Finally another update...and another trophy!

Sorry for the long delay, but here's the report from BIR in Brainerd, MN on July 16th. We made the trip up Friday night to get tech'ed and checked in, and luckily made it without a wheel falling off the tow vehicle. As most everyone probably knows by now, we took 3rd place in the 14 hour race!

The Trophy: Sparky McBolt

The Team: Pon, Soren, Jeff and Greg

As it turns out, after Iowa, we had more then just one engine mount broken, ALL THREE, were sheared off. Luckily I had bought a kit, and we replaced all 3. We also found a small brake line leak, and replaced this with braided lines so we wouldn't have to drop the whole rear subframe.







Thanks to Alex B for taking and sharing some great pictures! Check out his site for more:
Alex Bellus Photography
Alex's Picasa Album

They're semi-chronological over the course of the day. Morning-Midday:










The run at dusk had a pretty awesome sunset, but that made seeing kind of interesting...






Thanks to everyone who helped get the car fixed after Iowa, and thanks to Jeremy, Erik and my dad for crewing during the race. And of course thanks to all our other fans that made the race and hung out with us. Aside from coming in for fuel early on the first stint (yeah we should top it off now before races...) and the radiator fans falling off, it was a pretty smooth race. I'm very glad I was the last one in the car, from the sounds of it, the mosquitoes after sundown were horrendous! Maybe next year we'll just run the double 7 hour race. Videos are uploading, and I'll post them soon. Tomorrow its back to work prepping for the Chumpionship on Labor Day weekend!

Iowa and the aftermath...

So, as most of you already know, our race at Iowa went nowhere near like we expected. So much that I've put off writing this post for about 3 weeks. But we're moving onward. Of course I had to start off with a nice obligatory pre-race pose. We were quite excited, having thought we fixed everything from Road America. We had the alignment set, new shoes on, we were ready to rock!


Soren went out for the race start, and got on it right away. The green flag fell as he was in the infield, but he noticed quickly that the yellow went away and the race was on.


Another shot flying by, the car was looking good!


But then things went bad. The car stalled on Soren in the infield. It took awhile, but he got it started and came in to the pits. We dug over the car quick and couldn't find anything, so we sent him back out. Before hitting pit exit, it was stalling again, so we took it into the garage. First we thought it was the fuel pump ecu, and we called all over trying to find one. Then we thought it was the throttle position sensor, and called all over trying to find one. Both times most of the places were closed by noon on Saturday, until we found a TPS in Des Moines. Erik and Soren drove over to get it, and it didn't work. Car still wouldn't start. Digging back around the fuses I noticed a couple were different heights, so I pushed down on one, and click, it seated. Hmmm...I bet that was bad. We tried to start it, and boom, we were back. With 4 hours till the mandatory safety break, then an hour after the break before dark, we had about 5 hours before dark. So we decided to get everyone in the car to see the track before having to drive in the dark. All went well, got through the safety break, hooked up the lights, and sent out our Dad for his stint. He rolled through the next set of pictures as dusk was falling.


And rolled into our next set of issues. He came into the pits, having lost brakes coming into the infield (which is bad). Found the vacuum line off the booster, so we reconnected and added a better fitting. That worked for 30 minutes before he came back in again, with the other side of the hose off.


And of course I had to throw in a shot of everybody's favorite car, Tow-Mater.


So we called it a night. There wasn't a good way to test fixes. We thought it might be the brake booster, or the PCV valve, or something else causing pressure to blow it off. Turns out it was a broken motor mount. Broken as in sheared completely off. So the engine could rock over enough to pull the hose off. We diagnosed it in my driveway this afternoon, by doing a brake stand.


And then we took it out of the car. Now we need to either get a new mount, a used mount, or just weld a solid mount.


After that we still need to track down the source of a brake leak we had in the garage at Iowa. We had blue fluid on the ground as we loaded the trailer, but none today. So there's some more checking to do on that.

Its on like Donkey Kong! Chumpcar style...

So I thought I'd start with a nice view that most of our competitors will be seeing next weekend. BABOOOM! Plus I wanted to show off our fatty 275 rear tires on our craigslist used Supra wheels. If they made a wider size of the tire we use, I'd probably have tried to squeeze it on. But I like these regardless. It should be fun to run these tires at temperature this weekend. It was too cold at Road America.


With a few new changes done earlier in the year (new bumper), and a few issues we think we had (fans at RA), we decided to hard wire a few more things then we did before. No more relying on the car's computers to turn things on. We hard wired new light switches for the new light bar we built, and we added a switch for the engine fans. Sure they could get turned off or left off by accident, but essentially everything on the top row should be turned on before starting the car. The second row with headlights and defrost are optional based on the conditions. We also ended up relocating our master killswitch to clean things up.


