March 16, 2004 Nothing's happening. The Rusty Old Datsun hasn't moved from its corner of the storage shed since I dropped an intake valve seat into the #4 combustion chamber last October. Looks like I beat it with a hammer. The transmission's on the floor. Sunbelt finally finished fixing the engine and its still in its shipping crate, wrapped in plastic. I did fix the intake manifold that cracked big time right after the throttle body during OTC 2003. Luckily Rylan Hazelton pointed out the problem before a track session at Thunderhill. I gotta thank him for that, although he's been kicking himself ever since. A little JB Weld got us through the remainder of OTC 2003. Bryan and I have very limited (read zilch) funds for this year's event so we'll just be bringing the car out in the same trim as last year. It will be tough because I figure everyone needs to pick up at least two seconds per lap at every track to win their respective classes in OTC 2004. Maybe a win isn't in the cards for us in 2004, but we'll still have fun. March 26, 2004 It's started! The Rusty Old Datsun moves into the shop. Finally! Its been parked in the back corner of my storage unit since late October 2003. Wheeled it into the shop this morning and started cleaning things and assembling the clutch. Somehow my clutch alignment tool vanished again so I paid $3.00 for the tool and $25.00 for overnight shipping to get it here today. A typical irrational suck on the go fast crack pipe. Quartermaster Pro 5.5 double disk I unpacked the shipping crate the engine came in and found lots of other stuff that goes with it. Spent some money with Jet Hot getting their 2,000 degree coating on the Nissan Comp header and had the intake manifold coated with Jet Hot Sterling. Some folks were complaining that my mega-dollar engine didn't look good enough to justify the price. Hopefully this little bit shuts them up. Coated header and intake I also broke down the crate and the engine is ready to come out and get parts bolted on. There's a lot of surface rust on the horizontal surfaces so I'm guessing Sunbelt shipped the engine by boat from Atlanta. Either that or its just another massive humidity example that keeps me from moving out of SoCal. Doesn't look like a mega-dollar engine Jim Thompson doesn't want the head on this engine to fall into the hands of any of Sunbelt's competitors. Eventually I'll use that to my advantage when I try to blackmail some more work out of him. In the meantime, here's a sneak peak at what makes this engine so special. Thousands and thousands of dollars of head work Unfortunately, I don't know dick about building engines so it doesn't look so special to me but it feels special when I'm driving the car. My heads out the window and I'm yelling like Special Ed, "I'm going fast! Yayyyyyyyyy!!" 'Course, most of my friends say I drive like Special Ed... March 31, 2004 Engine and transmission are finally in the car. Had a tough time getting the trans to mate up with the engine. Tried for two hours on 3/29 and ended up doing battle with the roller pilot bearing. Being a being of superior intelligence and not willing to let an inanimate object slow progress toward my goal, I did what any thoughtful, well educated person would do. I beat the shit out of the pilot bearing, pounded it out of the crank, and bought a new one. Actually, I bought two new ones in case I had another moment of brilliance. Another professionally removed race part. After some more wrestling the engine and trans are finally in. Something accomplished. April 1, 2004 And now for something completely different. I think putty is a nice color for a car. BTW... my car is probably the only Unlimited car in OTC that's registered, insured, and can be driven on the street on DOT legal tires. It was the ONLY street legal car to finish in the top 10 overall at last year's OTC despite some spurious claims by Doug Hayashi. April 6, 2004 Been really busy on the car. Mechanically its ready to go and I took it for a spin in the parking lot. No leaks, everything works, and it sounds as angry as ever. Finally on the ground and under its own power. Now its time to get started on some of the goodies for the car. Pictures to be posted later... April 10, 2004 A test day at Buttonwillow Raceway Park. ARC was kind enough to let us run and test the car during their qualifying sessions and during the guard time between race sessions. I had done a bunch of work to the front and rear of the car to get some more downforce and reduce drag. I was only partly successful, but we had other, bigger problems. First, the successful aero modification: Taller and more shallow angled rear spoiler - same downforce, less drag. The design is based on the old Car & Driver tests done on their Project Omega Z back during the first oil crisis in 1973(?). And I did include a tribute to Krazik Engineering in the mounting of the spoiler: You can barely see the small stacks of washers - in honor of Rylan Hazelton. I also put a bunch of effort into the front of the car to get more downforce and keep air from going underneath. Unfortunately, time, and some design problems ended up making the whole piece less then effective: Air dam and splitter in appearance only. I built the thing way too high off the ground and it basically made the front of the car "fly" through Talladega. 