ML's Whiteout

[ML]

As cool as this shot of my coolant line coming off was it was the death bell for my engine.





Coolant never got above 235 but that doesn't really mean a lot when there is no coolant and just air in the system. I should have just turned it off and let them tow me off but I thought I could make it since the coolant wasn't getting that bad and didn't want to ruin anyone's lap. If you remember I went back out for one more session after this, loaded the car on the trailer, unloaded it and then let it sit until easter sunday I started it up just to let it warm up and thats when the real trouble started.




Ignore my removable tractor muffler but here you can see the water on the piece of wood under the exhaust. It was dripping at a fairly fast rate way more than just condensation. Also you can kind of see the white smoke (steam) coming from the exhaust as well.


THATS RIGHT I TRADED MY SUBARU MOTOR FOR A HONDA AND THEN BLEW THE HEADGASKET.


but it gets worse, way worse. As it turned out the here is our best hypothesis:
The engine overheated at the track for the coolant disappearing, the 1 cylinder warped, allowed water into the cylinder, hydro locked the cylinder and chipped the piston at the relief cuts. Then the cylinder cooled and the un-flatness caused a small leak into the cylinder that was burning off, or something like that in a different order we don't totally know except that it all started from driving without coolant.







Either way it had to come out again, and I have a hillclimb in less than 2 weeks at this point (and I thought it was just the gasket that needed to replace, didn't realize the block damage.) and my buddies come over and we rush and get the motor out in about 2-2.5 hours that night. I take it to the machine shop the next day and that is when he tells me I need a new block or get some 88mm pistons. Well we can't find any 88mm pistons that are instock and ready to send over so after much deliberating and getting to the end of the week we decided to just call it.





Listen I need to stop, I need to calm the hell down. This pressure to succeed and make events is why I'm in this situation in the first place RUSHING stuff especially when you are doing this alone is not a good idea because you start making mistakes and it adds up.


That's why we decided to slow down take the time on this 2nd rebuild. Sleeve the block, get the pistons, do it right, and check everything.



I have my buddies miata I helped him build a couple of years ago that we are going to take to the hillclimb so I can get some points for the championship, but I'll beable to slow down (literally) and enjoy it and not be so stressed.





On a positive note I did get my diffuser fixed and some new Hawk DTC-30s for the rear in time for the hill climb lol

[autoracer86]

Man sorry to hear about the motor. Good Idea to slow down a bit on your second go. Best of luck

[gnarjunkie]

Dammit -- that sucks.

But good call. I've been in that same spot, rushing to get everything done to make it to an event... everything gets done but not quite how I'd like it to be, then works for a bit, then something turns out to be a bigger issue than I thought, more rushing, more 90% fixes... it's not a fun way to go about it.

You'll be glad later you did it the slow and right way.

[ML]

Originally Posted by gnarjunkie

Dammit -- that sucks.

But good call. I've been in that same spot, rushing to get everything done to make it to an event... everything gets done but not quite how I'd like it to be, then works for a bit, then something turns out to be a bigger issue than I thought, more rushing, more 90% fixes... it's not a fun way to go about it.

You'll be glad later you did it the slow and right way.

supposed to be fun right?

[ML]

Moved into the new house. Should have the sleeved honda motor back from the shop very soon. decided pump gas wasn't going to cut it anymore either so went in on some new injectors and make it a little safer too.

[ML]

Back together and almost ready for the new e85 tune.

[Pat]

God there is so much to love everywhere I look in those two pictures.

[ML]

Ok so June update! Turn of events as things went my way for a change!


Put the motor back in and the new fuel cell, put the e85 in blah blah, then went up to the dyno at JSpeed tuning in Gastonia. This man has helped me out a ton with the car even though he mainly messes with corvettes and LS based stuff.





Everything on the dyno went smoothly except that weird issue where the motor didn't want to spin past a certain point and would just stop accelerating. After 2 days of trying to figure this out I finally said fuck it, it runs lets go load it up because we had to leave for the hill climb in the morning and I still had to take it to my brother's shop for an alignment. Well to our surprise when I pulled the car off the dyno and gave it some beans up the little side street the can CAME TO LIFE and blew the tires off in an impressive display all the way to like 8800 RPM....ok so what ever issue it had on the dyno it was not having that under real load on the street....that made me feel good. Made about 440 with the e85 though.





