Maybe the images are not obvious but the rod bearing on cylinder 1 is completely thrashed. I has been "pounded" or "peened" and bits have broken off.
I haven´t taken the oil pump apart but it seems like it has ingested some debris and started to pump it up to the head and the first cam bearings. But it´s not "everywhere".
Gustaf
So, the first race was planned for May 15th but the track canceled the booking. Too much snow and ice. While the track itself apparently was pretty much OK the surroundings were not. Instead May 29th will be the first race and in normal fashion, we prepare the car the week before ;-)
Well, almost. We had new lower suspension arms fitted some time ago, together with a new drive shaft. After that, mostly just a case of some fresh oils, filter and a wash.
I think we are facing some kind of post-Covid issues though, we only have like 11 teams for the grid on Sunday. Some are working on new cars but I also think the increase in fuel prices plays a role. Right now we pay around 79 SEK per US gallon, so around 8 dollars a gallon. Diesel is even more expensive and for those towing a longer distance I'm sure it hurts a bit.
But we will run this race, and try to market the series more.
Gustaf
Finally a race report!
Sunday May 29th was the first race for the 2022 season. Weather forecasts had been changing a lot but the closer we got to race day, the better it looked. I went to the track Saturday evening with the camper to prepare the track, and it was quite nice.
This is from the tower at 8 pm.
Sunday morning was a bit hectic as usual, I still am too much involved in organising the race. But it is getting better, especially my daughter is doing a good job of getting up to speed as an "assistant race director". This time we also had a guest worker at the Northvolt factory joining in as a marshal, a Canadian car guy that also worked at the WRC rally with us. Kajsa did a great job explaining the procedures in English. We also found a true bi-lingual assistant from the soccer team helping us out. Apparently she asked lots of questions on the cars and preparation, good fun!
We got 4th place on the grid, and did a decent start haning on to 3rd for a lap or two before the quicker cars started passing. Up front, the 2.4 litre Volvo S40 of 4Sign just flew away. They were between 4 and 6 seconds faster than us in the first stint! Towards the end of the second stint we had levelled out at around 6-7 th, on par with our lap times.
The others reported the car was driving pretty nice, but some issues with locking up the fronts a bit. No ABS working (and now we sort of know one reason for that - a sensor wire fault). But the front suspension changes (the new bushings etc) seemed to have done some good. I went out in good spirit and had a great time. Somehow I started to gain a bit on Boliden Racers BMW 320i, and after a couple of laps chasing him down I even did a pass under braking! That was some time ago I did that! Hope it stuck on the GoPro :-)
On the same lap (I think) another BMW lost their front wheel and we had a VSC so I pitted early for a driver change.
Now more cars were starting to have some issues so we started to climb upwards on the score board. We had also decided on a new fuel strategy. Last year we did just one fuel stop using both cans, and that meant we lost some time. Now we decided to put in fuel during two driver changes instead, one can for each stop. Since we can do both fuel and driver change inside the same 2.10 minute pit time, that would be a smarter solution we though. And, it felt like it worked out just fine.
Suddenly we were 4th, and then 3rd. One team got a penalty and now we were 2nd! How on earth...? But yeah, having a car that was running all the time, no penalties or offs...that works out in endurance racing.
As we were nearing the end we came to the conclusion that we had to make a last driver change meaning we would loose 2nd spot. It might have been possible to gamble a bit on making the 3 minute-before-end cutoff but we decided it was more to loose than to gain. We pitted and gave Tidy Powersports their 2nd place back.
But taking the checkered flag on a podium spot felt great! 2018 was the last time we did that (on the old track, with the old P10). If we now also somehow manage to get the GT engine going we might be able to give the others more of a run for their money, and not rely on them having problems ;-)
The "official" photos are not up yet, and I haven't had time to get the GoPro material. But let's see if these links work;
Gustaf
Bravo!
Very cool!
