Exeptional photos by Drew Shephardson and Dakota Snow.
Exeptional photos by Drew Shephardson and Dakota Snow.
Awesome. I know the team running behind you in the Orange Volvo. Looks like you had a great time!
Stefan (Forum Supporter) said:Awesome. I know the team running behind you in the Orange Volvo. Looks like you had a great time!
General Leif! I've chatted with Kyle a few times. Nice guy, and they seem like a solid team.
MaxC said:Stefan (Forum Supporter) said:Awesome. I know the team running behind you in the Orange Volvo. Looks like you had a great time!
General Leif! I've chatted with Kyle a few times. Nice guy, and they seem like a solid team.
Yeah, their posts on their racing is pretty fun to read. Not a lot of punches pulled, but most are friendly head slaps.
Stefan (Forum Supporter) said:MaxC said:Stefan (Forum Supporter) said:Awesome. I know the team running behind you in the Orange Volvo. Looks like you had a great time!
General Leif! I've chatted with Kyle a few times. Nice guy, and they seem like a solid team.
Yeah, their posts on their racing is pretty fun to read. Not a lot of punches pulled, but most are friendly head slaps.
Do they document their racing stuff somewhere? I just follow them on facebook.
Probably a good time for an update! Since the race in October I've been trying to limit the amount of car work and try and take a break. Of course, this is lame, and so I want to get back to work asap.
Ordered a Pyrotect helmet for my wife, who decided she doesn't want to be nervous or not know what she's doing if she races for us again. We'll sign her up for a track night early spring and get her some practice.
Sold some uber-rare parts that came with my car that I'd been holding on to. My "turbo" hood, which had a fake scoop and only came on the 1984 200sx Turbo, and literal mudflaps that only came on the SEV6 and created an absolute frenzy amongst enthusiasts. I decided if I were to let these items go it would only be to fund something important, so I made the switch from Z32 wheels to these Rota Grid V 16x8 +20mm wheels.
The Z32 wheels were +45mm offset, and wouldn't allow me to run coilovers in the front without 35mm worth of spacers! Turns out 5x114.3 wheels in very low offset are almost non existent, and forget about being wide! The s12 is not easy to find wheels for, especially in 5 lug, and 8" is basically the maximum without running flares. I considered 15x8's but all the 15" tires are 2" less diameter and I didn't think it was a good idea to mess with gearing that badly. These rota's could not fit better. They dont' require a spacer to clear the strut, but will require the fenders to be rolled a bit more. I'll probably need a 10mm spacer when/if I put on the coilovers. I can use the same size tires I was on before (225/50/16) and save 2.4lbs/wheel.
Next up I'm going to attempt to improve our fuel situation dramatically. We only have 14 gallon capacity. The car will only pump out 13 gallons sitting still. We only go 1 hour 10 minutes flat out before stumbling. When we pit after stumbling for 3-5 laps, we can only add 9-10 gallons tops. We need a surge tank, and I will also attempt to add a vent at the top of the fuel pump, and tie that back in to the filler neck next to the stock vent.
All fuel stuff needs a bulkhead if it's in the cabin. Since aluminum is expensive, I found a truck tool box at work for free. Hopefully I can clean it up, and utilize this lid for easy access.
Here is my idea for adding a vent. Red arrow is the stock vent, and you can see it's mounted pretty low and leaves a lot of air in the top of the tank. Red line coming up to the filler is the routing idea. It'll have to go through the cab (and behind the bulkhead) because otherwise it'd have to go 3x as far, down and around the frame rail before routing back into the filler neck.
Considering we get 70 minutes before stumbling, and we still have 3-4 gallons left in the tank, I think the surge tank alone should get us at least another 21 minutes (7 min/gal). If the vent works and we can put another gallon in the tank maybe that'll be 28 minutes. That would get us 98 minutes before pitting. We're still not there (need to go 2 hours), but this should save us one pit stop over our competition (we had 2 more pit stops than 1st place when we came second). I plan to add a float sensor in the surge tank so that a light comes on when the surge starts to empty.
