things that happen when I'm bored after work and have a lot of half-full spraypaint cans and masking tape sitting around.....
And thank you Gary Hunter for sending some fresh GRM stickers :)
still trying to figure out what I want to do to change up the driver's side. This week I'll think of something :)
Ok, so the new paint is complete. May do a few more details, but this is basically what the car will look like for the time being.
Funny to think how different it is from how it started in season 1
Then:
Now:
So not that it's news to anyone here, but this build thread did get a little snippet in the magazine this month. Though admittedly, it's hardly "hot" these days with not much happening in the build itself for the moment. But cool anyhow :)
Nice weather today, and finally got around to doing some brake maintenance, as they've felt a bit weak recently (or that could be because the WRX has excellent brakes). In any case, did a full fluid flush and pumped out all of the almost 3-year-old ATE Blue, replaced with some Valvoline Synthetic. I'm gonna miss easily getting the blue stuff, since it's nice to have the two different colors when doing a flush.
Also regreased the caliper slide pins, took an emory cloth to the rotors and pads to get rid of any glazing, and checked out the rest of the system.
In other news, it sounds like Chris is going to sell the monster Mustang, after deciding it isn't going to do what he had hoped it would do (be fast and win). Sounds like he's going to bail on rallycross for the season and look for a used Group 2 rally car, since he wants to do stage rally stuff in the future. We'll see what happens, but I'll miss having Chris there to push me and Nick for the last couple seasons.
Today we headed out to FedEx Field (Redskins stadium) for the first WDCR autocross of the season to see what the rallykars could do. Perfect weather, giant and fast course, and 180 other cars. You get spoiled at 40-car rallycross events where you get 10-15 runs and after 4 autocross runs it's almost like "wait, that's all?" In any case, it was a lot of fun and probably the best autocross course I've run on in about a decade. Still not the rush that rallycross or road racing gives you, but a good time nonetheless in nice weather and only took up my morning, so plenty of time this afternoon to prep the car for tomorrow's rallycross.
We had about 8 of the rallycross cars out there. Nick and Bobby in the e28, Josh S. in the TurboEta (with terrible tires), Shawn and Katie in the RX7, Jim Golden in his 2.5RS, and Mike Golden cheated and brought his 300hp widebody RX7 on 315 Hoosiers..Also Gabe Dunn ran with us in X-Prepared with his STS-Prepped MR2 so we got an idea of how fast we were against a similar-powered/similar-weight autocross-setup car (and Gabe is a very good/experienced driver as well). All of us were on 2-3 year old Star Specs that get a lot of street use, and are 185-205 width...so hardly autocross-size rubber. Josh S. on some old all-seasons, and Gabe on wider/better tires.
Not sure of the final times yet, but I think I just eked out a win over all of the rallycross cars (though all of us were within about 1 second of each other). About 2.5 seconds behind Gabe, but that's pretty good in my book. The car handled great but had massive body lean with these little sways.
Oh, and I did beat a GT-R (true story!). Don't tell anyone that he was really, really slow
Bobby may have some pics later, but for the time being here's a vid....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sgpTFMdwKQ
Nice photo from Alejandro Aviles from today
I have fond memories of autocrossing at FedEx field.
Great job. Autocrossing a RallyCross car can be fun and productive despite the lack of runs and copious amounts of lean..
After today's rallycross, I almost wonder if the autocross screwed me up. More after I get some sleep, but suffice to say that Nick took his first ever Rallycross win today decisively. He led from the start, drove like a boss, had a power/speed course that worked well for his car (and less for mine), and I helped him out in my push to catch up in the afternoon by spinning the car and coning several times more than usual. A frustrating day to say the least, though he drove great and probably had the win without my screwup anyhow.
On the plus side, after 11 runs the MR standings were pretty much locked up, so we too the opportunity to make timed runs in each others' cars for the next 4 runs (I drove Nick's e28, Josh's TurboETA, and Flick's Celica.
More on this tomorrow, plus vids and pics of course. And some commentary about some things I may need to think about with regard to my car setup at this new venue, and some changes that may need to be made....
o, here's the full recap from yesterday...
Action-selfie, yo.
Adam was busy prepping the course with the skid-steer
We started the day with another long-ish drive in caravan through the mountains. At least there's some good scenery along the way and fast speeds...