Photos are up!
http://calemotorfoto.blogspot.com/2022/06/ba-trophy-premiar-29-maj.html
And then we went to the dyno. Why? To get a baseline before we build the "real" engine again. We had a bit of a guessing game going on. I was pessimistic, thought maybe 100 to the wheels. Well, the mighty SR20DE (non GT) chucked out 122 whp that according to the dyno is around 141 flywheel. I take the correction factor with a pinch of salt BUT 122 whp...not too bad. I do think the GT exhaust and ECU is what brings it up from the 130 it "should" have (flywheel of course).
The bad thing is that we might not be THAT much faster with the real engine. But we'll see...
Gustaf
In preparation for the first race after the summer holidays, the plan was to swap head and cams. We did half of that...just a cam swap in the old head.
An ingenious method of keeping the cam chain tight when removing cams...and it worked great. We also fixed the broken ABS wire, since the forecast was heavy rain for the race. Other than prepping with Rain-X (but a cheap brand from the parts store) we didn't do much. A fresh set of tires would have been nice but nobody seems to have ordered some for this season. Ooops.
One of our drivers had another obligation (something about christening a grand child, that it takes priority over racing?). We enrolled one of our old "stand-ins" to make sure we were four drivers. Saturday night another called in sick...back down to three.
Anyway, we started quite far back. In the rain...but our hero stand-in did a good job - he had never driven on this track before but kept the pace nicely and I think he came in with a 6th place. The car seemed a bit more brisk with the GT cams but it was not a massive difference in speed - although hard to tell in the wet of course.
I managed a well timed pit stop but I am always careful in the first wet laps so I gave back whatever I gained. I kept it together quite OK though and most importantly, I did not crash or spin.
After handing over the car to our stand-in again I went for a burger. After one bite our car came back in the pits, steaming...pouring out of the coolant overflow tank and the temp gauge pinned to the top. That's no good.
The driver reported that it just suddenly started steaming and he saw the temp gauge at the top so just went back in. After cooling down a bit, we started back up but the massive steam from the exhaust and the famous 3-cylinder beat made it clear that our day had ended. Dead last...
Looking back at the in-car camera his initial statement is correct. From normal to "meltdown" in an eyes blink.
Why? I suspect we got the ignition timing wrong when refitting the dizzy and we might have detonated enough to blow the head gasket. We'll see when we lift the head - a good thing that we have the GT head ready to fit...
Gustaf
Oh no - hopefully damage is minimal
Yeah, I pulled the plugs yesterday, number 3 is wet, but with more oil than water it feels like...
We´ll see tonight, as this is the scheduled wrench night (and tomorrow...).
Gustaf
Update, the head gasket was really destroyed on cylinders 2 and 3, very clear detonation damage in my book. Pistons and bores are fine.
Removing the head with the block in the car was a pain, there is a mess of coolant pipes and hoses under the intake. Half of them attached to the block, half to the head. Let´s say we "simplified" some mounting brackets when reassembling...
Tonight we´ll try to finish, we only got as far as torqueing the new head down last night.
Gustaf
Proof, both cylinder 3 and 4, on the same side...
The mess before the head went back on.
Apart from a rocker cover gasket that needed re-fitting, it all worked out fine and the engine is up and running again. Dyno is booked for Tuesday for ignition adjustment and power check...
Gustaf
So, the most important find on the dyno was a loose right front wheel bearing... I am 100% (no, but at least 95%) certain I checked that before the last race (34 laps...) when fixing the ABS wiring.
We have had a couple of bearings loosen up but have always thought it was the nut loosening, since tightening it usually worked, a while. Now we have castellated nuts with split pins, they can not rotate more than a smidgen. This might however be the side where we didn´t swap in a fresh flange that the bearing run on.
Let´s hope new bearings get here in time. We tightened this before dynoing and when removing the hyb dynos it was loose again.
Power? Yes, when we dialed in correct timing (no detonation heard, the dyno guy uses a separate knock sensor and ear muffs) we are back to GT power. Give or take some based on dyno accuracy.
Race is on Sunday...
Gustaf
With me busy the team decided the wheel bearing was just loos again and tightened it once more. While I am not maybe 100% confident in that solution, we are a team. So let's roll with it.
Sunday greeted us with clear skies and a temperature just above freezing. But compared to the rain of the race before, very nice weather. As we finished dead last, we had the pole position and had some hopes of making the best of that. But with one driver down (the old neck injury again) we asked a Legend Car driver to act as a stand-in. He accepted even though it meant taking it a bit easy on a party the night before.
But well, this will be a short race report. What looked to be a decent start was immediately disturbed by a loose hood pin (I checked them, didn't I) and then a knocking noise - that we at first thought was the hood flapping but not so. After just 4 laps the car came in with an evil bottom end knock. No apparent faults, oil pressure and level where they should (?) be. The spark plugs looked fine, maybe a bit white...
But the starter wouldn't even turn the engine around with the plugs in. Game over.
Now, we should have been even more dead laster than last race, but the Mayflower BMW suffered a broken ball joint on the formation lap so formally we were not last. But that's little comfort.
Before thinking too much about the failure itself, we had to think about the future. Only 2 weeks (no, 13 days) until the next race, last race of the season. Should we just bring the P10 back to life? Someone remembered that we think the master cylinder failed in the last race. Easy swap but what else will be bad after standing for a couple of years? And do we have brake pads?
Zpark Racing that is now running a BMW Compact offered their old E36 if we just sort a wheel bearing. That would be nice (and fun to try rwd) but we see that as final life line.
No, we want to see what this car will do with the "right" power (we have never ran it like that for a full race). We do have one more spare 130 bhp SR20, and swapping the head again is not a big deal when the bottom end is out of the car. But.
The week after the race (this week) I have a project meeting in Malta, Monday through Thursday. Once more, the team members act like a team and arranged a garage with a 2-post lift (something we really lack) during a week and set to work.
As of Wednesday, the spare engine is out of the donor, and the broken engine is compression tested. It turns but has a spot where it "seizes" and compression is down on cylinder 4 (but that might be because it turns slowly at one point). Parts are ordered and I try to follow from Malta, giving advice and cheering.
Why did it fail? More investigation is needed and of course we need to find out WHAT failed. My suspicion is a spun rod bearing like before. Did it run hot when the head gasket failed? Did we get oil starvation - we had to use a different oil (15w-40 I think) than before - but in just 3-4 laps?
Or, was it just a 25 year old engine, from the scapyard, saying goodbye and thanks after a couple of years in racing?
Gustaf
OK, while I have been melting away in Malta the team has dissected the sick patient.
The bearings are toast, gone, finito.
To me it looks lite it has been starved of oil.
Trying to think about what has changed since the head swap - apart from the head, the only thing "new" is another brand of oil and grade (and oil filter). We have been using a 10W-60 or something to keep oil pressure up when hot but used something else last time. But would that happen in 4 laps? Maybe...
I suspected the sump might have been pushed up into the pickup but according to reports, that is not the case.
Unless we have missed something in the head that gives really low oil pressure to the crank? But I am pretty sure that we haven't...
Gustaf
In reply to therealpinto :
That motor wants 5-30, why would you use a 10-60? If your oil is getting too hot you should address that instead of trying to use a thicker but overheated oil.
In our race car which has a VW ABA motor in it (2.0 8 valve) we use a synthetic A3/B4 rated oil which is stock for the motor, and so long as we keep oil in it (VWs sure like to leak) we've had no problems. We didn't run an oil cooler for a long time and had consistent 120C oil temps with fresh oil each race. Since we've gone turbo we've added an oil cooler and the oil peaks around 100C now.
We have been running both cars on thicker oils after advice from different people, starting with the Mobil 1 Motorsport representative we worked with for a while. I have also ran into quite a few other people running 15W-50 racing these engines.
