SCCA T4 Build thread

[rice_classic]

It's good to be back in the saddle.

Qualifying yielded a bad tie rod and left front wheel bearing. Went a lot better in the race but Totemo was much faster, getting on pole and ultimately finishing second.



Leaving the track a couple time left the bumper skin a little worse for wear, but a new ebay fog light will be an easy fix.



Some footage from Sunday - as I struggled to keep 4th and 5th behind me, 1st and 2nd got away. When reviewing the fastest lap times, only 0.6 seconds separated 1st through 5th place.

[rice_classic]

Alignment on a Budget

The easiest way to do toe is to simply wrap a string around the car and measure off the back of the front tire and front of the rear tire. However, this only applies if rear track and the front track are identical widths and aligned (body is straight).

Since the rear track and front track are NOT the same - let's start by sorting that out. I need to figure out the track diff then put that amount of spacer in the front to "create" a square box.



STEP 1: I used toe plates on front and set to Zero, then measured track. I then used the plates on the rear to measure track as well.



My car is .45" inch per side or .9" total track difference. It turns out that my wire brush sticks are exactly this size!



The darker string is the one wrapped around the car, the lighter string belongs to my other setup that verifies accuracy - more on that below.






After all this, my front toe is measuring Zero, my left rear is measuring Zero-ish and right rear is 2/10ths inch toe in. So how do we verify?

It take two bars and notch them at equal points at each end, then I strap them to stands in the front and rear of the car. Since the notches are are at equal lengths, I run a string down each side and this makes a "perfect box". After this, I measure between the string at the center of the wheel or hub and set each side to the same distance as the other - then I can measure the different to the string on the front and rear of the wheel to examine toe.








You'll notice the rear of the wheel is on the 7 and the front is on the 9.





And now for the moment of truth - I was able to verify with both setups (measuring off the tire) that the right rear was indeed 2/10ths inch toe in. Now that I have verified the Track, the effectiveness of the sticks on the front tire to even the track and I can confidently "string" the car to measure and set rear toe.

[rice_classic]

Edit - We did not in fact, reset the record...

The data I pulled the previous track record from was wrong, we did not reset the track record last weekend, but I have found our previous times and my track record of 1:34.88 still stands untainted. Thread corrected.




In the Saturday race Totemo got down to 1:35.193. This morning, Turfer qualified with a 1:34.9. During the Sunday race the fastest times were:

Turfer: 1:35.157
Me: 1:35.182
Totemo: 1:35.183

That's only 0.026 seconds between the three of us! The race today was AWESOME! We were all pretty exhausted after it was over. Our cars are slower in a straight line than they were last year but we are still within less than half a second of where we were last year, but more consistently so.

Sunday's race - I'm starting 3rd in T4 behind Totemo (white) then Turfer in front (Red)

[jflogerzi]

Originally Posted by rice_classic

New Track Record!







The previous T4 track record at Pacific Raceways was a 1:35.9. Records are from Races only, not practice or qualifying.



In the Saturday race Totemo got down to 1:35.193. This morning, Turfer qualified with a 1:34.9. During the Sunday race the fastest times were:



Turfer: 1:35.157 (New Record)

Me: 1:35.182

Totemo: 1:35.183



That's only 0.026 seconds between the three of us! The race today was AWESOME! We were all pretty exhausted after it was over. Our cars are slower in a straight line than they were last year and we STILL are faster and consistently so.



Sunday's race - I'm starting 3rd in T4 behind Totemo (white) then Turfer in front (Red)

You got balls racing wheel to wheel

Sent from my GM1915 using Tapatalk

[rice_classic]

Well shenanigans - the track record wasn't updated where I pulled it from, so my time from last year of 1:34.88 is still accurate and stands as the track record so I updated my post.

[BAM_Nyblodx16]

Great build and Great laps! looks like so much fun, hopefully i'll be out there one day with y'all! good luck in your next race.

