My BRZ: White Lighten-ing, and a formal Introduction

[IanIsInGarage]

Joe; a note about bare stainless steel lines. Don't let them touch anything but thick rubber.  I like your grommet hole. But also I recommend putting a little rubber in between the lines as they pass through that hole. I've seen over time some really unfortunate leaks from time and rubbing. These are worse since it has fuel.  When I'm doing jobs I'll always keep one or two old radiator hoses in tool storage so I can cut them up for custom rubber "spacers".  

[joesurf79]

3 minutes ago, IanIsInGarage said:

Joe; a note about bare stainless steel lines. Don't let them touch anything but thick rubber.  I like your grommet hole. But also I recommend putting a little rubber in between the lines as they pass through that hole. I've seen over time some really unfortunate leaks from time and rubbing. These are worse since it has fuel.  When I'm doing jobs I'll always keep one or two old radiator hoses in tool storage so I can cut them up for custom rubber "spacers".  

Thanks for the tip! Inwas wondering about that already actually. I'll make some rubber sleeves tonight. I have a couple of sheets of rubber I can cut up and use that will suffice until i can find a permanent solution! 

[IanIsInGarage]

When I do this on oil lines I just put a cut coolant hose halfway on one line and zip tie the two lines together making a rubber "jelly" sandwich between stainless steel lines. You'll be a little more creative with 3 hoses in mix; but it doesn't have to be a lot of rubber in between them if you control where they touch with zip ties.  

[joesurf79]

Surge tank FOR THE WIN! ALLZ THE WINS!! Was able to run the car at pace, all the way down to nothing. I intentionally went full tilt boogie for 2 laps after the gas light came on. Not a burble. Not a hiccup. No loss of power coming out of carousel (left hand continuous turns are what would cause the starvation below a half tank).

Also- I lost one of my super sweet Texas flag endplates...not sure where, but after coming in from a session Saturday, someone noted that my car looked funny with only one of them ;) My "bargain deal" used carbon wing came to me with loose endplate threaded inserts which I had tried (in vain apparently) to re-epoxy down twice. Turns out, they could no longer contain the majesty of the lone star banner as it broke it's epoxy chains once again - flying free into the wild. My guess is carousel or coming into diamond's edge.

It will be replaced with a Nine Lives aluminum job. The broken carbon wing had already been traded away to @clifton23 and his Champ car team for the promise of multiple future beers and a cheezy-burger. May it live again to help keep their MR2 planted !

Coolshirt also worked flawlessly. The decrease in fatigure is what amazed me - I don't think it was placebo effect. I am unsure how I did this through 2 Texas summers without one. Never again!

[dunhamr1]

On 5/17/2019 at 9:17 AM, IanIsInGarage said:

When I do this on oil lines I just put a cut coolant hose halfway on one line and zip tie the two lines together making a rubber "jelly" sandwich between stainless steel lines. You'll be a little more creative with 3 hoses in mix; but it doesn't have to be a lot of rubber in between them if you control where they touch with zip ties.  

x2, and the trifecta is after they're rubber wrapped, to zip tie them together so there's no movement.

[joesurf79]

1 hour ago, dunhamr1 said:

x2, and the trifecta is after they're rubber wrapped, to zip tie them together so there's no movement.

Yeah, I went through and hose-wrap-sandwiched them at all contact points, with zipties at each point for motion restraint. I am now wondering if rubber pushlock type hose with Pushlock to -AN fittings would have been a better choice. Put some abrasion resistant sleeving on it, then rubber sandwich them?

This might be a good braided stainless line vs rubber pushlock type line discussion in tech talk. We're talking all low pressure here, the highest anything is seeing is 45 psi. I may need some schoolin' here...

[SpaceRangerJoe]

6 hours ago, joesurf79 said:

Coolshirt

I was kinda "meh" about one until I tried it. I figured I'm only driving 20 minutes at a time, so no need. But they really are magical. I have a proper fire suit now as well, so it will be even more important. I need to finish rewiring mine to get it back in service before the June TDE at Cresson.

[IanIsInGarage]

Stainless I believe has more protection than the other type. They do actually make stainless with a Teflon outer coat; but I've only seen them on small brake lines and there is a price hike.  

[joesurf79]

Made some progress. Since I'm abandoning the chassis mount for the wing, I have room for the cool shirt cooler to live permanently, so I made that setup, painting the spars red. Why not a splash of color...and I was out of black Krylon 😉

I also grabbed an intact trunk lid, which got the Krylon touch, and some racing required decoration...

Wiring harnesses made for the coolshirt setup and transponder. Cool looking top-gun-esque switches used because I had them laying around, and honestly I'm too lazy to dig around the wiring digram right now to find the ignition signal wire to use to trigger a relay lol...

As soon as the new wing setup arrives, we're in business again! Oh, and I build a bulkhead to separate the surge tank from the cabin...and change up how I am running the lines. And make a fuel pump basket cover. And replace my front lower control arm spherical bearings. And....and....and....Haley says If i say "the racecar is almost done though" one more time shes going to stab me lol

[joesurf79]

On 5/17/2019 at 8:47 AM, IanIsInGarage said:

Joe; a note about bare stainless steel lines. Don't let them touch anything but thick rubber.  I like your grommet hole. But also I recommend putting a little rubber in between the lines as they pass through that hole. I've seen over time some really unfortunate leaks from time and rubbing. These are worse since it has fuel.  When I'm doing jobs I'll always keep one or two old radiator hoses in tool storage so I can cut them up for custom rubber "spacers".  

Poignant failure experienced by a buddy @CodeMonkey  at Road Atlanta last weekend drives your point home! An unshielded oil cooler line that rubbed through is pictured here... found post mortem 😞Doused the track with 5W-30, and killed his motor in the span of seconds. 

Definitely going to rethink / perfect my fuel line setup now. 

[IanIsInGarage]

I know how bad that must suck. Man engine lost ☹️  .  I found out about this when someone had a brake line saw a control arm in half and crashed from lose of control.

[Max]

Yikes- Sad to hear a motor bites the dust. 

My car is at the shop.  Thus; while up on the lift tomorrow oil cooler lines (and others) will be on inspection/preventative tasks.  Thanks for sharing the information and making me go p (Preventative).  ;0

 

 

 

 

[joesurf79]

Remote pull cable kill switch handle added 🙂

New Wing mounted!

Transponder mounted and wired! 

Water temp gauge and transponder thingee mounted ! 

Some wire clean up with zip ties tomorrow, bolt the driver seat in, and it's ready again 😉

[joesurf79]

Huge Huge thanks to @Shuka for welding some stainless exhaust parts for me today! I tried my hand at the torch and for those who have only MIG welded (like myself), MIG this ain't! I can zap some easy brackets together with my MIG machinr, but I couldn't even get a decent tack weld for a v-band flange with the tig torch...Thanks for having the skills Nix! 

[Shuka]

Haha that picture.  You're quite welcome! Also stainless braided hoses are way more durable than the nylon braided ones pictured. They're known to saw through other parts if left unsecured.

[KevinDB]

Love that tshirt, I need to get some cool tshirts in my life.  

[joesurf79]

Car is dressed up and ready to go Time Trialing! Not super interested in the TMS "Roval" thing NASA has next, but NOLA in October for sure is calling my name. NLR Big Wang got a coat of etching primer and some satin black, and the new endplates got the TX flag treatment.

The drivers side aluminum airdam panel ate a cone thrown over the fender of a miata last time I was on track. There was no way to avoid it as it fell from the sky, and it caved the panel into the fog light recess behind it. Easy cut, paint, re-rivet job.

New splitter was in order too...the damn thing is so low that with the splitter attached, I cant get it on the trailer without raising the car. I forgot this at the last event, and drove the splitter right into one of the tie down eyelets that was in the up position and it made a perfect "cookie cutter" out of the splitter haha! This one is infact 4" from the air dam, and flat on the bottom for legality :)

 I'm changing up the way the splitter mounts to the frame. Lighter, and completely removable from under the car so I don't have to pull the bumper each time. This will save me the hassle of jacking with ride height each time.

Finally ALL of the exhaust gaskets got changed, and the nuts securing the header flanges are now backed up by Nord-Lock washers, after finding that my exhaust leak at the last event was 4 out of my 6 header fasteners going AWOL LOL! That plus the flex joint now welded in the system thanks to  @Shuka and the exhaust should stop shaking itself apart (fingers crossed!).

[Matt93SE]

cute little go-fer you got there!

we should have put our boy in the helmet thingy..   wife said "no, he's not bad enough and I don't do that to him".... now we have a kid with a lopsided head that can't fit a normal race helmet...

[joesurf79]

45 minutes ago, Matt93SE said:

cute little go-fer you got there!

we should have put our boy in the helmet thingy..   wife said "no, he's not bad enough and I don't do that to him".... now we have a kid with a lopsided head that can't fit a normal race helmet...

Thanks man! I kinda like him, think I'll keep him around haha! ;)

I wasn't super concerned about his head at first - all babies look weird to me, but my wife kept telling me his head looked like an animation of the Anunaki people from an episode of "Ancient Aliens" lol. When we took him and had the imaging done it was WAYYYYY obvious that he had a lopsided/elongated/flattened head. The DOC band doesn't bug him much except when taking it on and off. He got a reprieve from the "helmet" for fireworks hearing protection. He loved sparklers for the 15 minutes he was awake after dark... Thank god he looks like his mom - no helmet can save him from my ugly mug ;)

Hopefully he's almost done with the thing completely. I'll admit that concern over finding protective helmets (for a variety of activities) to fit him down the road did cross my mind when we were on the way home from the imaging appointment!  He is already showing dare devil tendencies, and the DOC band's impact protection isn't helping that. His newest thing is trying to climb anyone holding him like they are a jungle gym. Which is great until he slips and busts you in the face with the battering ram attached to his forehead. Also he wants to eat your hair. Super weird, but again he's cute so I'll keep him :)

[Matt93SE]

Awesome stuff.
I slowed down racing a lot after the second kid was born.  partly because of how SCCA adjusted the schedule around here, partly because of finances.  wife "doesn't work", so we only have my income for family of 4.  after 3 years of racing, wife finally told me she'd been pulling out of savings every couple months to pay bills...  so I slowed down a lot on the car stuff.  but it's worth it for the kiddos.   when daughter turned 5, we put her in a kart.  she just turned 8 and my son (the lopsided brain boy) will be 5 in a couple weeks.  his first kart race will be this weekend.  I race less, but kart racing is soooo much cheaper than cars (assuming you don't crash and bend a $5000 chassis), so if I knock of a couple races a year, all of us can race on my same annual play budget. win win win!

[Captain Buddha]

4 hours ago, joesurf79 said:

Thanks man! I kinda like him, think I'll keep him around haha! 😉

I wasn't super concerned about his head at first - all babies look weird to me, but my wife kept telling me his head looked like an animation of the Anunaki people from an episode of "Ancient Aliens" lol. When we took him and had the imaging done it was WAYYYYY obvious that he had a lopsided/elongated/flattened head. The DOC band doesn't bug him much except when taking it on and off. He got a reprieve from the "helmet" for fireworks hearing protection. He loved sparklers for the 15 minutes he was awake after dark... Thank god he looks like his mom - no helmet can save him from my ugly mug 😉

Hopefully he's almost done with the thing completely. I'll admit that concern over finding protective helmets (for a variety of activities) to fit him down the road did cross my mind when we were on the way home from the imaging appointment!  He is already showing dare devil tendencies, and the DOC band's impact protection isn't helping that. His newest thing is trying to climb anyone holding him like they are a jungle gym. Which is great until he slips and busts you in the face with the battering ram attached to his forehead. Also he wants to eat your hair. Super weird, but again he's cute so I'll keep him 🙂

Cutey of a kid!!!

[Code Monkey]

You have the part # for the Nord-Lock washers?

[joesurf79]

27 minutes ago, Code Monkey said:

You have the part # for the Nord-Lock washers?

Hey Man! I dont have a part number, but I got them from Grainger. M10 Nord-Lock washers, 20 pack, was like 18 bucks I think? They come "pre assembled" so the two halves are stuck together with some thin malleable adhesive. Super hopeful that they solve the problem. YouTube videos showing them in vibration tests are impressive, but with only 22-25 ft lbs book spec torque on the header stud nuts I'm hoping the face serrations have enough "bite"...