Smokey

Bumper looks great. Headlights look like dirty poop water. Glad to hear you’re replacing.

Some observations from the event: My water and intake temps were higher than I'd expect for a May event. The air was heavy and thick but only got up to like 80 degrees. Granted we were running long sessions too, but I was still seeing 98-99 degree water temps which I'm not the most fond of. Intake temps would be in the high 40's C to up to 53C regularly. One session I forgot to top off the water/meth tank. I looked over and saw intake temps at 70C!!! wow...too hot. Clearly the PFS intercooler isn't good enough on its own to handle heavy track duty. An interesting note though, even though intake temps were super hot, water temps were down?! I wonder if the car running extra rich with the methanol is making it run hotter? The last session of the weekend I ran straight water instead. Intake temps were a bit higher but not bad but water temps stayed down around 92-94 degrees over a full session which was a nice improvement. I'll continue to play around with that and see how it shakes out. I have a racing beat or replica rear bar I'm going to throw on and go full damn stiff on the front bar and see how the car works. Going stiffer springs all around is the true solution, but will require a re-valve of the shocks which i won't have the time to send out and wait on likely during the season so that'll have to wait until winter. I also need to figure out a better fuel slosh solution as I'm getting fuel stave starting around 1/2 tank with the slicks. The factory baffle is good down to like 1/8 tank on the Nittos, but the extra stick and forces change that. Also next up is a trans cooler as I've already started getting trans noise out of the new (used) trans!!! I better figure out how to rebuild these damn things too. Next event should hopefully be PITT race full course in July.

Yeah was behind on updates. I keep a similar thread on 7club that I had posted the troubleshooting stuff last last year in hopes so,Rome would know what the issue was. Up to date now though.

First event of 2018. NNJRPCA @ Mid Ohio. I enjoy running with NNJR, always a good fast group and put on a good event. This event was advanced and instructors only so it'd be 3 run groups each getting 5 30-minute sessions a day. That's about double what you'd get in a normal HPDE weekend so it was looking great......except the weather.....On Thursday before the event the forecast was showing 60% chance of rain Friday, 100% Saturday, and 60% Sunday Nothing I can do to control that though, so up I went. The forecast called for rain later in the day Friday and it'd be dry to start. As normal I went out on Nittos for the first session and was able to drive a 1:38.9 right off the trailer with me being rusty as well. I knew that the car was right back where it needed to be. Since I thought we'd likely only be getting dry track on Friday I put the slicks on to see how she did. The answer is great and was getting in the mid 1:35s. I still had some rust to knock off, but it was getting better for sure. It ended up raining out the last session Friday, but 4 30-minute sessions is plenty in one day so I was happy for sure. Saturday I came up expecting a rain out, and instead got sunburn. Ohio weather is a crazy thing sometimes. It was mostly dry all day with little bouts of spitting rain, but it would then dry again pretty quickly. That is until about 3pm when it opened the skies and there was no getting the track back from that. Even still got 4 more sessions Saturday. I noticed that when the car is on the slicks it LEANS something fierce. People even make comments to me about how crazy it looks like it's leaning over. So I made an adjustment and went stiffer on the front sway bar. I didn't have any adjustment on the stock rear bar so I went stiffer on the Ohlins in the rear, and softened the front to not make the change as drastic. It seemed to help and yet kept a good balance front/rear on the car. Sunday had the best forecast, but funny enough when we showed up despite not being raining, the track was wet from the previous night's monsoons and the heavy cloud cover wasn't letting it dry up very fast. I skipped the first session due to wet track and then when I went out for the 2nd session I immediately noticed a vibration in the brakes. I took a couple of slow laps to see if it was pad deposits and would go away, but when it didn't I came back in. I found this when I got back to the pits: Sneaky little bugger that was hard to see cause it was in the slot of the rotor, but once it's to the edge it's done. You can see the overall condition of the rotor wasn't too bad (for a track rotor). So I'll have to keep a close eye on them in the future. I had a new set...but they were at home. Since it was early-ish in the morning and I live 1 hour door-to-door from Mid Ohio I made the trip home, swapped the driver's side ring on the hat and came back. Was able to run 3 full session in the afternoon. During the 2nd afternoon session I was able to hook up with a great driver we know in a white 996 GT3 and we went back and forth all session. I was able to get my fastest time of the weekend (and my personal best) while he was filling up my mirrors and running me down which was a 1:35.02...SO CLOSE to the 1:34s I think the car is capable of. We were actually 0.35 up on that fast lap when I was chasing him and we caught the BMW 335 and silver/green 911. If you listen to the video you can hear me yell "OH COME ON"...haha. It doesn't count if it's not in the logger though. Here's a video showing the good stuff of us going back and forth. This was the most fun I've had on track in a long time and made all of the bullshit problems with the car last year worth getting through. Also I ended up running nearly 300 track miles over the weekend so hard to argue with how well the car held up.

