Betsy the B2300- Bluej's Build

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

Betsy seems to be doing just fine, although a little coolant did boil over a couple times when I stopped for fuel straight off the highway.  I think it's probably not a big deal but will definitely be keeping an eye on the cooling system.

Time for a new radiator cap?  If it's anything like the system on my wife's old 2001 Escape, the cap controls the overflow, and our cap was letting coolant out long before it was supposed to.

bluej said:

2.5 Duratec cleaned up ready to go in w/ all the Ranger accessories/bits on, or to come:

 

Did the motor mounts and brackets just bolt on?  What sort of things did you have to do to get it to drop in?

bluej said:

The previous build background post left us off at the end of 2017.  {... ...}

FYI, I went through and unbolded your text.  Well, as much as I could... there's something screwy going on, where I can't "unbold" the first letter of each line.  Free "new dad" service from the Buffalo.

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

bluej said:

The previous build background post left us off at the end of 2017.  {... ...}

FYI, I went through and unbolded your text.  Well, as much as I could... there's something screwy going on, where I can't "unbold" the first letter of each line.  Free "new dad" service from the Buffalo.

 

Thanks, bud. I used a google doc to write the post, then posted it, then went back and inserted those images into the google dock so I could print that to insert the pdf versions into the indesign package for the build book. It was complicated, and is why I'm just now sending it to the kinkos near the host hotel for Chris to pick up.

In reply to bluej :

Thanks for the detail... gives me something to test out a debug sometime 

In reply to 95maxrider :

Cuss. A lot. 

bluej said:

In reply to 95maxrider :

Cuss. A lot. 

Yeah, that's how I usually get difficult things to work as well.

Betsy is now a racecar:

niccccceeeee

w00t!

My day in time slips:

I'm reasonably certain that these represent everything Betsy had to offer, so I'm happy.

Not bad!

I think Betsy should be dubbed "Mazda Muscle Truck"

Since I don't know how to download from Instagram, here's a screenshot of Betsy.

Betsy landed in 41st out of 57- not too shabby!  A 14 in the concours helped for sure instead of taking a "don't judge me" default 12 points.  I think it's also 10th in gastropod?

I've made it to Georgia and am going to get some sleep so I can finish the remaining 12 hours of the drive well rested.  Better writep of the whole event after I get home.

GRM Challenge 2019

I packed Betsy full of wheels, tools, parts, a drum set, and camping gear and made it most of the way down on Wednesday, camping at Jekyll Island and finally rolling into the host hotel parking lot late Thursday morning.  Upon arriving I was immediately put to work on Pat's Parking Lot Build AMG.

"You guys just watched me fail to install nitrous on a relatively simple 4cyl pickup truck, you really want me to do it on this Mercedes?"

"Tools are over there."

So I did that, and as I finished up with the nitrous I got an email with a PDF of our build book in it, so I drove to FedEx and had that printed. 

Then returned to the parking lot, unloaded a bucket of turbos for the CRX team, and exchanged my C5 "Stampie coins" for a few beverages at the parking lot bar.  When registration opened I went and got Betsy's decal package and installed it- the windshield banner really sucked and left a lot of empty space so I spent some extra time using trimmings from the door decals to fill in the voids at the top of the windshield:  

Then I went back over to help finish the other Parking Lot Build, Jeremy (pimpm3)'s Camaro, by giving it a quick tape measure alignment.  At this point most other people had arrived, and I remember lots of people milling around with beers in their hand as I stuck my head under the car, and Pete Gossett asked "Can you ever just... not work on something?"

We got the alignment done and I hung out in the parking lot until the wee hours greeting other Gastropod competitors, enjoying delicious food fresh off John Hoops' grill, talking rally Toyotas with Steve Stafford, and later hanging around while Robbie and Ian stained the AMC wings and applied decals.

Jeremy offered me the extra bed in his room so I didn't have to sleep on Michael (dusterbd13)'s floor.

GRM Challenge 2019 Dynamic Events

After getting up early for the usual breakfast table automotive bullE36 M3ting, I headed to the track and unloaded Betsy, parking between Bob(zilla)'s Hyundai and Brian (Indyguy)'s Jag, as well as near the high school V6 MR2 of Michael (fladiver) and Blackfin Racing.

Figuring that hotter temperatures weren't going to help Betsy go fast, I got on course as soon as it opened and did a run, set the tire pressures, and handed the keys ver to Danny Shields to lay down a fast time.  He got a 51.1x and seemed pretty impressed with how well Betsy handles- I believe the exact words were "this is a great little truck."

Then I did my remaining runs, getting closer to Danny's time but unable to improve on it.  Out of runs, I parked Betsy and set about trying to help with various other vehicles including the AMC, both first and second generation MR2s, the NX2000, and at some point also lost my drumset- it turned out that Pete was so excited to have his new van that he couldn't wait to fill it with music gear, and saved me the trouble of moving it myself.

