Tales from the Batcave (RX-7, rallycross, misc. stuff content)

Oh, i am going to be ENDLESSLY smug next time Josh starts talking up BMWs.

Video is incoming.  Laptop is in Cleveland, Knurled is in Columbus.

Knurled. said:

So:. Fifth gear is BERKED.  It makes the most hilariously bad noises, i should make a video

Hilariously? Bad?

You should make a video. I'd watch it.

Bent-Valve said:

Knurled. said:

So:. Fifth gear is BERKED.  It makes the most hilariously bad noises, i should make a video

Hilariously? Bad?

You should make a video. I'd watch it.

Best with headphones on.  We were watching on the bigscreen at Evan's place last night and the shudder/rattle wasn't too apparent.  Wearing headphones now, yes it is very apparent.

It's between 60 and 75mph.  At 80 it smooths right now.  Slow down a bit and it goes into mini-jackhammer mode.

My fastest run of the morning, a 44.4.

As you can see from the scoresheet above, the next closest competitor (in a very nicely built E36) only managed to touch a high 46.  My slowest run was a 46.4.

What was funny was, all morning I had been kinda coy about what times I was running, usually answering people with "Man you don't wanna know."  Which is one of those actually-true statements that people interpret the other way around.  That is why I kinda laughed when I saw Evan checking out the timer box... oops, cat's out of the bag!

Last run was really dirty and rough and somehow I didn't hit any cones on the way to a 44.8.

This run has it all:  Oh-E36M3 having to grab the handbrake, jump drifting, somehow keeping on course when I have to go from full opposite lock to near full in-lock and back again due to some nasty bumps and ruts, and getting to hear the diff "talk" when maneuvering in the paddock.

Thanks for the videos, the transmission almost sounds like an electric razor at one point. 

I've never done Rallycross, I have driven off road though, how many times have you wound up with bruises where the steering wheel smacks your thumbs? I had forgotten how rough it is driving fast off road.

None.  i don't grab the steering wheel, or that is to say, the nice thing about having manual steering is that there is very little resistance, so really the car does most of the work.  I'm just there to guide it along.

Is one of the reasons why I have not put a steering quickener in it.  I worry that the added resistance will take away that liveliness.  Even at three turns lock to lock, it's still not really fast enough when having to find both steering stops in the same corner, but it's not horrible.

I do get sores on my neck from the shoulder straps.

An MZR engine will barely fit into the stubby little RX-3 engine bay, according to various tape measures.

Hrm.

Good read

Ugh, math that I have forgotten.

The driveshaft is approximately 39" long, the engine mounts and trans mount are approximately 28" apart.  Drivetrain is at a 3 degree angle, driveshaft is at an 8 degree angle.  sin of 1 times 28 is .48, so about half an inch of spacer under the trans crossmember will put the drivetrain at a 4 degree angle.  This will also move the nose of the driveshaft down.... er, a little over a half inch, maybe driveshaft is now around 7 degrees, helped by the other end getting pushed up when correcting the pinion angle.  There's my three degrees.

I knew I bought that giant chunk of 1/2" aluminum plate for a reason.  The fun part, that I have been kinda dreading, is going to be bending the header to suit.

Drained the sacrificial fuel from the red car again.

Going to refill it with E85, this is getting tedious.

Unbolted the trans crossmember on the '84.  The exhaust is holding the drivetrain up!

Used most of a can of MAPP trying in vain to heat up my header so I can re bend it (it is a non-Racing Beat header that I modified severely to fit a RB exhaust system) but it just wasn't doing the job.  I pulled down on the crossmember and found the mount is now two piece.  Ugh.

In a fit of "why the hell not?" I loosened the header to engine nuts.  Flump goes the drivetrain. Well then.

My 1/2" plate is actually 1/4", but I did have some 3/8" reinforcements from something or other so I put one in on the right (angled) side and two on the left, and scrounged a box of Honda bolts to find some longer 10x1.25 bolts to attach the mess.

This might work.

Realized that the lease is up on The Batcave at the end of June, not the end of July.  So, contacted the owner and we're going to be good for another year.

