SOLD - 1600 TURBO + oval + downunder

[petew]

Spent most of the day fixing oil leaks today. I dunno about the rest of you, but I tend you overthink things and imagine everything is going wrong and the car is really broken (which is probably a snapshot into my recent metal state, but anyhow). I pulled off the bash plate and this told me the biggest story.

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Amazing how one picture can tell you everything. So that's where the biggest oil leak was coming from. I was relieved to see it was this plate and not the sump against the block. The bad news was it was held on with paper gaskets AND silicon sealant. Well, let's just say I won't do that again. Still it's all off now and I found a new sump plate and mesh filter I ordered a while back. I put them on, just with silicon. No leaks so far. Fixed a rocker cover leak, a turbo oil drain leak and set all the valves and changed the filter too. Which is just as well, coz the car had it's last oil change in September last year. No wonder the rocker cover was leaking. Strangely the valves aren't so noisy now either.

In other news, from what I can see, I've only done about 2000 miles in the last year. Hmm, I need to drive this more.

[petew]

Been a big weekend for the car. Had a gig last night and it was pressed into duty lugging gear and band members there. In fact it's our mascot...

https://www.facebook.com/pbtmusic/

I dragged myself out of bed, forgot my racing license, but then spent the day at a club motorkhana.

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A lot of it is sitting in line idling waiting to thrash the car for 30secs. Literally. For some odd reason, I got given number 1! I'm not sure if I was the first person to enter or what, but I wasn't the fastest thing there today.

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These guys were though. All of these were NA 4cyls in space frames with auto trans.

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The last car was running a Toyota Echo 1.3motor with this ECU.

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They were using the MS3 to run all manner of things, including spark cut on gear changes. Because without it, the gear change would be so violent it would spin the rear tyres (on wet concrete) and spin the car out. All these cars have steering brakes. This is the setup on this car.

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As to my own performance. Generally I was pretty smooth and made very few mistakes. One of my friends took this pics. I would have asked others to take a vid, but they were all racing themselves. As you can see by the pics, I was having a proper go.

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I wish had a chance to do more events this year, but I was surprised at how predicable and chuck-able the car is. The handbrake worked a treat. You could throw it into a hairpin, pulled the brake on and then power out of it easy. By the end of the day, I was also getting used to feinting the car around things. This time I went with a little more moderate tyre pressures than last time; 28psi front/42psi rear. In the past I've gone 25/48psi but it was washing out badly and the back inside tyre was really spinning. I still think I go could go lower in the back, possibly 38psi, so that's something to try next time.

I got lots of compliments on the car and people generally was extremely positive about 'having a fang' (as we say) in a classic. I post the results when I get them. The good news is I hit no flags and went the right direction all day.

[rubenski]

Cool pics!

[madmike]

Glad your having a good time pete
Those over size Go-Kart things look cool but can't say I've ever seen a foot controlled steering brake

[buguy]

That would be so fun!

[petew]

Glad your having a good time pete
Those over size Go-Kart things look cool but can't say I've ever seen a foot controlled steering brake

"look" like fun.

Wet skid pan + open wheeler + cold day + plenty of wind = not that much fun.

But yeah, they're quick. I've got some vids of 2 of them. I try and post them.

Buguy, you should get your's sorted and then do some autocross or even a rallycross. Cheap, cheerful and lots of fun. I have to say, I love doing 'handbrakies" and throwing it around. Never ceases to amaze me how well such an old car goes in this sort of event. There was a guy there with a modded Niki (900cc fiat motor) and we were talking about how easy it is to throw rear-engined cars around.

[petew]

K, so I got the results for the motorkhana tonight. All in all not bad, but not amazing either. What's clear to me is the car is spinning the inside wheel on tight turns and this is slowing me down a lot in certain places. On some courses I was only 2 or 3 seconds off the pace, but in others I was up to 10 seconds off. So I think my next port of call is some empi style cable turning brakes. It will instantly put me in the specials class but I'd rather be faster than stuck in the current class. Course an LSD is permissible in my current class, but at $2k that's a neverland pipedream. I can make the turning brakes for about $20.

