Rev bought a P71

Stupid berking balljoints.

125 miles ago, I passed inspection just needing an upper left ball joint. I replaced it, noticed ZERO difference between the brand new one and the one I replaced, and passed my inspection. Went for an alignment today "come take a look at this" is never good when you're sitting in the waiting room.

Lower passenger side ball joint is out enough they wouldn't do an alignment. Berk it. The car tracks straight, doesn't make noises when it turns, it's fine. When I get winter tires I'll bother replacing the lower balljoints because doing one side just seems stupid, and go back for another alignment.

Of course the Haynes manual says I need to replace the whole control arm, but if that's the case, why does every single parts broker sell just a berkeleying ball joint. I'm either going to need to borrow a picklefork or buy a damn balljoint press.

Although I guess I should be happy these are the only real issues the car has been giving me. Cheap enough, buying from rock auto at least, just a PITA on my rough gravel driveway.

Tomorrow it's going for the Halloween Road Rally. I'm calling it an MGB in a costume because the British car club is hosting the event.

In reply to RevRico:

Call it a Rover P71. It's a big sedan that was used by the police, right?

Suggestion for working on the car in gravel. Buy a foam insulation board from Home Depot,Lowes etc in 4X8 and work on that. They are cheap,waterproof,insulated and padded while being lightweight and cushion even the sharpest rocks so you can work more comfortably. I usually cut the sheet in half to make 2 and easier to work with and use them on the cold garage floor in winter. They won't absorb moisture or liquids like cardboard or crush down with use so easily.

In reply to Zeitgeist:

That's actually a good idea.I fight with a sheet of plywood most of the time. I don't mind the pointy rocks so much, but my Jack and stands hates them, which leads to questionable safety at high lift.

Nothing like torqing a control arm bolt and having the whole car start tilting on the Jack stand.

I've got $600 into my concrete floor fund, hopefully by the time it thaws out in the spring, this gravel will be gone all together.

Foam insulation sound like a good cushion. Cheaper yet... Cardboard recycle dumpster. Giant pieces of cardboard, from sofas, fridges, and the like. work great, when dirty return to dumpster and refresh stock. Remnant carpet works well too.

Ross

RevRico wrote: Of course the Haynes manual says I need to replace the whole control arm, but if that's the case, why does every single parts broker sell just a berkeleying ball joint.

There's a reason for this, which is also a reason to bash the parts guy too.

While the stock balljoint isnt replaceable separate from the control arm, many aftermarket control arms change that. If the putz behind the counter would look at the description of the lone ball joint, it will say that it only works with (insert brand name here) control arms.

Well, we Halloween Rallied today. It was obvious it was the first annual, and was completely screwed up from the word go. But it made for a nice drive in the country today. Very very glad I opted to take the Vic instead of the Miata. Between seat comfort and rain, the Vic was by the better option.

I need tires. And to do something more with the brakes. I still haven't replaced the rears, but I think semi-metallic is too soft feeling. Probably doesn't hurt the guy at the front of the line was stopping at EVERY sign and going 2 miles an hour, so had to ride the brakes for a long time.

In reply to Spoolpigeon:

I actually hadn't thought about that aspect. Far as I can tell, everything on the car already is Moog, so I'm sticking with them. I trust them still. It looks like I should be able to press the lower joints out, so I'm going to try. $35 per balljoint vs $120 per control arm, I'll try the cheap option first.

A theme has been decided. A budget plan is finally getting laid out. Barring any major problems between now and challenge,I have a focus point and a goal. I also have plenty of time to order things straight from China to save big bucks.

I will not be autocross competitive, not in something this big and awkward. It's going to take a very special deal on tires to make me mid pack finisher for drag. But I think I stand a decent chance of holding on to the middle of the concourse.

Black Friday is coming. This will be an unfortunate but pivotal shopping trip.

I would actually like to thank JG and his recent article about being new to the challenge for sorting me out abit. Focus on ONE event, and make the car shine in it.

I do have one question though, and I'm fairly certain the answer is "no" but I have to ask anyway: are open flames allowed in the concourse area?

It's not a big deal if the answer is no, as I have a backup plan, but my favorite idea would kind of need fire to really seal the deal. It would also let me stretch my engineering legs a bit to make the idea work, something winter time would be perfect for.