The loft is also finally going to be turned into livable space soon, which always had me nervous because I was worried that it meant my lease would be non renewed.  But he's all good with it, BUT.  The sewer hookups are going to go through my space.  Which means workers will have to be in my space.  Last time parties unknown were in my rented garage space, a month later about $10k in parts disappeared.  (Many rare Audi cylinder heads, a stack of good rotor housings five feet high, multiple engines both rotary and VWAG including the peripheral port 12A i built and the G60 bottom end I'd been hoarding, five transmissions, a couple GSL-SE rears, a crapton of wheels including some with brand new tires...)  So this makes me VERY nervous.

Oh yeah. Also found the mythical gas station nearby that sells E85 cheap instead of always exactly ten cents cheaper than 87.  I was told about it by an ex-coworker who had gone through much E85 in the pursuit of putting ever more boost in his Miata.  (He got up to 42psi, I believe.  He has a built LS1 now, with a subframe of his own design that he plans to market.  I drove it very briefly, and decided to not drive it further lest I want one of my own)  So if you are in the Cleveland area, yes, if you go to the Speedway at Dover Center and Center Ridge, you can get E85 for under two bucks a gallon.

Today I remembered that the smell of E85 makes me sick.  I had to do an engine autopsy on a GN engine that led a short but impressive life on E85 (timing chain disintegrated, causing all of the money to fall out of the bank)  and I did not wear gloves while working on it, and got really sick from it, and ever since then I am hypersensitive to E85.

It is weird.  Denatured alcohol is literally E98-E95 and it does not bother me.  I can consume vodka which is E50 and it does not bother me.  I spent three hours today juggling jets and road testing and juggling jets again on a Weiand supercharged SBC engined hot rod, and the gasoline vapors kinda got to me but they didn't give me a physical "OMG you are dying" reaction the way just pumping E85 into a fuel jug does.

This E36 M3 better work.

Also, I want to take all of the Holley carbs in the world, and melt them all down, and cast a giant statue in the shape of an upraised middle finger, and dedicate the statue to the committee that came up with the 4150.

No pictures for the lamest of reasons:  Using my tablet to send music to my Bluetooth headphones and opening the camera app makes the audio stop.

Jacked the back of the RX-7 up as high as I could get it,discovered that I apparently somehow only have ONE craptacular Pittsburgh jackstand, and all my other pairs of jackstands are in use.  So I set the wheels down on a completely safe combination of car dollies with RX-3 wheels on top (only 13" wheels I have, 14" are too large to fit the dollies) and crawled under to start measuring.  By dropping the transmission down, I should probably have to tilt the differential up, yeah?

...No.  I measured three times, and all three times it looks like my diff is already a tad bit nose up, maybe half a degree HIGHER than the trans.  Huh.  But anyway, the U-joint angles are now at about three degrees, so when the driveway is no longer a gravel swamp I will take the car out and See How It Do.  In the meantime, I took it off of the totally safe wheels-on-dollies combo in the rear, and the jackstands in the front.  Closed the hood, and proceeded to cover the hood with stuff off of the red car.

Red car:  Made an inlet elbow for the air pump, which was the stopping point before putting the upper radiator hose on.  Cleaned all the rust out of the upper radiator hose (this took a half hour, it was packed full when I got the car!) and mounted it.  With a couple hose clamps scavenged from an old fuel filter, I sealed down the throttle body coolant hose nipple block off caps (it is a Series 4 N/A 13B in it, not a 12A ), which was the last thing I needed to do before finally bolting down the upper manifold and carburetor.  Scrounged some 8mm nuts from a box of stuff from something or other, then realized that Racing Beat made the upper so that you must use Allen bolts.  Fortunately, there was a whole set of Allen bolts on the radiator panel, and I don't remember if I bought them to install the Atkins intake manifold or if they were the ones from the GSL-SE style RB upper.

I somehow have acquired a whole lot of 6 port manifolds.  I have a Pro-Jay manifold, a Atkins/Lake Cities sidedraft, a S4 13B sidedraft upper on the car, a S3 sidedraft upper that came with the carb, and.... that's it.  But it's four more than I ever expected to have, because 6 port engines suck.  And I paid real money for the Atkins and S4 manifolds, NEW not used.  Ergh.