If you have any other ideas for my fuel situation I'd love to hear them. This is my first crack at anything like this.
I don't, but I know solutions exist. I just wanted to say that this car looks awesome and it looks like a blast.
tuna55 said:I don't, but I know solutions exist. I just wanted to say that this car looks awesome and it looks like a blast.
Thanks man! I appreciate it. I'm having a ton of fun with it for sure.
Ok, trying to take a break from the racecar combined with freezing temps have caused me some paralysis as far as working on the car. Cold in the garage, and the car facing the wrong direction causing no dang light on what I'm working on has discouraged me to make any progress.
Well I finally broke through that barrier over Christmas break. Decided I needed to get the car running with the surge tank to break me out of the rut. So last night me and my 3 year old son bundled up and finished the car enough to fire it up. Decided to back it out and back it in to the garage so that the trunk area would be directly under the garage lighting. We got to the bottom of the driveway and realized the pump in the surge tank only comes on when the pump primes with key-on. I wired it on to the same circuit that turns on the stock pump, but apparently something else turns the pump on when the engine is running. So... starting the car for 10 seconds at a time, doing reverse burn outs up the snow covered driveway before the engine dies, trying not to crash in to the house or wifes car, 3 year old saying "whoa dad!!" sitting on a pillow in the passenger seat area.... and we made it.
So now I have to figure out why/how the pump is not staying on after priming, and build a bulkhead. But at least I have light to work under! After those are done I'll tackle adding the vent.
Excuse the mess... this is what you get when you work on a project for a month in a series of 15 minute increments.
Next up, wife gave me the remainder of our Christmas budget to put towards a transponder. I hate all of the transponder options, but we still need one....
Rent one - $50/race
Buy subscription based - $140 and $109/year after the first year
Buy non-sub based battery powered - $540
Buy non-sub based hard wired - $707
Leaning towards the battery powered non-subscription transponder, provided I can have the battery replaced if it fails... Really makes me sick paying this much money for a blinking light.
MaxC said:Probably a good time for an update! Since the race in October I've been trying to limit the amount of car work and try and take a break. Of course, this is lame, and so I want to get back to work asap.
Ordered a Pyrotect helmet for my wife, who decided she doesn't want to be nervous or not know what she's doing if she races for us again. We'll sign her up for a track night early spring and get her some practice.
Sold some uber-rare parts that came with my car that I'd been holding on to. My "turbo" hood, which had a fake scoop and only came on the 1984 200sx Turbo, and literal mudflaps that only came on the SEV6 and created an absolute frenzy amongst enthusiasts. I decided if I were to let these items go it would only be to fund something important, so I made the switch from Z32 wheels to these Rota Grid V 16x8 +20mm wheels.
The Z32 wheels were +45mm offset, and wouldn't allow me to run coilovers in the front without 35mm worth of spacers! Turns out 5x114.3 wheels in very low offset are almost non existent, and forget about being wide! The s12 is not easy to find wheels for, especially in 5 lug, and 8" is basically the maximum without running flares. I considered 15x8's but all the 15" tires are 2" less diameter and I didn't think it was a good idea to mess with gearing that badly. These rota's could not fit better. They dont' require a spacer to clear the strut, but will require the fenders to be rolled a bit more. I'll probably need a 10mm spacer when/if I put on the coilovers. I can use the same size tires I was on before (225/50/16) and save 2.4lbs/wheel.
Next up I'm going to attempt to improve our fuel situation dramatically. We only have 14 gallon capacity. The car will only pump out 13 gallons sitting still. We only go 1 hour 10 minutes flat out before stumbling. When we pit after stumbling for 3-5 laps, we can only add 9-10 gallons tops. We need a surge tank, and I will also attempt to add a vent at the top of the fuel pump, and tie that back in to the filler neck next to the stock vent.
All fuel stuff needs a bulkhead if it's in the cabin. Since aluminum is expensive, I found a truck tool box at work for free. Hopefully I can clean it up, and utilize this lid for easy access.
