The network is back!!!!! Horay!! (still don't have Gchat at work though) Happy Friday bitches!


Well it has been a busy month of ice racing and a rallycross. Unlike most people, February is my busiest month of the year and I don't really celebrate valentines day. Not only is ice racing a blast, it makes for great photos! All those prior build photos were fun and all but now its time to enjoy the fruits of my labor with sweet sweet action shots.

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...47526e3595.jpg

Feb 7th SVR region SCCA , ice runs AT NIGHT! Got to use ALL THE LUMENS. seriously it was a blast. Great way to shakedown the car and see the lighting improvements. added the rallyboobs on for added lulz factor. Much lumen. visibility wow! This group runs rallyX classing but solo scoring rules, so grouped by MR/SR/PR etc but fastest single run out of 4 runs wins.
(no photos due to night)


I won by 40 seconds, if it was rallycross rules I would have won by over 4 minutes. I beat a lot of AWD cars too. Roughly 1.8 mile course, I hit top speeds of 51 (GPS) crossing the finish line


Feb 15th. Furrin Group ice runs, classes separated by drive configuration (SR/MR/PR all one group) and rallyX scoring. Took 3rd. Lost 2nd by 2 seconds and lost 1st by 5. Had a spin on 1 run and did a ride a long with a competitor and gave him good advice that managed to take 2nd from me. All in all. good day. Much shorter course, maybe 3/4 mile and I hit speeds of about 45 crossing the line.


http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...51124b694b.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...722657fac3.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...49079b9b2f.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...80640bbdac.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...85876cf0fe.jpg

Also the frankenburban was tow/recovery duty, also fun.
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/27/truck18a42.jpg

Feb 21st, round 2 of DET SCCA Rallycross (my 1st rallyX this year). Took 3rd (out of 4) lost 2nd by a cone and lost 1st by about 10. I was real dirty all day hitting cones and had a spin that cost me about 16 seconds off pace. Also the hairpun sucked, it was uphill and icy.


http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...0677806f2e.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...309422bc8a.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...207090ade7.jpg


Also note that my body damage/headlight is from my co-driver stuffing it into a snowbank from biffing it in the hairpin. Now I need to fix the headlight by swapping the guts into a new housing... wonderful. (PITA)

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...538202c693.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...59412f8ac7.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...48936d3afe.jpg


Again, suburban was tow/recovery vehicle. best work assignment ever, bluetooth radio and heat in sub 20 degree weather, not to mention be able to sit down.

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/27/truck2652c7.jpg

Feb 22nd SVR Region ice runs! This time it was a 2.2 mile course and I got to drift an island! (Video to come soon) finish line speeds were up to 65mph, took 1st by 14 seconds this time (had a half spin on my fast run) but rallyX scoring would have been 3 minutes. Automobile magazine was there with their fiesta and they took pictures all day.

Article below:
2014 Ford Fiesta ST - The ST Goes Ice Racing

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...IR-800d223.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/02/2...IR-779cfa0.jpg

So they drove the fiesta ST with a fastest time of 168.5 seconds to get around, my fastest lap was 166.2 :)



Overall the car performed great ran strong and felt good, the formula works and has worked so now I need to tidy up my driver mod. I was racing rallyX like ice racing, which does not work. Time to re-readjust.
No racing this weekend, (more ice racing feb 7/8th) time to do some repairs and adjustments, more photos soon to come!

I'll give you a hint. "new" wheels, "new" tires, new steering wheel and studs. Diff overhaul is MUCH needed. it hates the ice it is 100% limited to slipping right now.

awesome!

body damage in that spot is pretty easy to fix. place one hand under the "brake duct" in the bumper, and place the other hand on the crease in fender. pull bumper, while pushing fender. easy peasy

I thought that lake looked familiar!! I've been meaning to go to the furrin ice races but I've never had a chance.

I'd love to take my lemons rx7 out to Turk lake for a shakedown!

awesome. Did you get the carb issue sorted it out or just driving it as is?

right now rev limit is 7k full load.

I did have to update the needle/seat to a larger size. current was 1.8 the next size is 2.0 which I just put in and did a carb clean/re gasket this weekend. idles at 1000 dead now. no hunting or surging or brap brap brap brap like it has a cool bridgeport in it.

Did a little bit of testing and found its still draining the float too fast, the larger needle/seat helped but it still leans out above 7k now. The next step up is 2.5 which is an 11 week lead time from japan...

I am going to try and bump the pressure up and see how that affects it but I cant go too high or else it overpowers the circuits and just pours fuel down the venturi lol.

I may need to adjust my floats which I haven't really messed with but I need to fix the headlight to do further testing because its still dark by the time I am home from work etc.

that was fine/ already fixed, but my co driver broke the 2 mounting bosses on the plastic housing for the headlight so I gotta swap the guts out, luckily I have some spare headlight parts laying around from this ordeal.

I also managed to pop my exhaust gasket on the flange that is 3 feet further downstream. again, easy fix.

ALSO! I dug up my old dyno sheet from the last engine a few years ago. It peaked power at 6600rpm and made 132WHP. (it might be buried in the thread here a few pages back)

I think I have ALWAYS been having this issue of no fuel at high RPM.


Ooops.

Now I'm curious to see how much power it would have made had it gone up to 8k...

lol, yes there is an old man in a shed...

you should just order the biggest needle and seat they have ever made, with the Webers, we usually run a 3.0, or bigger

if you're going to make them make one, might as well get the big one!

I don't think they have to be made because this is such an old carburetor I think they just have NOS back in the mother country.

but yes, now I am on wait for a 2.5

:(

Just get one of everything!

good news! Apparently wolfcreek racing had found some 2.5 needle/seats hiding somewhere. So they should arrive by this weekend. Now to wrap up some small items of headlight, studding tires and carb adjustment and I will be ready for Sunday's ice race!