Anyway, manifold off, studs removed from the lower, manifold on, Allen bolts installed and tightened, go to mount the throttle cable, and realize that I have NO idea how the cable was supposed to attach.  This carb was in a Midget or Sprite or some dang thing, so who knows what happened at the carb end, but what is decidedly not there is a way to attach a barrel end.  Must look into this.

At this point, sweat was pouring off of me while I worked, so I cleaned up a bit and headed for home.  But once the throttle cable issue is sorted, and I figure out where I want to mount the fuel pressure regulator so I can do a little plumbing, I'll be able to put the hood back on.  Front hinged hoods are awesome for everything except getting from one side of the engine bay to the other.

Acquired:  Holley fuel pressure regulator rebuild kit ($7), a 3/8 NPT to -6AN adaptor (dunno), and while waiting in line I grabbed a $25 car wash foamy soap thrower thing that will probably not work anywhere near as well as I'd hope.

It was painful to get into my car today.  The steering wheel was too hot to touch, the seats were too hot to sit on, the "how much you are suffering" gauge on the instrument cluster said 117F when I started off, and it only dropped down to 99 once on the highway.

Dang.

Anyway, I have already forgotten most of what I have done in the Batcave today, but I took pictures so I will narrate them.

Wow this image is blurry.  Anyway, what we see here is the red car with the fuel pressure regulator that I rebuilt today (inside was full of goo and the diaphragm was leathery) and an interesting story.  The regulator came with the car, and had a 4-7psi spring in it which in my experience is WAY too high for a Nikki, they like maybe 1.5psi fuel pressure.  The 6 port engine, Dell'Orto carb, AN lines, and absurd FRAM fuel filter assembly, all came from a huge lot of parts that I bought for $800 a couple years ago from a GRM ad.  Aside from the master cylinder,  new foam for the air cleaner assembly, oil filter, and one AN fitting, all of this is stuff I have had lying around.

Oh yeah and the $160 upper manifold because the lot of parts came with a GSL-SE upper which in no way, shape, or form will mate with a Series 4 lower.

Air pump is only there to ensure good belt wrap over the water pump pulley, because I insist this car have a belt driven fan and not an electric.

That fuel line in hard contact with the air cleaner needs to be connected to the fuel filter.  My plan is to rebend it slightly, and adapt the 3/8NPT filter inlet to 5/16 double-flare, and run hardline across the inner fender and firewall.  Much neater than having six feet of rubber hose flopping around.

Remember when I used to RallyCross a Volvo?  Good times...

Er, so I found that the strange popping noise in the '84 is the floor being kinda cracked and broken.

Note, this is the exact problem I had with my '85, which I scrapped in '08-ish.  It got rusty, because I was foolish enough to drive it year-round.

(Greene County Fairgrounds FTW!  And you can hear my old friend Phil Marsh talking about awesome movies in the background.  I think the last time I saw him was when he drove me home from Sno*Drift in 2008 or so, demonstrating how ridiculous 25psi in an STi will accelerate in sixth gear.  Also note bald-ass Eagle ST tires.  And that 323GTX and the brand new STi?  Owned by the same person, and entered by the same person, this was before the rule that you may only enter an event one time.  He entered one in 4x4 and one in O4 (Over 2l 4WD), usually winning each class, personally taking 1-2 overall..  He had a co-driver and they'd switch cars every run..)

The '85 only ever had a stockport 12A, except for that glorious month where I had my peripheral port 12A in it and it ran so crappy with a Holley and plenum manifold that I took it right back out and put the stockport back in.

You said somewhere in this thread that bridge porting was the best thing you did to your current engine.  What did you mean by this?

I have an old 12A IT7 car that I drive to track days.  I've installed an EFI Hardware IDA type throttle body on a RB IDA intake manifold, light flywheel, 4.777 FD, and am running Microsquirt. This is good but I want more giddy up.   I could BP a spare 12A or I could rebuild/port a renesis that came out of my Rx8 (low compression) and install it.  Also have S4 6 port in the basement.  What would you do?

The bridge port added a ton of midrange torque.  Every street port i have ever had would kick in at 5500 like flipping a switch.  The bridge ports would make tons more power lower than that, and make the street ports' peak power about 1000rpm lower.

