In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I think if it's thin enough to flex like that, I don't see how it could offer much protection for impact. Really think you need to go thicker if protection is your end game.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I think if it's thin enough to flex like that, I don't see how it could offer much protection for impact. Really think you need to go thicker if protection is your end game.
lnlogauge said:In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
I think if it's thin enough to flex like that, I don't see how it could offer much protection for impact. Really think you need to go thicker if protection is your end game.
The stuff under my rally car is THICK (maybe 1/4"). And it's definitely saved my ass (or, more accurately, my codriver's ass) from substantial damage. That said, I have some of the thinner stuff as splashguards wrapping up from the sides of my skidplate and they seem to have held up well over a couple years of abuse. However, they're not taking direct impacts from anything.
Chris, is the intent to protect from impact damage, or more from "sandblasting" damage? IDK how vulnerable the BRZ floors are (the e30 floors are VERY vulnerable to rock hits).
I want to keep rocks from "grabbing" the unibody pieces and slamming into them- I have the 1/4" stuff under the gas tank and adding steel to the floors would be lighter than covering them with that, it's HEAVY. Hoping this will spread the load of any smaller impacts and keep big stuff from ripping the metal, I'm aware that the floor will still be doing a lot of the work here. To be honest it had very little damage until the last Rausch Creek event, where we hit a number of very large hidden rocks in the mud.
If this stuff doesn't hold up or help I'll just double skin the floor with some extra steel under the seats and call it good enough, that's the only area that took real damage.
There is really only one way to find out... Scientific study!
Looks like it should work as intended honestly. If may help cleaning the underside a bit easier after muddy rally events as well. Could even wax it so that it takes longer before mud starts to build up!
In reply to DjGreggieP :
I actually got some dirt tracker mud release agent stuff to try, but I'm a little afraid of what will happen if it makes its' way onto the tires.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
They'll just stay clean. No big deal, right? Everyone likes clean tires.
I would THINK that the stuff would wear off of the bits that contact the ground, and stay in the bits where dirt and mud would normally collect.
From my rallycross PAM-on-the-tires experiment, it is really greasy until it wears off the bits that contact the ground.
Added some foam to keep stuff out, and a few more weld nuts and fasteners to the front of the plastic underbody stuff. This also has tape over it now to keep water out:
Then it was on to my ice tire prep experiments- a real tractionizer is expensive at over $1k and this little "tire needler" thing was pretty cheap on black friday so I figured I'd try to do a little DIY tractionizing (if you're going "WTF is tractionizing" and have 2min you can watch this video):
I took the pad off a jack and clamped it on, and hoisted it into the tire (a used Blizzak I got cheap to mess with) and while it does poke into the tread like a real tractionizer, it doesn't really chew the tread up like a big roller style one does. I decided to call this a dumb idea and abandon it at this point in favor of spending some time with the groover/siper.
So I flipped the blade over in the grooving iron to make it cut two sipes and got to work:
I basically tried to cut around the tread, and at an angle perpendicular to the sipes in the middle-ish blocks, giving me a pattern sort of like this:
The sipes are so narrow you can't see them unless you push on the tire with something:
If we get the right snowy/icy conditions I'm planning to test these back to back with some fresh unaltered Blizzaks- they're all WS80s, the 4 up top are new from a closeout sale and that pair on the bottom has the siping experiment:
I also have a set of 4 Altimax Arctic 12s which make a better snow tire than the more ice-specific Blizzaks, and a pair of original Winterforces I can throw on the rear in case things get really snowy- but I anticipate mostly polished ice at Sno*Drift since we'll be far enough back in the order that a lot of cars will have already been through by the time we get to a given section of road.
In reply to irish44j (Forum Supporter) :
yeah I use 3/16ths thickness myself and Chris' looks far cleaner install than mine.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
I used an according-to-Hoyle tractionizer on Greenhouse's Neon the one year at Sno*Drift. Mostly it just kept me from getting to sleep until 2am. Also got to see Pastrami doing handbrake u-turns on the road where we were staying.
I have seen good results from people using a chainsaw to spin the tire. That strikes me as a good way to find oneself in an ER.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I would posit that if one must go to the ER to find oneself, then perhaps a re-evaluation of ones life is in order...
