Tuesday, October 21
Sunday, October 19
Monday, October 6
Day 2 Drags
So after a long 1st day, we got up early for the drag portion of the event. We drove out to the track, and unpacked all our stuff. We removed the autox tires from the front, and unfortunately did not have drag slicks for the rear so we ran the autox tires at 20psi. We ran into trouble early. The car would not start at 8:30Am. We began to check and double check all of out connections and sensors. 20 minutes turned into 1 hour. We checked for spark, we had it, we checked for fuel, we had it, we checked the injectors, we swapped ECUs, we were running out of options. 1 hour turned into 3 hours. We had a lot of help from some friendly challengers and spectators. It turns out that after trying to start the car so many times, we had fouled the plugs. The girls went out to pick up a new set and when they returned we installed them and the car fired right up! ....it only took about 5 hours!
So we were ready! We only had a couple of hours left to get our runs in for the day, so I jumped in the car and drove it straight to the drag strip. My first run was a 14.2 at 104mph. I was not to happy, but i know the car had more in it. I was spinning the tires all through 1st and 2nd gear. It even got squirly in the beginning of 3rd.
We did 2 more runs, but the car began to act up again, and was popping and sputtering in higher rpms. After the 3rd run it cut off, and wouldn't start again. I had to push it back to the pits. Fortunately Jimmy and another challenger in a miata was nice enough to come give me a hand and tow me to the pits.
It turns out we had blown off the rubber hose connecting to the throttle body. After re-attaching it, we were back in business!
9 runs later, we had two 14 second passes with a highest trap speed of 107 mph. With more traction i I think this car can definitely run low 13's. One of the 14 second passes was run starting in second gear with a trap speed of 104 mph! I want to give Bucky Thomas props for porting the intake manifold, and really creating a monster out of this car. The throttle response is amazing! Without the high airflow I doubt we'd have such a high trap speed.
We ended up staying at the track after everyone left, bar-b-qing and drinking a few beers!. What a day, we had a blast, and did respectably well.
Stay tuned for more pics and more videos of the runs!
So we were ready! We only had a couple of hours left to get our runs in for the day, so I jumped in the car and drove it straight to the drag strip. My first run was a 14.2 at 104mph. I was not to happy, but i know the car had more in it. I was spinning the tires all through 1st and 2nd gear. It even got squirly in the beginning of 3rd.
We did 2 more runs, but the car began to act up again, and was popping and sputtering in higher rpms. After the 3rd run it cut off, and wouldn't start again. I had to push it back to the pits. Fortunately Jimmy and another challenger in a miata was nice enough to come give me a hand and tow me to the pits.
It turns out we had blown off the rubber hose connecting to the throttle body. After re-attaching it, we were back in business!
9 runs later, we had two 14 second passes with a highest trap speed of 107 mph. With more traction i I think this car can definitely run low 13's. One of the 14 second passes was run starting in second gear with a trap speed of 104 mph! I want to give Bucky Thomas props for porting the intake manifold, and really creating a monster out of this car. The throttle response is amazing! Without the high airflow I doubt we'd have such a high trap speed.
We ended up staying at the track after everyone left, bar-b-qing and drinking a few beers!. What a day, we had a blast, and did respectably well.
Stay tuned for more pics and more videos of the runs!
Sunday, October 5
Day 1 Concours and Autox
So we woke up early Friday morning, and we towed the car to the track. Christy snapped some pictures of us going to get the car through tech inspection.
After the car passed Tech, we cleaned it up and went to get in line for the concourse portion of the event. We wanted to do it first before we got the car too dirty from racing it.
Once it was all said and done we placed 13th out of 54 entrants in the concourse.Out of 25 points in each category we had:
judge 1
19 interior
21 exterior
20 engine
20 overall
judge 2
21 interior
21 exterior
20 engine
22 overall
judge 3
judge 2
21 interior
21 exterior
20 engine
22 overall
judge 3
17 interior
22 exterior
23 engine
23 overall
judge 4
22 exterior
23 engine
23 overall
judge 4
19 interior
22 exterior
22 engine
21 overall
22 exterior
22 engine
21 overall
We are super happy with our score, and we know exactly where we can improve next year.
Back at the pits we were getting ready for the autocross. We topped off all fluids and checked tire pressures.
After 5 runs, our best autocross time was a 43.91 second time which placed us in 17th place. We had issues with not having enough grip in the rear tires. I think it was because we removed so much weight the car would not plant it self well. With more time and some more testing i think we could have definitely gone faster. We also were running less boost than last year, so that is also something we can remedy for 2009.
The Day before the Challenge
So we woke up early Thursday Morning and pulled the car out of the garage. It was the first time we looked at it after completely painting it. Wow it looks so nice! I think the paint scheme came out great! We snapped some quick pics, and started packing for the long drive up to Gainesville....