Not much to report in the way of progress, but I've slowly been collecting parts. The HID headlight set is waiting on housings, eBay may get that sale but I'm still going to check pick n pull in hopes of finding cheap wheels.

I got strip LED lights in the mail the other day. 5 meter strip and they're bright as hell. I'm going to start by wrapping the trunk opening with them so I can actually find things at night, and whatever is left I'm going to put under the hood and hope they really can withstand the elements and temperatures. Maybe down in the fenders and other hard to see in the daylight areas.

I should be getting an exercise machine frame this weekend my buddy picked up on trash night. I haven't quite decided whether it will become a pushbar or part of my concourse project, but free metal tubing is always nice. Sawzall, drill, and hot wrench can make it into lots of things.

There is a new "performance" tire shop in town now, having a big sale this weekend. Minimum I'm hoping to get winter tires, but may wind up buying more. Definitely letting him know I'm looking for used drag tires, and that he could sponsor or scca region to advertise to lots of performance driving enthusiasts.

I need to figure out who I know that does graphic design work still. I know that I know some artists, and could really use their help designing a layout to give to the vinyl guy.

Ordered up my snow tires at the new shop in town today. Cheaper than tirerack, including balance and installation. Score.

Got an offer on a parts car. 08 P71, with half as many miles. $600. I'm really really thinking about buying it JUST for the wheels and transmission, but have no idea what that would do to my challenge budget and recoup rules.

I paid $600 for mine. If I pay $600 for this other one, keep the wheels and transmission, and part out the rest of the car, what is my cost for the wheels and transmission? Does that go to recoup or just parts purchased?

New general Altimax arctic installed on all 4 corners. They look good and feel great so far. Although I could have changed these tires faster with a manual changer in a driveway than they did with a lift and proper tools.

Officially my highest mileage vehicle I've ever own.

I wish I could make progress on this, but the weather has been E36 M3, and there isn't a whole lot to do. I'm trying to find wheels, and coming up empty locally. Hopefully after tax time when people go buy new ones.

I have strip LEDs to line the trunk with and put inside the dash to light up my HVAC controls again. There is a backup camera to install, and stickerwork to do to the cage.

Mostly I need wheels and tires for the challenge.

There is a guy locally, who's been posting a "soup up" package on CL. He's dropped the price $50 in the past month, another $50 and I'll jump. I only want the tuner, but could sell everything else off to recoup some budget.

This build finally has a concrete plan. Measurements and swearing will be taking place this weekend. Possibly some fabrication.

I don't want to give too much away, but if youtube is any source at all, I may be the first person to pull this stuff off. Not quite as extreme as I'd like to do, but it will fit into challenge budget.

Pennsylvania laws are stupid. According to "max vehicle width" I can put 6" flares on each side and be good. According to some bizarre fender flare rule, flares are capped at 3". I don't think that's big enough personally, but I haven't mocked anything up yet either.

Keeping this vehicle street legal yet challenge interesting is tricky.

Curious though, if I buy a trailer hitch, and don't use it for anything at all during the challenge, not even an attachment point for anything, will it count against the budget because it's a part of the car? I suspect that it would, but just asking to be sure.

I think it would count, as its on the car at the time.

In reply to Dusterbd13:

Yea, that's my thought. Makes things a little more interesting. Barring any breaks though, I only need to get some wheels and tires, and while I have some leads, I'm still considering dumping the last grand of budget space I have right into a concourse presentation and being more of a "show" entry than a "go" entry.

Any mods reading this, think we could at $2017 challenge to the thread title somehow?

Just making some notes

Budget remaining: 1106.73

Average track width 64.5", to stay within SCCA Stability requirements Average height would be 64.5 inches. Current max height is 58.3"

Need "bed limits" to find out what's considered a truck in a conversion.

Looking for bull bar

Need to measure trunk, lid open and closed, front to back, side to side.

Need to go get wheels and tires

Need to start working on secret project.

Need to fix the berking headlights already

Install LEDS

Install backup camera.

Just took a rather nasty budget hit. Both lower control arms, $226.

Challenge build and daily driver are getting hard to make coexist.

2 weeks from first pulling the wheels off, it has new lower control arms.