I would not modify any 12A, personally.  That stuff is too rare and dear nowadays.

I'd like to try modding an automatic RX-8 engine.  The end housings have the aux ports blanked off with iron, so you can port them however you see fit.  Also, I have an RX-8 header that I bought because it was there and why not.

I have photos I still have to upload but I'm still too annoyed.

I have videos I still have to upload but I'm still too annoyed.

After the 8th run at yesterday's rallycross, the RX-7 stopped wanting to start hot.  Acting like not enough fuel or something.  Driving home was "interesting" because I got stuck in a traffic jam driving through Columbus and, yes, I did stall it once.  Fortunately the person behind me alerted me that traffic was moving by laying on their horn as I attempted to get restarted.

Went to take the RX-7 to the Batcave today.  (Did not bring tablet)  Doesn't want to start cold, either.  Got it moved, the Volvo out of its space, the RX-7 in its space.  Hmm.  Pulled the air cleaner assembly off, and found the carb/throttle body to be loaded with dust.

Great.  I had been hoping that I merely pinched some seals after the trans popped out of gear and the tach slammed into its stop a thousand RPM past the 10k mark.  But with that much dust, I cal all but guarantee that the only usable parts inside will be the eccentric shaft and the rotor housings.  Probably the rotors would be OK.... as long as they weren't hurt by the extreme overrev event.

E36 M3.  This isn't even a question of money, this is a matter of the parts simply are not available.  The engine is built around a GSL-SE intermediate housing and 12A end housings.  I bought something like six 12A engines while trying to restore my '81 and NONE of them had good side housings at all.  All worn out, or rusted from sitting.  That is why there is a 13B in there now.

I'd like to know how all that dust got in there in the first place.  Every gasket surface gets a smear of silicone to seal it, the air filter has all crevices sealed, etc.  Basically I go apeE36 M3 on preventing unfiltered air and this has served me well since 2009 or so.

In other news, I have a weird handling problem.  Once I park the car on a given corner, it feels kinda "washy" on that corner for a while.  Maybe not enough spring rate for the damping?

Also, I debeaded a front tire.  Possibly related to this handling issue.

Mulling over the handling problem further, what it feels like is that corner is dragging.  I wonder if I don't have something going on with the uprights where the spindle is flexing and causing the brakes to bind, or something.

Tonight:  Dumped out that E85 into our oil tanks at work, bought another round of highly denatured alcohol (down to $1.90 a gallon, ten bucks bought 5.2 gallons), failed to get a hold of friend with the Mazda compression tester jig.  So I will sit at home and eat some really nice pork loin instead.

Day at worked sucked, felt like I got absolutely nowhere.  Wasted over four hours doing negative work because a very highly regarded head manufacturer has worn tooling or machines the heads while they are hot or something, and I had to remove an engine so I could re-tap all sixteen exhaust manifold bolts so that the nigh-inaccessible header bolts can be installed.  Which was a fun thing to discover when trying to get the header bolts in the first time.  Extra difficulty:  Headers are three piece, with the rear two tubes slip-fit and kinda floating.  And then had to do some front end work and align a well worn K-code Mustang, which for some Ford reason used shims on the upper control arms instead of cams on the lower like every other "Falcon" style car they made from 1960 to 1981...

Yes, I can call "getting paid to wrench on/drive a 289 Hi-Po Mustang" into a rant...  you should see what it takes to get me to normal.

Catching up on old news.

On the way home from the July 1 RallyCross at the ironically named Oak Shade, teh Volvo's inside door handle stopped working.  Great, I get to deal with the FU door panel retainers again.

The quick install cable assembly lost one of its retainer clips, making it a quick self-disassemble cable assembly.

This part hurt to do.  Enter one drill.

Enter one ziptie.

I may have pissed off a whole bevy of Norse Gods with this bodge.

Knurled. said:

This E36 M3 better work.

Literally two weeks later (6/25 to 7/09):

E85 is clearer than water.  Very obviously it is removing much gunk from the fuel tank.

I know now how I will degunk the RX-3's fuel tank.

There is a local rotaries meet scheduled for the 29th.  My goal is to have the red RX-7 drivable and registered so I can make the meet with it.