Here is my idea for adding a vent. Red arrow is the stock vent, and you can see it's mounted pretty low and leaves a lot of air in the top of the tank. Red line coming up to the filler is the routing idea. It'll have to go through the cab (and behind the bulkhead) because otherwise it'd have to go 3x as far, down and around the frame rail before routing back into the filler neck.
Considering we get 70 minutes before stumbling, and we still have 3-4 gallons left in the tank, I think the surge tank alone should get us at least another 21 minutes (7 min/gal). If the vent works and we can put another gallon in the tank maybe that'll be 28 minutes. That would get us 98 minutes before pitting. We're still not there (need to go 2 hours), but this should save us one pit stop over our competition (we had 2 more pit stops than 1st place when we came second). I plan to add a float sensor in the surge tank so that a light comes on when the surge starts to empty.
If you have any other ideas for my fuel situation I'd love to hear them. This is my first crack at anything like this.
You can get jeep wheels for cheap in 15 x 8 in the correct pattern.
I ran them for years in endurance racing.
MaxC said:Probably a good time for an update! Since the race in October I've been trying to limit the amount of car work and try and take a break. Of course, this is lame, and so I want to get back to work asap.
Ordered a Pyrotect helmet for my wife, who decided she doesn't want to be nervous or not know what she's doing if she races for us again. We'll sign her up for a track night early spring and get her some practice.
Sold some uber-rare parts that came with my car that I'd been holding on to. My "turbo" hood, which had a fake scoop and only came on the 1984 200sx Turbo, and literal mudflaps that only came on the SEV6 and created an absolute frenzy amongst enthusiasts. I decided if I were to let these items go it would only be to fund something important, so I made the switch from Z32 wheels to these Rota Grid V 16x8 +20mm wheels.
The Z32 wheels were +45mm offset, and wouldn't allow me to run coilovers in the front without 35mm worth of spacers! Turns out 5x114.3 wheels in very low offset are almost non existent, and forget about being wide! The s12 is not easy to find wheels for, especially in 5 lug, and 8" is basically the maximum without running flares. I considered 15x8's but all the 15" tires are 2" less diameter and I didn't think it was a good idea to mess with gearing that badly. These rota's could not fit better. They dont' require a spacer to clear the strut, but will require the fenders to be rolled a bit more. I'll probably need a 10mm spacer when/if I put on the coilovers. I can use the same size tires I was on before (225/50/16) and save 2.4lbs/wheel.
Next up I'm going to attempt to improve our fuel situation dramatically. We only have 14 gallon capacity. The car will only pump out 13 gallons sitting still. We only go 1 hour 10 minutes flat out before stumbling. When we pit after stumbling for 3-5 laps, we can only add 9-10 gallons tops. We need a surge tank, and I will also attempt to add a vent at the top of the fuel pump, and tie that back in to the filler neck next to the stock vent.
All fuel stuff needs a bulkhead if it's in the cabin. Since aluminum is expensive, I found a truck tool box at work for free. Hopefully I can clean it up, and utilize this lid for easy access.
Here is my idea for adding a vent. Red arrow is the stock vent, and you can see it's mounted pretty low and leaves a lot of air in the top of the tank. Red line coming up to the filler is the routing idea. It'll have to go through the cab (and behind the bulkhead) because otherwise it'd have to go 3x as far, down and around the frame rail before routing back into the filler neck.
Considering we get 70 minutes before stumbling, and we still have 3-4 gallons left in the tank, I think the surge tank alone should get us at least another 21 minutes (7 min/gal). If the vent works and we can put another gallon in the tank maybe that'll be 28 minutes. That would get us 98 minutes before pitting. We're still not there (need to go 2 hours), but this should save us one pit stop over our competition (we had 2 more pit stops than 1st place when we came second). I plan to add a float sensor in the surge tank so that a light comes on when the surge starts to empty.
If you have any other ideas for my fuel situation I'd love to hear them. This is my first crack at anything like this.