And here is the aforementioned headlight bar. Quick and easy installation. Just need to aim the lights on Friday night and we should be set for the darkness overnight in Iowa.


And lastly a picture for me as reference to the work we were doing on the alignment. We didn't leave ourselves enough time to visit the alignment guy, so we're getting it done ourselves. It should be close enough once we do the final setting. Had to play around a bit to see where our limits were and then went to recheck where we wanted it. We'll finish setting it this week, or Friday night at Iowa.


Big thanks to everyone who put in time making sure we got things finished up in time for Iowa after the damage at Road America. We're off on Friday morning for the land of corn and racing!

Almost ready for Iowa...

Well we're not quite ready yet, but we're getting close. Jeff got the new headlight bar started. Its not quite done yet, still slides in a bit tight, and we might lower it closer to the bumper yet. But other then that we just need to finish up the wiring and its good to go.


We did get the new radiator mounted once we got the support bracket remade. Took a little tweaking to get all the mounts lined back up, but it fits good and sturdy now. Got the fans hooked up, and mostly rewired. This time we're wiring them direct to switches and their own 12V power. We think whatever computer they were running through last year, and at RA, weren't working anymore. Luckily it wasn't hot that race...


We also decided to make another durability upgrade for the summer races. We've added a transmission cooler fan. We noticed last year at races like Iowa, where we'd have high speed time on the banking and slower speed through the infield, that you could watch the transmission temperature drop and climb based on car speed and airflow. So we think the fan will help with this. We also remounted it for straighter more efficient airflow.


With more power going to individual switches, we cleaned up some wiring. Soren and Erik almost got the new stuff done. We also replaced our makeshift alternator wire rerouting job from Brainerd last year, with a single wire. This also ended up moving our kill switch to the dash panel for easier wiring.


And lastly, we cleaned up Pon's epoxy job on the air intake and air filter housing. A dab of RTV and we should be all set with no leaks. We debating going with an aftermarket conical air filter and making our own adapter, but didn't want to get dinged for any AIV increase for using a more expensive air filter.


Next weekend there's a little wiring to button up before we can start it up. There's also some tubing to hook up for the transmission cooler and radiator, now that everything is mounted again. Add the new gauge for the transmission temp, maybe add a real coolant temp gauge, recalibrate the fuel level gauge, set the alignment, and a do quick front brake job. Doesn't sound like much, but it'll be a full day's worth of work.

Working for the weekend

Of course I had to throw in another picture of our awesome trophy. Still haven't done a good post race explanation, which I apologize for, just been busy trying to fix things in time for Iowa.


So we had a good work day today. Got the radiator out, and its pretty clear that the frame moved, because the radiator didn't used to have a notch in it. But the frame did spring back somewhat. Soren measured the suspension mount points, and everything still seems to be square. So we're moving forward with fixing stuff.


Our radiator mounting cross member has seen better days. Between the original bear hit, a trip through the gravel, and not meeting wall, its about time to replace it. So we're going to cut it out and make our own.


The airbox was more damaged then we thought. It was pretty much cracked all the way around. Pon got it put back together, and epoxy'ed. Hopefully it holds fine. A little sanding and it should be as good as new...ish.


Apparently after the broken tie rod, the brake rotor decided to contact something. Not sure what, but the rotor had a big gouge in it now. I guess its time to order new rotors. Grant got the tie rods all replaced. First the broken one, then based on the amount of play in the inner tie rod, we decided it was time to replace the other side as well.


And yeah, maybe it really IS time to replace our brake rotors. Stress cracks throughout. But I guess the Frozen Rotors held up pretty well considering they did 14 hours at BIR, then around 18 hours at Iowa, and probably about 3-6 hours in track days. But for fun, I'm going to put on regular rotors and see what the difference in life span is.


And I guess its time for a little race update. As most of your know, we placed second on Saturday, and earned the fastest lap of the day. The Lexus was running well. Below is a picture after we received our fancy trophy.


Also, here are a couple videos that I've uploaded to Youtube. There are more available on my youtube channel.

Road America damage report, part 1

Sorry, a race update will follow later tonight or tomorrow. But I did a little initial investigation of the damage. So pretty clearly the driver side inner tie rod is gone.


Lower a-arm looks to be okay.


Upper a-arm looks to be straight and okay as well.


Radiator, not okay. We knew this from previous inspection at the track.


And the left frame horn seems to have tweaked a bit. How much? Not sure. Enough to matter? Not sure. Hopefully its all in front of the suspension and shock mount points, and those stayed straight.


Lastly, the engine will not start. Not sure why. Something may have gotten disconnected, but the old ignition switch didn't work either. So a fuse probably blew (hopefully that's all). We'll be checking it over more tomorrow. It would go back into the garage a lot easier if it was running.