NASA Spec3 build: The Cart Before the Horse

Not good update followed by great update! 

GTPeace was really suspecting that I had a lean fuel condition again that lead to cylinder 6 getting hot, so we threw the kitchen sink at it and some other goodies.

New fuel pump, filter, pressure regulator, and injectors.
Euro coolant tank with the proper NLA euro hardline
2 new tires
Alignment 
GT Peace also did the R&R on the head gasket for free, which was really cool. 
They also patched up my body damage from WGI.
Lastly I got an AFR wideband installed so I could monitor my fuel mix on track and see if it was running lean.

I picked up the car on Thursday on my way down to Hyperfest and had to install new brake pads when I got there. I used this time to also remove my rotor dust shields for improved cooling. The car ran really well all weekend, albeit hotter than it used to, but I suspect that was from the warmer thermostat and how poorly my front ducting/aero fits now after the crunch. The car noticeably had more top-end pep so I'm starting to suspect it really was fuel starved up high. The car was great Friday and Saturday and I turned times near my PB even with my timidness and warm temperatures. 

I finished third on Friday and 4th on Saturday in a field of 8 Spec3s (amazing to say that 8 is a really small field for us these days!) 

Then on Sunday I took my car over to the dyno and it dumped out all of the oil. In all of the haste as of late, the oil filter housing that got put back on my car was the super old style from an E34 engine that used an o ring, a plug, and a circlip to plug the casting holes on the back. Luckily I had a spare newer-style one in the trailer so I swapped that, but I missed qualifying so I had to start the race at the back. I got by everyone up 5th place and things got crazy. The leader got punted and had to retire, the then new leader got DQ'd, and then the third place (now leader) racer put their car in the wall, so I was in second place. However, the checkered flag flew for the car behind me (not me) and I thought it was for me so I pitted early like an idiot. Ended up with third place. I'm bummed because if I had made qualifying, I could have easily snagged my first win here, but those are lessons learned for next time! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aycdKtzNWOA

Also, the start of the Bimmerworld race was really crazy due to some SpecE46 guys being... rambunctious. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VX2CBrrnyu8

Uh, wow, that second clip looks like quite the frustrating experience

trumant (Forum Supporter) said:

Uh, wow, that second clip looks like quite the frustrating experience

Yeah, that Bimmerworld race is always gridded by time WITHIN your class, so we end up with some really fast Spec3 guys behind SpecE46 guys that are off pace and it leads to a really crazy first few turns. Those SpecE46 cars seem to be a bit more tail happy and always have a few spins in the race as well, so you have to keep a keen eye out. 

TL;DR: Great weekend. Two third place finishes. Absolutely amazing racing the whole time and the Sunday race video is a must watch for some insane racing. Sunday link at the bottom.

Full summary: 
Great weekend for me! The car feels dialed in, predictable, and reliable so I'm just focusing on driving. Did nothing to the car except put gas in it all weekend! 

Saturday I qualified third, but Jake got by me with a great start, so I had to battle to get by him and try to chase down Joey to try to snag P2. Joey and I traded lap times back and forth all weekend so it was really tough to catch him from so far back but lapped traffic held him and Jon up enough to keep me in the chase. Finished P3 right behind Joey and Jon for my first Saturday Podium (I think this is Podium #3 for me?)

Probably the least interesting video, but still good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgbKLelYRYg&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

Sunday in the Beast of the East Qualifying Race, Jon, Joey, Me, and 3 Honda Challenge folks were in the "White group" and battling each other. Joey ran away from me while I battled with Brian Maeng and Jack Cobetto and Jake Thiewes terrorized me in my mirrors, but eventually I got past Brian (or maybe he let me past so I wouldn't collect him with a missed braking zone) and I kept pushing but didn't have enough time to turn a good clean lap I was happy with. Qualified 4th for the race.

