1gn Neon SRT-4 Swap for RallyX

Woot:

AMR Engineering has come through and the new suspension arrived today. Adjustable camber plates for the fronts, regular pillow mounts for the rear!

Right off the bat, I managed to snap one of the top mount studs on one of the front struts and then while putting the rear on, I found that the hard-line section of the left-rear brake hose was weakened when it snapped off. Also, the wheel cylinder on that side appears to be a little leaky.

I already had all the parts on the shelf to put new shoes and drums on, so I did that on the right side and I'll need to run out and get a new brake hose and wheel cylinder so I can finish up the left side. Other than that, all four coilovers are installed. I'm pretty sure I'm going to need to get everything leveled out, but I think I've got it all set at about 0 degree of camber for now, assuming the car is actually level as it sits at the moment.

Brand new drum brakes are installed and adjusted. The chassis has about 80-95k on it (the speedo was broken for a while before I managed to get it fixed so I'm not 100% sure) and the drum brakes really didn't need to be replaced. I only put new parts on there because I got a good deal on Rock Auto and I had to take the left side apart to replace the wheel cylinder anyway. The adjuster arm, or whatever it's called, was a particular pain in the rear to get set properly. Typically, I do not find drums difficult or tiring to work on, but for some reason, every time I pulled the emergency brake handle or hit the brake pedal, the adjuster arm would pop out of place. I think that what finally solved the problem was tightening up the adjustment and taking most of the slack out of the system.

To get the ebrake working really well, I set it to the top of its travel and then cranked the adjuster screw as far as I could. Then I released the brake and gave the adjuster another half-turn or so. The rear wheels don't drag, but the brake grabs quickly and strongly - just what I'll need to rotate the rear of the car in the dirt. Until I get around to figuring out how to install a hydraulic handbrake. And actually buying said handbrake. Details.

Speaking of details, the AMR Engineering suspension is just magical. It is beautifully crafted, simple to install, and amazeballs on the road. In my lifetime, I've driven three vehicles that handled better than the Neon does with this new suspension set down as low as it goes: K1 Speed karts, Full Throttle karts, and Xhilliracing karts. Being me, I set the dampers to full hard, dropped the car as low as I could get it, and took a drive. Before I made it the half mile out of my subdivision, I honestly thought I was going to vomit from the rough ride. But holy crap did it handle! It seemed like no matter how much I turned the wheel, the car would just keep turning. I can't imagine what it would be like with decent tires and higher spring rates!

For Saturday, though, I've got the car raised up about as far as I think I want it and I covered the threads with tape to keep them from getting nasty. I considered anti-seize, but I'm a little worried about that collecting a bunch of crud. I just got a call from the tire place and the new tires are mounted up and ready for me. It'll be awesome to get back in the saddle!

wae wrote: ...It'll be awesome to get back in the saddle!

...if the weather holds out.

In reply to Jerry:

I'm prepared for all contingencies, myself

Edit: 43 entries!!! And some new names. And a name I haven't seen in about 17 years

We decided to not postpone, with this many entrants we will have to keep it running smooth to finish before thunderstorms.

I had the car out a week ago and it was running a little warm, but once I got stuck in traffic it was game over. I wound up shutting it down, leaving it in a parking lot, and coming back for it after about 6 hours. I dumped a gallon of 50/50 in it and it made it home with no problems in the cool night air and no traffic. It actually seems like the temperature starts to climb if the fans are on, so I'm going to try to build a shroud to see if that helps. As long as the coolant hasn't boiled out, it seems to cool okay when it's moving. There's room for improvement and I'm going to add an airdam and block off some of the spots where air can get around the radiator, but if I could at least get some umpf from the fans, I think I can get it under control.

The only aluminum sheet that I could find in a size that I could use was some diamond plate stuff. Not my favorite thing, but whatever. Adding some aluminum angle to that, I built a tray that goes up against the edges of the radiator:

There's almost no gap around the edges and it's a fairly tight interference fit as it sits right now. The aluminium bits are riveted together and it's fairly rigid, despite the diamond plate aluminum only being something like 25 gauge.

