Grassroots Motorsports: The Hardcore Sports Car Magazine

Our own JG Pasterjak will be running 25 Hours at Thunderhill this weekend. Yes, he’s nuts, but it should be a lot of fun. Regular contributor Tim Sharp will also be on hand.

Kim and I are expecting a child, probably human, around the first of August. So far, Kim has not be visited by cyborgs from the future, so that’s a good sign for the rest of us.

The Cooler Master Real Power Pro power supply is an angry block of energy with lots of netted wires coming out of it.

An ASUS P5N32-E SLI motherboard with the nVIDIA nForce 680i chipset has most of the features you’d want already built in.

The Intel Core 2 Duo E6850 comes bundled with a heat sink that’s much bigger than the chip itself.

There’s only one way to install a ZIF (zero insertion force) chip, and then you just move the little spring arm down to lock the CPU in place on the motherboard.

Intel’s newest heat sinks come with the thermal conductive goo already applied to the foot of the heat sink, so there’s no messing with a syringe or worrying about applying too much or too little.

Securing the heat sink in place is simply a matter of pushing down on the mounting pins. Be sure to do them in pairs, diagonally, so the heat sink seats properly and evenly on the surface of the CPU.

Just as I was wondering how I’d figure out which holes I should use to mount the standoffs for the motherboard, I noticed that the ThermalTake Armor VA8000BWS case had a nice little index stamped into the inside.

With the help of the index and the motherboard instruction manual, I installed the standoffs that will keep the motherboard away from the wall of the case.

Nine screws secured the motherboard to the nine standoffs we mounted into the case.

The ThermalTake case has a cool pop-out cartridge for mounting a trio of hard drives. I’m starting with one Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 SATA drive with 500 GB of capacity and 3GB/sec. transfer capability.

The hard drive cartridge and power supply occupy the top rear of the case.

A matched pair of Corsair XMS2 1GB DDR2 memory sticks at 800mHz will be plenty for the start at 2GB total, and there’s still two slots left should the need arise to jump to 4GB or more later on.

The ASUS motherboard came with neat Q-Connector stuff that allows you to plug all the tiny case wires into a block, making it really easy to plug the whole shebang into the motherboard.

Polygon pushing duties will fall to an eVGA nVIDIA GeForce 8800GT 512MB GPU. These come in several different flavors; this is the one-step-up Superclocked variety with a 650 mHz core (versus 600 mHz stock). It came with Quake Wars, too.

Back when they were new I made the jump to a SoundBlaster X-Fi sound card, and it’s still got plenty of horsepower for audio duties.

Here’s the board with everything in place. After it didn’t start the first time, I re-assembled and moved a couple of things around for cooling reasons, so now the X-Fi is in the bottom slot and the 8800GT is in the uppermost PCI-E slot.

The end result glows blue with awesome power.

Ever since my first 386, I’ve been the kind of guy to find a good value/performance PC and then tinker with it as needed. I put an original SoundBlaster in that old 386, had to install a front cooling fan in a Dell Pentium III that was overheating after the installation of a GeForce 256, and threw goodies like ram and a sound card into my most recent Pentium 4 Dell. Although I’ve been very happy with the results of the retail/assembly giants, I got it in my head that building my own PC would be some kind of fun.

After some research on the intertubes, it looked like the biggest advantage to be found in building a PC from scratch is a slight jump in parts quality over the retailers for a similar price. Also, you learn something along the way and you can pick your components to suit your needs exactly.

There are a number of Web sites that publish regular PC build guides based on the latest and greatest goodies. I used a recent High-End Gaming guide from Sharky Extreme; your mileage may vary, of course, and you’re bound to encounter the Internet Standard Unit of Opinions opting for or against any of them.

To simplify shipping, I bought everything at Newegg. Their prices are very competitive, and they had mail-in rebates on several of the items I wanted.

Surprisingly few tools are needed for a full PC build; I had a small Phillips-head screwdriver, a medium-sized flathead screwdriver, a bundle of small zip ties, small cutters for trimming said zip ties, and that’s about it. Also, ground yourself frequently, and always before touching anything you’d hate to fry with a stupid jolt of static.

One site recommended installing the CPU and heat sink on the motherboard before putting the motherboard in the case, the logic being that there’s a lot more room to work when the motherboard is out of the case. I did this, and it was good, but make sure you’ve got some strips of cardboard or something elevating but supporting the motherboard so the heat sink clips can drop securely through the board and reach their resting place (they need about 1mm of clearance to do so).

