Project Pro3

[seatown88]

pt.2

[seatown88]

Here's a little tank slapper I had, I got behind in my correction, a little late to react and couldn't catch the rear end. Car started to tank slap and eventually letting the steering wheel go allowed the car to settle down and get thinks figured out.

[canakami]

How do the 14x7s feel? I'm considering running that same setup but with a lighter wheel, just because I'd like to try it. Curious as to how those sidewalls communicated on track.

[seatown88]

There are a lot of variables that cloud my judgement on the 14s, mostly old compound and being an R888, but I suffered from lack of grip. I have since moved to 15x7s with a 45 series sidewall, and my lap times dropped 3 seconds.

[canakami]

I take it that means RS3s?

[seatown88]

I take it that means RS3s?

I'm now running the more preferred spec tire, the RA1 shaved as much as Tire Rack would shave them. If I remember correctly it was 4/32nds.

[seatown88]

Time for some offseason maintenance on the car, I am prepping the car for a fairly tough season next year.

One of the things that I really wanted to work on was the brake system. I had no complaints with the brakes, however I knew that they had not been rebuilt and probably full of sludge and other contaminates in the caliper bore.

When I took off the rears, I found something a little interesting. The rear dust boots had actually melted to the piston and were no longer protecting the piston.



Inside, the pistons bores were pretty full of gunk. I don't have any pictures as my hands were covered in the stuff.

New seals and boots came in, and it was actually fairly easy to reinstall everything once you do it once.


The calipers themselves were in pretty bad cosmetic shape as you can see, so I needed to do something about that.


Here's how they turned out(These are actually KEVORM's calipers I did for him)




I'm now waiting for new front caliper sliders to come in, as both sets dust seals had failed and allowed the the grease to gunk up. This was most likely the cause of the taper wear I was seeing in my front pads,and hopefully the slide repair kit will fix it.

[seatown88]

The 2013 race season is about to get started, the first race is at the end of this month! I have my first test and tune on Wednesday which I will be doing some brake testing and setup changes, along with purely shaking off the cobwebs and making sure everything is good to go for the first race.

Here is the car all cleaned and ready for the test and tune...


Last season, as part of a series sponsorship I won a rebuilt engine from Accurate Engines. It's going to so nice to run a professionally built engine this year, and should help put me where I want to be result wise. Accurate did a great job on the engine. Unfortunately I wont be able to install in until the second race, but it's going to be a beast!

[seatown88]

Update:

I had a successful test and tune, my main goal was to shake the cobb-webs off the car and test some new brake pads. Honestly it was just great to get back out on track and run the car hard.

My friend stuck is gopro on the rear bumper of the car, and got some good footage of a session.

Here's what the brakes looked like during their first hard use this year...

[evandael]

man, i love watching the wheel/tire move in that second video. sparks flying from the brake pads are just icing on the cake!

[seatown88]

man, i love watching the wheel/tire move in that second video. sparks flying from the brake pads are just icing on the cake!

It is pretty awesome, I plan to get some video from the rear which I have a feeling will be a little bit more entertaining.

[seatown88]

I decided after looking over some O2 data that it would be a good idea to richen the car up a little bit and try to get a little bit more power out of the car. To do so, I got in contact with Bimmerworld and ordered up their adjustable fuel pressure regulator. Yesterday it finally showed up, the kit was great. The only exception to the greatness was the fact that I could not get the supplied fittings to seal on the regulator body. A quick trip to the industrial supply store in town and that was fixed. I get to test it out at the next race at Portland later this month!



My friends also got some sweet shots from the first race of the season. I finally got around to uploading them...