And one of the videos that a team mate does just dropped. Here you go.
And one of the videos that a team mate does just dropped. Here you go.
Lots of wiring done today. Most of the lighting is done. Ignition and ECU power tied into the kill switch. Rear brakes installed and it's back on the ground for the first time in months.
The engine fired on the 10th try. The injectors were completely stopped up with old funky gas. A liberal dosing of carb cleaner and compressed air solved that.
It will only run 3-4 seconds before it dies though. It acts like VATS is shutting it down even though I disabled it HP Tuners and re-flashed the ECU. I'll have to do some research on what else could cause the issue.
A little more update on this.
The car runs. VATS was still shutting it down. It had a OE kind of problem. Since I've never actually used HP Tuners, there is a slight chance I don't know what I'm doing, but I finally got VATS turned off and the ECU updated.
Wiring is completely done. Lights work, charging system, kill switch, it's complete.
I ran into a bit of an issue with the rear brakes. The T fitting for the rear axle is different from the brake hose for the B210. I tried ordering a brake hose for the Roadster axle but it didn't fit either. I've ordered an assortment of metric brake fittings and worst case I will re-plumb the back axle. That's happening tomorrow.
The driveshaft is finally complete. It has been a bit of a project since I've never built one before. It's not as pretty as a professionally built shaft, but I'm satisfied it will stay together. Still to install are the driveshaft hoops in case it doesn't. I'm going to spin it up to 3-4000 rpms this afternoon and see how badly it vibrates. I have an appointment with the driveshaft shop Monday for an official ballance.
Here are a few pictures of the process of building it.
Machining an adapter to bolt a Solstice driveshaft CV to a Datsun Roadster axle.
The initial plan was for a 2" driveshaft. That was before I took critical speed into consideration. A 2" shaft was only good for about 4000 rpms which worked out to about 80 mph. Back to the drawing board I went to build a 3.5" driveshaft. It should be good to about 9000 rpms.
Turning adapters to install the stub shafts into 3.5" tube. These are turned out of 3.5" 1018 steel.
Stub for the CV, adapter and tube assembled.
Adapters and stub shafts welded. I managed to keep the total runout on these under .003".
To get the stub shafts straight in the tube, I had to reassemble my 16" lathe enough to hold it all together.
The first stub was welded and the tube cut to length. Cutting was accomplished with a grinder while my eldest son turned the lathe spindle.
Welding complete. Total measured runout is right at .005".
With the CV joints installed it actually fit.
This is the last weekend before the race. Hopefully both cars will be complete by the end of the day tomorrow. Maybe...
Everything got tightened up this afternoon and spun up to 3000-4000 rpms. It runs as straight and true as it could with no discernible vibration. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I'm debating taking it to get balanced.
Once this Covid thing is over I'd like to come watch a race. I probably could be talked into being a pit wrench. It's kind of what I like to do. Do you Lemons people have like a lost and found section for people willing to just turn a wrench and help out?
In reply to Stampie (FS) :
We did a head gasket at the 2018 race and I didn't know half the.people that were working on the car. Volunteer wrenches are always welcome. Beer and food are usually available if the track is cold.
In reply to Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) :
Cool I'll have to come check it out next year.
Drove onto the trailer under its own power. At the moment I hope to never see it again.
We will see how it survives a 24 hour race this weekend.
Stampie (FS) said:Once this Covid thing is over I'd like to come watch a race. I probably could be talked into being a pit wrench. It's kind of what I like to do. Do you Lemons people have like a lost and found section for people willing to just turn a wrench and help out?
We gained a team member that way. He came to wrench one race, fell in love with our stupid car and then raced with us the next year. CMP has a fun Saturday night scene of food, drink and wrenching.
Toyman01 (Moderately Supportive Dude) said:Drove onto the trailer under its own power. At the moment I hope to never see it again.
We all go through that phase of heavy builds. Give it a chance.