Unfortunately the car started up and ran for about 2 mins before cutting off and not starting up again! We didn't know what had happened or why it cut off, but we messed with it for about 5 hours that morning before loading it onto the trailer... It still wouldn't start, but i figured we might as well go and see if we could fix it there. Christy and i drove the truck(thanks Matt) and jimmy drove up with Mariana a bit later. When we arrived I immediately began checking things in the parking lot. I re-soldered the AFM extension hoping that that was the problem, but still it would not start. There were a bunch of people walking around the parking lot that night, saying hi and looking at this years challenge entries. One of them was Johnny with the Yugo, He started fiddling with the coolant temp sensor connection, and viola, it fired right up! Thanks Johnny!
Unfortunately the car started up and ran for about 2 mins before cutting off and not starting up again! We didn't know what had happened or why it cut off, but we messed with it for about 5 hours that morning before loading it onto the trailer... It still wouldn't start, but i figured we might as well go and see if we could fix it there. Christy and i drove the truck(thanks Matt) and jimmy drove up with Mariana a bit later. When we arrived I immediately began checking things in the parking lot. I re-soldered the AFM extension hoping that that was the problem, but still it would not start. There were a bunch of people walking around the parking lot that night, saying hi and looking at this years challenge entries. One of them was Johnny with the Yugo, He started fiddling with the coolant temp sensor connection, and viola, it fired right up! Thanks Johnny!
Goodbye MegaSquirt.
During all of the paint prep, my buddy Carl Osterman and I were spending a lot of time trying to get the MegaSquirt to connect to the laptop. It was all wired in correctly, and when tested with a stimulator, it works fine, but for some reason, when we try to upload the firmware, it only works 10% of the time. The few times that we were able to get the firmware correctly uploaded, we would begin to update the settings in Megatune in order to start the car, and when trying to burn to the ecu, the connection would fail, and the Megasquirt would crap out. THen it was back to square 1...trying to upload the firmware again. This went on for about a week, 4 hours a day(after work). I was so fed up and frustrated, that with only 5 days left for the challenge, I decided to abort our Megasquirt plan and go back to the stock Motronic computer. We wouldn't have all of the tuning optios we had with the Ms, but Jimmy and I had run thi stock ecu last year, so we knew how it worked. 
christy cut the holes out of the carbon fiber panel for the gauges.
Jimmy getting the AFM ready to be put back on the car now that we were not using MS.
almost all buttoned up and ready for the event... THe car had not been started in about 9 months!
looking nice!
We then taped off the sections that were gong to be red and yellow, and I painted them in the following nights. Christy and Mariana, cut out some stencils that I designed, and we sprayed the bombs on the fender and the Iron Cross on each quarter panel. THis shot was taken the morning that we left for Gainesville.
christy cut the holes out of the carbon fiber panel for the gauges.
Jimmy getting the AFM ready to be put back on the car now that we were not using MS.
almost all buttoned up and ready for the event... THe car had not been started in about 9 months!
looking nice!
We then taped off the sections that were gong to be red and yellow, and I painted them in the following nights. Christy and Mariana, cut out some stencils that I designed, and we sprayed the bombs on the fender and the Iron Cross on each quarter panel. THis shot was taken the morning that we left for Gainesville.
Time to paint!
So with less than a week before the Grassroots challenge, Jimmy and I began to prep the car for paint. I had an Idea for the look we wanted to achieve. I did a quick photo-chop of our idea about 5 months ago. You can see it below.
So we began the bodywork, sanding, and paint prep. It took us about 2 days. The body was relatively straight, there were a few door dings, and we had some damage on the roof from removing the sunroof panel. I repaired those areas with bondo, while Jimmy, Mariana, Christy and Sue helped sand and scruff the areas that needed to be painted.
We painted the car in my small 1 car garage. You can see the covered tool benches and washer and dryer in the background. THere was not much room, but we did the best we could with what we had.
The first coat was the semigloss olive green color. Jimmy got it from Sherwin Williams. It's an oil based exterior paint. I shot the entire lower half of the car with 2 coats. We used less than 1 pt. We didn't take any pics of it, but you can see the next step where i have covered the green with tape and paper, and already sprayed with the semi-gloss black. It sprayed on surprisingly smoothly with the $14.99 spray gun from Harbor Freight!
I hung the hood and trunk from the garage door in order to paint both sides at one time.
So we began the bodywork, sanding, and paint prep. It took us about 2 days. The body was relatively straight, there were a few door dings, and we had some damage on the roof from removing the sunroof panel. I repaired those areas with bondo, while Jimmy, Mariana, Christy and Sue helped sand and scruff the areas that needed to be painted.
We painted the car in my small 1 car garage. You can see the covered tool benches and washer and dryer in the background. THere was not much room, but we did the best we could with what we had.
The first coat was the semigloss olive green color. Jimmy got it from Sherwin Williams. It's an oil based exterior paint. I shot the entire lower half of the car with 2 coats. We used less than 1 pt. We didn't take any pics of it, but you can see the next step where i have covered the green with tape and paper, and already sprayed with the semi-gloss black. It sprayed on surprisingly smoothly with the $14.99 spray gun from Harbor Freight!
I hung the hood and trunk from the garage door in order to paint both sides at one time.
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