Thursday, September 30, 2010

What to bring.


Not having the trailer to pack all of our tools in meant we had to be a bit more selective about what we brought. The car didn't have any major mechanical problems, but there were a few things missing that still could have gotten us into trouble.
  • RainX/FogX - Our Lady has no wipers and no interior ventilation. We tried to purchase some RainX on Sunday morning, but none of the local gas stations had it. I spent a good portion of the morning session driving blind around the track. Seth had to drive to Camden to pick some up and it made a huge difference in visibility.
  • Dikes - Lots of pliers, but not much to cut with.
  • Wheel Spindle Socket - If we needed to pull the axles out we'd need the socket that fit.

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

LeMons South Fall 2010 - Friday



A special thanks to Phil's BS camera for the photo.

Craig and I didn't finish packing up the car until close to midnight on Thursday, so we decided to leave Friday morning and set up in the daylight knowing that we'd probably end up with a camping spot in the boonies. We got to CMP around noon and were surprised to see that there was a spot next to the Tunachuckers directly across from the judging area.

With Johnny gone they were short handed on BS judging and I happened to be standing in the right place and got handed a robe. I realized after a few minutes just how much car knowledge Phil and Jay have and spent most of my time watching them work and trying figure out a way I could contribute.

Our Lady finally made it through tech and Phil spoiled the moment by opening the hood. Seeing the B-18 in there he bumped us up to class A but didn't give us any laps.

Monday, September 27, 2010

11th Place!


We had a fantastic and nearly flawless race this weekend.

We ran ~2 hour stints to minimize time lost during pit stops. The driver order was Brian, Steve, Craig, and then Seth.

The front wing didn't last long. A 944 got squirrelly in front of me and I gently tapped it with the front wing support. It stayed together, but was damaged enough that it needed to come off at the end of my turn in the car.

We had some clutch slippage during my stint that got progressively worse. Steve started his turn in the car and we started looking for Integra clutches. The closest was Columbia, so we had Seth's wife pick it up on her way to the track.

Steve got pulled in for a mechanical. Our cool seat cooler had started leaking water and they thought it might have been gasoline. We ended up not running the cooler for the rest of the day. It had lasted about half of my stint, and was a great asset when it was working.

Fortunately the clutch issue turned out to be air trapped in the clutch slave that we bled out while getting Craig in the car. Craig and Seth's runs were relatively uneventful. We were adding about 9 gallons of fuel at each driver change. We did the first two driver changes in the paddock, but the last one we did in the hot pits.



Thanks to Micheal Rennick of the #6 GRR Motorsports Escort for the picture.

The siphon tube had slipped out of place on one of the tanks and Steve had to pour the fuel in slowly to prevent spilling. That pit seemingly took forever. After I replaced the tube we were able to dump a can of fuel in ~1 minute.

We finished the day in 13th place.

Day two we ran the same driver order, but due to the quiet hour we had to run unequal times. I ran the first session and what started as a light sprinkle turned into a steady rain. I had to come in twice to get the fog wiped off the inside of the windshield. The fog had gotten so bad that I was navigating the track by feel.

The car seemed to have a big advantage in the rain (when you could see the track). I was able to easily pass the rear wheel drive cars with ease.

I pushed it a little too far on the front straight while drag racing the Dog Ciao alpha. I started hydroplaning as soon as I touched the brakes and ended up in the overrun area. We got a free pass out of judging since it was our first real offense.

The failed pass occurs ~50:30 in this Track Geeks video.

During the quiet hour Seth ran out for some much need RainX and FogX. He made it back from Camden with just enough time to get it on the windshield for Steve's stint.

The RainX and FogX did the job and Steve put in his stint with improved visibility, but continuing rain. The rain started to let up and we did driver changes in the hot pits, adding 5 gallons at each driver change for both Craig and Seth. By the time Seth was in the car we were battling the #80 Tortoise for 10th place. They were only 3 laps ahead with 40 minutes to go and had slowed down to conserve fuel. It looked like we might catch them, but they noticed our encroachment and got on the gas enough that they finished about 1.5 laps ahead.

We weren't too disappointed, since 11th is our best finish yet!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Getting ready for fall.

We're getting ready for the fall race, and it may be our cheapest yet. We haven't had to spend much on the car, just a head gasket and some new plugs. The old gasket looked fine, so my suspicions on the cause of our overheating now turn to the radiator cap failing. A new 16lb cap and some cooling fans will hopefully keep us on the track. We took the opportunity to check out the head and harvest the ARP studs from the old engine to put in the current one, so I don't feel like we did any extra work even though the head gasket was fine.

We've got two new team members for this race. The complete roster is: Brian, Craig, Seth, and Steve. Both Seth and Steve are into drifting and hence have some tire hookups. Seth was able to get our fresh set of Azenis mounted for us. Hopefully there's a real alignment in the future too!

Emissions have been a bit of a problem. I tried testing it without any changes. We pretty much failed everything. Next I swapped out the "test pipe" and put the crappy aftermarket cat that was in the Civic back in. On the retest we did better, but still failed NOx by a small margin. Over this last weekend Seth put what I think is the OEM cat from the '95 Integra in. It's got a horrible exhaust leak, but it should pass this time around.

Seth also had an old 5" tach lying around that we've mounted. Hopefully it will keep me from bouncing the rev limiter on every shift.