This may be a little ridiculous - a $2018 challenge oddessey

AngryCorvair said:

Dusterbd13-michael said:

 but I left my foot in it.

berkeley yeah!  Lifting ain’t gonna fix it!

Once again, I love this place. 

Dusterbd13-michael said:

it was Squirrely and crunchy everytime I power shifted but I left my foot in it.

Words to live by, sir.  You should be proud.

12 overall in dynamic. I MAY have been able to swing 10th with a solid run like testing. But im happy so far!

Edit: just judged!

Mirror is so legit. 

Time to rest and go to the banquet. 

9th overall. Im ok with that. 

Bed. 

Full writeup next week...

I think you did good. Built a cool car you're still going to want next week. 

mazdeuce - Seth said:

I think you did good. Built a cool car you're still going to want next week. 

Im irritated that i cant go get the munchkin from school in it tomorrow. Or enjoy the weather. 

I want to keep playing with it!

Michael, It was AWESOME to meet you and hang out.  Thanks again for feeding the boys and me your Dad's outstanding BBQ.

Posting these pics here (stolen from the web-site).  Just wanted to make sure you saw them.

I had not seen those! Thanks!!!!

I hope you come again, brian. Really, REALLY enjoyed you and the boys company.

2019 challenge summary

TL:DR broke it in autocross, broke it in drags, 9^th overall.

So, im finally getting my brain wrapped around this years challenge adventure. Im happy where it wound up. 9^th overall. That's lower than we expected, but the level of hardware this year was greater than ever before. If this was last year, it would have been an easy top 5 car, and possibly top 3. but it wasn't last year. It was this year. That being said, im VERY please how well we did, despite our issues.

We had the truck and trailer all loaded up before my last update. All we had to do was stuff our personal gear in the cab and go. We were supposed to leave at 5am Thursday morning.

Instead, Dallas called me at about noon on Wednesday, and told me he was done with work early, and to see if I wanted to cannonball all night so we would have all day Thursday to screw around in the parking lot of the host hotel with the parking lot build, and at stampies bar. If I was a wise man, I would have stuck to our plan.

Im not a wise man.

We finally left out about 9pm, headed for gainseville. Got some dennys at a horrible truck stop, and hit the hotel at about 4am thursday morning. Slept till 9.

we then hitthe parking lot. I spent almost all day in a camp chair talking with everyone. The car received an amazing amount of attention, and we never unloaded it from the trailer. Lots of positive feedback, fantastic food, great friends and fellowship. Oh, and a golf cart being lifted, a 4^th gen camaro being lowered, and an e55AMG being nitrous'd. You know, normal parking lot stuff.

In the late afternoon, I hooked up with a gentleman known on the internet as MNDSM. Awesome guy. He once posted a picture of a bowling ball he drew a maze on, and I asked him if he could do the same to my helmet. He did! All freehand, just sitting in the parking lot drinking and jawing with everyone. I think I may have inspired a new business for him, as the line of helmets may attest. Supposedly the maze has a solution. My daughter has already started trying.

1571969931_img_20191024_174825_mmthumb by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20191026_084217 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

We got registered, applied all the decals to some magnetic sheet and the car, unloaded the parts for others, loaded the parts for me, and took a nap.

Friday morning, we met mom and dad, the camper, and all my rowdy friends at the track. Course was pretty big, but not as big as our local courses. Grid and paddock were FANTASTIC in the way they were laid out. Got through tech, course walks, and drivers meeting without issues.

My first run was a 49.xxx on the course, and I screwed it up pretty good. I know I left time out there. But, my goal was to warm the tires, and get the car ready to hand to Alan mccrispin, the pro-driver from the AMC build. He was able to squeeze a 46.064 out of it. FTD was set by a super high mileage Cadillac CTSV at 43.7, and the top five were all under 45 seconds on course. Not far off the pace, but we were having trouble with the car understeering no matter what we did. Ultimately, we figured out we were bottoming out the shocks, and that the car just does NOT have enough negative camber. Plans there are to find some used extended ball joints or offset LCA bushings, and make extended top hats for all 4 corners. However, all things considered we did fantastic! Here's a picture of Alan driving.