I completely forgot to mention in the above tire post- studded tires aren't legal on Michigan roads, hence Sno*Drift's unusual situation of having to use studless street tires for a winter rally. Not the worst thing since they're cheap, especially compared to a studded WRC spec tire.
you clearly have more patience than I do :)
Replaced a front control arm:
Everything still felt fine but the bushing did this, which seems to be what they do when they get hit hard enough. It's still good enough to keep as a spare:
Then I moved on to making a strut tower brace, which I've been meaning to do for a while now. Box tubing cut up to make the mounts:
And some round 1" tube in between- the towers are too tall to mount this on top without hitting the hood so it goes on the front instead:
A little paint and some nuts tacked inside the towers and it installs like it's meant to be there. Between the cage tie-ins, the factory firewall braces, and this bar everything is nice and triangulated to something:
And of course a finishing touch so I remember which way is up:
OK, so somewhat interestingly/annoyingly the ARA Regional Championship now has a cool new Central Region which has messed with our plans for next year a little- we were already planning to run Sno*Drift and 100 Acre Wood but they are no longer in the Eastern Region meaning they're not incredibly useful for championship points. This means that if we want to maximize our Eastern Regional Championship points opportunities our 2022 schedule would be as follows:
And to top it off, Adirondack Gateway Stages (aka the old Black River Stages) is supposed to be back and I'd love to run that again too. 7 rallies is probably too many, but we'll see how it shakes out!
New Year's Eve, new rear control arm bushings. Getting the old ones out of the spare arms required a little creativity:
That worked well for the smaller of the bushings, the larger ones have a weird flange that I attacked with a punch and then twisted them out:
The new polyurethane bushings will hopefully help with the bolt loosening issue we were seeing back there, since they don't flex around the center pivot the same way the stock bonded rubber stuff did:
I swapped those out and will keep the ones from the car as spares.
Also replaced my tool bag since this happened to the original:
It's a really cheap bag so I just ordered a replacement, but it seems like they changed suppliers and looks a little less robust. I covered the back of it with gorilla tape for a bit of abrasion resistance, changed the order of the pockets around to put the hardware in the middle, and moved stuff over:
Packed up:
And changed the wheels around so that we can hopefully test siped vs. unsiped Blizzaks next time we get some snow:
This car exceeded my expectations in 2021, hoping for more of the same in 2022. Happy new year!
Got a link for that tool bag? I need to put together something like that for my LBC trips.
In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :
It's this one but there are a whole bunch of similar ones if you click around.
Today I mostly did trailer maintenance although I also made sure that my dual spare setup works the way it should:
Downey and Sammie have also been at work on general reprep and unberkeleyening the variety of field repairs on the e30:
A little snow overnight means tire testing! No hard numbers, just seat of the pants impressions since I was on backroads, but I'll take what I can get!
Conditions: 2" fresh snow over gravel, temps in the high 20F range. No ice.
Blizzak WS80 front, siped Blizzak WS80 rear: Baseline test, car feels fine but a bit stiff for snow and these tires both front and rear don't like sliding. Braking is excellent as long as you don't slide, lateral grip is meh, acceleration not great.
Blizzak WS80 all around: Better than the siped ones- this is probably because the siped ones are used and the unmodified ones are fresh, and may not having anything to do with the siping. Acceleration is pretty good as long as they're not spinning, these really don't like slip angle in any direction.
Altimax Arctic 12 all around: These seem to be worse than the Blizzaks in terms of overall grip, but are much friendlier when sliding or sideways. Acceleration seems better than the Blizzaks in fresh untracked snow, but braking is definitely worse.
Altimax Arctic 12 front, Winterforce rear: The Winterforces LOVE fresh snow and are by far the happiest tire of this group when sliding/spinning with really predictable behavior, but acceleration and braking are nothing special.
Conclusions: I think the Blizzaks may be the best front tire for this car regardless of conditions thanks to the braking behavior, and I should consider squaring up the shoulders with the groover in an attempt to improve their cornering in deep snow. I should try my old reliable grooving pattern on the Altimaxes from previous sets I used at WMWR and see how much that improves them. The rear tire choice is really a tossup and will definitely be more condition dependent than the fronts- we're going to be near the back of the order anyway so things will probably be pretty icy.
Need to try: Blizzak front/Altimax rear, then probably start experimenting with grooving.
If the snow doesn't all melt today the gravel roads should be nice and frozen later tonight, so I may go out again to see how that changes my impressions.
Well, went out to prerun the roads in our 200k mile Impreza on its' own set of worn Blizzaks and A- there isn't much snow left, and B- there are a lot of sharp rocks and I made a real mess of one of its' tires.
On the upside, I did learn that you can drive about 5 miles on a completely flat Blizzak, which might come in handy.
Cut up the Altimaxes with this pattern:
These are my first set of Arctic 12s as opposed to the original flavor but approximately the same cut pattern, seemed to work well in deeper snow and slush on the old ones:
Good Use of probably Out of date Camlock Belts for the Spare tires!
In reply to slantsix :
Very out of date! But, when it comes down to it they're just nice adjustable straps with a quick release, makes it easy to change for different tires. I'm not sure where I first saw it but I know I'm not the first to do this.
In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :
Genius... even if you didn't think of first.. I might borrow that one someday.
slantsix said:Good Use of probably Out of date Camlock Belts for the Spare tires!
I was thinking the same thing! I need to check my random parts boxes now
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