Now that I had the car running it was time to get it ready for the track (in-between karting weekends which makes things hectic). I started with a job I should have honestly done during my trouble shooting and forgot....replaced the fuel filter. No pictures here. It's not a hard job, but no fun when you inevitably get doused in fuel as the filter is in the stock location above the diff. Then I started to get some new goodies in for the car: Needed new harnesses to meet PCA regs - dumb, but I'll comply Went with the Flexi 2x2 for the driver and Clubman 2x2 for the passenger. The primary difference between the 2 is the ability to configure pull up or pull down on the hip adjustment on the Flexi and the ability to adjust the height of the sub straps. The hardware on the Clubman is a little more clunky too, but otherwise very similar. Here's the Flexi installed on the driver's side. I had forgotten what a pain in the butt it can be to unbolt the seats to safety wire the clip-in harnesses for the sub belts, but hopefully I won't have to mess with them again for quite some time. I also got new brake pads for the season (hopefully) for the front, and a new OLED commander for the PFC from Banzai. The new commander is great and I should have done that years ago honestly. Much easier to see now at speed. My old one had gotten pretty dim. I had bought the wide gas pedal that looks like the factory brake and clutch pedals last year, but never got around to putting it in because I was busy with other issues. So I took the time to put it in now I will say that I immediately noticed that it was a hair higher than the stock pedal. Not the end of the world, but noticeable back to back. I still figured I'd give it a whirl at the track. I'm also going to try out a thicker oil for this track event. I've noticed that if I go out on track for like a 1/2 session that i don't get any oil in the catch can. My theory is that when the oil gets very hot during the later parts of a session that it thins out and that's when the catch can fills up. So I'll give this thick ass honey stuff a try and see if it helps. In other prep I needed to change out to the track brake pads, bleed the brakes with fresh Endless fluid, nut and bolt check suspension and brake components while under there, swap out the street wheels/tires for the Nitto/Forgestar setup, and put on the brake cooling ducts for the front which I take off on the street. I had forgotten what a pain those can be to get on so I fought with that for a while. I replaced the hoses with newer versions of the same just because the old ones were a bit ragged and getting some holes. I even had some time to polish off the track gunk from last year I never took off cause I was busy trying to fix the car. Got the numbers put on for the event and was ready to roll.

