Mikelly

Matt, I can't come to Road Atlanta the week before. We have a large piece of work we're going to be attempting to staff leading up to 4th of July. Mike

Just a heads up, but this is a low traffic board that will require a couple days or weeks before someone might respond to your post with something meaningful concerning taking this on. Mike

Jon Feel free to start one. I am interested in testing my car with my setup, which is not complete. I just received more supplies for the lower rocker design and I am also looking at another set of strut tubes to cut down for my front end to get it closer to tarmac. From there, I would welcome ideas on what others would be interested in. Mark Icard is another candidate for testing as is Peej. I dont think any of the cars we are testing are going to be a true stock body car, so factor that in. Mike

Well things are coming together well. I will be at NCCAR on Saturday, Racing Chumpcar 10hour at Charlotte on the 22nd (thanks Zack_280) and then instructing with Chin Motorsports at VIR on the 3-4th of July!! Hope the Zcar holds up.

We'll be heading to NCCAR on Friday for a one day event on Saturday. Hope to get some solid and uninterrupted seat time in so I can start collecting real data, and start tuning the shocks. Mike

Matt, I didnt want to speak for you, which is why I posted as I did. Mike

The limited testing I did at the track three weeks ago had zero negative effect on the car. I'll be at NCCAR next Saturday with the car and hope to get more track time in. I'll report back. Mike

Pete, It was public roads, so I couldn't come close to simulating anything like that. I simply did some 2nd gear 6500RPM pulls to see if the oil was going to be an issue. Today I'm going to examine the car on the lift just to make sure we're still OK and there is no further evidence of oil. Once I'm confident that is done, I'm bringing the power washer down to the shop and using engine degreaser to remove any of the old oil from under the chassis.

Happy to report the test drive this morning produced no signs of oil forced out of seals or the dipstick. I did several hard 2nd gear pulls.

5+ filter, plus oil cooler/lines, plus my 2 quart accusump. Mike

Good idea. Might have to think about this. This evening I spent some time reconfiguring the datalogging portion of my FAST dash and XFi. I have to admit, I much prefer the datalogging on the MEGASQUIRT to the setup in the Fast Dash on initial setup. I now have a better handle on the setup and how the logging for each sensor has to be turned on individually. That part is simply DUMB, but OK, now I have it fixed. I also now know how to set up temp sensors for the diff and trans. Unfortunately I found that a 30 minute session darned near fills up the 2 MB on dash storage. But hey, learning as I go. I hope to get out and drive the car tomorrow evening to see if it is done puking oil out of seals and dipstick tube. If it still is, I will be calling the shop that built the shortblock and paying a visit with the car. Mike

I had a thought today... What if I have an issue with my vacuum booster? I mean that is the only component I have not touched in 14 years. Mike

So there was a LOT of discussion last weekend about doing a leakdown test and how some thought the motor was broke or rings were improperly installed. Tom and I did the test and saw on average 4-6% between cylinders. This last weeks worth of posts is important because as we all have seen, crank case pressures CAN cause real headaches and force oil out of interesting places. What I did was start researching how the latest models are handling crank case ventilation. This lead me to buy TWO baffles for the valve covers, to incorporate the valve cover breather tubes from the exhaust extractor kit previously used on the car, and to plumb everthing thru a pair of air/oil separators. I then ran the lines from the air/oil separators back into the snorkel on the intake. We expect this to work, but at least now I know the rings are sealing the motor properly, and the valve seals are also doing their job. Moral of this story is not to panic, but to also remember that once vacuum is lost, parts can't function properly without that vacuum. In my case, we had TWO pieces fail. I will know for sure if the new solution works later this week. I'll get the car out for a quick 5 mile drive and see how the motor handles the extraction of gases thru the new system. I was VERY frustrated at being at my favorite track 3.5 hours from my home and unable to drive this car. Hopefully we'll get to have some enjoyable time in the seat this year... Hopefully. Mike

My point was that the vents went where the airflow showed they would work based on the data I had and what I could mimic in my own shop. I will be happy to test these in the wind tunnel and prove your point for you, but they are on the car now and wont be coming off until I have a better solution to cover the now rather LARGE holes in the fenders. My eventual goal is to replace the fenders with fiberglass versions, so I wasnt concerned cutting them up. That said, I placed them where I saw the need in my shop with my crude testing. My goal was to help out the fenders by removing the trapped air in those sections behind the doors since I dont have fender liners currently. Mike