About 40 cars there. Damn there are a lot of blue subarus, as usual. Weather this tiem was pretty decent. Not as windy as usual there.
After the course drive-through, a few things were apparent. First: that the course was pretty hard-packed for once, except a few very hard turns that were pretty loose. And also that it was a VERY fast course, that was going to be advantageous to the bigger/more powerful cars compared to more tight/technical courses. In fact, Adam (our Rally-X chair) commented that it was the fastest course that WDCR had ever run. I probably was hitting the rev limiter in 2nd at least 3 times on each run, which I've never done before.
Aaaaaanyhow. MR was pretty small yesterday, with Nonack selling the Mustang, a few other regulars missing, and so only three of us in class. As the gridding would have it, though, for once we gridded with PR as well, which has former MR champ Shawn Roberts (moxnix) and the ETA boys (who have several SR and PR championships among them). We've never run all at once to see how the time compare. MR was just me, Nick in the e28, and Josh Sennet in the turboETA, who had been having some fuel management issues in the previous days.
The course was fun from the start, but it was clear I had too much tire pressure and not enough weight in the back from the start. Usually I start the day with a full tank of gas. Today I started with about 1/3 of a tank....I think that was a mistake as my traction wasn't good in the back and the car was very tail-happy (more thank I like). I ran my typical style (which won me the first 2 events on a more tight/technical course), without any major mistakes, but after 5 runs Nick had a 12-second lead. I was also running slower than Shawn and Stephen in PR by a bit. With one run left in the morning I turned up the aggressiveness notch to full, cones be damned. And whadya know.....I put down a monster clean run, the fastest of any RWD cars all morning. Got me back to around 10 seconds of Nick at the lunchbreak.
The one turn that kept killing me was the switchback, which was loose and deep and exactly the wrong speed to keep the M42 in any kind of powerband. I tried drifting it (the gravel was too heavy with the entry speeds). I tried ebrake. I tried left-foot braking. Just couldn't get a line that had a good combination of enough traction and enough speed to keep me in the powerband. Basically just kept having to dig out of it stumbling in low 2nd gear.....
this turn
In the afternoon, we knew we'd get about 9 runs on a reversed course. I had to push harder to try to catch Nick, who was just driving his ass off, and not making mistakes. First run I beat him by 1.5 seconds on raw, and he coned. 3.5 seconds back there. Second run he edged me out on raw but I coned. So he got most of that back.
In past events, sometimes taking a passenger has helped me focus and run better lines (for some reason). As it happened, one of the PR guys who drives a very ..um..."loose" old Celica wanted his girlfriend to ride with me to see what a "fast" car felt like. So she jumped in. First section of the course I totally nailed, got a bit sloppy transitioning into the second section. Then on the turnaround, which I had nailed the last 2 times going this direction.......I came in too hot, got into the deep stuff, and almost spun out. Managed to save it just enough to tag the apex cone and continue, but by then it was all but over. Lost about 5 seconds with those shenanigans and Nick laid down a monster time running right behind me. I'm betting he actually could see me spin it, lol.
here's a vid of that:
http://youtu.be/yKcJTJQYgqo
With it all but settled, my next run I just went ultra-aggro, ran an ok time while being very sideways and getting 3 cones (I thought I got about 5, but guess not).
With Nick holding a 20 second lead with 5 runs left, and Josh S. well behind me due to his fuel pressure problems, We called a parlay. For the next 3 runs we drove each others' cars all for the first time (except NIck, who has driven mine several times).
Nick laid down a run in my car around what I had been running. I managed to drive his giant boat a bit slower, but still decent. The torque really helped in the problem sections, but it doesn't really "dance" at all and I coudln't get a turning rhythm. Then I drove Josh's car. Stock rack, school-bus wheel, and his fuel issue meant that the turbo rush didn't come on until about 3 seconds after you mashed the pedal (keep in mind, my DD is a tuned WRX, so I'm used to some turbo lag). In fact, the boost would usually get there right about the time the car needed to slow for a turn, lol.
After that I also did a run in Flick (Brendan Flicker)'s celica, in all it's 80s Japanese stock-ish glory. It was a blast to drive but damn near uncontrollable, even as slow as it was. I think driving my car may have motivated him to get modding on that car, lol.