So at this point I was at the end of my rope. I was looking up C6 Z06s to buy and figuring out how much of a bath I was going to take selling this car off in a fit of rage. The good news is that before I made that rash decision I enlisted the help of professionals. I reached out to a local shop who doesn't pick up the phone, answer emails, nor want my business it seems. Then I got wise and called Banzai racing. Best decision I've made on this car in a LONG time. Not only will Elaine pick up the phone, but they understand how to run a business, make appointments, and stick to them. I described my issue and scheduled a diagnostic session with Chris with the knowledge that I'd likely need it on the dyno to fully diagnose. I got my trailer and loaded the car up, woke up early and towed the car 3.5 hours to the middle of Indiana. I showed up for my appointment and Chris and Elaine were there waiting for me (I was first of the day). Chris looked the car over while I described my issues and talked through some of the things I'd tried. He checked some basic things and then we eventually put the car on the dyno where it showed the answer I needed. The car was going crazy lean when getting into boost and that's what was causing the bucking. But why? After looking over some more things we opened up the fuel tank and Chris was immediately able to spot the problem. When I had installed the fuel pump I didn't transfer the plastic standoff from the old pump to the new one. That standoff holds the o-ring up to the hard fuel line to keep its seal. My o-ring had slipped down just enough that when the fuel pressure rose during boost it would leak pressure out into the tank and go lean. Something that little and dumb on my part caused a lot of issues. Thankfully it didn't cost me a motor just my sanity. After searching around the shop he was able to find me a replacement, put it in, and immediately we were back in business able to make full power pulls on the dyno again! Chris did let me know there were some things in the map he didn't really like, so I opted to have him clean up the tune as well since my primary issues were fixed. I had the car originally tuned 8 years ago local to me and it was done somewhat hastily. Driveability always was mediocre at best, but it ran great full throttle on track so I put up with it. I also had some lumpy boost that would fluctuate that I always attributed to the ported wastegate, but Chris was able to adjust the PFC boost settings and get the boost back to rock solid too! Now it's back to making the same power it did 8 years ago, with better drivability, and better boost control. Not only was I going home with a fixed car, but an improved one too! BEST DAMN MONEY I'VE SPENT ON THIS CAR IN A LONG TIME

As I had everything apart i also tested the various actuators and valves as a part of the turbo systems that I hadn't checked before when doing the solenoid testing. I found another issue which was that my turbo control actuator would work under vacuum, but not under boost. Looking inside where the actuator arm was it seemed like there was some melting going on and it just got too hot for too long. I was able to find a good used one pretty easily on the forums so I replaced that too. Onto the transmission: I've long wanted a JDM trans for the shorter 5th gear. I looked at buying the gear and associated parts to rebuild mine, but with the time and money involved it seemed like a better option to just buy a used JDM trans. My other concern was I was getting short on time to get the car back together (as I always am) and I was worried I'd miss some small dumb step in the rebuild causing delays and ultimately I knew the trans wasn't the true issue I was having. So, the car went back into it's familiar state in my garage: I've done the transmission job a few times now, so it's not too bad, just takes some time to get all of the ancillary stuff off, but out it came. Not the most fun on the floor with a floor jack, but it works. Since i was in there I was going to replace the pilot bearing, throwout bearing, and scuff down any hot spots on the clutch and flywheel. The thing that gave me the most trouble was the pilot bearing. I've removed it in the past using the blind hole puller rented from Autozone.....except that Autozone no longer has that as a loaner tool!!! DOH. I bought a $35 dollar version from Amazon.....if you'd like to piss away $35 please feel free to do the same, but I recommend other options. The damn thing broke on the first attempt at removing the bearing. I had tried other rental tools too and none fit or worked. I finally went to Harbor Freight and bought the $60 version of the same tool and it worked surprisingly well. The JDM trans came with a broken speed sensor and not much else attached to it, so I needed to swap over the stuff from my old trans. I also have a bubble tech trans pan spacer, so I transferred that over too. Sealed everything up with HondaBond HT and also installed a new oil seal for the driveshaft. Tip: a flywheel socket is the perfect size to drive the driveshaft seal on the rear of the trans. Got the trans back in and was ready to fire up the car again. Remember safety first. The good news is that the car started up, the trans makes a noise in reverse, but otherwise shifts smooth. The bad news? The damn thing still didn't run right and would start bucking under load/boost....