Exciting BOTE with lots of close racing with HC and Spec3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uDqCd9hU7M&t=4s&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

Sunday is when it got really tasty. I was behind Jake and we had a great battle. Joey started P1 and we had a great quartet of Spec3s zipping around the track for quite a while. I was able to box out Jake by using a slow out of class car as a roadblock and then I set my eyes on catching Joey for P2. I ended up catching him with quite a bit of time left in the race and I ALMOST made a pass stick in T1 but I still haven't honed my race craft enough to get passed the great Joey Thomas. Jon, Joey, and I finish the race out weaving throughout traffic while chasing each other for a very close 1-2-3 finish with me splitting two out of class cars to go three wide across the line. I turned a faster lap than Joey with a 1:27.213 so I have hopes I can best him one of these days! 

This is the video to watch: 

Another great event! 

July was a crossover NASA Great Lakes and NASA Mid Atlantic event at my now "home town" track of Pittsburgh International Raceplex. It's a 50 minute tow from my house so I strolled up Thursday night to hang out and relax with my now establish camping setup of enclosed trailer, nice little cot, TV mounted on the wall, coffee maker at the ready, and some nice camping chairs and a big canopy. I'm trying to save money so I didn't sign up for test and tune and instead was hoping to rely on a few hours in Assetto Corsa on a Pitt Race mod track. The weather was decent and all was well until a fellow racer finally fell victim to the rattly transmission he had been ignoring for a year (I blame his fancy chassis mount shifter). We rounded up a transmission to get transported from Richmond, VA to Pitt Race and it arrived after 9PM. We got it installed by 12:30 at which point I left him to his own devices to wrap up and he was in bed by 1:30 AM after tidying it up.

Warm and Qualifying saw me running a 2:09 while the pole sitter ran a 2:03. This put me in 6th out of 8 on grid for the race, qualifying a few tenths out of 4th. I was really disappointed in myself since I ran a 2:07 last year with a tired motor and knew I should have been faster. I adjusted tire pressures and got my head right for the race where I jumped to 3rd on the standing start and was fighting for 2nd until halfway through the race when the series leader (who spun on the start) came rocketing through and passed us both to grab 2nd. I finished 4th while running low 2:06s on a hot day, which I was pleased with. 

Sunday saw more of the same with me qualifying 4th and battling for third the entire race, even passing Joey Thomas for third a few times and then giving it right back. We both ran very low 2:06s and almost broke 2:05. We ran within ONE THOUSANDTH of a second of each other for our best lap. Truly a great battle. 

Now on to VIR and NJMP in back to back weekends in August where I hope to work on smoothness on input to upset the car less and hopefully get some new personal bests. I only need a few tenths to start snagging third place consistently. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9ppl0C_52Q&t=84s&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8m0UsuxFjis&t=11s&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

August VIR! Good and relatively uneventful weekend. My previous best was a 2:16 something at VIR and I got it down to a 2:14.7 over the weekend. We had 8 racers and I qualified and finished 4th both days with some battling with Joey Thomas. Power Steering line failed Saturday morning and I knew it was bad, so that's my fault for not replacing it sooner. Patched it up and it help together fine. On to NJMP with NASA NE this weekend!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeANpBvRmyk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLFtQ6vbUIY

NASA Northeast! NJMP!

Thunderbolt is amazing. Such a fun and unique track and the facilities are superb. I wasn't expecting everything to be as nice as it is, but everything was top notch. The timing tower view is crazy cool, the officer's club is nice, and that's the best pro shop I've ever seen. So many garages and villas and power poles at every paddock spot! The course itself is very tricky but also very rewarding when you get it right. Hard braking into T1 with a near flat footed run through T2-T4 is really neat, then a very slow turn 5 with a high speed turn at 6 with a lot of run off begs you to push it harder and harder... then the octopus! Such a cool turn. So low speed and so long! Fighting for grip the whole time and if you get it right, it gives you a chance for a run down the front stretch to pass.

That said, I had never been here before, so it was a lot to learn quickly. The other folks did test and tune Friday and warm up Saturday was my first shot at the track. I ran a 1:37 to start, which is 4 seconds off the SE30 track record of 1:34 something, which was my goal all weekend. I got down to a 1:36 in the race Saturday and snagged my first win!

