Racing 2016

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Where to begin where to begin.

Well some of you know last season ended a little rough with the car in pretty bad shape.



Well after building up funds to fix the car over the winter it left little time for most of the repairs. Not to mention some of the parts that where going to be used for the repair where coming as spare parts with the other Mygale we bought for my dad and that car did not arrive until April so we got a real late jump on car prep.

As the season approached one of our racing friends passed away and he had recently purchased our old Reynard off the guys who had crashed it. The car was still in Edmonton as he hadn't picked it up yet so we just purchased the car to help his family out during this difficult time.

This lead to me running out of room in my garage real fast as there where many spare parts.





We found another buyer for that car fairly quickly but it's pick up date would not be until late May so the garage would stay full for much longer than I had wanted.

I had ordered my steering rack already months ago and we picked up my new suspension pieces when we went down to grab my dads new car so I was ready to start.

Had been doing some glass work over the winter ( Floor/ Side pod/ Ducting / Front wing end plates / diffuser)







Started to layout everything seeing what I was still missing and needed to order or build.



After all the patching and rebuilding the glass pieces actually went together with very little modifications.







All the hardware began to arrive hundreds of dollars of heim joints and Aircraft bolts.



Then the rack finally arrived after waiting about 4 months for it and it was completely wrong.







So the rack had female ends not male so I had to order different balljoints caps and spacers instead of using the spares I had. The rack was a smaller diameter shaft so my steering lock bushings would need to be changed. The rack had a narrower bolt spacing so we had to machine down the brackets that held it to the car as well as sleeving the rack to make sure it would grab. The change in ends and new balljoint length made it so I needed new shorter tie-rods as mine where now an inch to long. etc etc etc

Was down in Calgary one weekend so wrapped some of my dads car to match mine.







Finally had the left rear corner completely rebuilt after having to take it apart once because we forgot to install the camber adjust bolts (They apparently have to go in first before anything else) re-pressed bearings cleaned all the loctite off the bolts and re-assembled.

This is one of those 1am and we are finally done photos


Then the cheap chinese axle nut did this.



So completely disassembled it again (F^&* F^&* F^&*)

In my infinite brilliance I had suggested to the wife and kids to come along to Spokane this year so we would take the week before to travel down and vacation and take that extra week away from prepping the car.

So with the car not setup or ready I put it on the ground and did a 5 min alignment started the car and loaded it into the trailer.

I did have some help with tire pressures and assembly though.










Then the plan was to use the test day before the race to shake down the car.

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Re: Racing 2016

So the test day arrives and we roll the cars out of the trailer.

Fire up both and head out for some practice with the plan being do 5 laps then pull in for bolt check.

Old mans car ran fine he said and not much was loose other than some rotor bolts and a wing endplate.

My car was extremely dangerous under braking as it would pull hard right any time i applied the brakes so we started to take apart the car and see whats what.

We had put new pads in the rear and noticed the right rear piston not retracting fully so we swapped the older pads to the rear and put the new ones up front to allow some more room for the piston. On our bolt check we found one or two suspension pieces and a brake rotor bolt loose but nothing major.

The old man went out for the second session while I stayed in working on my car. He said it went well and was just going to make some setup changes.

We went out for the third session and my car did the same thing as well as being extremely loose during left hand corners with bouts of snap oversteer. Old mans car shut off on him and seemed to be having an electrical issue.

We tracked his problem down to the alternator wire and then bleed my brakes. As we worked on my car we where testing brake bias left to right and front to back all seemed good. Then we buttoned it up and tested it one more time before heading out and it was way off left to right.

It ended up being that when we rebuilt the front corner we didn't replace one of the zipties that held the bake line down near the bodywork so everytime we re-attached the nose it would pinch the line going to the front left tire giving us no brakes on that corner. We never noticed as we always remove the front nos to work on the brakes as that is where the master cylinder is.

Last session of the day we both get back out and get some laps in. The car is quick but handles very poorly as we have had no setup time as we spent all of it chasing issues.

Friday

Step 1: Take team picture before anything goes wrong.


Qualy
We fire the cars up and drive out to pre grid and wait to go out.

As the 1min sign is shown we go to fire the cars. Mine does nothing not a click or anything power is on all the lights are on switches are up but nothing. I climb out of my car as the grid leaves and look down the hot pit to see my dad climbing out of his car. His clutch has gone!

We push the cars back to the pits.

We decide mine first as it will be a quicker fix. we try and start it and nothing we check the battery voltage it's good we check the switches they are working we head back to the alternator to see if its getting voltage and the car starts with nothing touched or changed (F^&*) I have a feeling this will be coming back to haunt us later on.

We check his car and the clutch is still operating but it sounds like a box of hammers when it is depressed so we decide to split the car and try and run it tomorrow.

Race 1
Since i have no qualy time i get to start at the back of the field where I will have to make it through 6 Club fords and a Formula Mazda before i even reach the tail end of my class. No biggie just work my way through the field and try and finish 4th maybe 3rd if one of the top guys drops out.



