cheap car racing
Moderators: MostMint, wxo, Fred32v, Basement Paul, ttamrettus
Re: cheap car racing
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
-
Basement Paul
- Posts: 3489
- Joined: Sun Jul 17, 2005 9:27 pm
- Location: In the dirt.
Re: cheap car racing
Over a second a lap is a HUGE improvement. Is that on the stock ECM or did you get a chance to do some tuning on Dave's setup yet?
-BP
-BP
Re: cheap car racing
This is still on stock ECU. Megasquirt is one of the next projects
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
A few weeks back we made it to pull a part to get a transmission. While we had the engine out we pulled some connecting rods
This past weekend I got the block and crank back and did the assembly. Note rod #4 still sporting junk yard paint:
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
I just put two new 185/65 r15's on Gordy's Saturn. The two that I took off were about 1/8" from the wear
bars. I'm going to get rid of them, but if the race team wants them as spares or tires to use to get to the
track, they'd work. If you're wanting them, let me know!
GM
bars. I'm going to get rid of them, but if the race team wants them as spares or tires to use to get to the
track, they'd work. If you're wanting them, let me know!
GM
Re: cheap car racing
We have an issue with bump steer that has made itself evident driving on the uneven surfaces at VIR and Nelson Ledges. I just drive the car but the guys don't like it so we're going to fix it. The issue was created when we switched from stock knuckle to Ion knuckle. The tie rod end fit right in but we had to invert it and the connection point moved by maybe an inch vertically.
With just a little digging I discovered the 4th gen F-body has the same tie rod end as the Saturn.
This kit works but it's $170:
http://www.spohn.net/shop/1993-1997-GM- ... -Body.html
Now I can get just the rod part for $10 each:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Adjustab ... gK7sPD_BwE
I need to check the taper angle on each and then a Heim joint and the sleeve that connects it to the tie rod. Anyone have any experience with this?
With just a little digging I discovered the 4th gen F-body has the same tie rod end as the Saturn.
This kit works but it's $170:
http://www.spohn.net/shop/1993-1997-GM- ... -Body.html
Now I can get just the rod part for $10 each:
https://www.speedwaymotors.com/Adjustab ... gK7sPD_BwE
I need to check the taper angle on each and then a Heim joint and the sleeve that connects it to the tie rod. Anyone have any experience with this?
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
I ended up ordering the Spohn kit and the other kit for spares. Installing the adjustable tie rod ends would have been easy except the pin intersected with my brake duct adapter. I decided to reduce the hose size to 2" since there was already a 2" section in the hose. Technically this is easy but it took quite a whil to cut the 3" off, fabricate a plate and a 2" pipe, then get it all welded back together.
The other major update is with the ECU. Dave delivered the car on Jan 6 - drove it here in near 0 temps with wicked bump steer but operating on the newly installed Megasquirt. Well there are no tunes I could find on the internet so we were working with some base numbers Dave put together while garage testing with the purple Saturn. I visited Dave on 12/30 and we drove it around the block a few times in the snow - quite slowly but we only got stuck in the driveway on the way back in lol.
My understanding of the tools that come with the Megasquirt have advanced considerably the past few weeks. I started monkeying around with the cold start and idle operations. This helped me greatly understand what was going on with the tool. For the first time ever with this car (we're talking 2011) we now have ability to control the jetting and advance. The baggage is that we now control those things all the time! Pre-start injector pulse - we control that, idle air at all engine temps - we control that. I have a lot of experience tuning which is serving as a great foundation, however this takes it to a whole new level. Tiresmoker has been a great help advancing my understanding of this whole new way to modify the engine performance. There were a few days where the weather warmed up and I had a chance to drive it around which I used to greatly improve the top end power. I think there is still more there but am reasonably confident we're not slower than before.
The other work was to create another exhaust pipe. I bent the pipe unloading the car at Dave's when I dropped it off for the ECU upgrade.
Had to get that all done by last weekend, since Joey had planned a trip to Roebling Road in Georgia for an HPDE weekend. I told him he could take the car if he ran some tests. With the whole Megasquirt still fairly immature I decided to go along. In all he put the car on track for 9 20-minute stints over two days. It was like 12 hours each way but probably no less insane than the entire concept of endurance road racing so why not!
Roebling Road is a basically flat 2 mile paved road course. It is very easy on brakes but the pavement is gritty and it is hard on tires. It's not a premiere track like Watkins Glen but the amenities and facility were decent. Hoping Nelson Ledges can end up like that some day.
The weather turned out to be great - basically sunny/clear skies the whole time with temps getting to 70 during the day.
On Sunday morning I rode along and plugged the laptop into the Megasquirt and did some real time data logging. Stupid screen went blank after 10 minutes due to keyboard inactivity. Try typing in a 10 digit password with caps and special symbols left handed while riding in a car making hot laps on a road course. It was comical. Fortunately the logger kept going so we got the whole thing. Still need to study that log there have to be some gems in there.
The Megasquirt handled the task just fine. Used several of those sessions to make adjustments on the tune.
The new tie rod ends were set up well and eliminated the bump steer. We still have issues with the nylock nuts backing off but we will fix that.
We also learned the car is about 1 second a lap slower there without the wing and the holes in the hood.
The other major update is with the ECU. Dave delivered the car on Jan 6 - drove it here in near 0 temps with wicked bump steer but operating on the newly installed Megasquirt. Well there are no tunes I could find on the internet so we were working with some base numbers Dave put together while garage testing with the purple Saturn. I visited Dave on 12/30 and we drove it around the block a few times in the snow - quite slowly but we only got stuck in the driveway on the way back in lol.
My understanding of the tools that come with the Megasquirt have advanced considerably the past few weeks. I started monkeying around with the cold start and idle operations. This helped me greatly understand what was going on with the tool. For the first time ever with this car (we're talking 2011) we now have ability to control the jetting and advance. The baggage is that we now control those things all the time! Pre-start injector pulse - we control that, idle air at all engine temps - we control that. I have a lot of experience tuning which is serving as a great foundation, however this takes it to a whole new level. Tiresmoker has been a great help advancing my understanding of this whole new way to modify the engine performance. There were a few days where the weather warmed up and I had a chance to drive it around which I used to greatly improve the top end power. I think there is still more there but am reasonably confident we're not slower than before.
The other work was to create another exhaust pipe. I bent the pipe unloading the car at Dave's when I dropped it off for the ECU upgrade.
Had to get that all done by last weekend, since Joey had planned a trip to Roebling Road in Georgia for an HPDE weekend. I told him he could take the car if he ran some tests. With the whole Megasquirt still fairly immature I decided to go along. In all he put the car on track for 9 20-minute stints over two days. It was like 12 hours each way but probably no less insane than the entire concept of endurance road racing so why not!
Roebling Road is a basically flat 2 mile paved road course. It is very easy on brakes but the pavement is gritty and it is hard on tires. It's not a premiere track like Watkins Glen but the amenities and facility were decent. Hoping Nelson Ledges can end up like that some day.
The weather turned out to be great - basically sunny/clear skies the whole time with temps getting to 70 during the day.
On Sunday morning I rode along and plugged the laptop into the Megasquirt and did some real time data logging. Stupid screen went blank after 10 minutes due to keyboard inactivity. Try typing in a 10 digit password with caps and special symbols left handed while riding in a car making hot laps on a road course. It was comical. Fortunately the logger kept going so we got the whole thing. Still need to study that log there have to be some gems in there.
The Megasquirt handled the task just fine. Used several of those sessions to make adjustments on the tune.
The new tie rod ends were set up well and eliminated the bump steer. We still have issues with the nylock nuts backing off but we will fix that.
We also learned the car is about 1 second a lap slower there without the wing and the holes in the hood.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
you fellas who raced at VIR should appreciate this video:
https://youtu.be/j7j1gCM6-5M
https://youtu.be/j7j1gCM6-5M
Re: cheap car racing
Last weekend I ran some tests to measure fuel consumption at idle. I filled the tank to the neck and ran the car from ice cold. I measured the first five minutes, then six minutes to get to temp then some time at temp. Plugging results into a spreadsheet of the Roebling Road event it now appears in its current form we can’t get two hours on a tank. It’s close but I can guess a few tweaks to AFR table could help greatly.
For the first time since Roebling Road I worked on the tune today. Increased initial timing, lowered idle air control, adjusted cranking pulse, adjusted idle air fuel ratio. Looking the the VE table Dave gave me I can see I needed to lower some values in the range of idle. At temp idle is just under 1000.
I also disassembled the old head to use it as a model for the replacement.
For the first time since Roebling Road I worked on the tune today. Increased initial timing, lowered idle air control, adjusted cranking pulse, adjusted idle air fuel ratio. Looking the the VE table Dave gave me I can see I needed to lower some values in the range of idle. At temp idle is just under 1000.
I also disassembled the old head to use it as a model for the replacement.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
Added 8 new tires to the collection
Finished prepping the head and dropped it off at the shop for pressure test, valve grind, make the head surface flat
Today I made more adjustments to the tune. I'm working on idle RPM, startability and fuel efficiency. Shortening priming pulse, shortening after start enrichment taper, reducing warm up enrichment percentages all in effort to get the fuel consumption down when starting and off throttle. I also reduced idle air through most of the range to get the RPMs down. There are still some refinements to make but it is starting to act a lot more like a factory ECU.