Having never done it before, I was a bit worried about the amount of force to use on the lever that secure the CPU to the motherboard. The chip drops in place with no force whatsoever, and can be oriented only in the proper direction thanks to some little cut-outs and tabs. Using only the thumb, a moderate amount of pressure was required; sorry to be so vague, I didn’t have anything handy to figure out the Newtons. Easier than setting the average mousetrap, I’d say.

After I put everything together the first time, I plugged it in, hit the power supply unit’s switch and got nothing. I was worried the PSU was DOA, but the friendly folks at Circuit City put it on a little tester and it was fine. I took out all the cards and unplugged all the connectors, and a green light appeared on the motherboard indicating it had power. I then went through the installation piece by piece, checking for the green light at each step. I’m not sure what I had done wrong the first time; perhaps one of the fan connectors was in the wrong way, they’re a one-way-only design but the plastic is fairly malleable and I might have made an error in the first attempt. Whatever the case, after going through it carefully everything fired up as it should have.

The end result is pretty awesome, if I do say so. The case is a big wicked 35 pound hunk of aluminum and Lexan-ish-plastic. It’s fast, particularly for gaming. And best of all, it’s got room to evolve, and since I put everything in with my own two hands I won’t hesitate to tear into it and perform said upgrades whenever the time comes.

I’m still using my old mouse and keyboard, the 22-inch Optiquest monitor I picked up a while back, the X-Fi card from my old PC and a Logitech 5.1 surround setup that’s a few years old. Here’s the list. Mail-in rebates are in parentheses.

And here’s the 3DMark06 Score:
3DMark Score 11588 3DMarks
SM 2.0 Score 5490 Marks
SM 3.0 Score 5292 Marks
CPU Score 2583 Marks

For whatever it’s worth, Vista rates the comptuer a 5.6 out of 5.9 possible on the “Windows Experience” scale.

Kim, the pups and I drove up to Avon Lake, Ohio for the Thanksgiving holiday. The Xterra returned about 19mpg on the highway and was a nice comfortable ride the whole way up there. The trip took our total mileage on the truck from 1100 to about 3400.

After replacing the dead catalyst on the R-car, we still noticed some bothersome rattling on the exhaust, so we started shopping around for a fancy exhaust to compliment our new high flow catalytic converter. Since there was no immediate need and we were on a roll of super bargains with this car, we wanted to see just how cheap we can get things done for this project. We ran across a used Jackson Racing exhaust for 200 dollars from the Flyin Miata salvage yard but passed, hoping for a better deal. A few weeks later, just as we started to regret not getting the Jackson, a second hand, never installed Volt exhaust popped up on the Miata.net classifieds. This exhaust system made a bit of a stir on the Miata message boards when they began to surface a few months ago as a “best offer” item in an eBay store, since people were snapping them up for a fraction of the cost of better known (and likely better constructed) Miata exhaust systems. With our wallet as our guide, we agreed to $140 for the exhaust, plus the actual shipping costs of $24.53, for a total of $164.53. After the exhaust arrived, we were pleased to see that it was indeed a full stainless system, and while the welds weren’t beautiful, they looked adequate. We’d have to plug the O2 sensor bung that the later cars used, but after tracking down the appropriate sized brass plug (+$1.51, or $166.04 total if you’re keeping track.) we were ready for an install.

The work of swapping the exhaust is pretty straightforward, but we found it difficult to remove the stock system without applying the liberal persuasion of an angle grinder and cutoff wheel. The Volt exhaust didn’t include any gaskets, but a thorough inspection of the big red toolbox turned up a leftover 2.25″ exhaust gasket that had somehow gone unused. If this were the $2008 challenge, I’d assign some sort of cost, but since I’m not I’ll consider it free.

The end result was pretty gratifying; the Volt system doesn’t sound half bad. The tip is a somewhat less than tasteful giant shiny thing, but the tone sounds pretty consistent with the other samples running around the office. So far, so good. After finishing the installation, however, we noticed something that other Volt owners had pointed out on the forums; chunks of fiberglass insulation were blowing out from the muffler. This was pretty noticeable for the first couple days, but has gone away after a few hundred miles and hasn’t significantly changed the car’s noise level to our ear.