Also, surge tank ftw. We can get every bit of fuel out of the tank.
Used a deaschtwerks low pressure lift pump in the tank feeding a surge tank which feeds another inline fuel pump feeding the rail.
MaxC said:Ok, trying to take a break from the racecar combined with freezing temps have caused me some paralysis as far as working on the car. Cold in the garage, and the car facing the wrong direction causing no dang light on what I'm working on has discouraged me to make any progress.
Well I finally broke through that barrier over Christmas break. Decided I needed to get the car running with the surge tank to break me out of the rut. So last night me and my 3 year old son bundled up and finished the car enough to fire it up. Decided to back it out and back it in to the garage so that the trunk area would be directly under the garage lighting. We got to the bottom of the driveway and realized the pump in the surge tank only comes on when the pump primes with key-on. I wired it on to the same circuit that turns on the stock pump, but apparently something else turns the pump on when the engine is running. So... starting the car for 10 seconds at a time, doing reverse burn outs up the snow covered driveway before the engine dies, trying not to crash in to the house or wifes car, 3 year old saying "whoa dad!!" sitting on a pillow in the passenger seat area.... and we made it.
So now I have to figure out why/how the pump is not staying on after priming, and build a bulkhead. But at least I have light to work under! After those are done I'll tackle adding the vent.
Excuse the mess... this is what you get when you work on a project for a month in a series of 15 minute increments.
Next up, wife gave me the remainder of our Christmas budget to put towards a transponder. I hate all of the transponder options, but we still need one....
Rent one - $50/race
Buy subscription based - $140 and $109/year after the first year
Buy non-sub based battery powered - $540
Buy non-sub based hard wired - $707
Leaning towards the battery powered non-subscription transponder, provided I can have the battery replaced if it fails... Really makes me sick paying this much money for a blinking light.
Fuel pump running and then stopping can be from a maf unplugged or other engine sensor issues.
IDK why I never opened this thread before tonight. Nice work on the car and the storytelling.
I bet you could make/buy a battery adapter that would let you Hardwire it.
wvumtnbkr said:MaxC said:If you have any other ideas for my fuel situation I'd love to hear them. This is my first crack at anything like this.
Also, surge tank ftw. We can get every bit of fuel out of the tank.
Used a deaschtwerks low pressure lift pump in the tank feeding a surge tank which feeds another inline fuel pump feeding the rail.
Good to hear! My big worry now is running out completely, so I'm looking in to a float sensor option that turns on a light as soon as the surge starts emptying or something. But want to figure out the bulkhead and vent first... The in-tank pump is the stock pump, and the surge tank is the chinesium knock off 044 that came with the surge. I'll use them for a bit but will probably buy replacements for each before racing with them. I'm sure the wiring problem is simple but haven't had a chance to diagnose it yet.
I know the 16x8 wheels were not the most ideal choice but there was some reasoning behind it. I had planned to go with 15x8 or 15x10 but the diameter of all the 15" tire sizes were 2 full inches less than the 16's I'm currently running. Right now at my home track we get within 250 RPM or so of the rev limit in 4th... I figured shorter tires would add some shifting and make gearing awkward. Sticking with 16's meant I didn't have to buy all new tires at the same time too... it was definitely a compromise and not a perfect choice.
AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) said:IDK why I never opened this thread before tonight. Nice work on the car and the storytelling.
Thanks for checking it out! I'm having a heck of a lot of fun doing it. It's my destiny to build and race cars, thrilled I'm able to do it finally.
jfryjfry said:I bet you could make/buy a battery adapter that would let you Hardwire it.
I'm sure it's more common to wire the pump to a switch, and maybe that's smarter. But I had to overcomplicate things and wire it to the same circuit that controls the stock pump so it operates like stock. More complicated than it needs to be but my logic being that racers/drivers have enough to worry about and I don't want to give them another thing to control.