The blades on the fans are about 10" in diameter, so I marked out the rough outline on the plate:

I drilled a hole smack in the center and then put two holes 5" apart in a strip of cardboard. Setting a rivet in the center hole as a post, I used my makeshift compass to mark my hole and then tried to cut. The metal shears really doesn't want to work in anything but a mostly straight line, so I wound up attacking it with an angle grinder that really didn't have the right cutting wheel for aluminium. But it's okay enough:

My night ended when I found that I lacked any nut-bolt combinations that were the right length to bolt the fans on. I also need to get some flat aluminum bar stock to make four posts to slide into the bottom keepers and then four tabs to use as the bolt-throughs for the top (the radiator is sort of upside down in the following picture). Mocking it up, it looks like:

I should have that wrapped up tonight after a quick run to the hardware store. Then I'm going to zip off a strip of the diamond plate to attach to the bottom of the core support as an airdam and use a little left over coroplast to block off some of the flow around the radiator. Hopefully that will do it and I haven't put any holes in the radiator with the zip-tie fan mounting!

Let me know if you want some garden edging. It holds up a lot better to Rallycross abuse than metal. Somewhere, I also have a factory airdam, it's so small, I doubt it would get damaged racing.

Could you use a pair of Corbeau seat mount brackets? I found a pair while cleaning out the garage. They came from my brother's old Neon when he had racing seats in it briefly. I thought I'd ask before tossing them on eBay or Craigslist.

eastsidemav wrote: Let me know if you want some garden edging. It holds up a lot better to Rallycross abuse than metal. Somewhere, I also have a factory airdam, it's so small, I doubt it would get damaged racing.

That's a pretty good idea. I was going to use the aluminum sheet simply because I have it and those metal shears are so fun to use. If you've got some extra let me know. Was it a particular type or size or is that stuff all pretty much the same?

Stefan wrote: Could you use a pair of Corbeau seat mount brackets? I found a pair while cleaning out the garage. They came from my brother's old Neon when he had racing seats in it briefly. I thought I'd ask before tossing them on eBay or Craigslist.

Oh, I could totally use those! Before I started running down this cooling issue my next project was going to be a pair of Corbeaus. Let me know what you want for them and I'll take them off your hands.

wae wrote:

eastsidemav wrote: Let me know if you want some garden edging. It holds up a lot better to Rallycross abuse than metal. Somewhere, I also have a factory airdam, it's so small, I doubt it would get damaged racing.

That's a pretty good idea. I was going to use the aluminum sheet simply because I have it and those metal shears are so fun to use. If you've got some extra let me know. Was it a particular type or size or is that stuff all pretty much the same?

I think it's mostly the same. I just bought a 25 foot roll of it, probably still have enough for another 4 or so airdams on the roll. Feel free to stop by and snag some of it. I suggest making two, just in case we race at Opie's again, you may want a spare.

So last night I did get the fans bolted up to the shroud and I built the mounting brackets and got them riveted on. With the shroud bolted up to the radiator, I went ahead and tried to slide it in front of the engine and I'm right back where I started. It doesn't fit due to the throttle body being right where the back of the fan needs to be.

The slim fans fit a little bit better, but I went ahead and took the angle grinder to the core support. It still isn't fitting quite right, but I should be able to get it crammed in there in time for the event this Saturday.

eastsidemav wrote:

wae wrote:

eastsidemav wrote: Let me know if you want some garden edging. It holds up a lot better to Rallycross abuse than metal. Somewhere, I also have a factory airdam, it's so small, I doubt it would get damaged racing.

That's a pretty good idea. I was going to use the aluminum sheet simply because I have it and those metal shears are so fun to use. If you've got some extra let me know. Was it a particular type or size or is that stuff all pretty much the same?

I think it's mostly the same. I just bought a 25 foot roll of it, probably still have enough for another 4 or so airdams on the roll. Feel free to stop by and snag some of it. I suggest making two, just in case we race at Opie's again, you may want a spare.

Sweet! Thanks!

Let me tell you the tale of a moron and how he bumbles through life, creating unnecessary work everywhere and fixing things until they're well and truly broken!

My clue should have been that on the highway, I was reading increased temps when the cooling fans were running but the coolant would start dropping in temperature as soon as I shut the fans down and just drove. At stoplights, I found that the fans would sort of maintain the temperature but not really drop it dramatically like the old stock ones would. As the ambient temperatures made their seasonal rise, that's when the big overheating incident happened which led me to an assumption that I needed to shroud the fans.

Let me pause right there and ask: How many times have I posted on this very forum that it's almost always the simple thing? Check those first. How many RVs do I need to catch on fire before I teach myself to always look for horses when I hear hooves?

So far, I've done a bunch of cutting and bending and hammering and drilling to make clearance for the new shrouded fans. At this point, I need to make new radiator mounting brackets and the step bit that I'm using is pretty well worn so it needs all the power I can give it to basically burn through the metal. As I let the drill battery charge, I thought it might be nice to see how much pull the fans had now that they were shrouded. When I mounted them up, I could feel the air moving behind them, but I didn't really look that closely. While I waited, then, I hooked up the power cable and flipped the switch. Still lots of air movement behind the fans, but not much suction on the front of the radiator.