We didn't really notify the timer of all this switching around, so the final times aren't really very accurate. It's worth noting that NIck ran an total time of 899 seconds (including his run in my car and Josh's car). That was actually about 8 seconds behind PR winner Shawn in the RX-7, and about 10 seconds ahead of the PR e30s. But we already knew Shawn is fast. That's why he won MR 2 years ago with that very same beat-up RX-7 (when he beat me with my M10-powered car).
So, that's the competition wrap. Only other real notable thing was that in the ultra-competitive M4 class, Matt Berkebile's H6-swapped impreza took first over Adam K's GC by a grand total of 0.125 seconds. Over 833 total seconds. And he did it via Adam coning on the last run of the the day, lol.
Adam's car:
Afterwards, Josh's car wouldn't start. At all. After an hour of trying various fixes, we towed it across the lot (with my car) and left it with the support vehicles. He'll go back and get it later, and rode back with me.
So my own takeaways here:
I did some damage this time. Dented my passenger front floorpan pretty good somehow. One of my door lock cylinders actually fell out, Part of my front wheel liner got shredded, and one of my metal side-covers from the skidplates got ripped of and left on course. Plus I did an awful lot of hard-hitting on the bumpstops late in the day. This suspension was ideal for Summit Point and Family Fun Park, both of which are fairly smooth and soft (respectively). I'm starting to think it's a bit too soft, and a bit too low for this new venue (even with the 1" spacers in front). IDK, I am going to explore some options for changes. I also am going to do some more weight reduction in the near future, including ditching the passenger seat for our 2-day June event. It's not light, and I won't want a rider during that one if Nick is as fast as he was this week.
my Gopro got a bit dirty:
So, that's about it for now. I'm sure I'll think of some other stuff. In the meantime, some of the few photos I took:
Dodge Daytona wheel. Made it 14 runs, and he finished the 15th run with it like this:
Driving your and Nick's car's with the faster racks was quite the eye opener! That's moved to the top of the list once the running/tuning issues get sorted.
Thanks again for the help and ride!
It's good to see the rallycross course. Where have they moved this to? It looks like further west. and quite different from Summit Point. I know Stuart and Spencer would like to back out and running...
The new venue is in Frostburg, MD - so it's a bit more of a hike (about 2 1/2 hours from DC), but it's a pretty easy drive. Much different from Summit - no more red clay (either sun-baked or water-truck-slickened). Now mostly gravel, hardpack dirt, and really loose gravel/substrate, plus some small shrubbery. Takes a different driving style for sure. On the upside, the place is freaking huge (bigger by far than all three Summit courses combined) so imagination is really the only limit to where the course goes and how big it can be. Last weekend were 60+ second courses that were fast (60-70mph in some areas, and no real slow sections). Stuart and Spencer need to stop going to parking lot shows and come out again 
but yeah, I know they're busy with school and work and stuff and this is definitely a farther drive for them.
So today did a bit of work on the WRX. Timing belt and water pump, etc etc. Spent about 3 1/2 hours doing it, much easier than the Sequoia, that's for sure. And that time included looking for various tools, running to the parts store to find an A/C belt, trying to figure out how to improv a "special tool" for the stretch belt - as well as a few minutes cursing the Orioles for getting spanked by the Tribe on the radio :(
So in case anyone wanted to see what a WRX timing case looks like...notable the old stuff was still in great shape after 95k hard-driven miles. One of the tensioner pulley bearings wasn't as smooth as I like, but otherwise looks like all this stuff could have gone another 100k miles. But better safe than sorry for my DD....
Other than that, went to my great-uncle's farm and helped him out with some emissions issues with his old Roadmaster (don't ask...) and picked some various scrap metal from his giant stash of "metal stuff" lol. Tomorrow I may try to fab up a basic rear strut brace for the e30, which I've been meaning to do for a while after seeing the ETA boys tear one of their rear strut towers apart at an event last season.
Wait, so there's only variable cam gears on the right bank? How's that work?
unevolved wrote: Wait, so there's only variable cam gears on the right bank? How's that work?
I'd be lying if I said I know much about the engine in the WRX (or subie engines in general). So that said, I'm not sure. You can't see the driver's side upper cam gear in the photo (it looks the same as the upper gear on the passenger side). My understanding is that the Subaru variable valve timing (AVCS) is more or less the same as BMW's single VANOS.
A bit of work on the car today, with all the WRX stuff done yesterday. Ok, well I did wash and wax the subie for once. I usually leave it dirty but what the hell..