There is probably a lot more work to do in terms of tuning for optimizing under power and driving conditions but I'm getting this foundation work done first. In the meantime I have mastered climbing in and out of the car carrying a laptop
Finished prepping the head and dropped it off at the shop for pressure test, valve grind, make the head surface flat
Today I made more adjustments to the tune. I'm working on idle RPM, startability and fuel efficiency. Shortening priming pulse, shortening after start enrichment taper, reducing warm up enrichment percentages all in effort to get the fuel consumption down when starting and off throttle. I also reduced idle air through most of the range to get the RPMs down. There are still some refinements to make but it is starting to act a lot more like a factory ECU.
There is probably a lot more work to do in terms of tuning for optimizing under power and driving conditions but I'm getting this foundation work done first. In the meantime I have mastered climbing in and out of the car carrying a laptop
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
Head not done yet. Maybe this weekend.
In the meantime I picked up a set of 4 15x7 Borbet wheels for $120 with a couple tires I can probably use for track day. The factory Saturn teardrop wheels barely clear the Ion calipers so they have to go. At this price I we can experiment with the 7" wheels also.
Ran a warmup/idle fuel consumption test after many changes to the tune. In late January on a 43 degree day the car used 1.25 quarts in 21 minutes which included 11 minutes to warm up and 10 minutes at operating temperature. Last Sunday on a 37 degree day the car used .75 quarts in 31 minutes which included 21 minutes to warm up.
During startup there is a surge in RPMs up to like 1800 for a few seconds. I recently found the idle air settings during cranking which were way high. I've lowered these down to something reasonable to reduce that effect.
Cleaning the remaining engine parts and prepping the transmission should be next on the list.
In the meantime I picked up a set of 4 15x7 Borbet wheels for $120 with a couple tires I can probably use for track day. The factory Saturn teardrop wheels barely clear the Ion calipers so they have to go. At this price I we can experiment with the 7" wheels also.
Ran a warmup/idle fuel consumption test after many changes to the tune. In late January on a 43 degree day the car used 1.25 quarts in 21 minutes which included 11 minutes to warm up and 10 minutes at operating temperature. Last Sunday on a 37 degree day the car used .75 quarts in 31 minutes which included 21 minutes to warm up.
During startup there is a surge in RPMs up to like 1800 for a few seconds. I recently found the idle air settings during cranking which were way high. I've lowered these down to something reasonable to reduce that effect.
Cleaning the remaining engine parts and prepping the transmission should be next on the list.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
After many different challenges and detours the engine is done.
Got the head back and installed the new valves. This one passed the light test it should get proper compression and run better. I did not have a spare lower block support so Kurt used his newly acquired aluminum welder to replace the part that was blown out by the bad piston at VIR last year. Missed a step in the head bolt sequence and had to buy another set of bolts. Cleaned up all the remaining parts, installed all these parts. Got the long block done Saturday. Spent most of today on the little details - like reducing the # of vacuum lines on the engine, setting up a fuel injector rail for this engine (currently 19 injectors in inventory), adding all tthe other supporting hardware.
Late today I got the trans on the bench and started cleaning the exterior. If time permits I will dissemble to get the diff pin welded and to drill and tap a hole for trans temp sensor. Engine and trans going in on 4/29 barring some major problem.
Got the head back and installed the new valves. This one passed the light test it should get proper compression and run better. I did not have a spare lower block support so Kurt used his newly acquired aluminum welder to replace the part that was blown out by the bad piston at VIR last year. Missed a step in the head bolt sequence and had to buy another set of bolts. Cleaned up all the remaining parts, installed all these parts. Got the long block done Saturday. Spent most of today on the little details - like reducing the # of vacuum lines on the engine, setting up a fuel injector rail for this engine (currently 19 injectors in inventory), adding all tthe other supporting hardware.
Late today I got the trans on the bench and started cleaning the exterior. If time permits I will dissemble to get the diff pin welded and to drill and tap a hole for trans temp sensor. Engine and trans going in on 4/29 barring some major problem.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
Andy, when and where is your next race. I surely did enjoy the weekend at VIR last year.
Re: cheap car racing
For 2018 we are racing at Nelson Ledges in a 24 hours race on June 30-July 1.
We are also entertaining a second race weekend at Mid-Ohio in the fall September 22-23.
We are also entertaining a second race weekend at Mid-Ohio in the fall September 22-23.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]
Re: cheap car racing
Closing in on completing the transmission work. The case was so dirty - took quite a while to clean that up. Got the trans apart, had Kurt weld the differential pin, and drill and tap the case for an oil temperature cooler. Going to have it all wrapped up and ready for install this weekend.
[quote="Basement Paul"]Is that a mint rocketship on the hood?? :shock:
-BP[/quote]
-BP[/quote]