cameras ready prepare to flash

[s14brent]

so conflicted after auto-x today. It was impossible not to break the rear end loose and i was straightening out as quick as possible. I'm on street tires still, mis-matched at that - but in good shape/plenty of tread. I really wonder if 215/45 RT660's would be enough to stop that (i definitely want to have a 2nd try at the auto-x again.) I had the fronts at about 28-30psi and the rears all the way down to 26psi (hot), and rear dampening all the way soft. Almost every turn-in i'd break loose and try to immediately straighten out (worrying i'd be flagged or yelled at for "drifting"), but the organizers were definitely not pleased (understandably for insurance purposes i'm guessing) but they were cool and kind of noticed I was trying to straighten out ASAP. I do miss grip driving from time to time but the car is setup totally backwards for that right now. I was thinking 215/45 RT660's because at least I wouldn't have clearance issues as they are barely bigger than the 205's i run for drifting. Really shouldn't matter as I'm not competitive in any of these events because I'll miss more than half of them anyways! I thought hankook rs4's came in more 16" sizes in the past, there's not a lot offered in that size it seems. Also, its a pretty expensive pill to swallow if I try to juggle auto-x & drift events, esp in tires & alignments alone. I'll see how next drift event turns out and make a decision shortly after. Like if I notch my camber plates for current camber 4.27° and maybe another notch at like 2.25° to make it easy to go back and forth. Maybe firehawks or the older rt615's would be the more budget friendly choice. I'd eventually like to take this onto the road course here, but they rarely throw events there (maybe 2-4 events a year - either scca open track day or speedventures - so it's hard to plan for especially since speedventures is usually a 2 day weekend event. but* it would be beneficial for me to keep a set of grippies on hand so I can pick and choose what events I could make. Dry erase board in the garage is going to be full of tire psi/alignment specs i'm guessing lol.

Overall, super happy with the car's feel. no weird noises/rattles, temps were good on/off track and on the freeway (will have to keep an eye on temps during hotter months). Motor felt healthy, kaaz diff felt nice and predictable, the stock lsd unit might be better for auto-x, this one bites hard. No real complaints besides the lack of overall grip LOL.




I was in the second run group (worked the first) and at about lunch time I threw a CEL. Figured I'd call it a day right there because I was feeling a bit dehydrated anyways. I made a joke to my friend with the miata "it's probably something stupid like an o2 sensor". I will replace it, but I'm also thinking maybe i should throw a o2 extender on there, i dug through this thread and it looked like I replaced it in Sept. 2016.




oh and also someone posted this pic of me from 2weeks ago when i rolled through that car meet with my r8 buddy.

[s14brent]

so i signed up for the local auto-x on the 19th. Decided for the time being i'd rather have a puller mounted and that having the fan shroud in place without a proper fan setup was probably a worse idea living in las vegas. I ordered a 14" spal low profile and mounted it up using my old brackets with a few new mounting holes and hardware. The 14" fan clears the waterpump bolts a lot easier but i did lose 260cfm by going with the safer-smaller size. I guess that can essentially be regained if I decide to upgrade the spal hooked up to the ac circuit. < that's a summer problem...no more thinking about that for now. Also I think the 14" will probably overall be the better fitment when I have the need to upgrade radiators. Thinking of going CSF eventually and I know the 14" is used more often on the thicker cores.



I have had some issues with my vdo coolant temp gauge. When the stock gauge is at the half mark it still reads like the bottom mark on the vdo gauge which is like 100 degrees iirc. unfortunately this new temp sensor did not fix the issue, however at least its not all mangled like the old. I'll try to run a new wire from the sending unit to the gauge another day. There really can't be too many things left before I just find some new gauges if I have too!



Figured I would get rid of my old crusty coolant reservoir and replaced it with this culvers' e30 coolant tank. It comes with a 13psi radiator cap so I went ahead and tried to match it with my 1.2bar GermanAutoSolutions cap and picked up this 16psi moroso cap. (says 14-18 on the cap??).




rebled the coolant system and confirmed both fans work as intended. Pretty much ready for the auto-x and if time permits....vegasdrift/IFO on March 12th.

Figured the only thing really loose inside my engine compartment is my diagnostic port. I bought a racegerman e30 c101 holder. I decided to not put it far, and just threw some rivnuts into the battery tray side engine harness cover.





Hopefully auto-x tech inspector doesn't have any complaints. I have been trying to address every single comment tech inspectors make at each event one at a time and this thing should hopefully pass with no issues!

