First driving related failure happened on the way home yesterday. Alternator (that got soaked in oil a few times) died 25 miles from home. Shut down all electrical items and puttered home. New one getting ordered tomorrow (literally, a new Denso unit). Get it on this weekend. Means I'm not crewing at Gingerman this weekend.
Tired. First off I want to show everyone my $.79 solution for smashing my head in the corners.
alternator is in. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and I made it harder than I needed to.
Also replaced the shifter linkage bushings with a pair of delrin bushings and the rubber shifter base bushings. And finally installed the ebrake cables ive had for over a month.
Finally drove it. Shifter feels fantastic going up. Going down is equally fanstastic until you get the 3-2. That feels strange. Also, apparently these screw type rear calipers need the cables hooked up and used to adjust? I say this because the pedal feel is MUCH better (like a drum car right after you adjust the rears) and the working ebrake is cool.
Getting used to the shifter and I find myself wanting to shift more and skipping gears less and less. It feels.... fun.
edit: i had to unplug my factory sub because its blown. It's just not the same. I may throw in the 6x9's I pulled from the truck to replace the old stock paper infinity ones to see if that helps.
Still daily driving. Changed the oil a couple weeks back and ran it through for analysis. The initial wear is way down even with 4 times the miles. Dirt was way up. Wouldn't know why that would happen. It's not like I had both cam covers off and then a gaping hole where a plug was supposed to be and then the rear cover back off again dduring that time.
still spending money:
hawk blues for the front and rear and some pimp Korean car specific trans fluid. Probably put those on next week some time.
so today was the first time on track at speed with all the pieces in place. Suspension, wheels, brakes and tires. Brakes are so good I have a hard time trusting them. It's so unnerving coming into turn 1 at 110mph and making yourself wait to stand on the pedal. Because if that, I was only 2 seconds faster than my quickest last year on the all seasons. Went out for session 2 and not the out lap went into turn 2 at about 7/10's and the car just didn't. Well that's embarrassing.
Came in and checked th car couldn't find any issues, nothing loose. Camber hadn't slipped. So I went back out and about every oother right handed it had little to no grip and required me to turn the wheel even more. Seemed odd. Ended the session more tentatively and was another half second faster. Checked the car over and nothing seemed too odd. Tires were way over inflated by now and the air temp was rising. So I lowered it down hoping this may have been the issue.
3rd session and it's doing it on all right handers. Won't turn in, mire wheel input and it turns grudgingly. Finish this session and jack it up. Something is loose. Either ball joint or bearing. Since ive already replaced the bearing I'm hoping it's the balljoint.
I know there is so much more load on these parts and this is why I'm doing it. Find the weak points now instead of next May.
I learned a lot of things today even being a short day. Tires feel great. Suspension is super neutral. The rear end is planted and instills confidence. The brakes are amazing. Midn80's and no fade. If anything they stopped better at the end of the session.
WEll, looking this morning it looks like the strut bolts won't hold tight anymore. The tops are camber bolts (crash bolts) and hte bottoms are original 2002 strut bolts with no teeth left to grip the strut. Since I don't need ALL THE CAMBER the upper plates will be sufficient for the 1.5* I need. So I think I'll just order 4 new bolts to tighten this sucker down.
If this is the fix, it's an easy one and I shuld have known better. I had the same problem on the Forte by the second season.
So I fixed it for now. Multiple small failures added up to create the issue. The upper crash bolt slipped, removing th paint/powder coat and was loose. Also the lower lock but in the threaded strut body came loose. The two combined causes the play which changed toe and camber under load and me finding grass.
so, long term is to replace the crash bolts with OE bolts with teeth because it looked like about -1.5* camber was all it needs with the spring rate/sway bars. That is easily achieved with the upper plates so it removes the additional potential to happen again.
also shifted the spring up the body and put note of the threaded body on both sides into the lower portion to offer note stability there. With the extra forces these parts are seeing over stock anything I can do to help it.
ok, long time no update.... fixed the crash bolts with OE bolts. Set the alignment. August 1/2 I spent two days with 10/10ths motorsports with an instructor in the car for all of day 1 and the fist session of day 2. Day 1 was everything from dry to downpour. Great learning experience. Car was magnificent. Took everything I threw at it. Day 2 was dry and sunny. I got a recorded session (wasn't my best) with track addict app. Fun to see it back at you. Car was great. did it's thing where after 20 minutes of flogging it drops a cylinder (thinking it may be the 200k mile coils getting hot) where I back off to 7/10's for half a lap and it comes back. Then my last session the ABS light came on and it refused to rec past 5k rpms. I short shifted, using 6th down the main straight and called the session early. Car ran fine until you crossed 5100rpms then instant spark cut.