So, first things first. Decided to finally make up a rear strut brace. Had some 3/16" old rusty steel plate that I cut into shape (using my Ireland Engineering upper strut mounts as a template). Then I took some fairly heavy galvanized steel pipe, slotted the ends of it and welded it all together (first set in place on the car and tacked, and then finish welded). My welder still sucks, and my welds are still hideously ugly, but for a RSTB who cares. I think I did it pretty strong. Put it back on the car with some blue paint, of course. Perfect fit. Hopefully it will strengthen those towers (not that mine were cracked, but seems like it's pretty common).
Then inspected the front end. Passenger-side front wheel liners are gone. Here's all that's left, lol
The driver's side is cracked up pretty good too. Both coming off. I'm making up some sheet-metal pieces to protect the sides of the engine. Maybe tomorrow.
Also pulled the skidplate off to check things out. I've been using some loose washers to space it down a bit since the oil pan was lightly contacting it and causing a clatter of noise. Decided just to make them permanent and welded some washer stacks on. One less thing to deal with when I take the plate off for various reasons.
It's been getting it's job done though. A few dents from hard hits, but overall still very solid.
So, not winning the last event got me motivated to do a few random things on the car today. Might as well improve the car since I can't exactly improve my driving between events, right?
First, finished making up a side splash guard for the engine on the passenger side, where the OEM one got shredded at the last event. Just some spare sheet metal from an old gas fireplace. improv...
I was bored last night and wanted to play with the drill press, so I pulled the front bumper and added some holes, removed the license plate bracket, and part of the rubber bumper part. All in all saved about 4lbs. Not that that's much, but it all adds up, I guess, and that's 4 lbs right off the very front of the car. Plus provides a bit more air to the radiator, if it matters
I also took off the rear rubber strip from the bumper, which is surprisingly heavy (and had about a pound of red clay packed in behind it.
Then I pulled the passenger seat, seatbelt, ebrake handle cover, and a few other small things....I won't want a passenger riding any more until I win another event. Plus, these seats weigh a ton since they're "street tuner" seats vice real race seats
Total weight savings of all this stuff combined (including a few other things mentioned below): 71 lbs. That's not nothing :)
Washed out the interior.....and touched up a few places where the paint had chipped. Rust prevention, eh?
One thing that's been annoying me is having noplace to put my phone, ipod, cigs, etc when driving to events, other than the passenger seat. With that now gone too, needed to mount something up. Enter $1.97 jewelry box (or something) from Walmart. Pretty well-made actually. Mounted with high-strength double-sided 3M trim tape. Should work nicely :)
random picture....
and one last thing, which I've been meaning to do for a while: the charcoal canister delete. Pretty sure it's not doing anything anyhow in a 28-year old car, and I'm always a fan of taking off useless crap. So removed it, plugged the line to the TB, and for the fuel tank line I put a small fuel filter on the end just to prevent any dust or debris from getting in there, while still allowing the tank to vent.
so that's about it for now. But at least I finally got something accomplished....
Is there somewhere for all the poo that goes in through those bumper holes to exit, or is it all going to end up packed into the bumper/radiator? You may have just added a ballast collector 
That open end is pointed down so water cannot fall into it, right?
bentwrench wrote:
I figured someone would notice that, lol. Yeah,it's pointed up, but in the immediate term I'm not worried about water going down into it. In its location that would be pretty much impossible since it is pointing up at the underside of the hood. I did it that way because I'm more worried about water/mud coming UP into it from below the car, since that area of the engine bay always gets muddy (this is a rallycross car, remember). But in any case, it's just zip-tied there for the moment until I make a little bracket to hold it where I want it. It will eventually sit underneath that little square piece just to the right in the picture. Once that's done nothing will be able to get into it either way. 
NONACK wrote: Is there somewhere for all the poo that goes in through those bumper holes to exit, or is it all going to end up packed into the bumper/radiator? You may have just added a ballast collector
The backside of the bumper is open, and there's a few inches gap between it and the bodywork. Not sure how it's any different from the upper and lower grilles though, which are direct routes for the "poo" to the radiator both above and below the bumper. The lower radiator opening has almost nothing there, just two big open squares in front of the radiator. In any case, I've been meaning to get some mesh/screen stuff to cover all those areas anyhow. May be a good project for today with the weather still nice and me still having no life outside of my yard and garage, lol.
