Asphalt_Gundam - G body that turns

Live Stream happened to follow my fastest lap. Starts about the 1:20 mark

Wet lap, Damp lap, Mostly dry lap. Gopro and Cataylst video. I only curse twice!

Lap from Gingerman during GridLife spring Kickoff. 

I shot this pic before I left GingerMan Friday night, wondering if it was you. A quick glance thru the thread tells me "no", but I'll post it anyway because it's cool to see people are racing them

In reply to P3PPY :

Not me but the Motorstate Challenge is definately more likely to get a few G bodys.

I was getting ready for Gridlife Alpine Horizon this last weekend and had a private test day at Black River Motorsports Park (name pending) thanks to Brian aka Greenlightfilming on Youtube/Instagram. He recently purchased the an abandoned racetrack with a small asphalt oval, dirt oval, and good chunk of land. We set up an autocross of sorts on the oval and I ran 2-3 laps then switched direction for 2-3 lap. Test tire pressure and temps (yeah, I figured I'm serious enough a pyrometer was in order) then make adjustments and test again. Was great back to back testing and I finally had the opportunity to remove the rear sway bar without competition in the balance if it didn't work. Know I was the weakest link in speed has kept me more focused on the driving over setup when at the track. 

Well removing the rear sway bar did something all right! Noticeably faster with a whole lot more off corner traction. I added 2 clicks of compression into the shocks to offset the expected extra body roll and ended up being real happy with it there. Was able to get rear tire temps pretty even across the face and I was consistently seeing temps that pointed to too much camber on the drivers front...not by much but it had a 20-30 degree spread when the passenger front was 10 or less. Overall an excellent day and I'd guess a solid 1-2 second improvement at a big track from what I found. 

Brian took a bunch of video and we did a quick overview of the car. Video coming soon!

Here's a link to his Youtube and a vid of the track he purchased. 

GreenLightFilming - YouTube

Just saw a photo of your car over on the Twitter.

Love this build! Definitely will be stealing, I mean borrowing some of your ideas on the front suspension. 

And again on Twitter, courtesy of Bradley 'Radwood' Brownell.

The Video from the test day. Please excuse my shirt...(first thing I said was I wish I'd brought an extra) it was 95 degrees and about the same humidity and I had just spend 3hr in/out/under the car. Greenlightfilming did an excellent job on this. Check out his Youtube page for more videos on the abandoned race track he purchased and let me use for this testing session. 

Cool, few posts on Twitter. I had a pretty endless stream of people coming by to check out the car out at Alpine Horizon. Didn't have a great weekend with a fuel pump going out, having to rip the trans out to fix a shift fork, and destroying both front tires....but I did score my first season points being 8 seconds off the leader. I'm a bit disappointed about it though as it was because of the short track length and because of the altitude I was in reality 4 seconds slower than at Autobahn by comparison. Recap video to come.

^YouTube recommended that video two nights ago even though I haven't watched very similar content on that device. Must be hot!

In reply to GCrites80s :

Yeah, Greenlightfilming's channel has nearly doubled in subs in the last week. Apparently there's plenty of people who find the restoration of an abandoned racetrack worth watching (I enjoy it). Those vids of his are the highest views of anything on his channel.

The ups and downs of my weekend racing at Pikes Peak International Raceway during GridLife Alpine Horizon Festival. 

From being quick out of the gate to broken parts, at the track repairs, horse shoe lucky and going faster. 

Photo dump from Alpine Horizon

There was a whole lotta this over the weekend. The people of Colorado seem to love the G body more than anywhere else. Steady stream of looks, questions, words of support and just plain overall interest in the car.

I also observed some light painting that was going on around a Datsun 280Z. Got to talking with the Tyler Moore who was doing it because I've been interested in this style for a few years now. He gave me a quick lesson on how its done with lighting, movement, and exposure time. The next night he came by and did some with the Cutlass. Tyler is also the guy who did all the awesome light painting pics from last year's Alpine Horizon too.  Check him out on Instagram @mechnmorephotography or www.mechnmoorephotography.com

These are just Awesome!!

In reply to 759NRNG (Forum Partidario) :

X4 mean looking great budget fab work and I love that you kept the chrome!