3 days of work and I've got shit to show for it. Maybe I should listen to people when the tell me things? Luckily I made the thing easy to remove so we went back to plan B: Back to 1995 trim on the front. I'll cover it with carbon fiber tape and sell it on eBay - Bling Bling! But these aero experiments were nothing compared to the overheating issues we had. Couldn't get more then 3 laps in before the car would puke a quart of coolant and the temps would soar past 230. Checked a lot of things and we were pretty sure that we were getting combustion gasses into the cooling system. Later testing in the shop showed that not to be the case. Right now I think the solution is as simple as a new thermostat. I've got the parts to replace it and I've scheduled some chassis dyno time to test the fix. I also have other parts on the way in case that isn't the problem. Hopefully its a cheap and easy fix. April 14, 2004 New thermostat wasn't the solution. Yesterday, under 3/4 throttle at 6,000 rpm in 4th gear on the chassis dyno the engine filled the quart overflow bottle in less then a minute and the temps quickly ran past 230. Problem wasn't fixed. Had the radiator checked and flushed this morning, nothing wrong with it. Checked the water pump impeller (sometimes they spin on the shaft), no problem, no problem, no problem... There is a problem but I just can't seem to find it. Maybe I'm just not bleeding the cooling system correctly?. I've done it hundreds of times on an L6 over the past 7 years, why am I having problems now? Anyway, I welded a bleeder into the top of the thermostat housing to make sure I've filled the cooling system up completely. Bleeder at the highest point in the cooling system. I even had Dave at Arizona Z Cars send me his huge aluminum radiator as a last resort, but I don't think that will fix the problem. My C&R worked fine all last year, why would it suddenly not have enough capacity? I'm confused. Hopefully another dyno test tomorrow will show me that the problem is a big air bubble that I haven't been able to bleed out. Fire! Like I need something else to go wrong. I'm grinding away on Amir's replacement crossmember (his original one was bent) so I can notch it to fit around the SR20DET in his Z and I look up and see 6' of flame going up the wall of my shop. Holy shit! A spark from the grinder had flown 20 feet and landed in a plastic washtub I keep next to my parts washer. It ignited a little pool of parts cleaner in the bottom and had been burning for a couple minutes. I quickly knocked the fire down with a fire extinguisher and then tossed the mess out the back. Shit! What else can go wrong today? Railroad Police! Yes, there is such a thing and I got busted by them. WTF? Earlier today I had dropped the truck off at Burch Ford to get the tranny and diff serviced prior to our OTC extravaganza. At 5:45pm the service writer called and said to come and get the truck and, by the way, our shuttle guy went home early. So, I was hoofin' it. Well, the railroad tracks that run behind my shop are a nice shortcut, so off I went. Walking down the tracks I see a black Ford Expedition parked about 1/2 mile up. It starts moving towards me, bouncing along pretty fast and stirring up a lot of dust. I'm think, "Another bunch of kids thrashing Soccer Mom's SUV." As it gets close to me suddenly blue and red lights start flashing from the inside and I jump to the side to let them by. They stop next to me and these two guys step out in full SWAT regalia. I'm thinking its the "A Team". RRCop1: "Sir, you're trespassing on railroad property. Are you carrying any guns, knives, hand grenades, or any other weapons." Me: "No. Who are you guys?" RRCop2: "We're railroad police." Me: (desperately trying not to say, "Choooo Choooo") "You're kidding?" RRCop1: "No sir, let me see some ID." So, I hand them my ID and get frisked and cuffed (for my safety) while they check for warrants and priors. Turns out the homes near the tracks have had some break-ins and people have been dumping trash on the track. After a few minutes they let me go with a warning. Both guys were pretty cool after the first couple minutes. I guess railroad cops don't get the respect they used to get back in the days of the wild west. Now I've probably got a record with Union Pacific. No more Amtrak for me. Fuck this, I'm going home and drink a bunch of beers. April 16, 2004 Quick update... Cooling problem appears fixed! It was an air bubble in the cooling system. By adding the bleeder on top of the thermostat housing I was able to get 3 quarts more coolant in. Finished getting the car together and am just working on the logistic stuff related to the trip. I have some digital pictures but my trial version of JPEG Imager 2 expired so I can't shrink them right now. Hopefully before we leave tomorrow afternoon I'll be able to post some pictures. Next stop, Vegas Baby! April 17, 2004 Its raining outside my shop as I'm getting everything ready to go and there are chances of rain at all the tracks we're going to over the next 5 days. Maybe I'll throw an old set of Kumho V700s in the trailer just in case. Just when Bryan and I were ready to hit the the road we got a call from Doug Hayashi. Seems that our main competitor in U3, Rylan Hazelton, had spun a rod bearing in his S2000 during the open practice before the event. Rylan got on the phone and asked if we could stop in San Fernando and drive his friend's S2000 TO Las Vegas. Rylan has some pretty nice friends! This guy was willing to let Rylan pull the engine from his S2K and put it in Ryaln's race S2K for the remainder of the OTC. A stop in San Fernando would add a couple hours to out trip to vegas but it was well worth it to keep Rylan in the race. He's a great guy and we want to win against him on the track, not in the garage. Bryan and I finished packing hit the road. We called Rylan and he said that his friend was in West Hills which is 2.5 hours the wrong way for us and would add 5 hours to our 6 hour drive. Now... we're not thinking its worth the effort. We're looking at 30 hours of cumulative driving already and adding another 5 hours is not very appealing. We decided to stop and wait for another call from Rylan after he checks to see if his friend can meet us halfway. Backing the truck and trailer up on a side street I ran the top right corner of the trailer into a very large branch. Bryan and I looked at each other in confusion because we had just passed that spot and not noticed anytthing in the road that would make a bang. We got out and looked and I had backed into a branch overhanding the street. Busted the upper marker light off the trailer. After all the troubles we had during testing and car prep, we took this as a bad omen and decided to get going to Las Vegas. Rylan's on his own (and he never called back anyway). | Open Track Challenge 2004 | Back to Bench Racing |