Alright. Getting back to this saga. The car still wasn't running right and I was running out of ideas. I knew I had to fix 2 things that were notably wrong though, the transmission was making a bunch of noise, and the turbos were smoking and getting old. If I needed to enlist the help of a professional I needed to make sure those things were up to snuff first to not detract from the real issues. I started with the turbos. In taking the old ones off I immediately found an issue: YIKES!!!! Those clearly weren't up to snuff. it's crazy how much the housing had not just cracked but worn away the iron. I later took them apart to see if the turbine blades had taken damage from any chunks and surprisingly they were good. Still went in the trash though they were hosed. Surprisingly the gasket hadn't completely failed, but was not good to reuse and likely was letting some gas past I bought a set of '99 spec turbos to replace them. In the interest of time I was hoping I could just get them and swap them on. Unfortunately they were damaged in shipping to me. Since I was going to have to disassemble them anyway to replace some parts, I decided it best to have the wastegate ported and the housings milled flat. I also had to go to a different manifold because a bolt broke off in the one that was on the car. Not worth trying to drill out. Here are the milled housings and I then block sanded the manifold surfaces. Another mod to the manifold. I've always hated how jagged the exit for this pipe was. I'm sure it was so that the air coming out of it could better mix with the exhaust gasses, but it also seems like the small jagged edges would eventually break off. So I filed it down as best I could. Also when putting in the studs for the downpipe, I use one of the shorter manifold studs for the lower rear hole. I find it makes getting the downpipe on the studs easier and also easier to get the nut on. Haven't ever had a problem with the nut staying on the shorter stud either. Since everything was disassembled you have to mount/unmount the turbos a couple of times to get them clocked appropriately. Obviously it's pretty easy to get them close, but here's a good example of how having them off can affect the y-pipe fit The y-pipe studs are so close to the intake manifold I couldn't get the metal crossover pipe to mount. Here's an example of it pulled further back. You just have to take a few test fits to make sure everything will work as much as possible. Here's the final fit and all buttoned up

So I didn't go into winter completely on a bummer, not all was lost for the year. Even though I missed out on big car track time during the fall, I did pick up another toy and was able to still have some fast fun. My brother had bought my son a kart last year and this summer we went to our local car track more often to get him more comfortable. He's 5 so it's slow going, but we were able to make some good strides. My brother had bought a kart as well and I got a deal on one so I blew the rest of my available weekends driving to the kart tracks near-ish to us and karting. I have to admit it's fun as hell. It's not as cheap as most make it out to be, but I suppose when you compare operating costs to my big car it's nice....but when you're trying to budget for both it's not easy. Not sure I'll get into racing it much, but being able to go there with my son and doing it together is great.

Here’s a video I took of a test drive after replacing the gas. When I first get on it after turning right you can hear the chugging down low and then it just runs slow thru the gears. Then after the railroad tracks you can hear/see the chugging/bucking more. Then when I turn into the neighborhood going up the hill it’s the worst and that was very light throttle.

I didn’t make the last event of the year and I’m still having issues with the car that have me a bit baffled. The car will still build boost and pull thru the RPM range but it’s noticeably down on power. It backfires more than usual making me think it’s running rich or an ignition issue. Additionally something that has popped up is a bucking/breakup that occurs from around 1800rpm-3000rpm. Mostly at light throttle as that’s what I use at those ranges. Also the bucking gets worse in cold air. One night it was in the teens here and it wouldn’t even fully accurate thru a gear it got so bad. Funny thing though is that the car isles nice and smooth. I’ve thrown parts at it to no avail. So far I have: changed the fuel pump strainer/sock checked for vacuum leaks TPS readings verified by PFC commander changed new spark plugs changed new spark plug wires swapped out another set of used coils (both passed resistance test) swapped a good used ignitor swapped a good used injector driver (or whatever that thing under the brake booster is) swapped a good used coil wire harness tested the remaining solenoids in the rats nest. Replaced 2 out of precaution/paranoia but they weren’t really bad. Drained the gas and replaced it with fresh fuel verified the throttle plates are fully opening and not loose or broken verified the double throttle is working as intended but disabled to try anyway. I also thought I had tried a different map sensor in there but when I went to re-try that I couldn’t find my 2nd one. I had also tried at the track previously bypassing my HKS twin power without any change. At this point it’s started snowing here so no more test drives until spring so I can’t really troubleshoot much else. I want to check the base timing but need to borrow a timing light to do it. I also bought a rotary compression tester and verified compression. It’s not great but shouldn’t be causing issues I think. front rotor was 98/94/99 corrected and rear rotor was 90/91/92 corrected. The car still hot and cold starts and idles fine.