Passenger side was much easier than the driver side, once I had the entire damn steering rack "gear" removed from the car.

The budget hit sucks, the work sucked, but it's done, and on the bright side, I have a working compressor again with a spare tank.

Now I get to take the miata off the road.

LOL, you gotta love that "fix this so I can disable my other vehicles"

New rear brakes today. For some reason, I bought the pads when I did the fronts, but never got rear rotors. Now I just need to do a fluid change, and I might actually have pedal feel.

Just a little worn out.

RevRico wrote: Mostly I need wheels and tires for the challenge.

These probably won't be a wheel you're interested in since you're talking about fender flares...but it's what I put on my car and I love them for daily driving: ebay take-off wheels from '05 and up mustang

Here's mine with the wheels:

Actually, now that I think of it...if you want a good wheel to use with flares, maybe this style of wheel from the '04 an earlier mustangs would be a good choice. They have an offset that would have the wheel sticking out several inches.

Just got done bleeding the brakes and airing up the new used tires on it.

Tried several variations of vacuum bleeder before finally saying screw it and pump pump hold pump pump hold took over. Swapped the better part of a quart worth of fluid, nasty smelling dark green E36 M3 out, clean stuff in. It's not fully changed over but it's worlds better than it was.

It's so strange having a brake pedal that you can feel working in this thing.

I may have a steering issue, it may be because the tires had less than 20psi in them, but on a test drive turning around in a call du sack it felt like total power steering failure, fluid is good, no noise from the pump, and it was fine as quickly as it wasn't. I'll find out for sure tomorrow in daylight when I go shopping. I think it's just the really under inflated tires that did it though.

She just provided me the most entertaining day of autocross yet.

One other person, although in a different class, was running around my time, and we were next to each other in grid so good time for talking E36 M3 and comparing notes. It was a 79 Plymouth volary for those curious.

With the RSAs from the other Vic on it, with 2 2015 full tread tires on the rear, and 2 2013 half tread on the front, it was entertaining on course. Wide open, basically an oval figure 8, meant I could actually use a little power and not be in crawl turn mode. Every single time I hit the gas on course the rear tires lit up. I got most of the way around with spinning tires in the last run, somewhere between "I got this, just a little slidey" and "oh E36 M3 its coming around" at 30mph was just a blast. I just don't get to do it that often in normal driving.

I won't know for sure until the times get posted(someone forgot the microphone for the PA), but I think I was even with a charger running stock RSAs, mine have much more sidewall than his did, not sure what size he was running. Watching him run though I never saw the traction issues I had, but he also wasn't very talkative.

With the good comes the not so good. I definitely need stickier tires for the challenge. I think I've worked it out budget wise, but is coming up with the actual money and having it when there's a deal that's the problem.

The brake pedal, which has felt awesome since the bleed, sucks again. Really soft, lots of travel, but it stops great. Like when I ease into the soft pedal it stops and slows down like it should, I even kicked the abs on today and it was great, I just don't like the play and the squishyness.

I'm also getting a noise that sounds annoyingly like the lower control arm or part of the car, that I've been feeling since I bought it. Everything is torqued to spec, new control arms, ball joints, rotors, pads, sway bar end links, but I still hear and feel a slight clunk. Low speeds, usually when pulling out or turning while pulling out, I didn't notice it at highway speeds.

The power steering is also interesting. I think maybe I'm asking too much of it and it just can't get the fluid where it needs to go fast enough. I expect resistance while hard braking and turning, but it seems like it just gives up then catches again on the way back. I know I saw a thread recently about the same thing, maybe gameboyrmh? Or knurled? But I remember seeing it so I need to go digging through the power steering threads.

Edit: I did, I did beat the 2017 challenger. solidly at that.

New wheels and tires

Currently wearing 245 45 18 Sumitomo something or others.

Also got 2 nankang? 275 35s with them.

$200 even.

The Wheels look great!

RevRico wrote: I've also heard of transmission tuning for these? Not just Jmod, but manually setting the shift points and stuff like that?

Did you ever figure out much about transmission tuning? Mine has never shifted right...or to suit my driving anyway. I figured someone could maybe do a reprogram but I haven't checked into it too much. Thought I'd ask what you learned.