23Racer

The plan was for me to shake down the car after a long rest, but WOW did I learn a lot of things about the car and making it go faster for longer. Just shows that even after racing the car for almost 15 years, you can still learn a bunch of things to make it faster for pretty cheap. For those of you who were not aware, it was freakin' hot at the track and the day was very well subscribed. I even had Al (01racing) to compare with as he had his car out as well.

First, I want to thank Jim and especially Al for assistance with spark plugs. I thought that I needed to upgrade to race plugs and Jim kindly provided a couple of sets. I took them to the track and without thinking forgot my extremely thin-walled spark plug socket, so I was unable to install them. Al had a spare set of his race plugs and let me have them to run the car on. HOLEY SCHNITT the engine was transformed. Right out of the pits and after a moment or two to clear itself out, the car just wailed. It pulled extremely hard up to my intended redline of 8500 rpm and a few times coming out of the hairpin it revved out so fast that I saw over 9,000 before I could grab second. It ran all day without a hiccup or a misfire or detonation. The car was extremely flexible as a second newbie driver out testing my car, was lugging it at about 3,500 in 3rd with no issues. The plugs cleaned themselves right off and away we went. Just great. It was fun being able to come out of the hairpin and just pull out to pass anybody that was in front of me (well except Al). I really need to lean down the car a lot as it was running fat all day.

Secondly, I need to install an underdriven water pump setup. The car ran all day at about 215 water and 200 oil. Al was pulling at least 1,000 rpm more than me and he was running about 20 degrees cooler. Need to spend some money on a set of pulleys.

Third, the stock FC gearbox doesn't like to be bang shifted at 8,500+ rpm and when it gets really hot, the gearlube starts to smell. I finally need to install my tranny cooler setup as the car is making enough power now to really cook the oil.

Fourth, the car really needs better shocks. I was using my Mosport setup on the car (600 fronts and 400 rears) and the car was pogoing around the track like a kangaroo. The setup was soft enough, I just couldn't get the car to stick when it was bouncing all over. It was costing me at least 2 seconds a lap while I had to wait for it to settle down before I could turn or brake or accelerate. Big need to put my good shocks in.

Finally a comparison to Al's car. He has a ton more mechanical grip than my car as he is running 245x45x16 BFG's all around. I could really tell the difference as a number of times I was drifting the car or spinning the tires and I would look in the mirror and Al was calmly charging along behind me. At Shannonville, mechanical grip is gold. Also, Al has a monster motor in his beast. Like I said earlier, mine isn't slow, but Al was able to pull out at will and just drive past me on the straight. He has to be making at least 50 horsepower more than I am. His PP is really a great motor and Al has it set up beautifully.

All in all a very good day of testing. The plugs did more than I was expecting, my new Q Racing Oil (15w50) was great and I never had issues with pressure all day, my new Vortex VR1 brake pads and I got the tire data I required.

All in all a very good day.

Eric

Bwek

iTrader: (4)

Good read love finding cheap power

01Racing

All I can say is that my stock turbo gear box sucks lol. The PPort needs that tight ration of the competition trans. My 2nd to 3rd shift in the turbo box (2nd gear in the turbo box is the same as 1st in the comp box) is like going from 1st to 3rd in the race box!

Andoru

Al/Eric,

Which plugs are they? The NGK R's?

Was nice meeting you guys yesterday and seeing your cars.

I need to sort my cooling, I would have liked to run some hot laps with you guys.

Andrew.

Logitikes

damn... i just missed u guys when i got there. apparently you guys went for the early event while i went for the kplayground one after yours. i met up with andrew who drove a 13bre fc, but i still didnt get to see any fc's on the track. wished i could have made it earlier, but atleast i got to see an awesome fc! anyways ill be making a video covering the track day and andrew's fc will be in it.

23Racer

Andrew, they are the NGK race plugs. I believe 11's.

For your cooling, it is pretty simple. Get a Howe chevy stock car rad. Lower rad hose uses a cut off stock lower rad hose. For the upper, you need to carry it across the engine bay from drivers side to passenger side. I just used a 90 degree hose on the rad outlet, a piece of aluminum pipe, another 90 degree hose, a short piece of aluminum pipe and a shortened stock upper rad hose. Duct all the air from the nose in to the rad and oil coolers. Use a stock water pump with the bypass blocked off. This has worked very well on a number of cars for almost 20 years. No sense in re-inventing the wheel on cooling. All of these things make a huge difference.

For oil cooling, I used 2 stock FC oil coolers mounted in parallel. One is above and slightly ahead of the other. Works great or at least it did until I got my plugs changed and the car ran great above 7500 rpm. Who would have thought that such a small change would have made such a big difference. With the increased rpm now it is cavitating for sure and I have to underdrive all my accessories. More $$$$$$, grrrrrrr.

