fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

it is, I returned it and I have a gForce one now. The sparco was tight and loose in areas where it shouldnt have been, this fits much better.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

Actually I have a lot of updates I have just been lazy on updating this. Also been playing too much Dirt Rally so it has been hard to put down the controller and pick up the wrench…

But anyways, the cage is done! I went and picked it up from TRF (Thompson racing fabrication)



Frankenburban doing its civic duty once more, also a very scenic shot of Lake Michigan:


As soon as we brought it back I purchased a whiteboard and I highly recommend it! Here is where we started:
[img]

A LOT to do before summer sno*drift rally (August 6th) which will be our target inaugural rally….

If not this then LSPR but I really want to do an easier rally before that one and shake things down because sno*drift (summer and winter) is only 2.5 hours from my house. LSPR is 10, maybe 11 or 12 at towing speeds.

I do not have many pictures of the cage unpainted because I did not want rust so I instantly got to work brushing it on with some tractor paint, I used about a quart and I had to touch up a lot of areas. Let it dry – repeat and then I could begin working on the remainder.




When I dropped off the car for the cage I also had a few other things in mind…

Since I added a lot of weight with the cage, I needed to remove it in other areas  Enter the lexan rear window!



It came out really good and looked simple to make.

But I ended up adding weight for protection purposes because I have a proper front skid plate:



If you noticed in the earlier cage picture there was a little hint of something neat... I wanted to run to the brake lines in the car (being that rally is abrasive) and now it is easy to service fittings with bulkheads to each wheel well with stainless flex lines going to each caliper. IMAGE MISSING

Because of the cage the 1 piece dashboard is a hassle so now I have split it in 60/40 and grown to accommodate more mounting for switches or fuse boxes/etc. The 40% side handles the megasquirt, the 60% side handles the chassis and cluster. Now both are more serviceable and modular. Here is also a better picture of the hydraulic e-brake with bias valve setup. This was done with the new brake line setup. I hate flaring and bending tubing so I left this with Ryan, it was worth every penny in hours and swearing I don’t have to do.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

I have been constantly been patching a hacked together harness that has been constantly modified over the years and I have finally given up so I started the wiring over, went to a dry cell battery and routed everything in a nice way. New connectors and properly soldered or crimped. Everything is very serviceable. I have re-wired the entire chassis and integrated the good harness portions into the main harness. Used some weatherproof connectors under the hood for the fuse box. Also I have wrapped everything is anti abrasion wrap instead of cheap plastic autozone special nonsense. I’m sure its expensive but I found it at work so ta da! I started working from the outsides of the car inwards. And since this is going to be a rally car instead of a rallycross car - trees are more of a thing so I am running all of the fuel/electrical/brake lines down the center because should I hit something I don’t want a wire pinched ending my rally or knocking me out of contention.

For this to be a rally car I have to have it road legal, best way to prep the rally car is to follow the tech inspection form and make sure those things work so this includes things like reverse lights, 3rd brake light, horn and a windshield washer system. I had to add these circuits so it was better to start over than to do more patch work.

So with that said, its on the basics – the battery! My welding skills are getting a bit better too, I also have a Mig now (the arc welder is a lot of fun still) I cut up 2 giant U bolts and welded them together. Battery is super secure now.



Also if you notice the strut tower tops have been reinforced. I can weld but when it comes to critical structure. I will pass…


It is a little further back than I wanted but I like having the bucket area open for storage of things for the driver and co-driver and it has a PERFECTLY sized cubby hole for this battery and there is no muffler on this side so no heat risk, help balance the weight since the exhaust runs along the P side. Easy access to electrical connectors and fuse panel should something go wrong. The objective is to make everything easy to service.




Here is the current progress:




A lot done but much more to do. The wiring takes a long time. I probably spent 3 days of wiring on just lamp wiring. I did some cleanup work under the hood too:

BEFORE:



AFTER:



Much nicer!


and here is some of the cleaned up wiring and added circuits:





Now everything is coming together nicely and I have started working on the dashboard and cleaning that mess up. More modular more easy to service etc.




Still a bit more needs to be done on that but I have finally routed the wires from the front of the car and the back of the car to the dashboard where everything will be controlled. Because of this I have 1 main electrical connection now for under the hood/front of the car, the back has 1 6 pin connector so aside from disconnecting the battery wires its relatively quick disconnect:




This is a weatherpack 22 pin bulkhead connector and its about 25 bucks from amazon and came with some terminals too so it was win-win because I was getting low on weatherpack supplies. I did not count how many circuits I had and I only have 1 pin left unused! :O



And this is my pinout diagram. Right now I have tons of small sheets or cardboard pieces and I slowly transfer them to a larger plywood board where I will ultimately make a spreadsheet wiring diagram so I can reference anything or anyone else (volunteer crew) should something fail electrically during a rally.