All I can tell you is that flowing air with my large shop fan and yarn on the openings showed a BUNCH of air moving thru those openings. Mike

Today Tom Harris and I did a leakdown test and came away with what are considered very good numbers for a 10.5:1 compression motor with 12 miles and 45 minutes run time on it. What we are thinking may have happened is that the grommet on the passenger side valve cover was leaking, along with one of the Moroso exhaust extractors had failed. I had T'ed the valve covers together so there was NO draw on the valve covers from the intake or exhaust to draw the pressure off the crankcase. To fix this whole mess, I removed the Moroso exhaust extractors and capped off those pipes. I now am running some custom valve cover inserts that have baffles, and I use the moroso valve cover breather routed to a pair of air-oil separators from jegs, and then plumb them back into the snorkel on the intake. I will drive the car in the next day or two to test the theory and see if I can force any oil out of the dipstick tube.

After every track weekend I would recommend checking all suspension, drivetrain and brake bolt/nut. Get into the habit and you won't get surprised! Mike

I have Alpinestar black sued leather driving shoes. I only use them at the track. Pilote makes a decent driving shoe that isn't an arm and a leg. Mike

Matt's deal is Matt's deal. My car is an open book and I know Mark Icard would share his info as well. Mike

Keep it coming guys... giving me more ideas for how to address the splitter on mine...

Man this is an oooooold thread... Wanted to weigh in with CHANGES to my aero and some more data. The car actually weighed 2709 pounds full of fuel back when I had the small flares, heavy grey 5 stars, and large wing on it. we did a BUNCH of weight reduction and the car now weighs in at 2625. Some of the weight reduction was due to wiring changes/removal of the painless nightmare of the painless harness, reconfiguring the fuel deliver which removed the surge cannister/plumbing, extra pump and lines, removal of the windshield wiper assembly/arms/motor, and removal of the passenger seat/mounts/harness/hardware. I ditched the sheet aluminum dash and went with a FAST touch display on my own custom dash made of kydex. I also added CCW LM20 wheels and much lighter hoosier tires. We ditched the big rear wing for now because of stability issues. Pete, the wing was an ebay special. I now run the ZCarCustoms JDM rear spoiler and I really like the looks of it. We've also changed the stance by adding the larger ZForce flares, fender air extractors, carbon vents in the hood. I do plan to now start working on some subtle side skirts and an under body tray up front, along with fabrication of a rear difuser. I previously thought this might be a waste of time, But I'm planning to fab something up that can be easily removed. We plan to be able to attach it off the sides of the fuel cell can (steel structure) and the rear subframe, and maybe use Dseuz fasteners to provide ease of attachment and removal. more as the bits develop. I also plan to remove my radiator air box, wrap it in wax paper, and do the cloth/resin hokey pokey to make it fiberglass. We are also THINKING about dumping the back side air up at the hood... Starting to noodle that over now. Go to my build page for more updated photos! Mike

I'd gotten these scoops from John Washington when he was making them in CF and had planned to use them on the fenders, so I finally installed them. I chose to go lower for the extraction point.

Here are some pics of the hood vents I installed in my Betamotorsports hood: I placed them based on the info I had from the tests and think we "should" have decent results. Also, when I installed these, I decided to draw the hood down tight to the seal of the cowl. Prior to installing the hood vents I would leave it loose and let the underhood pressure push it up against the hood pins. That would result in about 1 inch of hood rise under pressure and would allow for more air to escape from under the car thru the opening. We'll see how this works out.

I just bought a BUNCH of Kydex to form into some side skirts like those that were found on Roddy Suggs car.

Sorry I have dropped the ball on this guys. I'm going to call Aerodyn2 this week and try to get some dates and a more accurate cost together. the testing would take place in Mooresville NC and I'd like to keep the testing to 4-5 cars so we can maximize the time and testing. Car owners and their crews would be limited to 12 total AND because of the high success rate from the last time we tested, I'd lean heavily on those who attended and showed true discipline and willingness to take and give direction during the test scenarios. So Mark Icard, John Tedder, John Hines, Tom Barnett, Austin H. and Tom Harris are on the team if they can make it. from there we can fill in the blanks with who is left. Matt and I will test our cars, and I'd like to get Mark Icards car in the tunnel as well if possible. Pete Agapoglou has expressed interest in bringing his car down and participating. The hope is that we would be able to keep the cost at or below $1000 per car and of course we would accept donations to offset the costs and make available any results. Mike