you have NO idea brother.... So, after Watkins Glen.... My plan after Watkins was to come back and have 2 events at my home track of Mid Ohio. First one was this past weekend. Friday I was helping the club out with instructor training where I pretend to be a student in various scenarios for an instructor-in-training. We used my car and were driving slow like a student might and the car felt down on power, but I also wasn't driving hard. I was then able to go out on my own and instantly noticed that the car was down like 30-40hp it felt like. It didn't run rough, but it was like someone stuffed a rag in the intake or exhaust or something...just missing power all around. There's a slight surging to the power and it's not all that consistent which drives me nuts. I put the logger in for a session in the afternoon and confirmed that on the back straight driving the whole way to the same braking point that I was down about 8-9mph compared to my normal speeds there!!! I was also noticeably down on RPM at the end of the straight, so it was just down on juice somehow. This was frustrating because it ran great at Watkins (or at least I thought) and in the 2 weeks between events I only changed the oil (yes there's some in there I checked), changed rear brake pads, and bled the brakes. I dragged the car back home Friday night to mess with it. The surging reminded me of what it felt like when I had fuel delivery problems in the past. I opened the tank and there was some dirt on the fuel pump sock, but nothing else seemed out of order. I put on an old one I had as a spare since I was in there. I then looked for oil in the intake or other signs that the turbos were toast. No oil and I was getting full boost all the way thru the RPMs so I think they're both working. I checked for missed rags in the intake just in case even though the car ran fine since the last time I had it open..haha. I looked for big boost leaks but didn't find any. I replaced the blockoff I had put together for the PCV since that was the last thing I messed with on the intake. Also found an older vacuum cap on the lower intake I replaced. I figured that this wasn't a fuel delivery issue as if it was running lean that long on track I would have blown the motor for sure. I also used a piston compression tester to verify I had even pulses on the rotors and didn't appear to have a broken apex seal. Could possibly be down on compression, but it'd be weird for that to spontaneously occur in 2 weeks of not driving the car I'd think. The leading plugs are darker than then trailing plugs but didn't look wet or anything goofy like it was flooded. Plus the car behaved like it was running rich so I'd expect the plugs a little dark. Dragged the car back to the track Saturday. It seemed like 10% better, but I think that was just the cool air in the morning being the difference. I couldn't really do much at the track with it as I had a student I needed to ride with and attend to. Sat night I finally got a chance to chill and think about it more and it seems like an ignition issue with the leading coil. That'd explain why the motor doesn't run rough, but if the leading coil wasn't firing then it'd basically be like retarding the timing right? That'd also explain the darker leading plugs. My car runs stock coils and a HKS twin power so I tried unplugging the twin power and going back to stock wiring, and it ran the same. So I'm thinking it's a coil issue but I need to dig into it to test them. Sunday at the track I tried the car with and without the Twin Power and it was the same so I don't think the twin power is the issue. Anyone else ever have a similar issue? Car makes full boost all thru the RPM range but noticeably down on power. The last chance to sign up for what was to be my last track event at the end of Sept is this weekend, so if I can't get it figured out by then I'm likely done for the year. My goals for the year were to learn to drive on slicks and go faster at Mid Ohio and Watkins Glen. I went fast at Mid Ohio in the spring and smashed my expectations at Watkins so I'm happy with that. There's always going to be continual growth with driving technique and learning how to maximize the sticky tires so that goal will continue thru to next year.