The day after the install, we took the car out for a practice Solo II event with the Central Florida Region of the SCCA. The car felt much better than it had at the last event, probably more due to the new Kumho Victoracers that we scored for $59 each on closeout at the Tire Rack than the exhaust or catalyst. We left them at full tread depth hoping to use them for rain tires next season, so they weren’t excellent race tires, but they were worlds away from the all season junk that we had on for last event. With the new tires and better breathing exhaust, the car certainly made a better showing and made it into the top 20% of PAX indexed results.

The new grippy tires made the stock 120,000 mile Bilsteins feel their age, as despite the increase in grip the car felt floaty. A good alignment and some decent shocks are next on the shopping list. The driver’s seat is also pretty much shot, so we’ll see what we can turn up there too. We ran the car in E Stock with the illegal catalyst for the last event (with the consent of our fellow participants) but are still unsure of where this car will ultimately end up for next season. Recent conversation with Miata expert and GRM contributor Andy Hollis has turned up a budget friendly, stock legal replacement catalyst, so we’re debating swapping the high flow Jackson Racing unit back out and running in E Stock or going a little further out and making a really fun streetcar to run in CSP or SM2. From the way things are going, it will probably depend on what turns up next on the bargain radar. We’ll be watching the Flyin Miata moving sale and message board classifieds for the next offer that can’t be refused.

After moving from the lands of ice and snow, my first Thanksgiving in Florida was a huge change. To me, Thanksgiving always meant foul weather, huge helpings of Turkey and stuffing, and getting drowsy afterward. This year, we got to celebrate with my wife’s side of the family on Anna Maria Island. Sounds exotic, but really it was a simple public beach with a nice view of the Gulf of Mexico. It was about as different from my Grandma’s house as you could manage to find on this continent.
I might have been a touch overdressed for the occasion (my shirt had buttons and a collar.) but as always, Rhonda’s family are as generous and friendly a bunch as you’re likely to meet. Gone were the football games and turkey, down here we celebrated with grilled oysters and guitar music. I had never had grilled oysters before, but they were about as good as anything that’s ever crossed my palette. The only downside is that oysters don’t make for good leftovers, and I want more!

The rules state that the doors have to be welded, chained or strapped shut. JG ground away a few layers of paint and then welded the doors shut.

How’s this for low-buck? The backing material from a GRM number panel doubles as masking material.

Our once-black Camaro is starting to take on some color. The lighting bolts on the hood were painted using a stencil cut from another piece of number panel backing paper.

Joe and JG and Hepatitis Z. If you’re in the Orlando area, come cheer them on this Friday evening.

While most people are doing final preparations for Thanksgiving, some members of the GRM family had something more pressing to do: get Joe and JG ready for Crash-A-Rama.

Crash-A-Rama can best be described as automotive Armageddon, and our local Orlando Speedworld hosts it twice a year. This next event takes place this Friday, and activities on the card include boat and camper trailer racing, flag pole racing, roller derby, school bus figure-8, several demo derbies and something called a skid car race.

Joe is going to start the evening in the enduro race—it’s two laps per car entered. After that, we’ll see how far into the evening JG can take the Camaro.

As far as car specs, it’s a hardtop 5.7-liter Camaro Z28 purchased for like $500. Before any tears are shed, realize it’s not exactly cherry. Sounds good, however.

So, judging by the responses to my most recent CarDomain blog, people aren’t digging the looks of the new Subaru STI. Wow. Some seem to take the redesign personally: CarDomain

Our first eBay purchase was for the wrong part; if you’ve got a pre-1987 BMW 325is, you want the BM1A gas tank with the nubs on the bottom near the driveshaft. The BM1A also has dual hard lines on the top. We’ve got a 1989, so we sent this BM1A back and ordered a BM1B fuel tank.

The BM1B has no connecting nubs near the driveshaft, and just one hard line up top. It’s also a couple of gallons bigger than the BM1A.

Even after draining the tank most of the way, it’s good to have a gas container handy to hold the runoff from connections, like the filter.

Label each line and hose. You’ll be really glad you did when it comes time to connect everything back up. When in doubt, be descriptive; for this mess of connectors, we used TO FILTER, FROM FILTER, UP THROUGH TANK and TO LOWER TANK NUB and it saved us lots of headaches later.

It’s also wise to take pictures of stuff to help you get it back together again. This is the top of the in-tank fuel pump. We ended up labeling these lines, too.

For 2008 we’ll need a soon-to-be-released spec exhaust anyway, so we got lazy and just Sawzalled the old one downstream of the O2 sensor so the car is still drivable in the meantime. Oddly enough, after we cut the twin pipes, a short length of pipe between our cut and the catalytic crossover replacement simply fell out. It didn’t look like it had ever been welded into place. The 2.5-liter straight six sounds like a proper race car sans muffler.