It may be wrong but the P10 never had an engine issue in all the years we ran it. I also think the fact that this is an endurance race, on used engined and with limited modifications allowed comes into play.
Gustaf
We race in Lucky Dog Racing League, Lemons, and used to run Chump Car when they ran here, nothing but endurance for us.
You need a high enough oil viscosity to maintain oil pressure with your bearing clearances and oil pump flow so you keep a good fluid bearing. Have you changed bearing clearances to be larger so you need to reduce the bearing leak out rate with a higher viscosity?
I'm sure you've logged your oil pressures and temps under racing conditions. What were they?
If you've got hot oil and you need a little bit thicker oil to maintain sufficient pressure than that's fine.
If your oil temps are through the roof and you need 60 weight to maintain pressure than you should really get those temps under control. Remember that oil temps in the bearing are hotter than in the oil pan.
The FSM says you should have between 46psi-57psi oil pressure at 3200 rpm at operating temp.
If the oil pressure is higher than that I would wonder if you have sufficient oil flow to maintain the fluid bearings.
You're also sapping power pushing that sludge. :-)
It could just be that you didn't properly lube the new bearings during assembly and you killed them on first startup, but you didn't mention anything about the assembly procedure or if you did any pre-startup oil pressurization.
Also, have you checked the oil filter bypass valve? The springs do wear out, and with the thick oil you're running you might be in bypass through the small stock oil filter until the oil is fully warmed up. You may have pushed a piece of crud into an oil passage.
No logs on oil pressure, and the bottom end that went out now is untouched from when Nissan assembled it sometime in the 1990's. This is a "cheap" racing effort ;-)
A real oil pressure gauge and oil temp gauge would be nice and we may well look into that for the future. But for now it is not fitted so we have no clue on oil temperature...
Good point to look at the bypass valve, we'll check that.
Gustaf
Small - or maybe big - update. Monday night we fought the niggles to get it all back into the car and sort of succeeded.
Last night we got a surprise video of a startup - the one driver we have living close to the loaner garage/workshop had done some extra hours and got as far as a test start. Now we have some adjustments to make and an oil flush, then "ready".
Almost, I have to fix some ABS sensor wires that were cut (don´t ask but I found the connectors that could be disconnected to just pass the wiring through the body holes...
If stars align we should be "race ready" tonight...
Gustaf
It is now Sunday the 18th, the day after the final race of the 2022 season. It was quite nice to race on a Saturday this time, I have to say.
We were facing another wet race, at least from the start but forecasts said it might stop raining eventually.
This time we would start 6th, since that was our position in the overall standings. The wet track meant we got to run two formation laps before the green light but I think it had little effect on tire temperatures. The number 97 BMW of Mayflower starting next to us did a great start and tried to dive down the Civic of Tidy Powersports in the first corner, but it was a bit too enthusiastic and he had to cross the inside kerbs hard in order not to divebomb the Honda. And a second after that we took a pretty substantial hit on the left rear from the Megane driven by Old&Young - from the pit lane all we could see was the rear bumper hanging on by just the right corner.
Hans still managed to keep 6th spot despite being very close to spinning after the impact. Soon he could also pass Mayflower but it was a short time before they took back the position. Then the Team RR Golf spun out in the second corner and moments later Tidy Powersports overcooked turn 7 meaning we were in 4th spot. The track was very slippery, and the overall leader, 4Sign in their Volvo S40 took it a bit easy meaning close to the end of the first driver stint we could outbrake them into corner 1.
By now it seemed that our engine work had been quite successful, since we could keep up with the faster cars in a way the P11 never has been able to do before. We hung on to 3rd spot while Rusteze flew away in the lead and generally had a pretty good race.
