Sorry

Why is the FB gearbox painted wxhite?

 

Leaks and cracks are easier to identify with paint. Generally speaking, if I pull a part, I want to coat it in grey or white. This time, I had a few cans of spare white.

 

Ow ok that's true maybe next time use a metal crack finder paint.

 

This is the first time I've heard of crack finder paint, but now I'm very interested. Have you (or anyone else on here) tried it before?

 

They use that to find cracks before/after welding. I saw it when I was watching a docu over TBM's (Tunnel Boring Machines) when they switch the teeth.

It's a 2 stage "paint":
1. you spray stage one on it
2. let it hard a few minutes
3. wipe the surface with a cloth
4. spray stage 2
5. if it reacts, grind the weld and redo it :+

Let's see if I can find it.

Found it http://weldingdesign.com/processes/f...ion-penetrants

 

Today, I rebuilt the torsen limited slip.


For now, it lives next to the clutched limited slip, waiting for me to choose which will be installed for Mt Washington next weekend.


We also installed the new VMAXX suspension. This is a pretty fantastic budget setup (right at the $1k mark), and is still pretty compliant. Track setups would be far too stiff for any of the hills we run, so I wanted to find something that was high quality while still being compliant and adjustable. After a rough base tune, we have the car level again. Hopefully we'll have some time to fine-tune before Mt Washingont.



Finally, and most importantly, we beat the **** out of the transmission tunnel. Then we cut a huge chunk out of it. Then we could fit the widest seat I've ever seen in my life ... into one of the smallest cabins available in a production car. It took most of yesterday and today to get it all aligned, get the seat facing forward, get the seat level, and make sure I could sit in the car without my head hitting the cage while also being able to close the door. Seat installation sucks.

 

It's a Miata what else did you expect

 

I hope you're a faster driver then a video poster :+

 

Well, we ended up missing Mt Washington. As the deadline for the rookie orientation run drew near, we had a hard time getting the car street-legal to bring up to the hill. There were too many little things standing in our way, and not enough time/hands to finish prep, and I had to drop off the roster. We'll have another shot at 2020, and the hope is that we'll have the Datsun available for that.

For now, prep continues for Mt Burke at the end of this month.

 

 

It's been pretty busy, but the Miata is nearly finished. We just took the e350 out for its debut as a support vehicle, and it was nothing short of brilliant. Having all the tools and camp requirements in one place is extremely helpful, along with having plenty of light to work with at night time.

The only major issue I had was a broken positive battery terminal strap. The whole thing essentially fell apart all in chunks, and after the familiarization run on time trials day, the car wouldn't start.



We had some motorbikes racing this event, so I headed over to them where I got to meet an impressive little lady named Kathy (who is also a stunt plane pilot, as it turns out) set me up with some safety wire to temporarily fix it. It worked like a charm.



I'm putting together a full event recap, but in the meantime here's one of my runs from Sunday.

 

This is sort of the behind-the-scenes on the 2017 Burke 2 race event. Let me know if you guys like seeing what happens outside of the race footage.

 

This was a bit more of a rough event, and was the first time I couldn't drive the car home afterward. I think it also bumped me out of the running for Class Champion this season. I should be able to repair it by Mt Philo next month, but I had really hoped to circle back on the Datsun after this one.

Here's race footage from one of my practice runs on Saturday. I'm not committing to corners like I would on race day, but it was still pretty quick. Good enough to be 6 seconds faster than my personal best, when I was pushing as hard as I dared.

 

With that done and over with, I can finally return to the Datsun!

 

Nice races but woow that steering column is so close to you or is it just me?

 

I like the additional leverage you get from having the wheel close ... but yes, this is a little too close even for me. It isn't something I've had time to sort out this season, but I'll probably go with a stubby NRG adapter and quick release for 2018, or a non-dished wheel. Either of those will move the wheel forward 2" or 3", which is about ideal.

 

It's been awhile since I posted an update, but I ended up winning the P4 class for the year! Philo was a great time, and the weather was incredibly good.



The only problem I had was that CXRacing exhaust manifold. Several of the welds completely failed, and now I need to make a new exhaust for the Racing Beat manifold I bought to replace it. The $400 one lasted one race, and a friend has been racing for two seasons on the $150 RB model. Figures.



Now that the season is finished, I'm working on minor prep jobs ... like heat/defrost, winter tires, etc. The real goal for the winter is to finish up the box truck and get the Datsun ready to race in Spring.

 

Thin walled steel

 

I'd say bad welds. If the material were the only problem here, the metal around the weld should have failed. This is failing right in the centerline of the weld, which indicates that the weldor wasn't running his/her bead hot enough and wasn't using enough filler material. Most of the welds on this manifold look like they could be fusion welds.

 

We've been hard at work getting ready for 2018. The Datsun needed the rear wheel centerline moved back 4" in order to clear the main hoop position. I finally made time to mock up where everything should sit, and finish the rear quarter panel profiles. I think it still looks like a 'natural' location for the rear wheel.




This gives me around 6" of ground clearance with the suspension preloaded, which is perfectly acceptable in my mind. Using 300lb/in springs, that would give me 1500lb of load before things start to go a little wonky. With the pushrod setup that I'm planning on, I can tune it to dynamically increase spring rate toward the 'compressed' end of the cam travel too.

The cardboard template is reversible, so I can accurately reproduce the profile on the opposite side ... but I may modify the overall shape a bit before pulling a mold.

This configuration puts the fender line quite a bit higher on the body, and I have the option to move it higher or lower if I don't like the way everything sits when finished.




I'm putting off welding the rear suspension in until I have better calculations on what the static ride height needs to be with the stock control arm geometry. I'm probably going to have to move the subframe up a bit in order to keep the ground clearance I talked about earlier, and I can just chop off the OEM front mounts and weld it directly to the X brace if that's the case. It's good to be working on this again.

 

We have some catching up to do, but the video series is finally getting edited now!

​

 

Sorry I haven't been posting on forums lately. Another episode is live for those who are following, and I've been working on the race support vehicle lately.

The new cabin dome light negates the need for headlights


... but the headlights have been significantly upgraded anyway.


We built new swinging doors for the rear to replace the overhead garage-style door, and that meant that we could throw the overhead door tracks and plywood sides away. It's starting to look less like a murdervan back there now.


This weekend, we should have a bit more news on the Datsun, and probably another update on the race support vehicle status. What are you folks more interested in seeing progress on?

 

Anything is good :Y

 

The rear subframe is crudely jigged together, and should be ready to rock in the morning. Centering it, defining my ride height, and setting the pitch required a lot of braining.





Based on the measurements from a friend, the LCA should be at a ~14 degree layback. I'm at 13.75 degrees on both sides, and have decided to call that good. At some point, I'm going to move the arm pickup points anyway, so this'll have to do to get me started.

 

I spent some more time working on my box truck today, and removed the remaining murderwall plywood then reorganized, straightened, and bolted down everything else back there. The etrack on the floor will probably end up on my trailer, but it could make its way to the walls after I've insulated and recovered them. We'll see how it plays out, but either way I love that stuff.



The driver's seat is finally getting replaced. I don't know if I already mentioned it, but the roofing tar in this thing got EVERYWHERE. The seat was disgusting. My favorite caption I've seen so far: