We have a full page article write up in the March edition of Top End. TOP END is the official publication of the Finger Lakes Region (FLR), SCCA, and is mailed to all members in good standing and advertisers.
Of course, with all that is happening, we forgot to send them some pictures for the article, but we are grateful to have the additional exposure.
Tim really stepped up to the plate to add some class to the car by getting a custom plate lined up.
Of course I was half asleep and missed it completely. Tim had me starring right at it, thinking there was something wrong on the bumper.
It is a huge move for Tim, as this was his first custom plate. Thanks Tim
We have a beutiful stack of Dunlop tires in Tim’s garage this week. Even with freezing temperatures outside these things feel really sticky. With a tire width of 255, we should have some serious grip. We will be waiting to actually mount the tires until mid April, as we only get this one set to drive the entire event on. If all goes well, we will be able to attend the Beaver Run drivers education event at the end of March to shakeout the car. For that trip, we will be still running on the Kuhmo MXs.
The other thing that came in was the bumper camera. This camera is by a company called GoPro. I will have to give the camera a complete review, once I get it tested a bit more. In essence, it has a ruggedized lexan shell around it, so you can safely mount it to your front bumper without worrying about it chipping. This one in
particular as a 170 degree viewing angle, which should make for some pretty dynamic footage.
After a week of no work we got a good afternoon of wrench turning in. We built a battery box and installed the transmission out of my Eclipse into the VR4.
A battery box is really important if you want to mount the battery in the trunk. I think Mistu should have put it there in the first place. Turbo motors are hell on engine bay mounted batteries. Getty the battery, circuit breaker, and other electrical stuff protected in a box will save you from a major arc welding should something inadvertently touch a hot wire. Plus, there isn’t a type of racing out there that isn’t just plain rabid about securing a battery.
Hot tip of the day for installing 1G and GVR4 transmissions….
Pull the front and rear motor mount “pins” and let the those mounts rest on the sub frame. With the upper and lower radiator hoses off you can move the engine about an inch closer to the radiator. That makes it a snap getting the ring gear on the transmission to clear the sub frame. Once you get the tranny on you can just lift the motor/tranny up and put the motor mount “pins” back in.
Using that method, Steve and I got the tranny on in about 15 minutes.
The end of February is coming pretty quick and although we are making progress the more we work on the car the we find to do. So we are going to scale back a bit and just work on getting the car moving. Then we can pick away at the smaller projects. Next up is getting the turbo and intake manifold installed so I can work at fabbing up the exhaust and IC pipes.
Since I haven’t been out in the garage a lot this week I’ll go through my tire selection process.
Most of my track experience has been on R-comps but this last season I switched to street tires in an effort to reduce my costs. I picked the Khumo MX in a 255/40-17 for a couple of reasons. First off at $121/tire they were very affordable and there was enough info out there on them that I thought I knew what I was getting into. The skinny on them was that they had good grip, didn’t turn to butter when they got hot, but they lacked in the turn-in department. Turns out they were dead on and my experience with them showed that no matter how hot they got they stuck but turn-in vanished. So that is my starting point.
These are the tires I considered.
Khumo XS. Brand new and not a lot of info out there on these. They were designed to beat the Falkens as the ultimate street tire. I liked the price at $151/tire but without knowing how they would hold up to track use I’m not going to take a chance on them.
Khumo MX. See my comments above. They work, they’re cheap, but the turn-in goes away when they get hot. At only $137/tire they are on my list but at the bottom.
Bridgestone Potenza RE-01R and Bridgestone RE070 both look like good options but lack the sidewall stiffness of the Dunlops. If price weren’t a concern I may have picked the RE-01R but it is..
Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD07. Lots of dry grip not so good in the rain and yes, they cost to much. $238/tire
Michelin Pilot sports. The ones that come stock on Porsche are race rubber disguised as street tires. These are the tires I would get if I were spending somebody else’s cash. At $243/tire out of my league.
Dunlop Direzza Z1 Star Spec. These are supposed to have the same dry grip as the Bridgestones and Yoko’s with better wet performance. The sidewalls are stiffer then the stones which I like and at $167/tire they were within our budget.
So, today I ordered six from the Tirerack with the special One Lap branding. Four to go on the car and two for the spares we will be bringing on the trailer.
Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec
Thank goodness Tim is on the ball this week. Compounded with a less than agreeable work schedule I was wacked with a head cold this weekend leaving me uterly useless.
I just got the news that we have 6 new tires headed our direction from Tire Rack. Kuhmo lost out the tire decision, as there just wasn’t enough information out there to give Tim that warm fuzzy feeling. Instead we went with a set of 255/40ZR-17 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec, which should be nothing short of awesome.
Read up on Tim’s tire report from the DSM Tuners site here.
It turns out the entire team needs to get new helmets. Most of the track events have accepted M rated helmets, which are more readily found from the motorcycle shops. The One Lap Event requires us to have SA rated helmets.
The SA standard was designed for auto racing while the M rating was focused on the motorcycle industry. There is a third rating, which is designed for karting, which is indicated by K rating.
There are some advantages of having the SA rated helmets, although it was an additional expense we were not planning on.
I believe each of us will by trying to sell the helmets we have to recover some costs. If anybody would like a good helmet, let us know.
I received my SVRA membership card this week. We mailed in our membership applications and medical information a few weeks ago, after making the commitment to enter the event.
I realize the SVRA provides the insurance and coverage for the event. However the amount of medical information that we had to provide to get this little membership card was nothing short of excessive. While they now know more about my medical history than my own doctor, I find little comfort in knowing that none of the medical history we were asked to provide makes people safer on the track. For now, it is a milestone that we needed to overcome and one more check box in the “need to get this done” list.
Things get started by pulling the front and rear control arms/hubs from the Eclipse. That will give us good wheal bearings, good ball joints, urethane bushings, and most importantly 5-lug hubs. That’s going to let us use the 17×9 wheels off the eclipse and more improtantly the 255 wide tires. While we at it the L1R/FP manifold/O2 housing/exhaust/my intake manifold/JNZ relocated alternator were all harvested for the VR4.
The VR4 undergoes a similar treatment but we hit a snag working on the rear trailing arms. The VR4 has a 4 bolt rear diff and a new sub-frame was installed with it. Unfortunatly the trailing arm toe adjusters were installed backwards which meant we had to drop everything to get the old ones out. Good thing it only takes 6 bolts to get everything out. Once we got everything bolted back up and the new wheels and tires on we noticed the front tires sticking out a touch. I think once we the ride height up a bit and the negative camber where it needs to be they should tuck in. At least we hope.
DSM Tuners has put up a page dedicated to following our travels around the country and with the entire One Lap Project. This is a huge resource for us to be able to liason with the community, escpecially when we are on the road.
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DSM Tuners