Then in one driver change, we accidentally knocked the main switch over and then the car would not restart. We run a small LiFePO4 battery and it seemed that with all lights and defroster running it just didn't have the power. Since it also has a safety circuit that shuts it down when voltage gets too low, it took time to get going (since we have to open the hood to reset it). We lost 2 minutes before we could push start the car and get going again.
Now we were down to 6th or 7th but started to reel in the cars in front. When Mayflower retired with a broken gearbox and we passed RR again it started to feel like a top 5 would be in reach. We had to refuel one extra time, but lost almost no time doing so. And then Tidy Powersports suffered two broken wheel studs and parked in the pits.
Now we could run in 4th place and as the track dried up the lap times got lower and lower. At one point we actually had fastest of the day but then both Zpark and 4Sign broke that illusion.
But we took the checkered flag in 4th spot, this time with a car that we felt was fast enough to actually compete against the top and not rely on their failures.
Now we were something like 1 second behind the fastest cars in the dry. In the first race of the season the difference was around 4 seconds. Add to that, we are still running used tires, the fronts are the "slippery" AD08RS (2021) and the rears are even older AD08R's. There's probably at least half a second in "new" tires...
Overall, a successful race and it also meant we managed to claim 5th overall.
Video clip of the start;
Now it is time to relax a bit and ponder about the future...
Gustaf
The car is tucked away for the winter, I am gathering momentum slowly. But last night I had a nice boost.
We had a members night with the local club, just dinner and chatting but also a kind of presentation by our local racing hero, Robert Dahlgren. Robert has won the Swedish Touringcar Championship 4 times (and did so 2022), and he told his story from the start with karting at our local track. This involves development of Volvos Australian V8 Supercar, the "good" Volvo S60 and C30 touringcars and also almost ending up in Indycar and F1.
But the really cool thing was when I asked him for some hints on our local track. First he showed me his tools for race preparation, a very thorough track guide with notes of what to think about in each corner etc. Then we had a look at some videos from our races and he was really interested in what we do, and gave some really good pointers. One thing that really made me think, is his advice to map out the track and what sections are impossible to overtake on. "On those section, never worry about what´s behind you - they can´t pass, why waste focus on them?"
Also, he hinted that "don´t make plans for what might eventually happen. Instead, prepare so much that you are confident you control what will happen. Focus positive."
Then he also explained how he plans for a race, starting 10 days in advance. 5 days before the race he starts hydrating and also has an exact plan on what to eat, and when, to time the digestion. Me? I am always hungry and try to eat whatever I see, whenever I can.
Maybe that´s why I don´t win? ;-)
Gustaf
Great tips!
The 2022 season ended in a reasonably positive tone but 2023 has not been that great.
I won´t go into all details but we have been fighting some low entry numbers and our team has been struggling with both health and time issues. Just like 2022, the first race of the season was canceled so it wasn´t until the beginning of June we had our first outing.
Once again, minimal preparation work, I stitched the bruised rear bumper back together and reverted to a "normal" lawn mower battery instead of the lithium featherweight. I swapped out one front hub (damaged by the loose bearings) and slapped new rear brake pads on the car.
But I had other issues as well, since I was the only team member in a state to actually run the race. I reached out to some other scattered teams and together we formed a new driver setup. Two of the drivers from the team that hit us last race, and a "rookie".
This year we tried a new race format. The 4 hours were broken up into 3 sections, 90+90+60 minuters to make room for sprint racing the same day - Legend Cars and Formula Vee.
I started the first heat since I knew the car, and we were given second place. I had some hopes of a good start, but they were slightly ruined by the start lights not really working as they should. But I had some fun and handed over the car in 3rd place. Then the remaining "rental drivers" thanked me by driving faster than I did ;-)
One of them did a mistake in the driver change though that lost us a lap, just before the first 90 minutes were over. It felt a bit unfortunate but getting into a new car and team is not that easy.
Based on the lap times from the first heat we put the fastest driver in the car for the second start (first "restart"?). We had some hopes of a start incident that would let us get the lap back but nope, everything was clean. We gained on 4th place through the heat but also realised that with this race format, all gains would be lost in the restart unless we actually took the lap back - and we didn´t.