[JAS4]

Thanks for taking the time to talk shop about T4 with me yesterday at PIR. Really appreciate the insights. Love what you guys have going on there! - Jason

[JAS4]

Noob question: Anyone know if a tS or 2017+ Performance Package car with Brembos can race T4? I see the rotor size for these trims are not as listed in GCR 9.1.9.2 Spec Line (Brembo equipped trims have larger rotors, in addition to bigger calipers) Disclosure: I have no idea how this stuff works so please be gentle

[rice_classic]

Originally Posted by JAS4

Noob question: Anyone know if a tS or 2017+ Performance Package car with Brembos can race T4? I see the rotor size for these trims are not as listed in GCR 9.1.9.2 Spec Line (Brembo equipped trims have larger rotors, in addition to bigger calipers) Disclosure: I have no idea how this stuff works so please be gentle

You would have to undo the tS stuff to make it on par with a standard 2017+ car, aka decontent the performance stuff that is unique to it since the tS is not spec'd in the GCR.

This is similar to how the 2013-2016 is a different spec line vs the 2017+ and they have different minimum weights.

[rice_classic]

I added commentary to the Pacific Grand Prix video. Some thoughts about racing, the track, the car etc. I put this in the Northwest forum but realized that several folks watching thread are not in the PacNW and may be interested.

It sounds better while enjoying a single malt scotch though... Just Sayin'

[bmacfrs]

Very helpful! Thanks for taking the time.

Sent from my SM-G960U using Tapatalk

[rice_classic]

The SCCA Runoffs are officially behind me with an outcome I did not anticipate.

I have now done the Runoffs two years in a row (8th and 3rd) but since they are at VIR for the next 2 consecutive years, I don't expect I'll be able to attend unless Toyota can pitch in enough $$$ to put my car on a transport. Until they're closer to home, the juice just isn't worth the squeeze.

Towing across the country (WA to VA) is neither cost effective nor time effective for (1) 40 minute race. Just doing Indy was 7 days on the road towing, not account for the 7 days I was there. I also spent, for 1 race, the amount of money I used to spend on an entire race SEASON and that's not including the money it's going to take to repair the car. I'm hoping that SCCA finds a way to clean up its act regarding avoidable contact - I have reasons to believe it can get there.

Here's my result of the MX5 kamikaze pilots.



It didn't looks so bad until I got into the details.

Broken items:

• Hood (have spare)
• Fender(s)
• Headlight (mounting points)
• Crash beam (Have spare)
• Bumper skin (have spare)
• radiator
• fender and headlight mounting support.

Pretty happy this thing didn't spring a leak!!




Crash beams like longitudinal forces, not lateral forces.




So once I pulled apart the front end I decided it was time to do something about the engine that has almost 90k miles on it and 3 race seasons.

ENGINE BUILD TIME!!






Here's the OEM clutch that CAME WITH THE CAR in 2012!! Not bad for the mileage and abuse.





Did you know for $1900 Toyota will send you an assembled OEM Short Block! Thanks to the SCCA program, I get 10% of that cost refunded to me too, woohoo!




They really took care to package it well too which I appreciated. I can use this to take the Heads to machine shop to be refreshed.





Now the teardown begins. Those intake tracks looks amazing and there's almost no trace of oil in the manifold either - most of it's entirely dry. Not bad for 3 seasons of racing with no catch can. I'm looking forward to getting the heads off and seeing how the pistons, cyl walls and bearings look.

[rice_classic]

One more thing - I'm DONE painting the car. I live in an HOA so I can't exactly setup a paint booth in my yard. Time to switch to vinyl which makes it easy to color match a fender or bumper should they need to replaced.



Oh, did you know that 3M makes a vinyl color that's almost identical to HOT LAVA!?! Hell yeah they do. Check it out how close a match that is.

[NoHaveMSG]

I think someone hid some Miata attractant in your car.