With the driveshaft and exhaust out of the way we were able to undo the five bolts that hold the fuel tank in place. If you’re using jackstands, make sure they’re towards the back edge of the jack point or the tank won’t be able to fall.

We gently negotiated the new fuel tank into place. Mercifully, all the pre-drilled mounting holes were pretty accurate; we had to do some nudging to get the final two bolts in their holes, but no re-drilling was necessary. Not bad for a cheap eBay find!

While we were at it, we installed a new fuel pump and a new filter. Here’s the pump/fuel gauge sensor assembly. Don’t forget to lubricate the O-ring with gas before you install a new fuel pump, and it’s worth noting that the reason this is a two-part assembly is that the pump won’t go into the tank with the fuel gauge sensor in place. You gotta do ‘em one at a time.

With everything bolted up and tightened down, we poured a couple of gallons in, crossed our fingers and fired it up. Finally, some positive progress, as the fuel pressure at idle is where it should be instead of at 90 psi.

While were were down there, and getting intimate with the various fuel and brake lines, we noticed that our rear brake line has a small pinched area that could very well be the cause of our rear brake locking symptoms. Rather than going right for the ABS pump, it looks like our next logical step is to cut out this part of the line and splice in a healthy section.

If you remember from our recent Ocala test, our car’s perpetual rich-run condition seemed to be related to a clogged or restricted fuel return line. We were seeing 90 psi of fuel pressure at idle, as the fuel coming from the pump had nowhere to go once it was done feeding the fuel rail. It wasn’t the fault of the fuel pressure regulator (we replaced that), and the line was found to be clear as far back as the entry point to the fuel tank. That meant that the line was messed up somewhere inside the fuel tank. Unfortunately, that meant it was time to take the tank out.

Our two options were to remove our stock fuel tank and get it cleaned or to buy a new tank. Cleaning the OEM tank seemed to be the cheapest way to go, but our tank also had some dents in the bottom, and without cutting it open there was no way to tell if the line was clogged with goo or physically crimped. Cleaning might not have fixed anything. Most of the replacement tanks we found online were going for more than $300, with OEMs listed closer to $500.

That’s when eBay came to the rescue. It took a bit of digging, since searches like “BMW 325 fuel tank” didn’t work, but when we got specific and searched for “BMW 325is gas tank” a shop called The Radiator Connection popped up. They had both the early BM1A and later BM1B tanks listed, the former for $100 and the latter for $130 (plus about $40 shipping in each case). Naturally we were skeptical of the low price, but the seller had more than 17,000 transactions and a 100 percent positive rating, so we figured it was worth the gamble.

A miss-read on our part led us to first order a BM1A tank, which is for the earliest 325is models. We actually needed a BM1B, so we returned the earlier model tank after taking some pictures for posterity. In both cases we had tracking numbers for the packages within 30 minutes of placing the Buy It Now bid on eBay. We added our own positive ranking to the seller’s 100 percent streak.

The eBay tank was a dimensional match for the OEM one, although it lacked the small plug at the bottom of the passenger’s side that can be used to drain the tank. For what it’s worth, our OEM tank’s plug was completely frozen in place anyway. We drained most of the fuel by MacGyvering up an extra long hose off the fuel return nipple on the fuel pressure regulator running it into the fuel tank of one of our other cars. (If you do attempt this, refrain from smoking, please).

Replacing a gas tank is a messy chore, as it requires the removal of the exhaust as well as the driveshaft. Also, get used to smelling like gasoline, as it’s nigh impossible to completely prevent spills as you disconnect the many lines carrying fuel hither and thither. Label lines and hoses as you go, and take the opportunity to replace any worn looking hoses with new replacements. Just make sure that you use fuel injection hose for the pressurized lines; we bought two feet of the stuff (about $10 at Pep Boys) and that was plenty for the three or four hoses we replaced. Since the OEM hose clamps are of the cheap single-use variety, buy a bunch of stainless screw-type hose clamps as well and replace as you go.

We welded in our holed and dimpled gussets last night. There’s one gusset on the A-pillar and two on the B-pillar that are welded to the roll cage. This should keep the car’s unibody from crushing inwards against the cage in the case of a light rollover. We’re hoping to never need to use any of these upgrades, but it’s good to have them there nonetheless.