There has also been some floor repair and minor rust repair but that’s boring so I didn’t take pictures and the latest body repair addition didn’t draw a lot of attention so oh well.


5 weeks left to go!

Whizbang

you should join rallyanarchy.com

also, get a log book in hand ASAP. NASA or RA or whatever.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

I should but I don't have much time to forum. I have lurked there before and I am not even on special stage barely anymore.


RA logbook is in the mail (just heard from RA-Tech) so should be soon. I need to register this car and plate/insure it. Right now it shares plates/registration/insurance with the 10AE and this is a no go situation with rally so oh well. fun ride while it lasted and that car is currently broke so I need to not work on that and focus more on this.

Whizbang

sweet. always good to get the logbook in hand first and foremost. Whats your first event going to be?

psyaddict

nice work, i like where this is going

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

the post above I hinted at summer snowdrift which is the 1st week of august but if its not ready for that then it will be LSPR in october

Whizbang

LSPR is a better event anyway.

any plans to stitch weld the chassis?

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

but for a first event it would be a good shakedown to get ready for LSPR, make small changes etc. it may need some rallyX shakedowns to get ready.

No plans on that, I'm not a very good welder and I don't see a need for it yet.

Whizbang

its just nice to do while the shell is reasonably straight. Makes the cars much more rigid. Setting up the car for rallyx is quite different than stage, so while it's seat time, don't worry much about car setup. Especially brake bias. I would do that on a back road if you can.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

yeah I need to increase my welding ability first, eventually that would be nice but It wont happen before the 1st rally.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

Here is a picture of the rear brake lines, this is at max droop so it should fine if I need to take it over any sweet jumps.



This is my male connector wiring diagram. Pretty rad, right?


The dashboard heart/brain is coming together. It looks a little messy still but I have 1 last circuit to install. The windshield washer/wiper system.




The goal is to use a DPDT toggle switch. I want 1 switch to do wiper and washer system. In the middle the switch is in the off position, flip it up and its just wipers, flip it down and its wipers and washers. I haven’t totally figured out how I am going to wire it up exactly but I think I realistically just need to feed key on 12V to the center pins of the switch and then jumper the 2 poles for only the wiper. Either way the goal is not to fiddle with toggle switches and have my hands focused on the wheel and etc. I do want to try and hit 2 switches at once sorta thing.

Speaking of logbooks.... Time to check one more thing off the list, a very important thing…




One less hurdle and one important step forward, plus I figure with the EPA bullshit looming of not being able to turn cars into race cars (likely wont pass) I figure if something already is a race car, especially a log booked one, it will be grandfathered in.

Whizbang

at full compression does the axle try to rub the line?

Whizbang

Also, they are enforcing the "if the engine stalls the fuel pumps must cut off" rule per the most recent emails. Not sure what you have going on anymore, but if the stock fuel pump relay isn't being used, or is modified, see to it that you can make it comply.

Shainiac

iTrader: (7)

Should be fine. Megasquirt turns the fuel pump relay off unless the engine is cranking or running, besides a couple second prime when you first turn the key.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

There is nothing stock left of the wiring except the bulb sockets for the rear lamps.

The relay is on a toggle now but that can easily be changed. I should be done with wiring it this week and hopefully onto testing and fixing the exhaust leak/adding race cat

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

aaaaaaaaaand its done!



everything works too! except I can't find my wideband cable (the shop is a mess) I haven't started the engine yet because of it and especially since I finished late last night.

I have a little more cleaning up to do (and find that cable) then it should be onto tuning

the 500Amp breaker works great but I can only crank it for maybe 10 seconds without it popping the breaker and I can't seem to find a larger one. What do people use for a fuse/breaker when you relocate the battery? I thought 500A would be enough since its a 400CCA battery but I guess not...

Next up is underbody, tuning and then fuel lines (run in the cabin) so I picked up this amazing piece of equipment for helping attach the fenders and fender liners. I don't know why I didn't buy one of these before they are amazing!



Also we have created a facebook group so we can post silly rx7 or rally things and hopefully share pictures in action and etc.

@Braprally74

or search for Minimal Effort Motorsports (the runner up name was Underfunded Over Budget Racing)

eage8

iTrader: (9)

My circuit breaker is only 200A and I've never had it blow while cranking...

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

I'm running a S2 rx8 starter its 2.5Kw (or 3kw motor I think). I know its more than the rx7 stocker bit a bit.