So loaded the car up and went to my brothers lined it up, packed all the stuff in the RV and trailer and went to bed, no drama. Woke up the next morning did my usualy morning routine with the wife and kids and met up with Micah for the road trip. Got into Norton about 2:30 I think, again no drama. met up with everyone, got the tech inspection and then our paddock neighbor in his rad built Ford Focus RS offered to take me up the mountain and see the course so we did that. On the way down we saw some woman walking down the hill (3 miles to town) so we stopped and offered a ride. As soon as she started talking and saw the lack of teeth Dave and I looked at each other as she started going on about her ex and her turmoil. But we dropped her off in town and got the car ready for the Friday night party on main street where all the race cars line up and there is a band and beer flows pretty good, great night! Hill climbs are so fun. Oh also we had to put my rear glass in the car last minute so we decided to do that in the dark after we had been drinking lol










Next morning we woke up and went to the drivers meeting as per usual. I was in the 2nd group so I had a little time to wait while group 1 went up the mountain.





First run up took awhile as we had to wait for a few cars from my run group to be cleared from the side of the road. Apparently one car had a intake manifold explode open and caused a run away turbo situation and couldn't slow down. As I got the line Micah walked up to watch and I left the line very very cautiously as this was my first time on this course. I did a good scouting run and was super slow like 2:26 or something. But the car felt good!






This basically repeated all day... Wait for my run group to get called Micah and I ride up behind the police escort to the start line and then start working the course. Getting faster and faster until I think I ended the day with a 1:56 and I was in 1st by the end of the day! Again the car ran fantastically, no issues, I was getting more confident and the nervousness of driving an almost 500HP car for the first time was basically gone. It was a great feeling.









That night Micah and I went to eat at a Mexican restaurant with a lot of our competitors and friends and then walked down to what seemed like the social center of the Norton VA at this little hole in the wall type bar (but was actually pretty nice) that was hosting karaoke. We met up with some other hillclimb friends and Micah, being several beers in at this point was very adamant about singing Vanilla Ice...there are videos of this night but I'll hang on to those lol


Next morning we rolled out of bed in the RV and shook off the night before. Warmed the car up and starting to get in the mindset that today I was going to go faster and win!





AND THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I DID.








I had an amazing day battling Tracy Gaudu in her bad ass c6 corvette with fresh tires for 1st place. Every run we went back and forth back in forth. Then on the last run she was right in front of me and we were playing mental games trying to get me to go first. But it came down to me being the last car on the mountain on the last run of the day, and I took 1st from her with a time 1:52.2 over her 1:52.6!!






I drove the car hard, didn't crash, didn't have any mechanical issues, and I won my class, got to hangout with my brother and friends, drink beer....I mean come on this was probably the best racing weekend of my life so far! Hopefully I can keep it up with 2 more races this year and a points championship I'm in the running for now.

[ML]

Ok, well its been a while since I've updated this....







and In a nut shell (because I feel lazy and don't want to type a lot right now.) Since the last race I got some big ass tires/wheels 17x10.5 with 295/35 and tried to put them on the car without cutting anything.






which I mostly did, and it was fine sitting static. But the Chasing the Dragon hillclimb came and when I tried to actually drive it the fenders really started to cut the tires up so I had to hold back a bit and actually went slower than I did last year.. Also at the event I discovered the engine had vibrated the bolts holding the throttle body on in half...yes they broke in half...but just two of them so we bolted it back on as best we could and finished the race with boost leaking out from the TB.






So I got some Clinched brand ABS fenders and finally committed to cutting up the body so the 295's have proper room










Last race of the season is in 1 week back at Norton!

[ML]

[ML]

I was on a podcast talking about hillclimbs.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000628129076

[ML]

Learning how to get better at Youtube content I made this little edit a few months ago. Also, car content will resume very soon! I've been on a non-consensual 6 month hiatus and my first race of the season is going to be April 19!

[ML]

Quick teaser of some parts I have to put on this week....could this be one of the greatest front brz suspension setups ever? Fortune Auto 520s, ground control top hats, 22+ BRZ aluminum knuckles (not pictured PBM lower control arms and outer tie rods.) The rods are FDF rear toe rods.

[ML]

Results of the first day back at the car. With only 3 days of prep and the first race on Friday I'm really having to prioritize what I'm doing. It was pretty productive though and I got the new Fortune Auto 520s on fairly quick. I went down to an 8k spring in the rear since I'll have the extra rebound control I want to really sit on the rear on the corner exits and try to get the weight as far back as I can for as long as I can. I also got the Artec header on. The plan with this is to run a hood exit with it until I get a turbo for it. They changed the rules and are letting us run hood exits this year so that mean a good bit of weight I can leave off, keep the heat from destroying the transmission and the flat floor.




It's kind of tricky with the reservoir to make sure it doesn't hit anything through the travel. Luckily I don't run a rear sway bar other wise it seemed like it was going to hit that. But other than that I'm really excited to try these out.





Shot of the difference between the 510 and 520






The aluminum knuckles from the 22+ BRZ seem like they are going to be a bolt on affair. 4.1 lbs per side savings!