Before I go into the whole story of a good weekend I would like to thank all of the forum members who came out and crewed this past weekend; (cast of thousands)
Shane (Balzz), Keith (Shocker), Giacamo (Feds), Leigh (Leigh Adams) and Joe (RPM Performance). Of course my crew chief Dave Salt, I wouldn't be able to do this without him. We really didn't have a ton to do this weekend, so I sorta felt a bit guilty having so many crew guys out. Shoulda blown up the gearbox or something just to keep them busy, LOL.

Now to the race. I was teamed up with Mike Thornley and Steve Scala for this race.

WE decided to sacrifice qualifying to give one of my co-drivers a chance to learn to drive the car and we knew it was a 3 Hour race so where you started really had limited effect. So we started 28th out of 43 cars.

I started the race and before the race sat on the mock grid for about 15 minutes and almost melted. It was really, really hot inside the car and like an idiot I had my regular underwear and t-shirt, nomex underwear, triple layer nomex suit, gloves, balaclava, helmet and socks/shoes on. As I pulled out onto the track I was almost ready to be sick from the heat...... not good.

Anyways we started the race. The car was really strong. Getting the flag all the cars bunched up to the inside so I went outside and used the RPM Power. Passed 2 cars up the front straight, moved across track and stayed outside of someone into 2. Got slowed down into 3 and 2 of those cars re-passed me, #&%@ Sentra. Had to stay in line as there were a ton of cars ahead of me and somebody in the Ford race ahead of me had dumped a ton of oil on line going into 5. Nailed the throttle coming out of 5B, holey cr@p the car was strong. Pulled out and passed a B16A Civic as well as Andrew Elliots Turbo 5 Valve Scirocco. Man I had never done that before. Passed a number of other slow Sentra and Civics a Golf or 2 and after everything settled down after a couple of laps I was in 17th place.

Now I was in a knife fight with the factory Turbo Saab 9-3 and Ian Maddens Vr6 Golf. The car was working well at this point so I tried Ian first. Stayedwith him out of 2 (squeezed my butt cheeks hard to do this. Tried a dive bomb into 3, nope...got on the throttle a little quicker and powered out of 3 side by side. Kept my foot down and went around him in 4 (with a deep breath). Scrabbled through 5 and then hammered up the back straight leaving him behind. Pulled 5 lengths on him into 8. He got 3 back coming out of 10, but I just pulled away again. God I love Joe, I want to have his children (just kidding, no man crushes just a bunch of respect). Took off after the Saab. It took me half a lap then I was on his back bumper going through 5 a&b. Came onto the back straight and used his draft to slingshot him into 8. Looked at the speedo, OMFG 225!!!!!! Slewed all over the track trying to get slowed down and he almost went right past me. Just used my power to stay ahead going into 1.

The next 10 to 15 laps went like this. My brake bias kept drifting rearwards and I struggled through the corners and smoked them on the straights. If I tried to trail brake anywhere the car would try to spin. I can't count the number of times I had smoke trails going into 8, 9 or 3 from the brakes and the car in opposite lock as I tried to gather it up. Just kept pi$$ing off the Saab and the Golf by slowing them down in the turns and powering out up the straights. It was all I could do. I was a sitting duck under braking.

Finally got blocked by a Sentra. The guy motioned me to pass on the right going into 4. As I got alongside him he moved me off the track to the right( at 180 kmh). Put 3 wheels off, staggered back onto the track for 5. Jason Sharpe and Ian Madden had caught up to me by this point and we hit the back straight together. Instead of pulling out my normal 6 lengths I could only pull out 3 as they were drafting like mad. Jason dive bombed me into 8 under braking. I repassed him into 1. Held him off through 2 and he finally slid past for good going into 3. I tried to repass him up the back straight, but we had to weave through traffic up the back straight so I couldn't get back by. This let Ian by going into 8 again. Never ever use Hawk Blues with ducting on the front and Hawk Blacks on the rear. The car stops like you are only using a parking brake.

Anyways after they got by me I realized again how hot I was. I was reminded after sweat started running in my eyes. Just tried to stretch the fuel mileage and made 1:10 before coming in. My fastest lap was a 1:40.1. Not great but a lot better as I knew with better brake control I could really start to push. Finished my stint in 14th overall 7th in T1. A pretty good improvement in 1 hour.

My co-driver Steve Scala got in the car and started to push. I had warned him about the brakes so he was aware. He got in to a battle with the same Saab 9-3, this time being driven by the owner and they went at it like a tong knife fight. Each lap they ratched downwards until Steve set our races fastest lap with a 1:38.9. He came in after another hour and we re-fueled the car with our normal efficiency (thanks Shane) and Mike went out.

He had a couple of incidents, a spin in 5b and getting punted by the Lexus in 9, but carried on to the finish. We finished in 14th overall and 6th in T1 just behind the Saab in class and only 2 seconds behind the Dolan 3rd Gen that Nik was crewing for.

All in all a very good result and after checking out the car we found the following;

Oil used - none
Gas used - 24 gallons (3 left in tank)
Fastest Lap - 1:38.9 (getting there)
Water down - 1 cup
Brakes hardly worn in the front, rear rotors gone.
Front brake cooling ducts smashed shut by rubber boogers, explains the improvement in braking action as the race went on.
88 laps covered in 3 hours about 220 miles.
Fastest terminal speed - approx 225 kmh going into 8

Until later

Eric

No other issues.

 

Nice results...Great lap times as well

 

Don't know about you Eric, but the highlight of my weekend were those grilled sausages from your company.

I can't wait till it's time for Joe to build me a new engine. Good meeting more rx7club folk too.