At the moment I had the sensation that I was seeing something important, but my conscious mind couldn't nail down what it was. Looking deliberately at everything, I noticed a bit of electrical tape that had come unwound from its wires and there was something odd about it. Despite the fans being on and pushing air, that tape was stuck to the back of the fan. Pulling it off, I found that it wasn't an adhesive holding it in place. Sure enough, the fans were wired backwards, pushing air from the engine compartment forward.

The fans. Wired backwards. Pushing hot air into the radiator.

Hours of cutting, drilling, grinding, measuring (usually in that order, of course).

Literally tens of dollars of materials.

The fans were wired backwards.

So, I'm going to go ahead and get the radiator secured. I'll fill it up with coolant again and pin the hood down. The mud tires will be brought home and swapped on and the car will get put on the trailer for the RallyX tomorrow. I did find something that looked like a boost leak and fixed it while I was in there, so maybe that will be an advantage to come from all this.

But the problem was that the fans were wired backwards.

In reply to wae:

They don't have the adjustable sliders, so, $50? plus shipping?

In reply to wae:

That sounds an awful lot like something I'd do.

At least you eventually figured it out!

In reply to Stefan:

That sounds great! I sent you a PM-mail.

Well, the cooling system seemed to work well now that the fans are blowing the right direction. I can't really judge the suspension yet, though, because I snapped a stupid CV joint halfway through the first run of the day.

Another CV joint, I guess I should say.

I've got a few different options to consider:

• Modern Performance has the DSS axles plus new hubs for about $850 plus shipping.

• There's a Canadian company that builds axles for a rally-prepped SRT-4 for what I'm told is not a ton of money, so I need to reach out to them

• Or a third possibility that I hadn't considered.

I gave an outfit called Constant Velocity of Ocala a ring this morning and talked to who I assume is the proprietor for a while and he learned me some stuff. Obviously he can build me anything that my checkbook can support, but he thinks that my real problem is that I'm over-steering. Not like in the handling term, but that the wheels are turning past the point that any CV joint would be able to sustain. His theory is that even if he built me a $500 bomb-diggity axle I would still snap it when I'm at lock or approaching it. His recommendation was to first calculate what my overall angle on the joint is at full droop and full lock and if it's over about 47 degrees, there's pretty much no hope for any CV. Based on the amount of power that I think I'm putting to the wheels, he's pretty confident that if I found a set of original OEM axles in a junkyard somewhere, he could rebuild them for me for not a whole ton of cash and they'd be good to go.

It's very unlikely that I'd be able to get that done between now and the next scheduled OVR RallyX event, so my current plan is to replace the failed axle with a regular FLAPS one (it should have a lifetime warranty at one of the local stores). Once the axle is replaced, I can get the car off the trailer and into the garage and I'm going to attempt to fabricate a steering stop. Right now I don't have the slightest clue how I'm going to go about that, but let's worry about one problem at a time, shall we?

Steering stop goes in the rack. One on each side. Think washers around the rack. One of the MI stage rally documented building some for their VW a few years ago. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Edit: And if you still drive like you did a few years ago, you are over-steering :)

2nd Edit: found a hint of it here . . bentmettleracing steering stops

3rd edit: And here is a kit for BMWs. Looks pretty simple. BMW rack stop kit

PM sent about the axles.

Yep. I never apply max power at more than half lock for this reason. Not necessarily the fastest way around sometimes but it lets me finish runs and drive home.

And if the engine is boinging around under the hood, that will also destroy CVs.

Knurled wrote: Yep. I never apply max power at more than half lock for this reason. Not necessarily the fastest way around sometimes but it lets me finish runs and drive home.

+1

I haven't destroyed axles in a few years now, probably because I tend not to get on the power until the wheels are mostly straight, even if it does lose me some time.

One other thought - you probably don't want the axles to be able to take more torque than the gearbox...

I'm pretty sure the engine and trans are not bouncing around much as I've got them pretty solidly mounted. There may some side to side movement, but I doubt it.

I totally lack the discipline to self limit my steering. Man's got to know his limitations, right? Having the Shadow steering rack also means that I can get to the rack's lock that much faster, too. I'll check out those stops in the meantime though so I can stop breaking things while I try to retrain myself.

In reply to FooBag:

Thanks for the info! I'm going to give those guys a call as soon as I get a free minute.