Equipment Review
Race-Keeper VMWare and Firmware updates
Wilson Performance handed over their Race-Keeper system Monday, giving some mild anxiety over getting it working before we departed for Indiana. We do not have broadband access from the road, except for smartphones, so downloading files and getting it running in transit isn’t going to happen.
I don’t want to carry a seperate Windows computer on the trip, and so far I have been able to run all of the automotive software on the Mac using VMWare Fusion. The credit goes to VMware for making my life easier, but I am running the Race-Keeper Comparo software on the MacBook Pro without a hitch.
I am got the firmware updated on the race-keeper last night which involves putting a USB stick in you computer when the software asks for it then plugging it into Race-Keeper box. After a series of beebs and flashes for more than a couple minutes the firmware process seems as easy as it could be.
My goal is to get this thing running smooth, somewhere along our 9 hour trek to Indiana.
One Lap VR-4 aero package complete
With a small budget for the 2010 One Lap of America race the VR-4 team had to get creative. This was sparked by the discovery of a high-tech rear wing which just so happened to fit a VR-4. The guys in “the WoRKs” car club of Milwaukee, WI helped us find the wing and arranged for it to get to our fabricator, Curtis of GalantVR4.org. Curtis took the wink and custom built the pylons to support it using the factory spoiler mounting holes. The wind arrived at the house last night and it was installed on the spot. Not only does it look killer but its light and strong too. This in combination with the front splitter I built should help the VR-4 take its performance to the next level.
One Lap VR-4 hits STM dyno
Streettunedmotorsports.com has given me free reign of there dyno last Friday morning and afternoon. Last year we put down 355hp on a conservative tune while running 100% duty cycle on a set of Denso 660′s. This year things are a bit different.
Handling the fueling this year is a brand new set of FIC 1050cc injectors which are big enough to be corn ready if need be. The car has also been running ECMlink speed density for a week now so we can finally put that GM MAF where it belongs. The trash!
The goal for was to get the car back to 355hp and then dial in the cams using the adjustable cam gears donated by Autobahntom. From there we want to play around with advancing both cams to see if we can’t push the power band lower while still holding onto the 355hp target. All while limiting ourselves to 25psi of boost. If there is time and the car is running right we might crank up the boost to see what she will do. Last year we had a boost controller error (I set it wrong) and we did a 30psi pull which netted 377hp at somewhere between 5-6k rpms. So we know there is lots of power left in her.
Friday morning starts a bit late and most of the time is spent dialing in the VE tables in the ECMlink software. Once I get those dialed in its time to start some real pulls with boost. Just as I am almost done I can hear one of the chains tapping on the side of the dyno. At first I didn’t really bother with it but then it go louder and louder. I hopped out of the car and had one the STM guys rev the car and it wasn’t the chain. It was comming from under the hood!
It seems to scale with rpm which is bad but it goes away when the clutch is depressed. That is good but not so hot for the transmission. Yep, something let go inside my tranny. Good thing I was local on the dyno and not half-way across the country.
Emery at STM did everything he could to help us out. He tossed me the keys to the F350 shop truck so I could run home and get my spare transmission and then cleared out a bay in his shop so I could have a space to work. He said “no worries, we’ll get this done..we have enough hands here.” So I spent most of Friday night pulling the old tranny out and installing the new one with a lot of help from Cory and Kevin at STM who helped me wrestle the tranny into place. I also found a loose spring in the ACT street disk and Emery got on the phone and had a low millage disk at the shop in a couple of hours for me. At Midnight it rolled out and I brought her home.
The RochesterDSM One Lap team owes Emery at StreettunedMotorsports.com a big, big Thank You! for basically opening up there shop to help us out.
The dyno time was rescheduled for Monday after work. We started out with more work dialing the VE tables in and getting that map to look right. Emery joined in and we started to make some pulls. A quick low boost run netted 275Hp and told us everything was running right. So we put the boost up to 25psi and make a quick pull. That got us 351Hp which is almost as much as we got last year on 27psi. A new set of plugs and a few more tweeks gets us into the 360′s. Another plug change and advancing the intake cam gear 2 degrees gets us to 368Hp with a much better torque curve. From there we adjusted timing and boost to get to the 370′s, 389Hp, and at 28psi of boost it made 401Hp @ 6400 rpms and 366 torque at 5200 rpms.
