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Thread: Driven Daily NA (take 2)

  1. #16
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    Today, I rebuilt the torsen limited slip.


    For now, it lives next to the clutched limited slip, waiting for me to choose which will be installed for Mt Washington next weekend.


    We also installed the new VMAXX suspension. This is a pretty fantastic budget setup (right at the $1k mark), and is still pretty compliant. Track setups would be far too stiff for any of the hills we run, so I wanted to find something that was high quality while still being compliant and adjustable. After a rough base tune, we have the car level again. Hopefully we'll have some time to fine-tune before Mt Washingont.



    Finally, and most importantly, we beat the piss out of the transmission tunnel. Then we cut a huge chunk out of it. Then we could fit the widest seat I've ever seen in my life ... into one of the smallest cabins available in a production car. It took most of yesterday and today to get it all aligned, get the seat facing forward, get the seat level, and make sure I could sit in the car without my head hitting the cage while also being able to close the door. Seat installation sucks.


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  3. #17
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    Well, we ended up missing Mt Washington. As the deadline for the rookie orientation run drew near, we had a hard time getting the car street-legal to bring up to the hill. There were too many little things standing in our way, and not enough time/hands to finish prep, and I had to drop off the roster. We'll have another shot at 2020, and the hope is that we'll have the Datsun available for that.

    For now, prep continues for Mt Burke at the end of this month.

  4. #18
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    The latest video, covering why we missed Mt Washington and where we're going from here.

  5. #19
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    It's been pretty busy, but the Miata is nearly finished. We just took the e350 out for its debut as a support vehicle, and it was nothing short of brilliant. Having all the tools and camp requirements in one place is extremely helpful, along with having plenty of light to work with at night time.

    The only major issue I had was a broken positive battery terminal strap. The whole thing essentially fell apart all in chunks, and after the familiarization run on time trials day, the car wouldn't start.



    We had some motorbikes racing this event, so I headed over to them where I got to meet an impressive little lady named Kathy (who is also a stunt plane pilot, as it turns out) set me up with some safety wire to temporarily fix it. It worked like a charm.



    I'm putting together a full event recap, but in the meantime here's one of my runs from Sunday.


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  7. #20
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    Which is better for you guys? The race footage or the story behind the race?

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  9. #21
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    This was a bit more of a rough event, and was the first time I couldn't drive the car home afterward. I think it also bumped me out of the running for Class Champion this season. I should be able to repair it by Mt Philo next month, but I had really hoped to circle back on the Datsun after this one.


    Here's race footage from one of my practice runs on Saturday. I'm not committing to corners like I would on race day, but it was still pretty quick. Good enough to be 6 seconds faster than my personal best, when I was pushing as hard as I dared.


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  11. #22
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    Quote Originally Posted by drummingpariah View Post


    Which is better for you guys? The race footage or the story behind the race?

    I finally had time to watch this video. I'm a sucker for entertaining documentaries. I like the story a lot, good job!

    I plan to watch the race footage later this afternoon.

  12. #23
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    I'm working on the same thing for Ascutney 2 as well. The goal is to cover all the events this season, then finish up the Datsun build documentary.

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    Martin (09-20-2017)

  14. #24
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    New coils, wires, and plugs sorted out the stumbling issue. A new set of 225-45-R15 v720 tires solve the untrustworthy Maxxis tires.

    ... I think I'm ready for Philo this weekend, and I won't even be welding 'till 2am the morning of the event. I could get used to this.
    ​​​​​​​

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  16. #25
    Admin / Pit Boss / Miataholic Phatmiata's Avatar
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    Loving the videos, but would really like a Datsun build on here too, we have a lot of old school guys that would enjoy it for sure.

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  18. #26
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    My only problem in this event is the cxracing exhaust manifold. I can't recommend avoiding them enough, after this latest experience. The header survived one event and literally started falling apart at the seams. Their welds are horrible, and their customer support offered to refund me $40 (on a $400 part) to repair the welds. Repair isn't even possible without cutting it back down to individual sections of tube, since all of their welds are improperly penetrated and started cracking immediately. I'm running a 14" flex pipe directly on the back of the header, and it's still falling apart incredibly quickly.

    I certainly understand that manufacturing defects happen, but they aren't even trying to stand by their product. Now I'm going to have to build another new exhaust, since this didn't come close to aligning with the factory exhaust. I really really regret working with them, but I managed to make it through the season despite it.


    This video marks the end of the 2017 hillclimb season, so I'm about to dig back into the Datsun build for 2018!

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  20. #27
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    With the 2017 race season over, we're finally catching up on the Datsun build video edits.


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  22. #28
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    I replaced the main under-hood battery, and decided to use the old battery as a second auxiliary battery. I welded together a double-battery holder for group 65 size batteries that can live under the box for race events. This is it around halfway done (I'll have to post another of it finished later).



    It should be quite an upgrade as compared to the OEM aux battery holder.

  23. #29
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    I like the lights in the box roof. Right now, there are 21ft of LED strip in there, of which around 15ft still work after being abused quite a bit. I had always planned to update the wiring for them when I removed the plywood on the walls, so I only did a temporary zip-tie installation. Instead of updating this installation, I thought I'd go for something a bit more modular ... and add a bit more lighting as well.
    Fast-forward a bit of measurement and math, and I've spent around $50 buying lighting replacements. The end result is 10 1meter strips that fit together pretty much perfectly. The aluminum channel acts as a basic heatsink, the lights are insulated from shorting out on it, and the light is diffused (not a lot, but it's enough). The aluminum channel makes them rigid enough that they could easily be moved and installed elsewhere at an event.


    I still need to consider how I want to mount them to the roof spars (ideally to the canopy, on jackstands, etc as well), and solder on the XT-60 connectors I've standardized on ... but this represents a serious lighting upgrade.

    To support that upgrade, I've added another group65 battery to the box truck. Each group65 battery is rated for 85aH, so that's around 2000 watt-hours (not counting the box truck primary battery or generator for recharging). With all of these lights running at the same time, they draw a little under 200w ... giving me around 10 hours of continuous use. I'm definitely planning to run some other accessories on these, so the generator is still a must-have, but that's pretty promising.

  24. #30
    2,000 rpm - light wheelspin, no bog here! drummingpariah's Avatar
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    I'm going off-topic a bit, but we've put in a bunch of work on the not-Miata lately and just published a new video episode.



    We'll circle back on a few upgrades for the Miata before too long; It's going to have to be ready to race when the snow melts since the Datsun won't be ready to drive at a hillclimb event until mid-season (hopefully).

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