-- sidenote: I have been shopping around for sedan rollbars. I'm leaning towards a bolt in cage with doorbars from a local fabricator who's done a bunch of local drift cars (including competition cars) and a couple time-attack cars. It might be a summer upgrade since I don't plan to drive once it gets absolutely miserable out. I figured a bolt-in should be good enough for what I'm doing, and is easier for me to chassis swap if I have to in the future! Also will need at least 1 good harness setup so I'm adding that to costs. But it's going to cost more than the other bolt-in solutions, hopefully with better tolerances and overall-fit. Really bummed kinematic discontinued their rollbars, Bayside only makes coupe fitment, the other cheaper choice left would be Kirk and I'm not sure if i'd be happy with it in the end!
----
edit* I ended up using a thicker gauge ground wire for my vdo coolant temp sensor. It seems to have fixed the vdo coolant gauge issues for now. I'll keep an eye on temps next drive if not at the auto-x!

[s14brent]

I was happy with my roll bar from Ben Simpson. Makes using factory seatbelts tough.

also....did you mean ben sipson/bayside fab?

[s14brent]

is the fan a pusher?

the one that got damaged? I think it actually might be but i reversed the polarity since it was a straight blade spal. the pusher up front is a slightly higher cfm "low profile" pusher @ 1604cfm (vs the damaged one @ 1298cfm). I'm not sure if that's going to be good enough for vegas heat. I was actually just looking at the 16" curved blade pusher fan which is rated slightly higher at 1959cfm and should fit when I remove the condenser. Got any other recommendations?

edit: I could try to stuff a slim 14" spal into the 16" opening but I think it puts the high point of the fan right in front of the wp pulley. the low profile 14" puller is rated at 1038 cfm and it's technically all wired up already for plug and play, just need to make new brackets which wouldn't be hard to do at all....vs if i go with the 16" curved blade pusher up front, I'd probably never put AC back in the car, and possibly have to reweld the oil cooler brackets (possibly) BUT it gives me the option to upgrade the radiator in the future without more fitment/clearance issues. - will just have to find out this summer if more cooling is necessary I suppose, I'll just have to enjoy this weather while it lasts!

[moatilliatta]

is the fan a pusher?

[s14brent]

Soo I did have that leak somewhere in the AC system I wanted to address eventually. I will be keeping the lines/components to try and mock up in the future with a m54 ac bracket. For now, the out of sight/out of mind thing kinda took over. So I didn't know how big of a POS mishimoto was by throwing in a magnetic SAE bolt into a m12x1.5 tapped radiator drain. I also knew I wanted to change those god awful red coolant hoses that came with my swap.



^ mishi drain plug Left, M12x1.5 magnetic drain plug I had on the shelf (brand new).

^ I had these whiteline swaybar lateral lock kits from one of my old s-chassis. Threw some loctite on the bolts, hopefully this helps, if not, well it was kind of a free mod.
I also think the -AN coolant block drain was weeping. It was frustrating because it was never a lot, but there was some signs of coolant leaking from that area.


^ Brand new coolant block drain plug installed.

^ a/c pile


of course the radiator hoses I had were stepped from 38mm to 36mm. I have no idea why but thankfully I had a mishimoto 38mm coolant temp adapter laying around. I didnt take pics but I had to drill and tap it for a ground. I also had an aluminum thermostat housing in storage that I wanted to kind of test out. The idea was to tap the housing for the coolant temp sensor so I didn't have to cut up the new hose. I was also appalled by the casting on the housing so I decided to clean it up a bit. Placement really only felt safe on the bottom of the housing -which I don't love. Especially if I need a new thermostat gasket and housing gasket, it seems like a huge pain to do twice. So I actually didn't trust it in the end. so chop chop!



^I don't LOVE that.....i wanted to eliminate the use of the temp adapter. It works for now though, and I should have replaced the coolant temp sensor. I've always kind of second guessed it as it's slow to get to temp vs the stock gauge.

^ For some reason, the spal fan was hitting the waterpump pulley bolts at startup. I have the other spal still up front on a relay/switch for the AC condenser so I removed the radiator mounted spal and installed an old aluminum rad shroud that I had now that I have the clearance with AC out.

there was quite a gap between the shroud and the radiator, and I decided to seal it up with alum ducting tape.


that's pretty much it. Unfortunately the drift event I was preparing the car for on Feb 12th got cancelled. I MAY go to the next auto-x on the 19th to just run the car. The next drift event is March 12th, but March is currently looking SLAMMED on the work calendar. I pretty much knocked out the to-do list that I had accumulated. I just want to drive it now!