When fun runs opened, I did a run in the NX2000 (pretty fun) and two in the Camaro (extremely fun, especially when driven for "more sideways" instead of "better time").  Then Pete and I went and set up our music gear partway down the drag strip for later before having some dinner under the pavilion with the other competitiors.

The first person down the drag strip was Don Garlits in a Hellcat Redeye.  The second was Calvin Nelson in a Sunbird.  Calvin was faster- it was a beautiful thing to behold.  I lined up shortly after and managed a 17.8x with Betsy: 

Knowing I had pulled off several faster runs in testing, I went back a few times, including one absurd pass next to the Sunbird which had me convinced I was moving backwards for a moment, but couldn't even break 18 again despite some of the best launches I've ever managed- Besty just didn't have any more to give in the muggy, humid Florida air I guess, although we weren't the slowest so that felt like an accomplishment.  Pete and I played music until the track shut the lights off on us, at one point being given money by a spectator and later joined by David Wallens on guitar as well.

After being kicked out of the track we all headed back to the hotel, hung out at Stampie's parking lot bar again, and I eventually went to bed around 2am when I realized that I had been left alone with the Hongs and was no longer safe.

GRM Challenge 2019 Concours

Standard GRM Challenge drill- 5hrs sleep, up again for breakfast, talk car stuff, get back to the track.  After being convinced by Florida_Man and Pete, I set the drum kit up in the bed in my Concours spot for visual effect (there wasn't enough room to really assemble it, and it would have been too loud anyway) and milled around watching other presentations, seeing what had happened to other people's cars at the drags (dusterbd13's Miata- "that diff mount looks like Seth's collarbone!"), and generally feeling antsy about how to present what appeared to be a stock pickup truck to a group of judges who had just seen things like Datsaniti only minutes prior.

When it was my turn, I gave a presentation that hopefully impressed with how well the truck fit the Gastropod spirit, how much stuff I'd been able to bring, how clean and factory looking the engine swap was, and how well the various suspension tweaks made it handle.  I said my last word seconds before the timer went off, and was rewarded with a 14 for my efforts which I was more than happy with.

Tacos, town hall, and packing up rounded out the rest of the afternoon before I went back to the hotel.

At the banquet, I was narrowly beaten for "longest drive" by the guy with the Astra (1200 miles each way, bravo!) and enjoyed more silly vehicle and engineering conversation with my fellow competitors.  "This dinner table could put together some sort of bullE36 M3 Ocean's Eleven if we wanted to" was the theme of the evening.  Then I got to see everybody win awesome stuff, up to a standing ovation for Travis and Datsaniti, talked a bit more, and eventually berkeleyed off into the night for a long trip home.  I love the challenge, you guys are the best.

Nice to meet you Chris!  Great job having fun and bringing the truck home in one piece. It was fun watching the Camaro drift the course and you laughing about the quicker time!

Betsy is awesome!

I saw the windshield banner during concours and thought, "oh E36 M3, that's what I should have done with mine." Filling in the gaps really did help the appearance. I tried and failed to stretch mine out to make it meet the curves, ended up with it halfway on the roof in the middle lol.

In reply to Lof8 - Andy :

Nice meeting you too, and congrats on the fastest non-pro autocross time!

In reply to slowbird :

So now what the magazine should do is probably take note for next year and leave us a nice big white section at the top of the banner to trim off... right?

You were definitely one of the highlights of the challenge for me. It was truly a pleasure to hang out with you in the trailer during the rain. You have a roommate or floor or whatever next go round if you can tolerate team bad idea again (i fully realize that i am slightly socially inept and quite possibly an shiny happy person)

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Thanks!  Maybe I'll take you up on the floor offer if I'm feeling cheap again next year, and you know you've got a place to stay if you ever find yourself passing through eastern Pennsylvania.  I always come away from the challenge feeling like we should all hang out more, and also like it's very good for our collective safety that we don't. 

All loaded up to return Betsy and attempt to ride Pablo Pegaso back home:

I'm going to miss having this little truck around, we went on a pretty excellent adventure together.  Thanks again to bluej for the opportunity to take this gastrotruck to the challenge this year, and to everyone else who helped make that possible.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ said:

All loaded up to return Betsy and attempt to ride Pablo Pegaso back home:

I'm going to miss having this little truck around, we went on a pretty excellent adventure together.  Thanks again to bluej for the opportunity to take this gastrotruck to the challenge this year, and to everyone else who helped make that possible.

good stuff. I'm secretly hoping the truck shows up at our season-finale rallycross in two weeks, just to add another check in the box of "motorsports done". 

FYI, depending on the eec "catch code", it's tuneable by either eec analyzer, sct, or HPTuners and all through the obd2 port.

The explorer rack swap has been done before. It just was in the long gone rangerpowersports forums. And to remove from the ex, you just have to shove the rack as far is it will go to the passenger side to get the outer tierod out of the pocket there in the frame. It will then slide out the drivers side.

If you really want to have one of these tanks handle, put on a rear bar from an older 4x4 with the 2wd endlinks.