OK I have no idea why/how the factory pump relay doesn't appear to control both the key-on prime, and "on" while the engine runs... But I've moved the surge relay signal ground to the ground on the in-tank pump. That way, whatever voodoo magic that provides ground for the in-tank pump will also ground the relay and turn on the surge pump. Drivers don't have to do/remember anything above normal. Car runs!
Now to find a way to protect these lines, build a box around the surge, and add a vent to the tank.
Decided to spend seven hundred freaking dollars on a blinking-light transponder.
I bought the stupid $700 transponder. It's backordered, but it'll get here eventually and I'll update this thread to show the worst part about racing cars: Mylaps transponders.
On a lighter note: The surge tank project is nearing completion. I'm not thrilled with this project either, but it really needed to be done. Pitting 2 more times for fuel than the leader has to is not a recipe for success. Perhaps a smarter person would have chosen a car with more than a 14 gallon tank, or a car that burns fuel at a lower rate... I am not that person! Regardless, there are still rule-compliant ways to max out that factory tank.
Surge tank:
When we pit, we can only get about 10 gallons max. into our tank, but when we pump out the tank completely while sitting still, we can get 13.1 gallons out. So when the car is stumbling in corners like crazy, there's still 3+ gallons left! The surge tank should eliminate this. The surge tank must be behind a firewall, which turned out to be the worst part about this project. In order to keep the budget low I decided to shoot myself in the foot, and cut up a truck toolbox I found at work. There was a lot of free aluminum not being used so why not. Originally I cut the box up and tried to fit it all in the trunk with the existing lid:
Then I felt the racecar guilt. This thing is way bigger/heavier than it needs to be. This thing has almost no clearance to the back of the car. Maybe in an accident this thing would fold like a taco and easily let fuel/flames out of the box. SO I added a lot more work and sized down the box, and made my own lid. For some reason I don't have a picture of the completed project. I cut the hinge, and the latch off the toolbox and utilized them for the final product.
I think this thing will be safer, and lighter. I plan to tape up all the cracks with HVAC aluminum tape, and/or fill gaps with fire caulking. I'll probably also drill a hole in low point of the container in case fuel ever did leak and fill this area, then it could leak out the bottom of the car. I put the thing together with sheet metal screws and rivnuts. Not thrilled with how it turned out... feel like I could have spent a lot of money and made it look a lot nicer. What concerns me the most is how safe it is though, and I'm still on the fence if this is safe enough. But it should be secure, sealed, and it would take a pretty dang huge hit to get far enough into the car to deform this box... and if that happened, the stock tank would be in pretty bad shape already.
Vent:
Only being able to pump out 13.2 gallons of our 14 gallon tank tells me that we are losing some capacity to trapped air. We jacked up the car on one side and were able to put another gallon or so in, but found this method to be impractical during pit stops. Moving the vent higher up will get us back all of that capacity, and increase the speed that we can add fuel. I wanted the vent to be in the filler neck, like stock, so that when the cap is on, the vent is sealed and no problems with leaks.
Here's the stock filler neck. The vent in the background with the hose on it is the stock vent. The other one is where I want to mount a new vent.
Unfortunately where the vent goes into the tank is pretty darn low on the tank...So I'm going to add another one, right next to it, and run it to a higher point on the tank. So the red line is where I want the new vent to go. And it will be exposed in the cab, which is why I built the aluminum box all the way to the side of the car.
This is a widened area of the stock filler. Where the vents are, the filler hose doesn't block, so fuel can flow and the vents aren't blocked (in theory!).
Rules state you can't modify your stock tank, so the vent has to go here in order to comply. Pressure tested this and it doesn't leak, despite the not so great weld.
What I need to do to finish:
Remove everything, paint floor of car, pressure wash box and try and make it not look like crap, maybe paint it too. Reassemble everything, run hose to connect new vent. Then I need to add a level sensor. The float sensors are the easiest I think, but they're usually pipe thread, and would be difficult to install in my surge tank... I'm concerned about creating a leak. Another idea I'm kicking around is to put a check valve (with a rated cracking pressure) in the line between the stock fuel pump and the surge tank, and then having a pressure sensor on that line. When the stock tank goes dry the pressure will be zero, and turn on a light... I'd probably rather do this method instead of drilling/tapping the surge tank and adding another potential leak. However, I have no idea where to find these parts. If anyone has any suggestions... I'm all ears!
