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Another successful track day yesterday. Despite only getting 4hrs of sleep I was able to set a new pb of 2:00.3. SO CLOSE to sub 2. I have unfinished business with this track. having 35+ heat cycles and a big flat spot on the tires doesn't help with achieving my goal but I know I can do it. Hopefully I can make it back before I depart for college.
Car was excellent all day. I had to re-calibrate my brain for aero. I frickin love aero. That is all.
My thirsty hoe. (Oh yea, I got a job at Sakebommb garage (google), hence the ricer'esqe sticker banner thing)
Bryan Z and I twinning.
I once again mounted my go pro too low like a pleb. So footage is ****. But its something. So here, be happy.
This week ive been working on building an air dam and have to say, this is way more tedious than I initially thought.
I started out with driling holes and installing 1/4-20 rivnuts in the bumper. This is the most low-key and effective way of mounting the dam that i could think of while keeping it modular.
For the bottom, I used this garden edging from Home Depot Racing. Works REALLY well. This will help the bottom of the dam from caving in as well as supporting the front of the splitter once the dam is bolted through.
I left off yesteday with mounting the dam and cutting it, however I just made a rough cut and its not even. So im gonna hold off with pictures for now.
My concern is my brake duct tubes. I dont think they are long enough to reach all the way out to the dam. So I will have to figure that out before this weekend. I have my first back to back track days this weekend. It will be my first time runing Sonoma on Saturday. Then Laguna on Sunday with a bunch of friends. Should be fun.
Ill make a big post of last weekend once I get access to pictures. Probably my favorite track weekend to date. I have TONS of footage and photos to share. So stay tuned.
Before I begin, sit back, sit down, and grab some popcorn, this is gonna be a long one.
After I finished the air dam, I made new wing cables out of aircraft grade 3mm cable. The old ones were massive by comparison so the goal with these was to cut down drag and help make a bit more downforce. I know the ideal solution is to get wing stands that dont suck, but I dont wanna invest that much time into it. So these will do for now.
Here are my fast laps. The first lap is my 1:55 PB but the second one is more entertaining. Excuse the kinda annoying rattle. One of my exhaust hangars broke off. I managed to ghetto fix it with a couple metal zip ties. I have to say, I think Sanoma is my new favorite track. It flows so well and is very technical. Probably the hardest track ive driven so far, and by far the scariest. Lots of blind crests and walls. But its so rewarding when you get it right. Cant wait to go back.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that my friend let me use his 245 Rivals with around 20 HC on them. Blew me away for a street tire.
Sunday I headed to Laguna. This was a super fun day. Just worry free and fun with a bunch of friends. I didn't expect to set any PBs on my tires so I was just out there for fun and seat time. The air dam felt like it balanced out the wing perfectly on the rivals. But as you will see in the video, the front of my car was pushing like a freight train on the rc1s. Im not sure if I should just slap new tires on or if I should dial out the understeer so that I know the car is set up balanced. Dunno. I did manage to set a new PB of a 1:45.3. So with new tires and better alignment im thinking a 41 is possible.
Heres some footage of me chasing an e36. We were pretty even on power but I did have cornering speed on him which you will see in the 2nd vid. Enough so that I actually backed off to let him catch up again. But overall it was super fun. I always love battling people. Its always the highlight of my day. The engine in the e36 is the S50 3.0L. Internals are stock but it has been rebuilt and the rotating assembly balanced. It has mild cams (Schrick 264/256) plus intake/header/exhaust.
Here is the footage of him chasing me. As you can see, my line sucks ***. This footage is toward the end of the session so my tires were greasy and the car was sideways and all over the place. But still cool to watch.
I was also able to drive my friends beautiful s2000. Im in love with this car. If felt so composed. This car was actually set up by the shop im now working at (hence the big sticker on my windshield ). It has custom valved/built Ohlins from the shop. And a custom AP racing BBK. The Ohlins felt 10x better than Xidas. And the brakes are phenominal (I love having ABS). I will be working with Sakebomb garage to develop a set of custom miata Ohlins dampers for our cars. We have an in-house chassis engineer that also works for tesla so he will be helping with valving. A complete re-design from the off the shelf version.
Heres a picture dump. The s2k with the wing is the one I drove.
And lastly, yesterday, June 2nd, 2018. I graduated High School. I will be attending IUPUI in the fall and will be studying Motorsports Engineering. Im super exited for the next chapter in my life.
Last edited by icantlearn; 10-11-2018 at 12:33 AM.
Looks normal. Just make sure to follow the correct tensioning process (1 full crank rotation + ~5/6 rotation to the crank notch at about 10 o'clock, then set tension) then rotate the motor a couple times & validate all your timing marks.
Crank rotates 2x for every 1 rotation of cams. That location had the least tension on the belt, and the most slack can be taken up by the tensioner. Look it up.
But the tensioner was loose already? So shouldn't it take up slack regardless? I mean obviously its not, but I dont see how that works. Ive re-timed a bunch of motors before but never seen this. I guess I have to do more reading.
Yeah. When the engine is almost back to TDC there, there's the least amount of tension on the belt, so you want to set the tensioner there so it can suck up the max amount of slack