irish44j wrote: Their rallycross car, which still has stock comfort seats even though it's in PR/MR class, lol.
Figured. berkeleyers. 
I need seats. Engine finished first, though.
irish44j wrote: Their rallycross car, which still has stock comfort seats even though it's in PR/MR class, lol.
Figured. berkeleyers.
I need seats. Engine finished first, though.
Dam - that is a nice score!
after a quick mock-up, determined that it would be VERY difficult to adapt the 370z bases to work on the e30, so need to get those up on the Z forums and sell them (they go for $140 each new) and dig up some e30 bases. Since I can't bolt the sliders directly to the floor due to the shape and width of the e30 mount pads, the options are:
put in a pair of "crossbars" to mount to.
buy a base made for e30.
The former is obviously cheap, but I also need to somehow attach stock seatbelts, which are currently (and stock) attached to the seat base itself. I could just weld tabs to the floor, but that seems like it might be a hassle due to the fitament.
e30 base is the easy button, will see if I can score a couple up cheap. I have a month to get these into the car so not a big problem for the moment.
Also put the old cover on the seat that had the new cover on it, and cut the harness holes (one minor mis-cut, but nobody will notice hopefuly). Might as well just keep the new covers in the bag until I need them. The old cover has a wear point near the elbow, but some duct tape or a patch should take care of that fine I think.
Also, got the scale out and weighed things real quick.
Sparco Sport (adjustable) with sliders and base bracket that I currently have in the car: 54.5 lbs each.
The new Evo with sliders and the very heavy 370z base bracket (which will be replaced with a lighter e30 base): 36.5 lbs.
So, there's another 36lbs. gone off the car :)
So, heading up in the morning with the guys to the Waste Management Winter Rally in Wellsboro, PA, to crew for Ozgur Simsek's Sentra and another team and hang with some friends who rallycross/rally.
Gonna be a good time I think, but I have a large duffle full of my best mountaineering and extreme skiing gear in the car - the heaviest I've ever packed for any 2-day trip, ever.
The temp there at wake-up time tomorrow: NEGATIVE 10 degrees. Daytime high temp is about 10 degrees, but with 20mph winds. And we'll be outside, for the most part, all day.
Needless to say, I will not be in the e30, but in my WRX with its very excellent heater and heated seats.
We haven't been above -12C (about 6F) in a month and tonight is expected to hit -30C for the 3rd night out of the last 7. You'll survive - lots of layers!!!
Holy hell, that sounds awful.
-30 is a little much but we should be up around -12C for a high on the weekend. Head out skiing and good weather for the Polar Bear Rally in Bancroft, ON. Unfortunately I can't go - wife is heading out of town.
If you live up here, you have to find ways to enjoy winter!
So let's do some updating now that I'm back from the Waste Management Winter Rally (aka the mini-SPTR in the snow). Before I talk about the rally weekend, I'll hit my car update from this afternoon, since it's not as interesting as the rally.
After giving it some thought, I decided for the time being to use sliders on the new seats, and to modify the 370Z bases to work for me. So after some cutting, some welding, some measuring, and some drilling....
cutting and welding
main base in:
base with mounts (yes, one bolt is missing in the pic)
passenger seat in:
I'll eventually hard-mount the base to the chassis when this car moves to rally someday, but for rallycross, I prefer sliders (that, and they're legal so why not use em).
Learned a few fitting lessons that will make doing the driver's seat a bit easier maybe next weekend.
ok, so on to the rally.
I originally was recruited to crew for Ozgur Simsek's team that was going to run an e30 in addition to their Sentra SE-R. In the end the e30 wasn't ready in time so I went anyhow to help out with the Sentra and get some experience in the rally scene, meet some people, etc.
In addition to talking quite a bit with Ozgur and the other crew guys, several WDCR rallycross folks were there rallying (Adam Kimmett, Jared Lantzy, Matt Rhoads, and a few others).
We met them up there in -2 degrees weather, with snow forecasted. We were also going to crew for another new team with a Ford Escort, but they blew their clutch slave cylinder late night before and unbelievably no parts store within 100 miles had one in stock. They ended up withdrawing, which was too bad. We spent some time messing with that car over at a local Subaru shop that was working on James Quattro's rally car prepping for the next day
So won't bore you all with details, but it was extremely cold there (wind chill something like -20), and snowing. Car passed tech and seemed to be running well, but as luck would have it, the engine blew pretty early in the first stage and that was it for us running the weekend. Not sure what happened, but probably a rod bearing. Not much we could do anyhow, seeing as it's a JDM engine in that car.