Now thats a better steering wheel!
(380MM)
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/0...210084d46d.jpg

Then a friend inspired me to get these.
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/0...02746b4ec7.jpg
and then this happened...
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/0...00004c73f2.jpg

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/0...359005a24e.jpg

Ice racing this Sunday and potentially on the 15th as well, so we shall see how these bad boys do...


God I love winter!

Homemade studded tires, fuckin rad.

I don't know if you're interested, or if you can run bolted tires, but I have a set that will probably start to dryrot before I get around to using them. They're in good shape, and come with wheels in the middle of each tire. PM me if you're interested, I have to return another set of tires this weekend and could ship them out then if you want them.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7324/...94257825_z.jpg

show us some in car of this thing ripping!

tempting! but with the season basically over, I got to put some attention towards other things right now.

There should be some photos soon from this weekend, I will have to work on uploading a few in car videos and possibly an on ramp pull or something.

I totally forgot to update this...


Results? they worked, AWESOME! However, they were pretty average on snow because the gravel tires are too hard for snow traction so you had to floor it to dig into the ice everywhere. With the warm weather the ice was quite grippy and the heavy melted packing snow was grippy for snow tires.


a couple of fun action shots:
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...42187c25f5.jpg
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...7077916dd5.jpg
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...30829ab05a.jpg
Here is a better picture of the interior:

http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/20/interiorc2b78.jpg

and then I got friendly with the machine shop staff at work and they milled me some new steering wheel hub spacers, 1" and .5" out of aluminum now I can toss out that heavy steel one that didn't have the correct pattern on it.
ALL THE ERGONOMICS!!!!
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...9314222542.jpg

Next up?


I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING!
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...9555821279.jpg
I can rebuild a rotary engine but I am pretty dumb when it comes to setting backlash on a differential. it is time to overhaul the differential's LSD unit. no more limited to slipping differential (is the goal).


Initial tear down was good ( on the spare LSD ) gears and bearings looked fantastic! However, all of my friction plates were about ,05mm undersized standard but still above the "limit" as mazda labels it. My thrust washers were at the limit of wear.
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...00640ae15f.jpg

I'll be honest, I thought a clutch type differential used clutches and plates like some fancy flywheel clutch setup or whats in an auto trans, I was not expected a bunch of metal discs with various grooves. I did find some minor scoring on a few friction discs but overall looked like normal wear.



Then, after that - source a 15.2:1 power steering rack and then de-power it & install into the car. Current non P/S model is 20.4:1 and I find myself chasing the wheel too much, time to quicken it.


After that? May be EFI consideration time, I am at the limit of this carb and new carb is EFI money territory... (megasquirt)
Considering I already have S5 NA upper/lower fuel rails, S4 NA injectors w/ pigtails, S4 Intake manifold (w/ block off plates) and about 11 crank angle sensors (don't ask) There already is an aeromotive adjustable FPR and walbro 255lph for my fuel system so converting back would be simple.

OR toss in a stock NA harness/ecu setup on there and Rtek it?

Still much to think about but in the mean time I would rather just focus on seat time.

It's more like a motorcycle clutch than an automotive clutch, if that helps. A standard motorcycle clutch looks like this:
http://www.dansmc.com/ducati_single_clutch.JPG
... so you can see the similarities there for sure. You just have two of those with fewer discs in each. Are you sticking with the stock preload, or increasing it?

I want to increase it. I can go over sized thrust washer and friction plates from mazda motorsports. Friends of mine are telling me to shim it with pop cans cut up... I'm not thrilled with this idea.

The issue is that the competition catalog and mazda motorsports says I need 6 discs but the service manual and the OEM diff I tore down only has 4 friction discs (not to be confused to friction plates)

so is it safe to put 6 in? or should I just put 4 in? anyone done this before?

if 4 came out, I would put 4 back in.... you're not gaining any space anywhere by removing anything else.

also, the soda can trick is pointless when you can just buy oversized thrust washers

or you could just buy my OS Giken :gwink:

Are you running a Tii or NA diff? Iirc there is a difference between the amount of clutches on the two.

On my Tii diff when I had it apart I went with the oversized thrust washers and all the oversized clutch discs MazdaTrix has listed, replaced the other clutches while I was in there also. The diff engages very well now.

the Motorsport catalog says the TII diff only has 2:
https://www.mazdamotorsports.com/web...Drivetrain.pdf

god I wish, I don't have the pockets for that AND you have it in 4.30s already :\

The TII diff has different amount of discs/plates compared to an NA (Mine is an NA) and the T2 doesn't use conical springs it uses some other spring that effectively does the same thing.

both diffs have 2 thrust washers.

Made some progress, ended up making my own plug wires. Tach doesn't go all jumpy either because of it. I had my coil to dizzy wire fail, if you were to close to it and between a ground you would get shocked.

Co-driver helped me out with that and then decided to label the switches so he didn't forget what was what:
http://picoolio.net/images/2015/03/2...3011619d53.jpg

2nd rallycross of the year this Sunday and I have some meaty tires to enjoy.

ALSO, I can't tune out this carb and there are no more emulsion tubes that are offered for it, I cannot get rid of the 7krpm lean out issue. The only thing that I seem to be able to control everything else but high rpm high load tuning. I think its time I went back to EFI, so expect a megasquirt or haltec sub build soon.

However in hindsight, I wish I just dropped a renesis into this and avoided a lot of this work...

Take out the jets, buy some tiny drill bits and make them bigger

And i like the beer dispenser switch, gotta have that extra liquid weight for traction lol