[s14brent]

Looks good, the gold is lovely

thanks, i think i'm gonna try to just pick up another pair (brand new) for the driving around set - i really like these! I'll keep the old +15 for drift spares. After I burn up my current spares I'll try and figure it all out! (EDIT: i just checked, they went from $150ea to $240ea!! what a bummer!)

Meanwhile I took the car out on a quick little test drive with my friend who had just picked up his twin turbo R8, Currently making right under 1200 due to a slipping clutch with any more power than that, after he drops another 10k or so on a clutch setup they'll tune/aim for the high 1400's. absolutely ridiculous. Boy does my car look extra dookie next to it lool




Surprise, surprise!! I actually ended up raising it again 2 threads for just a few mm more fender flare clearance at lock. I also did a nut/bolt torque check on all the steering components again.





Next up, I will be removing the coolant drain -AN setup and putting in a new coolant drain block bolt and washer next (will order parts on monday). There is a slight leak coming from the -AN setup when sitting at idle at temp. I also ordered some bimmerworld radiator hoses, as I really don't like the old red ones that came with the motor when I did the swap. While I have the radiator out, I'm considering pulling the AC compressor off the block. The car is pretty much track-only at this point, and I haven't touched the AC components since I posted here about having a leaky o-ring somewhere some time ago. I just have no drive to spend money to fix AC on a car that I don't really need it. That and I would rather have the weight savings and more clearance down there for future dumb ideas. Meanwhile I have been searching for parts in the garage that have been on the to-do list for a while, and I haven't really had luck finding them so easily (like the jam nuts for the akg lollipops!) so I've started to organize a bit and install the parts that I've found laying around. For example I had this garagistic 95a bushing for my spare 3.73 lsd diff so I just slapped that in so I don't end up misplacing it, I also had these mooneyes door locks for some reason. The 2/4 of the old ones were cracked, these aren't the same thread pitch but they work lol...great, even more rice

[econti]

Looks good, the gold is lovely

[s14brent]

so live and learn.....i thought mounting a flare under the body line would be better looking...i think it works but only if you're running like normal LCA's and not a stupid wheel size ::sigh:: where to start.....

so first off....decided to test fit the 16x8+0 GTA's. The barrel barely clears the SLR knuckle block but the style 5's were super close too. The main issue was the e36m3 calipers. I needed to run 17mm spacers to clear that (-17mm).





mocked up the BDC universal 70mm flares up front. used self tappers first then used "self-aligning rivnuts" which was a good call since most of the bolts are going down into the fender vs a flat surface





as cool as this looks, i needed to raise the car up about 25mm (in total) to clear the fender at full lock. In attempt to get all the clearance I could I sanded down the inner lip of the flares with a finger sander, but it wasn't enough. I tried raising the car little by little, but ended up having to go the full inch unfortunately.
The next day I added the fender welting to kind of clean up the line where the flare meets the body



^ that's ideally where i'd like the ride height to be


I threw on the old uuc 22mm sway bar (you can see all the rubbing on the LCA and sway here that was happening in the old setup. The larger bar helps out a ton with front end flex - just by judging from pictures at the last few events I went to so this was definitely something I wanted to throw back on. I forgot to take a picture after but I've got so much clearance now, at least a few inches




I removed the AKG lollipops for some SLRSPEED ones that i picked up locally. They have the upgraded oilite brass bushing vs the delrin insert that they normally come with. I also gained maybe 2 threads of adjustment LOL, every bit counts apparently. I also liked being able to throw the jam nut on the back side of the block, running the AKG one without was kind of sketchy tbh. Of course one of the AKG's slid off like its supposed to, the other one was almost seized on there, i had to mock up a ball joint removal tool with a nut that fit through the bushing, PITA. cleaned up the bolts and the LCA and threw a little anti-seize on there this time around.

here's how shitty it looks raised up for steering clearance lol




I'm not sure where that leaves me....I'm probably going to lift up the rear 1/2-3/4" to get rid of some of that rake, might throw another 5mm spacer in the rear while i'm there. I was thinking I could cut/trim the flares for clearance and drop it back down, but I really hate messing with fiberglass and I'd like to just run it as is since there's an event on the 12th I'm trying to make and technically the car is sound as is....just sucks to look at LOL. shit update, hopefully I can find some kind of happy-medium.
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EDIT: 01/27

So this morning I couldn't stop thinking about the gap and figured I could hit it with the finger sander. I lowered it about 6 threads on ea side (not much since I think I did about 16 total)




still a bigger gap than I'd like but I dont want to run it at the minimum also, so here's the happy medium with full clearance at lock.