Knowing the One Lap EVO X put down 402Hp on the same dyno we decided to give the boost controller another twist to see what she had in her. This time we had a bit of knock up top which dipped the Hp/Tq numbers on the top end but still netted us 408Hp @ 6300 rpms and 386 ft/lbs of torque at 5100 rpms. The Hp curve was still climbing before the knock dipped it down a bit. If we were able to take some more timing out up top it would have made much more but 408Hp was good enough for us especially on a Mustang Dyno. The boost curve showed that we had 33psi at torque peak and it had dipped down to 31psi at Hp peak.
There’s no way we are running 33psi of boost for this race. Its just too much power for our spare tranny with its stock center diff. We’ll be around 25psi which should put us in the mid 360′s which is more then last year. We will also be on speed density so no more GM MAF hiccups.
0Torque Solution donates parts to Evo X
I’ve been doing a laundry list of maintenance items this week and Torque Solution was nice enough to send out a new front motor mount that was a bit less stiff than the 90 durometer model I had before. While the polyurethane race motor mount certainly did it’s job well at limiting engine movement, the vibration it passed into the cabin of the car was not so great for a car that also needed to be a daily driver. After coming to the realization that we had a 4500 mile round trip to endure, any unnecessary noise was not welcome if it didn’t significantly contribute to making the car faster around a road course.
The Torque Solution Billet Aluminum Front Engine Mount for the Evo X was sent out to us for review and so far the 70 durometer rating of this mount is much more livable on a day to day basis. Even my Co-driver Sean noticed a significant noise and vibration reduction coming from the front end of the car. 
From driving it over the last week I can say it still performs it’s job perfectly of controlling exessive engine movement, and it also felt quite a bit lighter compared to the stock mount due to it’s Billet Aluminum construction. They also sent out some Drive Shaft Carrier Bearing Support Bushings that I installed during my maintenance overhaul of the car this weekend and so far there seems to less play in the driveshaft. I also decided to stiffen up the rubber mounts in the rear differential so that it still has some movement but not quite as much as stock which flops around and not quite as noise inducing as hard mounting would impose.
They also have Shifter Cable Bushings, Shifter Base Bushings, Exhaust Hanger Mounts in various sizes, as well as passenger and driver side engine mounts for the Evo X. TunersNation is an official supplier of Torque Solution products and if you are looking to stiffen up your ride be sure to check them out for the best prices!
0TunersNation.com big brakes
TunersNation has stepped up and sponsored the One Lap VR-4 with a new set of brakes. It’s no easy task matching the stopping power and economical maintenance cost of the Baer Track system it replaces. So when Garfield called with the news I was sceptical at first but when the parts started showing up and I could actually put them in my hands it became clear that these new brakes are up to the task.
TunersNation has supplied us with one of there custom 3000GT VR4 kits for the Galant VR-4. The kit uses the 4-piston calliper from the 91-93 GT VR4 along with its 12.4” rotor. The callipers are big and beefy. Cast from only two pieces and with no bridging bolts they feature 0 calliper flex. This allows for an internal fluid passage between halves which is a more durable design then the Brembo/Wilwood external balance line.
The rotors are from DBA 4000 series which are DBA’s mid-series enhanced performance rotor features Thermal Stability Profiling for improved heat handling and Thermo-Graphicpaint markings for effective heat monitoring. This rotor incorporates the innovative Kangaroo Paw ventilation design, which runs cooler, stronger and outperforms traditional straight vane disc rotors by up to 20%.
Mounting the callipers are a set of TunersNation own mounting brackets water jet cut from ½” steel. Hardened bolts hold everything in place and a new set of SS brake lines were included too. To make sure the One Lap VR-4 was well prepared for battle TunersNation sent along two sets of rotors, callipers, and brackets!
Garfield, using one of his countless connections in the business, contacted the people at Project Mu. Project Mu is like the Hawk Brakes of Japan. Project Mu donated a set of there HPC+ which feature a high coefficient of friction with the ability to take a beating at the track.
Installation was simple. After removing the Baer track gear and the brake lines the new bracket is bolted to the spindle with the supplied hardware. I then mounted the rotor and held it in place with a lug nut. An interesting side note with the Mitsubishi rotor is that you no longer need the hub centric ring that the Baer kit requires. One the rotor was on the calliper can be mounted. Using the supplied washers, I adjusted the calliper spacing so that it was centered on the rotor. It only took a few minutes and that was done. The new callipers use the slick drop in pad like the Brembo callipers which makes changing pads at the track a snap. Installing the brake lines was strait forward and from the removal to the bleeding of the brakes it took all of about an hour to do both sides.
…I will update the post with my driving impressions later in the week.
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