Sunday was very interesting. Northeast does a qualifying race with a rolling start, and I started in the wrong gear. Ed pulled past me and I followed him with the plan to keep just enough pressure to make him make a mistake and capitalize. I snuck by him a few laps in and then focused on pushing my lap times down. I was dropping a few tenths every lap until I ran a couple 1:35s and then pushed off track and through the grass. I checked my mirrors and realized no one was around me anymore so I backed it down by a lot and cruised to the finish. The whole weekend, I had been nursing 4 completely bald tires, crossing my fingers they wouldn't cord in the race, and I certainly didn't want to burn them in a qual race. I'm very confident a 1:34 or 1:33 was in the works with a little more time and some tires that had rubber.

Then the torrential rain came. It rained for at least two hours and completely flooded the place. Water flowing through the paddock and the track was under water. The race approached and the sun came out, causing us all to debate whether rain tires were the move. We all opted for the drys and went to grid. When we went out on track, there was standing water everywhere so we all were crawling around the track just trying to keep the cars pointing forward. Edward got passed me on the start (again I was in third gear when I should have been in second for the rolling start) but then he pushed wide in T1 and I passed. We fought back and forth for the whole race as the track dried but I had mentally decided this was not the race to push the car or bin it in a wall, so when I saw Ed go for a late pass on the inside into the Octopus, I gave him a wide berth and decided it was best to live to fight another day. Plus, it'd be fun to try to get around him again. I bided my time waiting for the white flag for one final push and I got a run on him coming down the front straight on the last lap to go across the finish line door to door. Official timing shows me one tenth of a second behind at the finish.

Overall, a very fun weekend at a great track. Hoping to get a field for Watkins Glen in October.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWErfvzh4SM

Watkins Glen! 

Unfortunately, the freshly formed Spec3 Northeast contingent all had other obligations and couldn't make it to this event. I, however, would not miss an event at WGI unless I was dead. WGI is a world class track full of rich history and is a BLAST to drive. Luckily, someone that was eyeing joining us in NE bought a turn key Spec3 and wanted to join me at WGI a week after purchasing the car, but the licensing from SCCA didn't come together like we had hoped, so they ended up running HPDE and I switched to ST5. A Spec3 slots into ST5 fine, but when going up to completely min/max'd E36 M3s and BRZs, there's no shot. 

The first day I finished 4th after battling for third and running up on a great Spec Miata battle. I knew I wasn't racing for anything, so I backed off and just followed the Spec Miatas for the last 3 laps as to not interrupt them. However, on Sunday, I was battling for second place, so I kept the hammer down until the same Miata traffic separated me and P2, at which point he pulled away in the final laps. I brought my girlfriend and my dog, and also discovered that my trailer AC unit DOES HAVE HEAT! It was a great time all around and I had the best sandwich I've ever eaten at Nickel's BBQ Pit. 

I beat my personal best from April (2:17) with a 2:15.3 or so. Shooting for low 2:14 next year and hoping to beat the track record of 2:13.8 or so eventually. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ0hgxwdlwo&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

October VIR 2022 and Mid Atlantic Season Finale. Personal Best 2:14.138 so close to 2:13! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckC4_bHPcXA

I came into the weekend in 4th place for the season championship. I snagged a P2 finish in the first race Saturday and a P3 in the second race to close the season. This brought me within a race's points of 3rd and 2nd for the season. So many things I could have done to make up those points during the season! 

On to NJMP next weekend for the closing of the Northeast season and then Road Atlanta in September for my first Southeast event! 

The busy year stays busy! Final event of the NASA Northeast season. Unfortunately we only had two Spec3s (we are a full year ahead of when I expected to have a NE field!). This was my first time at NJMP Lightning so I did the test and tune on Friday to get my bearings. I was aiming to beat the SpecE30 track record (That was set a lot time ago on much better pavement!) and I managed to do that in my second session out Friday with a 2:17.8. However, our track records only count if they are in a race. I was trying to run down this time all weekend and was never able to consistently run sub 2:18 after that. I was still faster than any other class in Lightning except some of Honda Challenge, so I knew I was doing alright. 

During the race, we started mixed with SpecE30 based on time since both classes were light on entries, so I started on pole. We had a rolling start (Also because so few racers on track total) and I pulled away when the green flag dropped and never looked back. I didn't have my rear facing camera on, but you can just imagine I was just by myself the whole time. Basically a TT session.

