Archive February 2010
The Support of Glen Dodd
Last year we were running smooth until we broke a rear control arm somewhere between Kentucky and Ohio. The breakdown itself was not the best experience ever. We had to stop over the crest of a hill, past a bridge, and where not overly visible from all oncoming traffic. We were off the road safely, but we would have been hard pressed to flag down anybody, as people only saw us once they were over the hill.
The first person to stop, drove miles down the road to the next exit, turned around and came back on the other side of the divided highway, only to have his team mate drop him off, while he jumped over the median to come over and help. It was over and above the call of helping somebody and it made us truly feel like we were part of one big team. That man was Glen Dodd. Glen owns the Carolina Rod Shop and is a staple icon in the One Lap of America list of participants.
Glen was actually the first person we met when we arrived at the hotel for One Lap in South Bend. With our Upstate New York accents and Glen’s Carolina accent, we didn’t understand a word he was saying and was a moment you had to be there to appreciate. After a few laughs about it, we resorted to single words, asking for BEER, where Glen was able to point us to the bar.
We just got word that Glen Dodd was injured this week after a terrible fall from a roof and is in pretty ruff shape. While we can mend a control arm on the side of the road, we can’t do much more than offer our support for Glen and his family as he goes through some rough times. Keep an eye on the Carolina Rod Shop website for updates, as we all hope for the best for Glen.
http://www.carolinarodshop.com/
1Tuners Nation Sub-Frame Bushings
Tuners Nation was kind enough to donate a set of there 1G AWD/VR-4 rear sub-frame and mustache brace bushing sets. Today I got to work installing them.
Here is how I did it.
1. remove the parking brake cables
2. remove the rear calipers and hang them on the rear springs.
3. unbolt the lower shock bolts and separate.
4. remove the rear section of the exhaust
5. disconnect the drive shaft from the diff.
6. put a jack under the diff and remove the 6 bolts holding the rear sub-frame/mustache brace and lower everything out of the car.
The One Lap car is in pretty good shape and seeing how I’ve had all the rear suspension out of the car just a year ago when I built it, everything came apart easily. I think I rolled the rear suspension in about an hour.
Looking at the entire rear suspension out of the car it becomes quite clear how important the front two sub-frame bushings are to the geometry of everything that attaches to it. Take note of how the diff bolts to the sub-frame where the upper and lower control arms tie in. That makes the mustache braces job even more important. Not only does it have to keep the pinion angle in control under hard launches its also the rear two attachment points for the whole rear suspension. Inspecting the stock 200k+ mile bushings shows that they’ve lived a hard life. The sub-frame bushings were coming apart and the mustache brace bushings weren’t that far behind. Replacing them with hard urethane will hold everything in place under hard cornering and let the suspension do its job.
To get the bushings out I first drilled around the center pins and then I used a sawz-all to finish cutting them out.
From there is was old school, get dirty, and burn the snot out of everything. I set the pins outside on a cinder block and set them on fire. Then I flipped the whole suspension with the diff pointing down so I can get at the sub-frame bushings. These have a two-piece inner sleeve that has to come out. Once again I set them on fire, waited, and then knocked them out with a hammer. There was still a bunch of rubber left in the sub-frame so I set that on fire too. Once the rubber gets hot and gooey most of it can be scraped out.
To get both the pins and the bushing cavities clean up I used a wire wheel in a hand drill. I greased up the bushings and pins and used a clamp to push them in.
Taking a cue from Curtis I spent some time bracing the mustache brace by fitting and welding some angle iron onto it. This will help keep the diff where it belongs under hard launches. I got as far as rolling the suspension back under the car before I called it quits for the day.
Press Release: Darkside Engineering Sponsorship
We are proud to announce that Darkside Engineering has signed on as a Trip Supporter for the Evo X and the 2010 One Lap of America event! After contacting Logan about purchasing a street and track worthy coilover suspension without breaking the bank, it turns out he was selling the shop car’s low mileage setup and we arrived at a deal that could not be beat.
These are the BC Racing ER series Coilovers with external reservoirs and separate compression and rebound damping adjustments. They were in really good shape thanks to the excellent corrosion protection these units have. The list of features these coilovers possess are usually found on setups costing hundreds of dollars more making them an excellent competitor in the suspension market. I knew I didn’t want a full stiff track only suspension but the new 10k/10k spring rate combos should prove to work well and they can be ordered with 2k higher or lower spring rates without needing a revalve. You can also get the shocks revalved for whatever spring rates you choose but this will delay the order by about 3 weeks. I decided to get an extra set of 12k rear springs just in case we wanted to stiffen up the rear end a bit further without resorting to a full stifff rear sway bar and will report back my findings.
Plans are for Sean and I to get these installed and corner weighted within the next 2 weeks and get them dialed in with a conservative drop of about 1″ below stock ride height. We are trying to target about -2* to -2.5* front camber and -1.5* in the rear while keeping the toe as zeroed as possible to avoid excessive inside tire wear that toe out settings tend to impose. I’ve found that the Active Yaw Control of the Evo X already makes the car have excellent turn-in behaviour and there is no desire on my part to make the car twitchy and hard to control at the limits.
I’ve located a nearby site that will allow us to mark off a 100′ diameter skidpad so that we can see what kind of lateral G’s we can get along with the planned Yokohama ADVAN Neova AD08 or Bridgestone Potenza RE-11 tires mounted up. Now we just need some of this Winter weather to move out and make way for Spring!
I’ll be doing a full review of these BC Racing ER series Coilovers once Sean and I get some seat time under our belts, but in the mean time if you have any questions about the available options I would highly recommend talking to Logan at Darkside Engineering and see how he can transform the handling of your Evo X to an even higher level!
Be sure to check out their website at: http://darksideengineering.com/
0New Badges for the Teams
I used to be good at photoshop. That was back in 1997. Somewhere along the way, I fell under the category of novice, being able to run through the paces of photoshop, but missing the artistic knowledge to know what tools make magical things happen.
While I stick to my favorite video series of “You suck at Photoshop” there are a few masters out there among us. Luckily Sean has a few friends who do not suck at photoshop. While Sean is still polishing off the images to some level of perfection I don’t care to understand, he made the mistake of letting me see them. Of course now I have to leak them out. While they now make the rest of the site look like second grade dog poo, I welcome the professional kick ass images with pride.
Facebook Page Established
We have created a Rochester DSM One Lap fan Page. I think when this all started, we didn’t appreciate the difference between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Page.
Once we started on the trip itself, it became very difficult to maintain an Internet connection long enough to update everything and the Facebook group fell behind. Having a Facebook Page will allow us to post updates from emails and also give us a better visibility footprint to people who do want to keep up with us.
While it seems redundant in nature, I can see the Page being more useful to us than the Group. Take a minute to become a fan of us on the Page to keep up with the 2010 events through Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/RochesterDSM-One-Lap-of-America-Team/328432633384?ref=ts
I actually wrote up a quick article on the advantage of the fan page, since we had a lot of questions ourselves.
http://www.stephenjburke.com/2010/02/facebook-pages/
Thanks for you support,
Stephen
