Nothing but the best!
Nothing but the best!
volvoclearinghouse wrote: . Wal-Mart has then for 88 cents each, too. :-P
Yeah, but then you have to step foot in a Wal-M*rt. Better off just peeing into the radiator.
I leave this thread for half a day and you guys are arguing about the cost of distilled water? Good lord.......
mazdeuce wrote: I leave this thread for half a day and you guys are arguing about the cost of distilled water? Good lord.......
This is GRM? We'll argue about anything... 
In reply to Ian F:
No we won't!
To get back to the rear suspension subject, I saw the G-force suspension book in one of the spares pictures. Does that mean the car has a "Tri-Link" and panhard bar now?
mazdeuce wrote: I leave this thread for half a day and you guys are arguing about the cost of distilled water? Good lord.......
It's because we're cheap-ass bastids. In fact, I have it on good authority that the working title of the magazine was supposed to be "Cheap-Ass Bastids Motorsports", but they ditched it because it was too long. In fact, if you re-arrange the letters in "Cheap-Ass Bastids", then remove a couple of letters, and replace a few more letters with other letters, you get the word "Grassroots".
Just don't rearrange the hyphen. Cheap-ass bastids is one thing. Cheap ass-bastids is quite another. 
Love the XKCD-ity of that smart-ass cartoon.
I went out with the jack and the tape measure to fully investigate the rear suspension. It's still riding on the stock short/long four link with the Watts link that is offset to the passenger side. Jacking the car up one side at a time I get six inches of total droop between the axle and the rear bump stops before I get bind. There is almost certainly another inch to be had by disconnecting the rear sway bar and mucking about with the bump stops. I think it's enough to work with. Right now I only get about 2 of those inches in compression and the last 4 in droop. I'll have to work on that ratio.
Any idea what sort of total travel a Miata has in the rear?
Miata travel is from this:
To this:
Rear bumpstops? What're those? 
If those are 14 inch wheels that must be 7-8 inches of travel. Same ballpark. Good. I'd love to move the bumpstops to the shocks but the Tokikos have an upper dust boot thingie that seems to be part of the shock. I wonder if I can pull it off if I take it apart?
My bilsteins have boots that are sandwiched in the top mount. When you take them off you can remove the boot.
I haven't run rear bump stops ever. They break off the first time you really use them. The floor hitting my diff is my bump stop.
That only ever happens on really rough courses with two people in the car. OTOH I am running much stiffer springs than stock, mainly so I can haul the tires and such in the car instead of using a trailer.
Heh, just noticed that I'm the one driving in the "max compression" shot. Guess I need to lose weight after all
You just need to put a bump stop on the diff.
Started this yesterday. I'm going to try to work on it 20-30 minutes a day. I should be done in a year. Maybe.
NOOOOOO
trust me, you'll want that stuff. It weighs next to nothing and it is very useful.
I have a big old blanket that I use as noise/heat abatement.
In reply to mazdeuce:
You may find this thread helpful. When I get to that phase, I'll be picking up a reciprocating tool...
Knurled wrote: NOOOOOO trust me, you'll want that stuff. It weighs next to nothing and it is very useful. I have a big old blanket that I use as noise/heat abatement.
Ehhhhh.... maybe, but it's lumpy and ugly and I'd like for it to not be there.
Get it cold and hit it with a hammer.
Done in 5 minutes.
Dry ice in a double garbage bag. Place it on the rubberized crap for a few minutes and it gets real brittle. Pop it with a hammer and tadah!
Garbage bags make it easy to move and place the dry ice.
When I did my RX7 I left it out for a winter night. All the stuff came out in a flash with a dead blow hammer.
Somewhere around 25 pounds of the stuff.
You also end up with a lot less tar to clean up too.
So yesterday my daughter and I dragged the car out here.
This is our new rallycross site and we needed to scout it. Unfortunately it was wet. My daughter and I walked the site (which is HUGE, bigger than nationals) and I wasn't sure if we were going to be able to drive on it at all. The other guys showed up and fairly quickly got a 4wd truck stuck. I walked back to the trailer and loaded the ramps up in the RX7 and drove out as close as I could. We got the truck out and decided that we can't run events if it's been raining. Before I could load up the car one of the guys decided to try to driest looking area in his Lexus. It didn't work. We ended up connecting all four tie downs from the trailer and the tow strap from my truck to get him out. My daughter thought grownups getting stuck and laughing and getting unstuck was fairly silly. It was.
As to what I've been doing on the car. Mostly removing stuff that's not necessary for it to function as a race car. The dash, wiring, passenger seatbelt, the frame for the smugglers compartment, lots of stuff. Over 20 lbs of stuff so far though weight reduction isn't really the main thing. I'm seriously bothered by useless parts just hanging around.
I'm also using my new label maker to sort out the wiring harness. Eventually I want to replace all of the wiring in the car with very simple wiring that I understand. I think I need 10 wires to the back of the car. Right now I have 36 and they run along the door sill where they chafe.
More to come. The next rallycross is in two weeks. If it doesn't rain.
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