Car is still running strong. I unloaded the trailer and dropped it off at a trailer shop for some maintenance. I'll be working on the car a bit to clean it up before heading to Road Atlanta the first weekend of December. 

Fast lap: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4xolslN7IE

Race: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEGyrNVtMK8&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

The long slumber ends! 

My offseason "To do" list was big. I didn't do all of it :D This was my first off season that didn't require any engine shenanigans so I took time to enjoy life, traveled a bit, picked up guitar, etc. Now it's back to the grind.

First thing was a new windshield. I've been rocking the 30 year old glass forever and it was pitted and cracked all over. Happy to finally be able to see again. 

I noticed my window net had expired (I've been racing that long?) so I installed a new one and changed it from the balljoint and rod style to the "wrap around the door bar" style, so hopefully that'll make egress better. My suite would always catch on the lower bar. 

My front bumper has been saggy since my meeting with a tire wall during comp school and I attribute it to bent bumper shocks or maybe a slightly tweaked frame rail. I tried to bend it back with a jack and piece of wood and ultimately settled on just drilling new holes in the bumper core bar for the bumper skin to sit higher and moving on. I also replaced the screw in tow hook with a strap style wrapped around the bumper shock.

Fresh engine oil, diff oil, and transmission oil. Everything was fine except the transmission which had a LOT of metal in it, but no chunks. It shifts fine and doesn't pop out of gear, so I'll just start changing fluid twice a season or maybe three times considering how often I race, and monitoring from there. These transmissions are cheap (yay Spec3) so I always have a spare with me in the bed of the truck and it's an easy swap regardless. 

New pads and rotors along with a fresh brake bleed has the pedal feeling very nice as well. 

I then set in to nut and bolt everything and I stepped up my game from a silver sharpie to a "torque paint pen". I found my rear subframe, engine mounts, and transmission mounts were all loose even though my sharpie markings indicated no movement of the bolts. Perhaps the bushings shrunk or were squished? At any rate, the clunking in the driveline is completely gone. I'm embarrassed I didn't fix this sooner. I also found my rear sway bar had completely popped out of the bracket. I wonder how long I was running like that? 

My car has been leak free for a while, but developed a small drip from the power steering rack. I've been religiously checking the hoses, thinking that was my problem, but I think I finally tracked it down to the pinion seal on the rack itself. Not a huge deal for now, but I'm looking to source a new rack to have on hand for when the time comes. It seems rack doctor is no more, so a reman unit should be just fine.

Lastly, I found a shop by my house that I can just take service roads to with zero traffic so I popped by there for an alignment (first in like a year) and found that I have way more front camber than I expected. Good for me I guess? 

March VIR in a week and then a busy year of 13 race weekends planned between Northeast and Mid Atlantic! Let's do it! 

Three race weekends flew by! 

VIR is a blur, but my goal was a podium and a new PB (previous best being 2:14.1 set in October). Long story short, I matched my PB a bunch of times but I'm still not pleased with my performance. I'm a good 2 seconds off the front 3 guys and I want to be faster. The car is still over weight with me in it by 50 lbs at best with an empty tank, so I need to lose weight personally. I finished 4th and 3rd or something like that after a crash out and some contact by other folks in the field. 

I had a grinding noise all weekend that I thought was my rear brakes. It was not. More on that later.

Replaced the rear pads because they had some really weird wear and I thought they were making a noise. Threw a new steering rack in the car to stop the leaks, and headed to Summit Point. Saturday warm up was fine, but the noise was still there. I checked the wheel bearings and everything felt tight. I let someone do parade laps at lunch in the car and it came back with a very wobbly rear wheel which ended my weekend. 

I got the car home sunday night and immediately set to work on disassembling the rear bearings as I only had 3 days before I had to leave for WGI. The rear driver wheel bearing was completely destroyed and came out in pieces. The balls went everywhere and the race/cage was destroyed. It was so bad that the axle ground itself down on the trailing arm and wore away some of the wheel speed sensor. I got the parts in Wednesday and worked all night to get it together. Had to source some wheel speed sensors locally after I damaged one pulling the bearing out. I got it all together and headed to WGI.