But without you at events, there is much less chance of rocks and mud getting throw into the front of my car anyhow, lol
A few little things today when I had a few minutes.
Finally got around to taking off the door rub rails. IDK why I neglected to do this before, but whatever. Anyhow, just for the hell of it I weighed them. 4 lbs more off the car. Little bits adding up I guess :) Plus the pound or two of clay mud packed in underneath them, lol.
Of course with them off there are a bunch of holes along the sides of the doors. Since I'm way too lazy to weld or bondo them shut, I just used some thick trim tape. That stuff has held up for 5 years on the chrome trim on the Subaru, so it's pretty tough and doesn't lose its adhesion. Anyhow, in the black sections you can hardly see it at all. In the white sections you can, obviously, but I'm not too concerned. Also did a bit of painting to continue the lines/graphics that were masked off when the trim strips were there.
Also plugged up some holes in the floor - drain holes I had drilled as well as the seat mounting holes for the passenger side. For this kind of thing where I want to be able to remove them, I like to triple-fold some gray duck tape over the hole (to give it some strength) and then put a large piece of aluminum ducting tape over that, since it forms well to the floor and sticks well when wet/dirty. The aluminum tape doesn't have much strength, so that's why the duck tape is underneath - so it doesn't get broken by the first rock that kicks up. I actually use this stuff all over the place on the car for sealing up things, it's the stickiest most awesome tape out there.
Last thing...since i did the swap the little "snorkel" from the airbox to the area behind the headlight has been gone. The M10 airbox aligns differently so couldn't use that one, and always forget to get an M42-specific one. In the interest of pulling in cooler air from behind the headlight (vice hot air coming out of the back of the radiator) I wanted to reconnect this. Didn't have any dryer vent hose sitting around, so looked for something else with 3" diameter (which is what the OEM one is). Found.....a soda bottle. Took it, wrapped it in more of the aluminum ducting tape (so it doesn't melt from engine heat), and installed. Doesn't look pretty but it should do the job just fine.
The other thing I'm working on is a tall GoPro mount. I want to toy with making some cool video showing the whole car when its on course. So I picked up some square steel tubing from the hardware store. The plan is to mount this, about 4 feet tall, off the rear bumper. I'm going to make it so it can screw into a plate on the bumper so it is on the car "solid" and won't sway around. I think it's stiff enough so it won't flex under the weight of the light GoPro. Should give some neat video angle. May also make a mount point on the front bumper so it can "look back" on the car as I'm driving. More on this once I actually make it :)
A bit of fun today. Using some random materials (including some square tubing, a few big washers, some kind of engine bay bracket from an e30, and a big urethane bushing from some vehicle long forgotten) I fabbed up a little project I've been wanting to do for a while: A camera mount that sits behind and a bit to the side of the car to give a "whole car" view when it's on course.
And yes, I did drill a 1" diameter hole in the back corner of the body. Because cheap rallykar, lol. Anyhow, hope it results in some cool video. It feels pretty solid. I had initially wanted to mount it to the rear bumper, but it flexes a good bit and would have caused a lot more vibrations I think. We'll see how this works.
If you can't tell in the pics, the bar goes through the rear corner of the car's bodywork and bolt to a bracket off the inner wheel well. The bushing at the bodywork (the big red thing) has a smaller nub that fits in the hole, and the tube runs through the middle of it tightly. A washer is welded on the top to hold it in place.
More pics tomorrow when it's light out....
Its like a "selfie stick" for you car 
Today I ran up to Germantown to work on the ChumpETA with the guys and pick up the trailer, since it was still at Chris's place after they towed up to Watkins Glen a couple weeks ago. A variety of little projects on that in preparation for Chump Summit Point in 2 weeks. Some random pics from that.
Chris the master fabricator, sketching out his design for a sheetmetal intake scoop for our new headlight delete plates
the shop
some paint touch-up after a few contacts at the Glen
When I got home I just loaded up the rallycrosser on the trailer so it takes up less driveway space until next weekend's 2-day day/twilight rallycross. A few minor issues still with the short ramps making a bad angle on the back of the trailer (it's not a dovetail), but I'm fabbing something up tomorrow to take care of that. Also found that I have to be creative with the rear straps since the 318 exhaust is not in the same place as the 325 exhaust, so I have to route the straps differently. But whatever....just a pic.
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