Drove it home on some of the worst roads Putnam county has to offer with a stop off at the folks house. No issues. Suspension is great. Tires have almost no wear for over 4 hours of track time. Brakes were amazing.
Fast forward to this saturday. Cars been sitting while I drove her truck to work. I was pretty sure it was the right front speed sensor causing the problem. JAcked it up, pulled off the wheel. Yep... sensor got caught in the axle.... and there's a crap ton of grease everywhere. The metal clip that would normally bolt to the backing plate (that rusted away long ago for the 10.9" rotors not the 11.8" current rotors) came loose (plastic zip tie likely melted) and sliced open the boot while ripping thewire.
So, new outer axle for less than 50 bucks shipped, newOE sensor and some metal zip ties should solve this issue.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXvvrAJg4wA&t=1125s
overall, even with the issues, sounds like a good time!
In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
It'd be better if I had a good mechanic.
bobzilla said:In reply to AngryCorvair (Forum Supporter) :
It'd be better if I had a good mechanic.
Oof, if that isn't the story of all my projects too...
Well I did another dumb thing. I got tired of the incessant drone, and the berkeleying rattling. I've beat this exhaust in a half dozen places to get ot to not rattle to no avail. So I gave in and ordered a Borla. I literally spent more money on a catback than I did buying the car and it's replacement engine.
Why are we dumb?
Video uploading because stuid DSL.
First time I've left the house since Tuesday's intial drive. Put 40 miles on it, some at speed. at 70mph the exhaust note is a hair louder than the wind/road noise. at 75 they're equal. at 80 the wind noise overpowers. Great tone (for a V6), does get a little droney under high load in the lower rpms but instantly eases off with the throttle. I imagine the lack of 3 cats and equal length headers play into that a little.
Now the big question... was it worth the price? Solid "maybe". 15 years ago when this car was 2 years old absolutely. Now? Meh... it's a necessity to spend 4k miles in IMO.
So new exhaust is awesome.
https://www.facebook.com/bob.miller.1804109/videos/10221061489299933/
Put the silencers I bought for the other exhaust in and the interior noise level is stock like (minus the rear interior noise because it's bare.). Pull those with a 10mm ratcheting wrench and you get that gloriousness.
We played in our own special class yesterday. ZF, stands for Zero berkeleys and we have a PAX index of 5. The only rules are safety. Any tire, any chassis no berkeleys all the fun. We ended up 30th and 35th of 85 in raw time and DFL And 2nd from DFL in PAX on a slightly pushy road race suspension setup. Very happy. Missed my LSD on the dirty slick asphalt.
We did develop a hot lifter tick, but looking this oil has 2k miles, 2 track days and a lot of floggin on it so it's probably time to be changed anyway. These are shimmed buckets and they are a little noisy warm anyway. Not worried. I have two spare heads if need be.
Ok. New fuel pump and coil pack installed. Checked the front suspension again. Found a loose end link. No more rattles.
Just an oil change away from being ready for NOLA in a couple weeks.
More work in prep for NOLA this weekend. Oil change. New engine mount. Brakes changed back to the blues. Brakes bled. And fire extinguisher finally mounted. It's within easy reach of the driver and allows full passenger seat movement to the "backseat".
also turned the struts down to 4 clicks from softest and the ride is definitely improved.
and lastly I cleaned about 5 layers of dust out of the car. The late summer drought and gravel road made it really really dirty
Bro, your under car glow is so phat!
Are you driving it to Nola or trailer?
Sounds like a fun time. Say hi to the buddies!
John Welsh (Moderate Supporter) said:Are you driving it to Nola or trailer?
Sounds like a fun time. Say hi to the buddies!
Scott and Becky are driving it, we're towing the miata behind the moterhome. so it'll be a great OLoA test.... as long as it doesn't leave them stranded.
Good news, the new drive to work is super short and nice. 2 miles and change each way. Bad news Tubey loathes it. I got an amazing 21.3mpg on this last tank and that was taking it to Brownsburg and Lebanon (10-15 miles each way) a time or two.
Well, more coming soom but it looks like hte Car made the 1800 miles roundtrip to NOLA, did multiple sessions while there. Used no oil. The only "issue" is the power loss around lap 5 each session that half a lap at 75% lets it come back (or running through REALLY large puddles) and the right rear strut collar backed off just enough to allow about a mm of play. Nothing to make handling change, but enough that I could feel something not completely tight. Fixed in 5 seconds with the wrench and a hammer.
teaser vid of fast lap Saturday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqaES_gjZzk
Tubey is home. 1880 miles round trip, 5 track sessions no oil used and no failures. New codes though. PO1167 and now misfires from the track session. If I am reading that right it's outside the closed loop tuning parameters and MAY be attributed to the MAF being out of range.
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