20191025_120752 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

our major failures on the autocross were twofold. First, we blew out the front left metal brake line. Apparently we had nicked it when doing fab work, and never saw it. Either that or my wife wants the life insurance money for me.

It ruptured on Alan's first run, losing all brakes. We got it back to the pits, sent Dallas in the truck up to the parts store for a new line, and started to get it fixed. All told, we were off course for less than 45 minutes.

Old and busted

20191025_162545 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

new hotness

20191026_101407 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

dallas took the car for about 8 fun runs after all the timed runs were done, eventually getting the car down to a 48.5 with him driving. He beat me in my own car. He sucks.

We then changed it to drag race setup. Pulled the spoiler, took the toe out out, put the drag slicks on, bolted the nitrous bottle in.

20191025_153642 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

pulled up to the water box for an easy shakedown run. Experienced some NASTY wheelhop in the box, and aborted my burnout before I got smoke.

Lined up at the tree against the eventual overall winner, datsaniti. Brought the car to 4k, waited for the last yellow, and dumped the clutch. Car spun a little, and hooked. Buried the throttle, and heard some nasty noise from the rear suspension. Like the man I am, I ignored the hell out of it, and left my boot in it. Powershifted through 4^th with some horrendous noise from the back. Very squirrelly. Very bad when I let off at the traps. Thought I was gonna meet Jesus there for a minute.

image000000 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20191025_181135 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

IMG_20191025_181138 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

got it pulled into the pits, and found that the rear diff was BROKE. Done. Kaput. Gave me the finger. Left the building. Quit the fight. Committed seppuku. My weekend was done.

Only time for the drags was a 15.17. had I made a pass like I did in testing, we would have been 7^th or so. But im still ok with it.

20191028_150204 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

we got it over to the pavilion for concourse. Loved peoples reactions as they walked by the “stock” appearing miata.....

20191026_101356 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

20191026_101402 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr20191026_102403 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

got it loaded up after the concourse, hit the banquet, slept a few hours, and headed for home.

20191026_161904 by Michael Crawford, on Flickr

so, next steps.

1. fix rearend

2. fix oil leaks, and upgrade oiling system

3. add seats and stereo.

4. Paint black wheels silver, mount 200tw tires

5. enjoy the fall

BTDT with the rear diff...twice. Chain works well to hold it in place when you don't have time to fix it.

In reply to EvanB :

Chain to where? And define "works well"....

Like well enough to enjoy it a few days on the street before winter hits? 

Knurled would have more details but i believe it was around the pumpkin and subframe to hold the diff up so it couldn't droop. It worked well enough for several hundred street miles and two days of rallycross to win the class.

We need a rematch, with more slicks and nitrous.

maschinenbau said:

We need a rematch, with more slicks and nitrous.

I am definitely okay with that.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

maschinenbau said:

We need a rematch, with more slicks and nitrous.

I am definitely okay with that.

Everybodu everywhere is okay with this plan.

In reply to Dusterbd13-michael :

Nice job on this, and congrats on 9th place!

Great story and write up on the event! Sorry to hear the diff broke, but glad it held together to get a drag run in! Congrats on 9th place, well deserved!

We have begun the street car conversion!

Its shockingly difficult, to be honest. Theres a two solid days in this picture....

i know i commented much earlier in this thread about pinion support when deleting the PPF, but my google-fu didn't find it.  anyway, i think the batwing failure is a pretty good indication that you need to provide a better force path for the fore-aft loads that the diff sees on launch.

I did a lot of digging. The heim was a sild vhoice on the ppf delete. The ruvber bushings left in the batwings were a bad decision. Delrin is the answer.

Also, wheelhop kills them pretty consistently. I had TONS of wheelhop in the burnout box.....

If you need custom delrin turned, let me know.  I've got mountains of it.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Also, wheelhop kills them pretty consistently. I had TONS of wheelhop in the burnout box.....

Yeah delrin is stiff, but does have some damping, its a good choice if you don't know if metal or plastic is better. I have made several things like motor mounts from it. Its resistant to chemicals and solvents, it will burn though. Oh and I made some suspension parts with it, spacers and mount pads.