Great seeing you and your car really looks like it will be something special. Love the wheels.

Eric

01Racing

The plugs are R6725-11.5 they are the only plug NGK supplies to Canada. There are other heat ranges available in the USA they are R6725-10, 10.5 and 11. Probably the 10.5 or 11's may work a bit better but with the costs of getting them here I will stick with what I have lol.

01Racing

Rad set up:

Andoru

I ordered mine from Mazdatrix, they were bloody expensive. I can't remember if it was the 11 or 10.5 I have right now.

Eric, I'm going to see what I can do with fitting a pair of stock oil coolers (I already have one sitting at the shop). I think its the cheapest route. Looked at the fluidyne stuff but they are expensive.

Andrew.

01Racing

Your turbo will build more heat than my PPort, and my 2 Fluidyne 23X2X6 coolers were barely doing the job on Monday. Dont cheap out on coolers etc, they are a lot cheaper than an engine................I speak from experience!
http://www.fluidyne.com/products_oil...rformance.html

FC3Sdrift

iTrader: (5)

+1 for me hahaha i called the spark plugs in your other thread

23Racer

Wow, I didn't know your car was a turbo. Al is absolutely correct, you need the big stuff. I run 2 stock FC coolers in parallel and they barely kept my car under 200 degrees oil temp on Monday. Mine is a half bridge, maybe making 250 hp. They would be woefully inadequate on a high horsepower turbo car.

And FC3SDrift you were correct. A big thumbs up to you and Al for beating me up about the plugs. I need to get Jims plugs back to him as he was very decent and let me try a set of his cold plugs.


Eric

23Racer

Watched Al's In-Car and man I was trying to force the car. Just divebombing the corners and steering like h3ll, LOL. Still was quick, but not the fastest way. That happens when you get a bit rusty. I was not doing what the car wanted me to do. I was trying to force the car to do what I wanted it to.

Now I just need to go over the car to upgrade what I think it needs to go faster. List of things to do for the car;

1) Build Cold Air Box
2) Change pulley set
3) Build proper rad ducting
4) Re-Tune car to lean it out some now that we have the proper plugs in the car
5) Paint hood white (the black hood just bugs me)
6) Bleed Brakes
7) Cold Air Ducts to front brakes
8) Go through car to lighten as much as possible
9) Put 75w90 NS gearlube in diff.
10) Need to put some new gear lube in the box and cross my fingers that its still okay. I think the box got too hot and the lube gave up.
11) Try to get more front camber and caster.

Just a few things to do before the next time on track in late August. By the way, with the engine running so cleanly I love this car again!

Eric

Redshft

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the report Eric. You really have me wanting a set of those plugs now.
I just can't swallow close to $200 to try a set. I'm not sure which would be worse.. spending $200 and finding out they don't work, or finding out they work great and then needing to buy a few sets per year.

Don't suppose you'll get a chance to try Jim's "cheap" plugs before you return them?

FC3Sdrift

iTrader: (5)

you could try running 4 of the trailing plugs, they're 9's, it worked good in my car daily driving it last year


I just know from experience lol, my klze would snap crackle and pop the first year i had it at WOT, i checked everything wasted so much money on different things, come to find out it was the spark plugs

23Racer

Well, if its okay with Jim, I will return 1 set to him and try a set at Moport on Labour Day Weekend. I am going to be running the GT Challenge race that weekend and it would be a good test to try them in practice or qualifying.

I will let everybody know how things turn out.

Eric

23Racer

What is really interesting is that my car used to snap and pop a lot as well. These plugs cleaned that out and allow the car to pull hard to whenever my brains take over, LOL. I am using stock coils as well. A really great test result.

Eric

01Racing

Lol I still dont know why you guys are messing with the proven set regarding plugs. The stock 9EQ trailing plugs work fine until you get over 8,000rpm. The entire package changes over 8,000. The ignition needs change, the plugs etc. The experts (Mazdatrix and Racing Beat) have dyno's and spend more time in a month testing and retesting than any of us will do in a lifetime. I learned the expensive way and now I am sharing it with you. The right plug thats available in Canada is the R6725-11.5, if you get them from the US you can try the R6725-10.5, but in warm weather the 11.5 will work better. Our ignition is real simple. 2 MSD 6T boxes with 2 SS Blaster coils. There are better boxes and coils available from MSD but you will then spend well over $1200.00 in parts alone. The 6T's and SS Blasters keep our car lit cleanly to over 10,500 RPM, when you look at the dyno sheet there no movement in the powerband at all. Its relatively inexpensive and well prove by 1000's of race miles around North America and the Carribean.