It's 8am... and were headed to the track!
Expanded coverage of the race will be posted here! Stay tuned!
Friday, October 30, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Test Drive! Wow it's loud...
Ignore the first 2 minutes.. this is the first time i've gotten our camera to work.. Turns out HDD cameras don't like being in cars. Scored 2 8 gig memory cards for my DCR-SR85. Success!
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
ChumpCar Portland: T-minus 10 days
The inaugural ChumpCar race at Portland International Raceway is now 10 days away... and are we ready? Yeah right...
Current items on the To-do list:
-Fix oil cooler (JB Weld?)
-Finish motor break-in
-Install radios
-Mount / balance spare tires on spare wheels (yes, we bought spare wheels for $125 on craigslist)
-Diagnose and fix water leak? (Erik fails at soldering)
-Mount lightbar
-Wire headlights
-Tape headlights
-Change oil
-Bleed brakes
-Finish windmill 2.0
-Install "boost gauge"
-FPR?
-Find another windshield wiper
-Replace wiper blades (because if we don't, its going to rain)
Current items on the To-do list:
-Fix oil cooler (JB Weld?)
-Finish motor break-in
-Install radios
-Mount / balance spare tires on spare wheels (yes, we bought spare wheels for $125 on craigslist)
-Diagnose and fix water leak? (Erik fails at soldering)
-Mount lightbar
-Wire headlights
-Tape headlights
-Change oil
-Bleed brakes
-Finish windmill 2.0
-Install "boost gauge"
-FPR?
-Find another windshield wiper
-Replace wiper blades (because if we don't, its going to rain)
Monday, October 19, 2009
Teaser
For anyone that actually follows my blog, and give a shit about what I post.... this is for you
Windmill 2.0 Teaser
Windmill 2.0 Teaser
IT'S ALIVE!
Holy crap it runs... sorta...
Actually, it runs pretty well above 4k rpm. With the "aggressive" valve job performed by Erik (wait, let me clarify that neither of us had a CLUE what we were doing... when I say aggressive, I really mean Erik didn't know when to quit removing material), the car basically falls on it's face under 4k. I guess it's a good thing we run between 4k and 7k at race speeds.
We found 2 coolant leaks and diagnosed the wrong size o-rings... it turns out that removing the water pump takes about 10 minutes when you have giant holes in the side of your car.
Today, the car developed a pretty severe oil leak... it turns out our oil cooler was smacked when the motor was installed, so we have to go on a hunt to find a replacement. Our old one was a tranny cooler from an 87 Saab 9000 (anyone have one laying around?).
I hope no-one asks how we plan on "breaking in the motor"... because it might involve driving it up and down the road at full throttle. Break-in shmak-in
Actually, it runs pretty well above 4k rpm. With the "aggressive" valve job performed by Erik (wait, let me clarify that neither of us had a CLUE what we were doing... when I say aggressive, I really mean Erik didn't know when to quit removing material), the car basically falls on it's face under 4k. I guess it's a good thing we run between 4k and 7k at race speeds.
We found 2 coolant leaks and diagnosed the wrong size o-rings... it turns out that removing the water pump takes about 10 minutes when you have giant holes in the side of your car.
Today, the car developed a pretty severe oil leak... it turns out our oil cooler was smacked when the motor was installed, so we have to go on a hunt to find a replacement. Our old one was a tranny cooler from an 87 Saab 9000 (anyone have one laying around?).
I hope no-one asks how we plan on "breaking in the motor"... because it might involve driving it up and down the road at full throttle. Break-in shmak-in
More progress
T-minus 1 weekend until the first ChumpCar event in our backyard!
Background: Remember our motor blew up at
Buttonwillow? The block is toast. Fail. So we set out searching for a replacement motor, since our spare motor that we limped in on burned about a qt an hour. We found 2 4AGE's growing weeds at a dude's house in Clatskanie (read: BFE). For $300 we got 2 motors in "ran when pulled = who the hell knows" condition, and a spare transmission which I shortly thereafter needed a tetnis shot just to get the thing out of the truck. Who cares, this is crap-can racing!
2 ebay gasket sets later, we had 2 "rebuilt" motors. We had a die-grinder party with the two heads and made some low cost, high value performance upgrades! (port match, valve grind). Nothing professional, just sticking with the budget. A Makita cylinder hone, and a Makita valve lapping rounded out the remaining work on the two motors. Luckily, the internals were salvagable out of the two motors, so we didn't need to buy anything except the gasket sets. I wish I could tell you all this took place in a weekend, but with my travel schedule.. it took Erik and I about 3 weekends to do the poor-mans-rebuild.
Here we sit with 2 motors, 0 miles, and NO idea if they are going to work.
Background: Remember our motor blew up at
Buttonwillow? The block is toast. Fail. So we set out searching for a replacement motor, since our spare motor that we limped in on burned about a qt an hour. We found 2 4AGE's growing weeds at a dude's house in Clatskanie (read: BFE). For $300 we got 2 motors in "ran when pulled = who the hell knows" condition, and a spare transmission which I shortly thereafter needed a tetnis shot just to get the thing out of the truck. Who cares, this is crap-can racing!2 ebay gasket sets later, we had 2 "rebuilt" motors. We had a die-grinder party with the two heads and made some low cost, high value performance upgrades! (port match, valve grind). Nothing professional, just sticking with the budget. A Makita cylinder hone, and a Makita valve lapping rounded out the remaining work on the two motors. Luckily, the internals were salvagable out of the two motors, so we didn't need to buy anything except the gasket sets. I wish I could tell you all this took place in a weekend, but with my travel schedule.. it took Erik and I about 3 weekends to do the poor-mans-rebuild.
Here we sit with 2 motors, 0 miles, and NO idea if they are going to work.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Windmill 2.0
Alright, the windmill powered supercharger was certainly interesting. The fan spun which charged the battery via an alternator which powered an "electric supercharger" which shoved air in to our intake. Overall performance gain? maybe 1/2 hp at idle, and it probably restricted our intake at WOT. Awesome? Yes! Effective? Not even close.
Enter Windmill 2.0
Details of this new engineering marvel have yet to be released (aka we're probably not sure what it's for yet). But I'll tell you one thing... It's twice as mean and twice as dangerous. I'm pretty sure this one would take off a finger at full speed.
Enter Windmill 2.0
Details of this new engineering marvel have yet to be released (aka we're probably not sure what it's for yet). But I'll tell you one thing... It's twice as mean and twice as dangerous. I'm pretty sure this one would take off a finger at full speed.
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