[moatilliatta]

I was happy with my roll bar from Ben Simpson. Makes using factory seatbelts tough.

Cage work is like paint, if you don’t go all in, it’ll bite you later.

Looking like a strip club in there. It takes some work to get the seat right, luckily your short.

[econti]

A cage only has to work once to be worth the money

[s14brent]

sorry in advanced if your eyes start burning....i got side tracked from doing the flares and will be doing those well...eventually. I started to notice (a while back) that the recaro ls/lx seat (back) kind of rattles when i'm driving hard it has a bit of play not in the base but the actual back i'm not sure why, my recaro SE's had this too- it's better when someone is sitting in it for sure, but I did not need the extra noise to worry me when i'm on the track. I was looking for a race bucket similar to what i have (bride zeta ii style) but i wanted higher leg bolsters (like the bride zieg ii). I've been noticing the price on those old seats have been sky rocketing and it had me looking at STATUS seats for a bit but I always opt for a local deal to save on shipping. Well, low and behold I found someone locally with the most ridiculous Thrash racing circuit spec beta 1 in "Fancy Jaguar" with the carbon shell. I hit them up and ended up doing a straight trade. Unreal. That night i ordered a matching garagistic passenger side floor mount and another set of seat adapters. I had the most frustrating time getting this seat spaced out correctly because the seat is shaped like " \_/ " so there is only a few mounting holes that line up on each corner while keeping it as centered to the wheel as possible.


i'm pretty sure i adjusted the seat over 8x (with spacers, without, different brackets, all the different seat mounting angles, all while trying to get the ergonomics right, while maintaining helmet clearance. Anyways....it ended up looking something like this

passenger side was delivered and installed almost immediately - i had to modify the little seat belt receptacle bracket and the fire extinguisher mount to still be usable. The extinguisher has to be on the passenger side because I have the floor mounts on the 2nd set of mounting holes because i'm short LOL!

moved some cushions around and voila!

because of the seating angle with helmet on, I was a bit further away from the wheel (arghh) so I reinstalled the momo hub and it's perfect. I spent like a month trying to get the perfect shorter combo a while back. what a waste!

I may have mounted the passenger side a little too far back. I'll readjust it another day but it's actually in a pretty comfortable spot NGL.


I think the next step is roll bar/safety equipment. I'm not sure if i want to ball out and go custom roll bar tied into reinforced shock towers with door bars, but I think I'm going to try to find a bolt in solution in case I ever need to swap chassis (and I won't have to drop the fuel tank for install - which would be super nice. And yeah, there's no point in having back seats anymore as I think I'm at the point where I need to run harnesses as the stock seatbelts don't feel well....safe. The one good thing i can't help but laugh about is that at least with a roll bar I'd have a good spot to mount my gopro!

[s14brent]

Mmmm, Yes, yes.. Updates!

If you're not all in on paint, id to wrap. Fresh paint needs PPF after it cures if you're going to use the car properly. Any soso paint will peal and chip.. ect.

Did you do billet door handles Front and Rear? They so nice, I replace all my bushings in the linkage and now the door pull action is crisp.

yeah i'm leaning on light bodywork and wrap most likely! - tbh not sure if that'll get done anytime soon. I have so many other home/house projects I need to sink my money into first. As for the billet door handles - I only have the fronts, nobody really ever sits in the rear seats! I also don't want them too as i have the 90 degree bulkhead fittings for the hand brake under each side of the rear seat . I've been thinking about a rear seat delete panel lately, but I'd have to really figure out what material to use that could hold up the abuse and not weigh a ton.
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I got a clean, used oem driver side fender finally. I bought it and mounted it up almost immediately.



busted out the reciprocating saw and flap wheel and prepped it for the new front flares.



will be ordering hardware (m5 button heads/rivnuts & cleco's) from mcmaster later tonight.



will have to reapply the 3m double side tape on the skirts when its warmer out for better adhesion as it was raining at the time.

[moatilliatta]

Mmmm, Yes, yes.. Updates!

If you're not all in on paint, id to wrap. Fresh paint needs PPF after it cures if you're going to use the car properly. Any soso paint will peal and chip.. ect.

Did you do billet door handles Front and Rear? They so nice, I replace all my bushings in the linkage and now the door pull action is crisp.

[s14brent]

Nice to see updates!

thanks! this whole thing has been on hold while i busted my ass playing catch up this year. I'm trying to get in my end of the year mods LOL