I reach the back of the Formula Continental Field by lap 3 and get ready to start passing people. As i get the run on one of the guys going onto the front straight the car misses once twice then I back out of it and try again runs okay but once again when i get on the gas exiting turn 3 it misses again and i just pull in.



So the car is misfiring under load so possible fueling issues is our first guess. We replace the injectors as they are a little dirty and cleanup all the electrical connections in case we are having a grounding issue. We talk to the race stewards and the let me go out at the end of the day to test the car and everything seems to be running fine.

We have my dads car split in two and we pull the clutch to find absolutely nothing wrong with it! So we clean up everything and re-assemble it. It still makes a horrible noise but it works so he decides to run it like that as he only needs the clutch to get the car moving off the pit lane.

Saturday

So things are going to be better both cars are running again and maybe we can even qualify.

Qualy
We go out and try and not break the cars I end up qualifying in 4th at a 1:27.1 and my dad comes in at 1:31.1 good enough for 9th on the grid. All in all okay but I am 1.5secs off my time and my dad is almost 4secs off his usual pace. My dad says his car is handling pretty good and he just has to get up to speed. My car on the other hand is still a pig on left turns and under breaking as the car is bottoming out and porposing around as the weight transfers forward and I bottom out the car.

We make some shock changes to both cars increasing the compression on mine to stop the nose from diving and then stiffing up the high speed rebound so it should flatten the car out a bit more.

Race 2
I have moved up a spot before the race even begins as 3rd place has a broken half shaft so I plan on bringing it home a safe 3rd as I got no points for the first race. My dad hopes to make it up to around 5-6th as he builds up speed.



Race starts and I am hanging with the 2nd place car no problem but first place has taken off and left us behind. My old man takes it easy on the start as he has a little bobble off the line but starts moving up though the field. A little under half way the second place car makes a mistake going into the last corner and locks up the breaks and heads off on the escape road moving me up to 2nd.





After that I decide to short shift and take it easy as I am not to worried about anyone else being able to catch and pass me. By this time the old man is up into 6th. As the 5min to go marker is shown i see the former second place car catching me so i need to pick up the pace. As we only have a couple laps left it shouldn't be an issue. Then as I come onto the front straight with about 3 laps to go the car missfires again. Then again on the exit of every corner as I get on the gas. If i exit at only 80% throttle it doesn't miss nearly as much but on the last lap going down the front straight at 130mph it starts to miss badly. with the last lap shown I am just hoping to make it around the track and maybe finish 3rd but the car in 3rd backs off thinking he wasn't going to catch me and I bring it home in second. The old man stays 6th. My best lap was a 1:25.8 and the old mans was a 1:27.3 so pretty much where we like to be.



As i cross the scales after the race I am at 1242 for wait so it makes me think i didn't put enough gas in the car and I was running out of fuel.

We check after the race and nope tank has 3 gallons in it. So I decide to run qualy tomorrow the way it is just to get a time and then switch over to my last set of injectors for the race and hopefully they will hold up for a full race distance. Our guess is the ethenol in the gas has eaten the fuel cell foam and is clogging either the injectors or the fuel pump itself.

Sunday

Qualy
Both cars somewhat running we head out to put in some times. I plan on going out fast as I don't know how long it will last before it begins to miss again and the old man is just testing out some more setup changes. I qualify 3rd and the old man gets 7th both a little slow but my car seems to be running fine with only one or 2 small bobbles but i still plan on changing injectors.

Race 3
Feeling pretty good about this race I hope to come in second as long as the car holds together. Old man once again wan'ts to move up to about 5th.

Well it didn't go according to plan as my car has no power for the first few laps and the whole field passes me. Car is just down on power and toping out at about 115-120mph for some reason? I am thinking the motor might be going soft or maybe the fuel pump is just not able to work at full pressure with all the gunk that might be in it. But coming through 2 it all of a sudden gets power again so i decided to try and reel everyone back in.

I call this one the fathers day massacre. (It was a very very trying weekend overall)



It seems to work until i get banana peeled going into 4 by some metal plate on the edge of the track. I was within reach of the leaders as in front of me was 3rd place I should have finished second but I pulled in after the spin as the car didn't turn in for T7 and it felt off. But after getting to the pits nothing was broken. Old man made it up to 6th by the end of the race a pretty good finish for him.





Plan before next race is to actually setup the car change ride height etc. Replace all ignition electronics and pull fuel tower out of the cell replacing fuel pump filter injectors etc. Old mans car will get a new clutch and PP before Mission as well.

[Ur0Drivr]

Re: Racing 2016

Always love these updates buddy! Keep them coming

[Canadian Turbo]

Re: Racing 2016

Always love these updates buddy! Keep them coming

x2 Seems like such a battle every time!!!

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Re: Racing 2016

If it was easy even people with iphones would be able to do it!

Favorite question for the weekend was from the wife: " You sure you like doing this? It seems like a lot of work"

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Re: Racing 2016

Another trying weekend but at least i was quick!

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Re: Racing 2016

Here is Race 1 with some video from a bunch of guys.

It was a crazy race as I started from the back as the car would not start on pre-grid again. Worked my way back to 4th then a flat tire with 2 laps to go ended my run.