So car went back on the trailer, and we spent the rest of the day spectating. All in all it was a good time in spite of the broken car and wickedly cold weather. WDCR rallycross chair Adam Kimmet, co-driving with Jon Kramer, won the overall in their Subie - but my favorite car out there was Jared Lantzy and Jason Smith in a Volvo 240 in place of the Subie they usually run. They finished last (not surprising for the only RWD car in very snowy/icy conditions), but apparently had a good time.
Anhow, learned quite a bit about how these run, and some of the inner workings of things, and got a good chunk of knowledge to keep in my pocket when building my car further.
And some of my favorite pics from the weekend:
The car going through tech
Alvin Fong's Evo bumper, and cold looking landscape.
Greg Roumiantsev's Evo (later retired due to a broken radiator)
Our team
Greg Healy's beautiful Group 5 Z
A couple Fiesta STs running with Broken Motorports
Snowbank > Neon
Jared and Jason in the Volvo
My wannabe rally car
more pics in this album if anyone wants to browse:
http://s78.photobucket.com/user/irish44j/library/WM%20Winter%20Rally%202015?sort=3&page=1
So in my hour of "noise time" after work before dinner and the kids bedtime, I got down to doing some cutting, grinding, and welding and modified the 370 seat bases to bolt directly up to the OEM seat bolt holes, so that's good. Just seemed like less of a pain than trying to sell them and buy/make some other bases.
In any case, I did mount them up with sliders - for the time being. For rallycross I prefer them since I like the seat further back when driving to/from events. Once the car is built for stage rally, the sliders will come out and I'll bolt them directly to the car. After fiddling around with the side-mount height I got them to the position they'll likely be most comfortable without my helmet hitting anything.
I stuck the one new cover back into the bag and put the old one on (which has a tear on one side), and will just put a patch on it. No reason to put a brand-new cover on a rallycross car just because of cosmetic stuff, right?
Anyhow, they are mounted solid and I have clearance to slide all the way forward and back, and they are about 1/2" from contacting the B-pillar, door, and trans tunnel - but they don't touch anywhere, which was what I was going for.
As you may notice, I'm keeping stock seatbelts since harnesses aren't technically street-legal and I'd just as well not get a stupid ticket. For the passenger, that's all they get (with a CG lock). My side has the same harness I've been using with the other seats, and everything is arranged so the seatbelts fit correctly but don't interfere with the harness.
So, that's that for now. Eric Helgesen is buying my old seats for their rallycross e30 to replace their stockers....
Word of advice: never ever have a vehicle doing double-duty as the tow rig and the wife's kid hauler. It leads to fights when the wife will be at the beach with the kids on the same week as you need to tow to a far-away race event, and cannot fit the kids, dogs, and a weeks worth of stuff in my WRX.
(ok, I could fit all that E36 M3 in the WRX, but she has no interest in such a jam-pack, nor interest in taking my WRX anyplace).
What does your trailer weigh?
irish44j wrote: Word of advice: never ever have a vehicle doing double-duty as the tow rig and the wife's kid hauler. It leads to fights when the wife will be at the beach with the kids on the same week as you need to tow to a far-away race event, and cannot fit the kids, dogs, and a weeks worth of stuff in my WRX. (ok, I could fit all that E36 M3 in the WRX, but she has no interest in such a jam-pack, nor interest in taking my WRX anyplace).
Load the E36 M3 int he E30 then tow it on a dolly with the WRX?
Josh - trailer is about 1500lbs give or take.
Adrian - e30 is street legal and perfectly capable of driving to the event on its own. Just not relishing the thought of going 5 hours in it, especially with the new seats which are not as "road comfortable" as the old ones.
Oh look.....winter is STILL not freaking over. And here we go with another round of lame marginal winter storm that shuts down this region.
Well, at least no work for me with the government closed. Oh look.....winter is STILL not freaking over. And here we go with another round of lame marginal winter storm that shuts down this region.
Well, at least no work for me with the government closed.
The garage is 30 degrees, so not feeling like doing any work. But I had to run some errands about 20 miles out. Nothing better to do and all day, so left the WRX (on its fresh Wintersport 4D's) in the driveway and took the e30 (on not-so-fresh Winterforces), with the trunk loaded with heavy rally wheels/tires and a big gearbox in the back seat area.
Good a time as any to test out the new suspension and work on my throttle-steering, left-foot braking, and practicing "never lift" driving, lol.
Roads were slick....very.....saw a few dozen accidents, a few flipped cars, and a snowplow in a ditch. People around here are morons. In these conditions with the WRX I pretty much could have driven the speed limit everywhere.
e30, not so much. Gripped fine and I got confortable in the conditions pretty quickly to the point that I was pretty much passing everyone on the road (even a snowplow, whose driver gave me a thumbs-up). I will say, this car gets a lot of looks and amazed stares when its out in the snow amongst the SUVs and 4x4s everywhere.