I can crank it for about 20 seconds then it pops. Its also some amazon cheap thing. I have the breaker about 1' from the battery.

eage8

iTrader: (9)

I'm running an automatic rx7 starter... so it's 2.0Kw.... shouldn't be that much of a difference, but I'm not sure I've ever cranked it that long. maybe you should start by finding out why you need to crank the car for 20 seconds

ACR_RX-7

iTrader: (1)

The problem is you are running a cheap breaker. Get a Bussman brand unit. Mine is 150A

I read reviews on the cheap ones and many of them can not handle the load they claim to be rated foe.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

hahaha I was waiting for that. but I did not have my ignition or megasquirt on. I was just priming it/testing circuits.

I was thinking the same thing...

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

Well it doesn't look like we are going to race at summer sno*drift. my wideband took a dump so this week we will focus on seat mountings and belt stuff so that we can test the engine/tune until this arrives:



I can now calculate the ratio of a ratio of a ratio if I need be but in reality I want to be able to narrow down any fault as quickly as possible. IE if one rotor is dead I know where to start diag-ing or know which fuel injector or plug to check. If something fails on the road or in transit I can minimize diag time by literally 50% and in a rally time penalties can really hurt.

So to run two 02 sensors I had to weld in new bungs, the existing ones had damaged threads and were at the threshold for the distance limit from exhaust outlet so I just went just behind the flange.


So then with that “settled” and calibrating the 02 sensors to the controllers it was time to set the engine timing and then begin the megasquirt diagnostics…



Then it stopped running (lost fuel) and I enlisted additional help



So I brought out some additional help with fancy tools and had diagnosed a hardware issue. It turned out that trace in the MS2 board that turns on the MOSFET injector drivers was burned so we jumped it with a wire. But because of this I left my ECU with a friend to diag and repair beyond what I was capable of doing so with this few week lead time I began to work on other tasks like underbody but before going on to that I must say that megasquirt has been the worst experience of my (automotive) life, not once but twice, remember this thread years ago? When I failed at it the 1st time then slapped the carb on it and it was “good enough” and was able to still be pretty competitive and this time I had better results but it was still from flawless execution, lots of modifying and checking and diagnostics and failure and repair and repeat. All in all this ECU is all way to configurable for me and is best left to experts I would not recommend this ECU to anyone. I wished I had spent the money (saved the time) and bought a proper haltech unit for this. This ECU is way outside of my comfort zone and if anything starts acting up I’m going to have a difficult time diagnosing it. End rant.

So without an ECU I still had plenty of things I needed to do before stage rally… Time to add grip tape (skateboard tape) to the pedals to keep my feet from slipping, now I just got to add that stuff where my heel wears away the paint on the floor.

fidelity101

iTrader: (11)

Then beginning the underbody, I used 3/16ths HDPE (High density poly ethylene) which is super strong and fairly stiff and should protect my *** because my seats are literally sitting on the floor. Step 1 – add reinforcement plates to future mounting areas, step 2 – add weld nuts, step 3 weld on appropriate sized bolt then grind to a point.



I took basic measurements and basically installed the underbody hole by hole. You thread in the bolt with the pointed tip in the affixed weld nut, add paint or marker to the tip, press up on the HDPE sheet then remove the sheet, you then have an indent with a colored point so it is easy to drill a hole. Do this one by one and attach it as you get further back then slowly you start have to a well fitted piece.





Not only underbody but above body needed work too, we did not need a sunroof for stage rally so I added a thin sheet of aluminum was RTV’d (for water protection) and then riveted to the roof just like before, but this time I used a thicker sheet so it was a bit harder to form, so I received help from my old engines to keep it in place as I drilled and riveted it down.


It looked really bad so I did what “anyone” would do and that’s wrap it with carbon fiber sticker!


I don’t want to actually show you what it looked like underneath but lets just say even the average sticker job that I performed is better looking than what’s underneath. Also the added sticker should act like “ belts and suspenders” for water protection. However with the body lines this doesn’t exactly look like a carbon fiber roof but from a distance it could….
A few tweaks to the wiring and gauges, I went with the AEM water temp gauge because I loved the oil pressure gauge so much, the MS now controls the E fan and fuel pump so I am compliant with the rules.



In addition to the underbody I had more flexible sheets of plastic for fender liners and to help close off the skid plate to engine bay. I started making mockups with cardboard but just gave up because they were easy to form and I followed the same process as the HDPE but I was utilizing stainless steel rivet nuts and that the fender liners overlap with the HDPE in the front it should work out great.



So in the end here is the completed underbody!


Before we get to the rally weekend story there is some side story from about a year ago that comes into play now…