The last 60 minute heat started with us knowing the only way to get a podium finish would be if one of the three cars in front of us had a problem, or a severe off. As I entered the final stint nothing like that had happened. And after just one lap, I felt the famous "out of gas" hiccup. Straight to the pits but all our cans were empty. Classic case of bad planning and although we did limp to the on-site gas station we never made it out again.
It was good to be out racing again and nice to see that the "rookie" loved our car, and set the fastest lap times :-) We loaded the car on the trailer, now with a screeching power steering pump but otherwise, in no worse condition than before the race.
As we approached August, it became clear that the next race would also be cancelled. That was a "single race" meaning no support class and it was just not possible. Instead the focus was on the season finale in September, when we once again would share the track with the Legend Cars.
For that race we also decided to try a shorter "stadium loop" on the track. It cuts down the number of marshals significantly and reduces costs.
Now we also had 3/4ths of our team back on track, armed with a set of fresh tires (Nankang NS2-R, a first for us). We swapped in a "new" power steering pump, added more cooling loops, and finally had to swap out the front brake pads - the ST43 brake pads have been great but now we were forced to shop locally. So we tried Pagid RS29 instead. But they are too thick and we had no means of adjusting the back plate thickness now as we have done before. Instead we decided to skim the new discs a tad...
With that, we thought we were ready to race.
And, we sort of were ready. But I was on a business trip until the day before the race.
As my team rolled into the track it became clear that nobody really had the time to bed in the brake pads. At all.
We were supposed to be second on the grid but starting on the "stadium loop" meant that first corner goes right, instead of left as on the main loop. Nobody thought about that so we sort of had pole position. But once again the starter fiddled a bit so the picture I had of our car shooting away in the front did not materialise.
But we were among the frontrunners despite the driver calling in about severe braking vibrations. Yes, a test drive IS a good idea.
The new tyres felt decent, better overall grip than the tired Yokohamas but a more "floaty" feeling. Apart from the brakes being really annoying the car was fine. The shorter track meant lots more visual contact with other teams and also gave the benefit of the team and spectators seeing all the track at once. The other "midlength" loop we run means you really see 2-3 corners at best from the pits.
I don´t really remember our position after the first hear but around top 3. We checked some wheel nuts and found a loose driveshaft nut again (despite being having the pin in place) so we torqued that up, added some fuel and checked the oil.
The second heat went fine and we had a stable and decent pace. I had an off where the stadium loop connects to the other part of the track, a rather tricky 180 degree corner. Right after that I got more vibrations from the front end so I pitted early but it turned out to be just sand in the front wheel. Lucky that I didn´t bend anything else but my self confidence.
For the last heat we had a reasonably safe second place. Then we saw a puff of smoke from the car...a big puff. But our driver kept going...and we decided to bring him in, although there was no more smoke. Upon opening the hood, we saw nothing really wrong. Apart from the bottom radiator hose blown off!
The clamp was still on the hose so a "quick" run to the parking area to get the water we had brought, and a fill-up. Of course, not enough water to be "full" but enough? The engine ran fine and seemed to be water tight so we sprinted back out.
The temp gauge would rise and fall a bit, typical of a low water situation but we raced on to keep 2nd pace all the way to the checkered flag. I had been taking it slow but for my last 2-3 laps, I saw that we gained on a car I knew we possibly could have lost 2nd place to. I didn´t really catch them though and in the end, it didn´t matter.
With that, we close the books for 2023. The power steering pump started screeching again and now we think it may just need a better fluid than the cheapo one we have been using. It runs ATF but maybe there are better grades than the "Biltema"...
We will see what 2024 has in store, I have said that this will be the year when I really take a break from organising these races. I hope there will be others thap step forward and make things happen. If not, it might be a more relaxed year in total for me.
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