm going to explore wrapping. I feel like I could tackle that project much easier than painting.

If all that is above what I really want to spend (including the cost of new wheels) then I'm just going to do some 9.5" square and call it a day.

 

[Peter92lx]

You're a scholar and a gentleman. I'm taking my car by a body shop to see if they can roll/push my stock fenders just a little bit more. I get just a little bit of rubbing with my 18" wheels when I hit either medium to large dips in the road. I'm running 285 tires back there at the moment and I really don't want to go more narrow than that. Hopefully this will cure the issue. I really don't need much more clearance. Like maybe 1/8"?

So while I'm there, I'm going to get a quote on having the carbon fiber fenders done with the option of painting the entire car. If that's entirely too expensive, then I'm going to explore wrapping. I feel like I could tackle that project much easier than painting.

If all that is above what I really want to spend (including the cost of new wheels) then I'm just going to do some 9.5" square and call it a day.

Another route you can take is modify the factory fenders. I have a friend that went that route and you can't even tell the fenders have been modified. He had the factory metal fenders cut and the wheel opening moved forward and pulled out a bit so he could fit a 285 in the front on a 18inch with a MM forward offset kmember and fox length arms. They also tubed and modified the rear so he could fit a 315 in the back but it took getting the right offset to make it happen. It looks completely factory if he doesn't point out what they did you can't even tell.

The one thing about wrapping a car is you need to get the body work right just like if you were going to paint it. The wrap will show everything. My car looks good in photos but when you get close you can tell the body work was done by someone that knows nothing about body work. The thing I liked about doing a wrap on the car was I could repair it myself. If one of the fender flares get damaged I could get a new one do the body work and throw a wrap over it. I'm planning to pull the wrap off next year and redo some of the body work on the car and try to make it look nicer up close.