you have NO idea brother.... So, after Watkins Glen.... My plan after Watkins was to come back and have 2 events at my home track of Mid Ohio. First one was this past weekend. Friday I was helping the club out with instructor training where I pretend to be a student in various scenarios for an instructor-in-training. We used my car and were driving slow like a student might and the car felt down on power, but I also wasn't driving hard. I was then able to go out on my own and instantly noticed that the car was down like 30-40hp it felt like. It didn't run rough, but it was like someone stuffed a rag in the intake or exhaust or something...just missing power all around. There's a slight surging to the power and it's not all that consistent which drives me nuts. I put the logger in for a session in the afternoon and confirmed that on the back straight driving the whole way to the same braking point that I was down about 8-9mph compared to my normal speeds there!!! I was also noticeably down on RPM at the end of the straight, so it was just down on juice somehow. This was frustrating because it ran great at Watkins (or at least I thought) and in the 2 weeks between events I only changed the oil (yes there's some in there I checked), changed rear brake pads, and bled the brakes. I dragged the car back home Friday night to mess with it. The surging reminded me of what it felt like when I had fuel delivery problems in the past. I opened the tank and there was some dirt on the fuel pump sock, but nothing else seemed out of order. I put on an old one I had as a spare since I was in there. I then looked for oil in the intake or other signs that the turbos were toast. No oil and I was getting full boost all the way thru the RPMs so I think they're both working. I checked for missed rags in the intake just in case even though the car ran fine since the last time I had it open..haha. I looked for big boost leaks but didn't find any. I replaced the blockoff I had put together for the PCV since that was the last thing I messed with on the intake. Also found an older vacuum cap on the lower intake I replaced. I figured that this wasn't a fuel delivery issue as if it was running lean that long on track I would have blown the motor for sure. I also used a piston compression tester to verify I had even pulses on the rotors and didn't appear to have a broken apex seal. Could possibly be down on compression, but it'd be weird for that to spontaneously occur in 2 weeks of not driving the car I'd think. The leading plugs are darker than then trailing plugs but didn't look wet or anything goofy like it was flooded. Plus the car behaved like it was running rich so I'd expect the plugs a little dark. Dragged the car back to the track Saturday. It seemed like 10% better, but I think that was just the cool air in the morning being the difference. I couldn't really do much at the track with it as I had a student I needed to ride with and attend to. Sat night I finally got a chance to chill and think about it more and it seems like an ignition issue with the leading coil. That'd explain why the motor doesn't run rough, but if the leading coil wasn't firing then it'd basically be like retarding the timing right? That'd also explain the darker leading plugs. My car runs stock coils and a HKS twin power so I tried unplugging the twin power and going back to stock wiring, and it ran the same. So I'm thinking it's a coil issue but I need to dig into it to test them. Sunday at the track I tried the car with and without the Twin Power and it was the same so I don't think the twin power is the issue. Anyone else ever have a similar issue? Car makes full boost all thru the RPM range but noticeably down on power. The last chance to sign up for what was to be my last track event at the end of Sept is this weekend, so if I can't get it figured out by then I'm likely done for the year. My goals for the year were to learn to drive on slicks and go faster at Mid Ohio and Watkins Glen. I went fast at Mid Ohio in the spring and smashed my expectations at Watkins so I'm happy with that. There's always going to be continual growth with driving technique and learning how to maximize the sticky tires so that goal will continue thru to next year.

Fair point. I guess I just don’t get it.

Do they have any options that don’t look like fuckall? Can you do solid or metallic plain colors?

Congrats on the move! Hope you kill it in the food business.

no, I wish. But I haven't seen it in years. I'd love to see octane ratings go up without the increase of ethanol content as I think that'd get away from the efficiency gains that the article is pointing toward.

I think that’s gonna take either a LONG time or Porsche drastically upping production of GT4s to get to $50k as an average price and not an outlier (wrecked, high miles, etc). Considering the most comparable car in the Porsche lineup is the 996 GT3 and at 14 years old they still regularly pull $60k plus. If You are in the market to own a high dollar car that doesn’t depreciate for a short period and want it to cost as little out of pocket as possible, then this is the loan product to do that. Im nowhere in a position to be attempting those plays and can’t keep cars short term, so this product isn’t for me.

What ‘cha going to next?

Pumped for this

I like that turbo manufacturers are going back to internal wastegates to simplify things. Unfortunately both of the g25s are too small to use on a rotary so I’m out, but hopefully they keep developing the line.

I can’t find it by the part number on their site. Is it the 1/3hp pancake 100psi? Where are you located?

If you’re gonna run Rotella just go to Meijer or WalMart to buy for $25/gallon. That’s what I do for oil in the FD. Wally World also has good deals on Mobil 1that I run in my dailies. Amsoil for drivetrain fluids at this point for me with regular changes.

I always wanted a white turbo II FC. Dad had a 1st gen RX-7 when I was in high school so good memories there too. could also enjoy a nice e30.

http://www.mavalgear.com Check with these guys. Used to be the go-to place to get a FD rack converted to manual.