How I would do it differently:
It's amazing how much you learn when you build a racecar, and how many things you think "I'll never do that again/I'd do that differently next time". In this case I really hated the "firewall" box around the surge tank. If I were to do it differently I'd have bought a smaller surge tank and mounted it under the car, and skipped the firewall OR I would have bought holley hydramat for the stock tank, and switch to an external fuel pump to mount under the car and skip the surge tank altogether OR just save for a while and buy a real fuel cell. If the car was a coupe and easy to seal off, I'd consider a surge tank again... but this wasn't super fun. Hopefully it'll work well on track and I'll forget about the pain in the butt that this project was!
Installed the new vent for mock up. Should be able to weld the vent tube on the filler neck in it's final location soon, then test filling fuel. Excited to see how much faster it fuels, and how much fuel I can fit in the tank from empty!
Vent welded to filler neck. I swear I'm a good welder when welding flat on a workbench, sitting in a recliner.
Mounted, with new vent line connected. Need to find a really good way to protect this rubber hose from chaffing on the steel body.
And... new parts arrived! Only not the fun exciting kind.
This blinking light is probably the hardest expenditure for me to get over, of all the things I've bought to get into racing ($700
). I keep hoping there will be some new innovation to make transponders $50, but it keeps not happening. For some reason it made the most sense to buy the most expensive version possible, direct power non-subscription. Oh well, just need to make it 14 races before I break even!
Wow, this car is rad. Great thread!
In reply to tperkins :
Thanks man!!
Making progress slowly but surely. Kind of need to up the productivity level soon. Next month my wife will be doing a Track Night at PIR, and the car needs to be ready by then. Not a ton to do, but I need to wrap up the whole surge tank project, Fix the loose steering that developed during last race, try to re-position the seat for a person 1' shorter than me, set up her IMSA helmet kit in her new helmet, and do lots and lots of test driving. After being thrown in the car with about 5 minutes notice last race, and then managing traffic with 50+ cars on track for over an hour, my wife decided she never wants to be that under prepared again. She wants to do a track night where she can focus on driving good, and getting faster, without worrying about yahoos going 20 seconds a lap faster and dive bombing in every corner. Thankfully she can fit in XS stuff, and we found a new/old stock Alpinestars FIA suit for her for $180. So she spent less and has a nicer suit than anyone on the team.
Next, I'm finally getting the fuel system wrapped up. The vent that I added (see previous post) seems to have worked brilliantly. I buttoned it all up, and dumped fuel in. With double the vents in the tank, each 5 gallon hunsaker dumped in about 45 seconds. I think the 1"x.5" reducer at the end of the hose is the real restriction now, and it could probably fuel alot faster if I replaced it with a 1" piece of aluminum. BUT THE REAL GOOD NEWS IS: I dumped 3 whole cans in! So before, when the tank was completely full I could pump out only 13.1 gallons (it's advertised as a 14 gallon tank). I was able to dump in 15 gallons, and with the new vent, it fills right up into the filler neck. 
I confirmed that this is actually the capacity by pumping all of the fuel out the fuel sample port. It pumped out approximately 15 gallons, +/- .1 gal. This is nearly +2 gallons!
Huge benefit! Before we could only use about 10 gallons in 70 minutes before the car was stumbling so bad we'd have to pit. Assuming the surge tank works, and we can use all of our fuel (of course there's a fine line between using your fuel, and getting towed back to the pits), napkin math tells me we'll get another 35 minutes for a total of an 1 hour 45 stints. This is huge, and will reduce at least the amount of stops we have to make by 1 in a race. This is right on the line of being able to make a 7 hour work in 3 stops, which is what the top cars are doing.
More soon!
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