Finally have a proper race seat however the shipper completely destroyed the box and it showed up only in a plastic bag....with the back side covered in scratches.

Worked it out with the dealer for a steep discount which is helping me finish tooling out the travel box for at the track so that's a plus at least.

Thinking this would be a fast swap was a mistake. Took 3 redesigns of the chassis side bracket in order to get it fit correctly. Worth it though as there's is nearly no movement in the seat compared to previous seat/bracket.

Other happenings recently are the 3-4 shift fork pin fell out again at Powercruise USA. A permanent fix for this will be a threaded bolt/pin or setscrews once I get the transmission back out as well as new 3&4 synchros.

Found play in the upper A arms from wear. They're not rebuildable bushings, so the new set will be bearings instead so that rebuild is an option in the future. 

I also scored 4 12ftx4ft sheets of .062 aluminum for cheap so a proper rear diffuser and some better (aero wise) side skirts will soon be in the works.

In reply to asphalt_gundam :

Man what a properly done build thread

asphalt_gundam said:

In reply to GCrites80s :

Yeah, Greenlightfilming's channel has nearly doubled in subs in the last week. Apparently there's plenty of people who find the restoration of an abandoned racetrack worth watching (I enjoy it). Those vids of his are the highest views of anything on his channel.

I've followed him since the first bought a race track vid. He is living my dream. How I wish for an old track like his or an old municipal airport...and a tire sponser.

In reply to preach (fs) :

Between tires and fuel I'd go bankrupt if a racetrack was in the back yard...

Pulled the transmission again to permanently fix the pin falling out of the 3/4 fork. Tapped through as far as I could with a 1/4-20 then cut a taper on the bolt and put in with red loc-tite. Top and bottom of bolt also thread jam slightly so it's not going anywhere.

Finished installing the new bearing type JOE'S Racing upper control arms. This different style required some clearancing of the mounts to fit and have full motion. Need to reset the alignment tonight and will be taking out a couple degrees of caster. Then load up in preparation for GridLife @ Heartland Motorsports Park this weekend.

Are you taking out caster to help the low-speed, sharp turning?

In reply to GCrites80s :

I'm taking some out because have a suspicion that there's too much. Reasons being that I have been a bit let down in the feel of the tires this year (I thought there would be more grip). The tire failure of the inside edge suggests toe or camber problems but neither is excessive. However I have a LOT of caster so perhaps the problem lies in when the wheel is turned. I saw even tire temps in auto X testing but the road course generates more heat and different loads. I was around 10/11 degrees of caster (goal was getting enough camber in the turns) and pulling some shims and putting the new arms in it measures 8 degrees at 3/4 turn check points. Another downfall for me is last alignment check I had to fight it over and over as it just wasn't repeating and I couldn't figure out why...so I wouldn't be shocked if it was all messed up. The new arms repeat perfectly so it seems the wear in the old ones was the problem. The biggest factor could be the tire/aero/shock changes over last year. The car clearly pulls significantly more lateral G which is likely working the suspension more and getting extra camber gain over last year from that....or the shocks limit movement more and it doesn't need the extra gain...probably a combination.

I'll see how it does Friday at Heartland. Might take a few more shims out and get down to 6 degrees caster for a test. At PPIR I was not pleased with the car as the balance was messed up on top of the tire/trans failures. Heartland I'll be back to full power so that may fix the understeer but I might spend all weekend just trying to get the car balanced again. Bringing everything in case I need to full reset to Autobahn setup.

Hmm yeah, I've never heard of 10-11 degrees of caster. But since you have made so many changes it's hard to tell where things "should" be. How is the Ackermann on these cars? Third Gen F-bodies don't have enough.

In reply to GCrites80s :

My custom upper A arms add around 6 degrees plus any shimming I have in there. Ackerman I don't know how much. Not something I've measured yet but its on the list of things to check. Starting to really look at dialing in the setup. For instance "fast 8" at Heartland Motorsports Park last weekend seems to have had me into the bump stops pretty hard which would explain fighting the understeer. As I keep softening up the shocks I see the rears are getting very close to bottoming out too. Just a few of the many things I'll be looking at and changing/fixing before GridLife Midwest Fest in a little over 2 weeks.

The Seat install video and a little Heartland Motorsports Park teaser at the end. That video I'll get working on soon.