In any case, it was an enjoyable couple hours of driving and didn't wreck the car so I guess that's a plus. Some pics, as usual...
stopped into work. The only other person there at the time was in a Jeep, and apparently she didn't have a pleasant drive in, lol..
On the way back, some Yahoos came off a side street as I was at a light. Passenger was hanging out the window yelling something at me. His driver tried to showboat a bit and promptly spun around into the median, and then spun again when trying to get it back on the street. That was pretty damn funny...
Anyhow, now I have to leave the car outside so it can melt before it comes back in the garage :P
You make that look fun.
In reply to unevolved:
That is fun - all you guys that don't get snow are missing out!
Today finally we had a nice day, almost 60 degrees. As I watched the snow melt (thank goodness for a house with an all-day sun exposure!), cleaned up the "regular cars" to get all the salt off, did a couple oil changes, straightened the garage, played with the kids, and a few other things.
My kids love the snow, but I have to admit I'm pretty tired of winter at this point..
Meanwhile, I also decided that it was time for a cosmetic change. With nice weather, it means I can paint stuff again. You guys know I love the spray-cans...
For this season, the "safety blue" is out. I need a faster color, something less safe (lol). So red it is. This worked out well since I had a full can of red spraypaint from some old project sitting around, and I have two large rolls of vinyl here (red and matte white) that I can use in my wife's nice vinyl cutter.
So first played around and made some stickarz....for the local crew.
Then using a combination of paint and vinyl striping I pretty much replaced all the blue on the car with red
Wasn't until I was done that I thought about the fact that I have six blue wheels....which will look pretty funny on the car now. So I washed them off and scuff-sanded them real quick, and I need to decide what color to paint them. White is the easy choice, but I have some strange compunction to paint them bright red just because racekar and I'd never do such a thing on a street car. So we'll see what I end up doing, not sure yet.
Only things left to do before the first event in 3 weeks are to fab up a protective plate for over the fuel lines and stuff (the one I had last 2 years finally got destroyed at some point last season), do a few minor maintenance items, and figure out a new spare-tire mount for the mini-trailer. Other than that, the car should be ready to go. Can't wait.
Red!!
Bring that red line from the back to the roof to split up the white and black, then gunmetal grey or red rims!
To save time on the next livery change
jhockey4 wrote: Bring that red line from the back to the roof to split up the white and black, then gunmetal grey or red rims!
I'm trying to decide if I like the red line first, then I will probably do that :)
I painted my spare wheels red tonight and they look pretty cool. My main set is going to be white, but with a twist. More on that when I'm done :)
I love this thread.
It is inspiring me to get another rally-X car and get going on it!
NGTD wrote: I love this thread. It is inspiring me to get another rally-X car and get going on it!
do eeet!!!
Although doing this cosmetic stuff, I often kind of feel like a dork, since few of the other cars out there seem to have much done to them cosmetically. I do it because it's fun to do the artsy stuff (and cheap), but I almost wonder if it's kind of silly when most of the other e30s out there are on faded original paint with few to no graphics or anything. Still remember my very first event when Scott Crowner (in the "original" local e30 that still runs these days) made fun of how clean and nice my car looked, and even filmed a video of him making fun of it. Scott's a good guy and I know he was just giving me some friendly ribbing, but I still feel kind of dorky doing so much cosmetics. The only thing I can think of is that the car isn't broken so I actually have time for this kind of stuff, so that's a plus.
In any case, it's fun so I'll keep doing it regardless.
So on that note....
ok, since I have nothing to do but goof around, let's do some wheel ideas and see what turns out.
First I want to try some white wheels with red lettering. So I backcoated the center area in red, and applied some vinyl lettering I made. Then I sprayed over it all in white, trying to do a stencil. In the end, it didn't look good so I'm not going to even post a photo of the finished product. Can't peel off the vinyl stencil without "ripping" the overcoat with automotive paint. Works great doing crafty stuff like my wife does with acrylic paint. Not so much with this stuff.
So back to the drawing board, let's try it the easy way. I had already painted my two spare wheels red to see how they looked. Kind of like the color, so let's see how they look with some lettering I designed.
paint
vinyl
finished product
I actually think it looks pretty sweet, and plan to do them in opposite colors on the white wheels and see how that looks. I'm somewhat suspicious about whether the vinyl will hold up on the wheels (it is high-end outdoor stuff, not cheapie craft store stuff), especially since we run in deep gravel a lot. I hit it with about 3 coats of clearcoat, so hopefully that will help. I guess we'll see. If not, no great loss. Just 50 cents worth of vinyl :)
^Loving the OZ/Team Dynamics rally wheel look. Very nice.
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