Friday was a test and tune and I helped one of my new Northeast Spec3 rookies work out the kinks in a car new to him. I jumped in his car to set some laps as a baseline to prove to him what was possible and gave him something to work towards. The track record for Spec3 is a 2:13 set by Charles Ford, so that is always my goal. After my first session, I came back in to find one of my tires completed delaminated or had a belt separate as it was swollen and bulging on one side. That's my fault for running tires from 2016. I swapped it out for some equally hard and crappy, but newer 2019 tires and kept working my times down. I got down to the low 2:17s before calling it an early day and visiting from distilleries with Rachel, Lemon the dog, and Rachel's friends. 

Saturday warm up was good and I turned a 2:16, and then in qualifying I turned a lower 2:16, all with bald left side tires with a million heat cycles. Then the rain came in and the lightning caused the track to be shut down long enough for them to cancel the races for the day. Sunday would be a double points race day. I swapped my tires side to side so I could have the two tires with life on them on the outside for most turns. We started the race and I quickly passed the ST6 cars ahead and worked my way through some of the Spec E46s as I came through turn 9 to see a car parked right on the racing line facing me (the yellow flag didn't come out in time for me to see it before turn in) and I just barely avoided balling up both of our cars. I then set out to churn some more laps and got down into the 2:15s to tie my personal best. I took the win in my class of 2.

The second race was postponed due to weather again and then the track was standing water. I love a rain race, but the rookie didn't bring rain tires, so he couldn't go out. 1 car doesn't make a class, and going into a race with no one to race against is poor sportsmanship as you're just someone in the way at that point. I packed up early and waiting for the race to end to make sure the SE46s had a clean race and I didn't need to DQ anyone. Then I headed home.

Next up is Hyperfest at VIR in mid May followed up NASA NE at NJMP with another Spec3 rookie (or 2!) doing comp school and running their first races with us the first weekend of June. 

To do list before then:
New wheel bearings up front
New brake pads up front
Mount new tires and rotate the old
New brake calipers on the rear

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWRTb9xVlLs

Replaced both front wheel bearings and the 30 year old units I pulled out still seemed fine, so those will be good spares. 

I replaced the rear calipers as well trying to chase the PERFECT pedal feel. The rears were working fine, but there's no reason to leave the 30 year old calipers on there anymore with new stuff everywhere else. 

I also finally got around the installing brass caliper bushings into the new calipers I have on the front. Due to casting defects, I wasn't able to press them in before without spending a lot of time sanding and filing to get the holes correctly sized to slide in the the new bushings.

To cap it all off, I also replaced all 4 of my 15 year old shocks. My front left was so blown that it wouldn't rebound at all and it would sink down into the shock body on its own. Hopefully having a functional suspension will help me snag another PB this next weekend at VIR. 

Hyperfest was great as always, but my race weekend was a bit disappointing personally. Before the event I installed new rear calipers, new brake pads all around, new wheel bearings up front and replaced my 15 year old shock absorbers (I bought them used). I finished 4th in the Saturday race and was chasing my PB but noticed a weird vibration up front in right hand turns. This later turned out to be both of my front shock absorbers either unthreading at the top or coming loose at the bottom. I would not figure this out until well after the event. One of my competitor's had their car taken out in practice by a honda challenge in T1 so that put me in solid podium contention for Sunday. We had two races Sunday and I finished third in both but was still super frustrated at how I seemingly had forgotten how to drive the car well. Now looking back, I don't feel bad because both of my front shocks weren't even connected. I also managed to bend FIVE of my wheels. It seems a divot at the exit of Oak Tree which had never given me trouble before decided to sink a little before this weekend and start destroying my wheels. I wasn't going off track so I could never figure out which spot on track was doing it until it was too late.