 

What an awesome weekend! That was my first time to Mosport to see cars actually racing on the track. I definatly want to make it out for more events.

I'm glad to see the motor is working good and it didn't skip a beat through the whole race, now its time to get some better brakes to slow it down

 

Was a fun time. Scala is a friggin rocket ship!

My highlight was 400+ kms in ~4 hours with 2 pee breaks and traffic.

And the hotrods.. and the free food... and the formula Vees

 

wow Eric, glad to hear you're taming the beast!!

very impressive times too!

 

Sounds like everyone had a great time! Good to hear the weather worked out... it was looking really gloomy the whole day.

Gotta take a look at the schedule to see when's the last event of the year....

Lates,

 

Hey guys cross your fingers. It turns out that Scala came out of 5B in second and missed the shift into third and got first instead. The tell tale is reading 10,030 max rpm. Just talked to Joe and now I have to do a compression check tomorrow and watch the oil pressure warm to see if any damage has been done.

How did he even hammer it into 1st. Not really fun to find out this way.

At least the engine still runs, LOL.

 

Damn that Scala! I wouldn't worry too much, you guys did at least an hour after that!

 

Yeah, snatching the wrong gear was a big surprise to me, too. It was about six laps into my stint. I late-apexed a Sentra coming out of 5, put a quick shift in from 2nd into what I thought was 3rd, pulled out the clutch pedal, and got a whole buncha revs and rear wheel lockup. I put an end to that action as quickly as I figured out what I'd done, and instantly started praying to the motor gods for forgiveness. I remember imagining apex seals coming out the tailpipe, and figuring that blowing up Eric's new motor would've been about as bad as a moderate shunt into the wall, which I had been pretty determined to avoid. This being only six laps into the stint, either kind of mistake could've made me persona non grata for race rides for awhile.

I was surprised and eternally thankful that the motor carried on, 'business as usual'. By the time that lap was finished, I was a die-hard believer in rotary power. Christian Sorensen had made the same mistake in his straight-six powered BMW in morning practice and busted a hole in his (very expensive) block, ignonimously spinning on his own oil at 5a. I thought he looked dumb when I'd seen it. Now I'd dodged the that bullet.

With my mis-shift out of 5b, the lap turned out to be a 1:46. Immediately, I started bringing the times back down to make up for the mistake. The factory Saab had come up in my mirrors, tho, and knowing that Eric was battling this car for class points, I wasn't ready to roll over and play dead.

The Saab did get by me once, though: after the mis-shift, I'd had a close eye on the gauges for the rest of the stint. This one time, I checked the oil temp gauge a bit late before braking for corner 2...that left everything a bit late, cornering-wise, and I went a bit wide. Lockhart got past me on the exit, then overcooked the next corner entry. As he tortured his outside-front tire around the outside of turn 3, I was thinking, 'hey John, check out what rear-drive can do!' as I pulled away from him on the exit. Made and lost some gaps in traffic, but the Saab wouldn't get past again until we'd stopped for Mike to get in.

The car was otherwise great. With the brake bias further to the rear, I could pull small entry radii as I passed slower traffic on the inside. Very handy. At one point, I passed two Touring Cars bottled up behind two Nissans, squirting around the outside of the whole lot in turn 9, then outbraking them in 10. Really an awesome car. That said, I'm offering Eric my ported 13b as a spare, just for penance...

 

LOL, thanks a bunch Steve but no need right now (fingers crossed).

You did a great job in the car in difficult circumstances and I would have no issues recommending you to anyone as a quick and reliable shoe.

We both also got to spend a lot of time watching the front of the Saab weave back and forth in our mirrors. I wonder if Jason Sharpe and John Lockhart had dreams of the #23 RX7 rear end drawing away up the straights.

Eric

 

Reading Eric's and Steven's on track summary is like reading Penthouse forum to me. :o

My goal for tomorrow is to use "ignominiously" in a sentence.

 

Did my oil change last night and a quick compression check. I had my fingers crossed as I was having some pretty funky oil pressure issues after the race.

What would happen was if I started the car the oil pressure would go up to about 40 lbs at idle, normal, then as I revved the car it would climb to about 60 psi at 2000 rpm. This was lower than usual and no matter how I revved the car it would not climb higher than about 70 psi. Needless to say I was a bit concerned. I didn't think that it was a spun bearing as the car would hold a very good minimum pressure, it just wouldn't build a proper pressure.

So I changed the oil to new 20-50 and refired the car. Instantly my pressures were back to normal. Oh BABY we dodged a bullet. Everything looks very good and we will be back out for the Celebration Weekend.

On a second note does anybody have a good clean FC stock oil cooler that I can borrow for about a month? I just want to check how restrictive my cooler is as it does take almost 2 seconds after firing for the car to build 20 lbs of pressure from cold and about 30 seconds before it builds over 80.

When I had the less restrictive (and less efficient) Mocal style cooler on the car the pressures shot up instantly, so I want to check if it just my cooler or the stock Mazda style of cooler. I am planning on replacing the existing double cooler set-up I presently have with a Fluidyne setup this winter.

Eric

 

Sounds like it all checked out OK, Eric. Very glad to hear it.

I'll pick my GXL's oil cooler out of the pile o'bits when I meet Keith on Saturday.

By the way, I didn't thank the crew. You guys were flawless, and lotsa fun to hang out with. Cheers.

(Hey, neat! This forum has emoticons...this is what zinging that motor felt like... )

 

Ive got a TII cooler in very nice shape, could use a flush though...

 

Wicked Joe, I'll get eric to call you tomorrow.