Lemons 2020 is done. Overall it was a decent race. Both cars started, both cars finished. I spent a fair amount of time wishing I was camping in the mountains instead of at the side of the track.
First up was Dirtie. At the 3 hour point it was first in class and tuning 2 minute laps with the best of them. Handling was poor, but as long as you were careful it was getting the job done. The engine was a dream. Gobs of power. It was by far the fastest car in C class. Then it all went to E36 M3. Believe it or not, we tore up another transmission. Best guess the 3-4 shift fork broke and the shifter jammed. Once again, no gears and it came in on the hook. We pulled the transmission tunnel and shifter assembly and through beating and jerking got the shifter freed up, but that left us with 1st, 2nd and 5th. We put it back on the track but it was bad slow. At 10pm it came off the track until dawn so no one would get run over.
Needless to say I was a little pissed. It never occurred to me that it would suffer a transmission failure. I guess I should be happy it finished and didn't end up DFL. Just 12th out of 16.
Next up was Jim the Civic. Jim had a bad weekend as well. Mostly it wasn't his fault. He was involved in several incidents. Rear bumper bent. Front bumper and grill forcibly removed. Front wheel destroyed. To top it off, he ate another distributor, a fuel pump, and a fuel pump relay.
It all started at tech. We made it through BS judging with no issues. Pulled up for tech. Made it through the kill switch test and that was it. He wouldn't start, dead fuel pump. Thankfully it's a common pump and we picked one up and had him running before dark. At the start, it was running just fine. At about the 3 hour point, it shut down and came in on the hook. The new pump wasn't running. Turns out the fuel pump relay had puked. I cut it out of the system and hard wired it to make it through the rest of the race.
At 12 am or so one of the drivers dropped two off in the kink and when the car came back across track it was broadsided on the passenger front wheel. (Sorry to whoever was driving the black VW diesel.) Wheel destroyed, alignment borked, fender smashed, 3" steel channel rear bumper bent. We beat it back into submission and sent it back out.
Somewhere around 3 am he came in on the hook again. No spark. The distributor had failed again. Luckily after the first failure, I bought a rebuild to keep in the spares box. We got it swapped out and sent him back out.
At 6 am he came in with a smashed headlight and half the 3" steel channel/expanded metal front bumper and grill hanging from 2 bolts. We removed it, cut all the lighting wiring loose and sent it back out again. He kept turning laps until the very end and ended up 6th in C class and somewhere around 35th overall. Not to bad for a mostly used up 86 Civic. This is the 11th or 12th race he has competed in and it's probably the last due to rust. It's getting harder and harder to keep the cage safely attached to the floor pans so he's going to be headed to the racetrack in the sky. My kids are talking about doing a family team with the 6 of us. I'll probably find another car that I can stick this cage in. We shall see.
Still running until the end and they drove up on the trailers so I guess that's good enough.
Incase you wanted to know, the new track surface at CMP is outstanding! We ran the entire weekend and tire wear wasn't really a major problem. The old surface would destroy a tire quickly. Practically smearing the tread off of them. The new surface wears a tire slowly and smoothly all the way down to the wear bars. We went up with 6 used tires. We changed one on the Civic due to flat spotting and changed one due to wear. The only other tire was destroyed in a crash. Dirtie made the entire race on 4 tires. It was a nice change from the old surface.
Picture of the team. Shamelessly stolen from the 24 Hours of Lemons FB page.
Oof, that's a rough weekend. That car's got a history with transmissions huh...
Very sad to have not been there vieing against you guys. Glad to hear about the track surface.
In reply to buzzboy :
It does. Same car we welded the transmission shafts together last year.
After doing some research, the AR5 transmissions don't like heat. The 3-4 synchros go and it snaps the shift fork roll pin. The fix is a oil pump and oil cooler. There is also a company that makes a billet shift fork that is less likely to fail.
I'm sure we will get it fixed at some point. Just not soon.
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