NJMP

I didn't discover my front shock issue until I was loading my car for NJMP mere hours before I needed to be there. I scrambled remedy the driver side shock which had literally come apart and unthreaded itself into two pieces. I ended up rolling into NJMP right before the gates closed with one of my 15 year old shocks reinstalled on the driver side, unaware that the same thing was slowly happening to the passenger side too. After the Saturday race I noticed my car was very bouncy and found that the passenger side shock absorber had also started to come apart. I hastily threaded it back in and secured it with loctite before the sun went down, but having lost move of its oil, I wonder how functional it is now. 

I was able to get a win at NJMP both days and set a new Spec3 record by over a second a half (previous record by me the only other time Spec3 has ever been at NJMP) with a 1:34.4.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KN2B4kLyM0&t=4s&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

On to Lime Rock next weekend. First ever Lime Rock field for Spec3! 

Wow! So much racing. So little time. 2 more events have passed since my last post. 

Lime Rock was absolutely amazing. The surrounding area is beautiful, the track is so fun an historic. It is truly an experience just to be there, let alone drive the track. We had a great field of 4 Northeast Spec3s, 1 Mid Atlantic Spec3, and a Spec E30 that was all alone so I let them race as a Spec3 for the weekend after everyone agreed that if they get beat by a Spec E30, they'd live with it. 

We all picked up the track really quickly considering most of us had never been there, and NONE of us had ever been there in a Spec3. Nor was there any Spec3 lap record for reference or footage of a Spec3 driving the track. Long story short, Alex Rubenstein and I battled back and forth with me wining the Friday race, him winning the Saturday Qualifying race, and me winning the Saturday Feature race. My goal was to run a 1:02 something and beat the Spec E30, but it's such a short track that it becomes really hard to shave time off once you are that low. I ran a 1:03.229 and set the first Spec3 lap record with that. If the weather is cooler next year, there's no doubt one of us will break that and run a 1:02 or maybe even a 1:01 some day. 

The races were a lot of fun and the Saturday race was especially exciting because Alex and I were moved to the back of the field by accident during a double yellow with an erroneous black flag so we had to fight through the entire field just to get back to 1st and 2nd in our class. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kf6ocKYSEI
 

Pitt Race was 2 weeks later and serves as a preamble to the National Championship race that will be there in September. We had 10 or 11 cars signed up, but unfortunately one racer found a tire wall during the friday test sessions so we were down a racer for the weekend. My last outing at Pitt Race in 2022 was disappointing as I was very sloppy and my inputs were very erratic. It was a tiring weekend and I didn't go as fast as I wanted. My personal best was a 2:06 something. I've done a lot of driving since last year, a lot of reading and studying, and a lot of practicing in iRacing, so my goal was at least to run a 2:05 if not faster. Saturday morning came and I ran a 2:08 in warm up which was not good. I didn't know it, but the warm up time set the qualifying grid, so I was stuck with some Spec E30s which was going to make qualifying with a good time for Spec3 hard unless I could get by them quickly. Traffic thinned out and I slipped by and ran a 2:06 or 2:05 which was good enough for P4 out of 9 for the race grid. We started the race under the same green flag as Honda Challenge and that was my downfall. The traffic jam in T1 found me dropping back to 8th place right on the start. I managed to battle back and pass several people to regain 4th and that's where I finished with a new PB of 2:05.3 in the race. 

Sunday qual came around and I ran another 2:05 which put me right in the mix with the podium guys. The race started and the same thing in T1 happened again but I didn't fall as far back this time. Joey Thomas got the slip on me and ended up in second place for a bit until I was able to chase him down and pass him after he dropped back to 4th. Then I started to reel in P3 and P2 Jon McAvoy and Sean O'hara as they battled and was able to pass Jon when he went off in T1 during an attempted pass. I was able to hold onto third and chase Sean until the end of the race. That ended my weekend with a podium in a field that represented most of the fasted people that will be at the National Championship. Very exciting. 

The car is in the trailer now and I plan to tow it to NJMP for the joint NE and MA event in a couple of weeks. The car needs nothing but I'll do a quick nut and bolt check and some new brake pads before then.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQjEL0mnlgI&t=1s&ab_channel=TaylorJohnson

I'm going to stop updating this thread here and consolidate it all here: https://community.drivenasa.com/forum/57-spec3/

Aaaahh!  I love reading about your events and adventures.  Can you just copy and paste it here?