Spent half the day sorting seat belt mounts and a new rear shelf. Looking forward to having that all done and all the mods on the car certified finally.

[petew]

Got this all finished tonight. The seatbelt mount structure all painted and installed in the car. Knocked up a speaker panel to hide it yesterday...

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Got the panel painted and installed with the speakers this evening. The PO had the speakers installed in a wicker picnic basket with the speakers pointing at the side of the car. Ridiculous.

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This setup sounds HEAPs better and hides the ECU and fuse strip. I'm just waiting on one more inertia reel seatbelt for the back. My seatbelt guy will come and do the front inertia reels pretty soon. Feeling pumped! Like I want to drive the car again.

[buguy]

Glad your having a good time pete
Those over size Go-Kart things look cool but can't say I've ever seen a foot controlled steering brake

"look" like fun.

Wet skid pan + open wheeler + cold day + plenty of wind = not that much fun.

But yeah, they're quick. I've got some vids of 2 of them. I try and post them.

Buguy, you should get your's sorted and then do some autocross or even a rallycross. Cheap, cheerful and lots of fun. I have to say, I love doing 'handbrakies" and throwing it around. Never ceases to amaze me how well such an old car goes in this sort of event. There was a guy there with a modded Niki (900cc fiat motor) and we were talking about how easy it is to throw rear-engined cars around.

I might just look into that. I have heard of guys near here doing that sort of racing with Mazda Miatas.

And I like that speaker shelf, but the sound of the turbo engine is music to my ears!

[Steve Arndt]

Those tire pressures seem quite high from my experience. I've never ran more than 30. More like 23f 30r. You can chalk your sidewalls then go for a run (not when it is wet obviously). You want to see a little sidewall scrub on the rounded edge of the tire.

[andy198712]

blimey, you really made a good job of that seatbelt arrangement! when i saw the plan i thought it was going to be an eye sore (sorry) but you made it look great!

[petew]

Those tire pressures seem quite high from my experience. I've never ran more than 30. More like 23f 30r. You can chalk your sidewalls then go for a run (not when it is wet obviously). You want to see a little sidewall scrub on the rounded edge of the tire.

Wow, that's a lot lower pressures than I would have thought. I'll give it a try next time.

Andy thanks for the kind words. It would have been full of racing holes too but the engineering signatory told me I couldn't. I still personally think it's way over-engineered. I reckon the firewall is more likely to pull out than the structure collapse.

[petew]

Took the car out for a spin today to test out the new speaker setup... and give it a floggin'

Decided I'd try really winding it out after listening to a few of you talk about 7,000rpm gear changes. I didn't get anywhere near that, but I did get over my, "it's vibrating terribly so I better let off" fears. I found as the car got above about 5500rpm, it just sounded like it wanted to keep revving. Not much point as the wastegate is dropping the boost at that point, but it gave me a lot more confidence. I'll fix the gate issue soon. (And don't worry, I have a fully balanced bottom end and counterweighted crank)

What I did notice was a really obvious hesistation between gear changes. I was slamming through them really quick, but between 2nd and 3rd it would die off, just after I floored it then kick back in again. Here's the log. I'm looking for something obvious, but I can't see it. You can see 1-2 and 2-3 changes here...

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I haven't yet got around to changing over the WB sensor, but the issues doesn't seem to effect the motor at lower revs. It jumps straight back in at lower revs and pushes hard. So gurus, tell what I'm doing wrong.

P.s. the stereo sounds awesome.

[andy198712]

do you think more AE would lower that spike in the AFR?

its also how fast you press the peddle, i struggled with this too, normal driving i would have it OKAY, but when you slammed it it would die, due to lack of tuning!

[petew]

LOL

Just looked at this. Hmm, I think I can see the problem...

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Right, so how much AE would you throw at it?