Honda K24 Swapped 2015 BRZ Ship of Thesus (NASA TT5)

[abemo]

It was great seeing you out there. Nice work this weekend. That’s some really impressive times for your first time at HPR. Looking forward to next year!

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by abemo

It was great seeing you out there. Nice work this weekend. That’s some really impressive times for your first time at HPR. Looking forward to next year!

Thank you! We both need running cars next year, guess we need to pack more spares into the truck.

Originally Posted by justinco

This is me literally every day in the summer To be fair, our race season in AZ is much cooler than majority of the CO race season, which I like (except for early/late season of course!)

Your lines look good, I'm sure with more seat time you would become more comfortable with the track and faster. I can't believe the TT5 record is a low 1:59 Best I ever did there in TT5 trim was 2:02.5, I was underpowered a good bit but still, that's faster than my current TT4 times

Oh, wow, I didn't expect it to be cooler down here than up there. Looking at their schedule I guess it makes sense with respect to where the other tracks are.

Hopefully more time to be had next year for both of us then

[autoracer86]

Great write up and good on you for keeping the red pen paint industry alive :P

Do you have any sort of opinion on the xidas yet ?

[justinco]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

...
Oh, wow, I didn't expect it to be cooler down here than up there. Looking at their schedule I guess it makes sense with respect to where the other tracks are.
...

Well what I meant was, in AZ we race in the winter, typically 60's and 70's temps. With early/late season being hot af.

Colorado races in the summer, 80's and 90's typically, but colder during the early/late season.

It's definitely never cooler in AZ lol.

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by autoracer86

Great write up and good on you for keeping the red pen paint industry alive :P

Do you have any sort of opinion on the xidas yet ?

Haha, everyone comments on the paint pen doodling when they see the car.

I like them so far, but I'm still sorting them out; need to do some more measuring. I'll post more on it later.

[Pat]

Thanks for coming out. It was nice to finally meet. Your driving was solid, even though the understeer was frustrating. Nice "code brown" moment in T7! Yikes.
Hopefully we'll be able to spend more time together (and Justin) next year.

[autoracer86]

Originally Posted by RedReplicant

Haha, everyone comments on the paint pen doodling when they see the car.

I like them so far, but I'm still sorting them out; need to do some more measuring. I'll post more on it later.

I will be doing the same thing with my car LOL. I love it.

Thanks looking forward to your review

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by Pat

Thanks for coming out. It was nice to finally meet. Your driving was solid, even though the understeer was frustrating. Nice "code brown" moment in T7! Yikes.
Hopefully we'll be able to spend more time together (and Justin) next year.

It was nice to meet you too, hopefully next year is a bit calmer

[RedReplicant]

Some measuring today tells the tale.

Fortunately, you can tilt the strut out from under the car and swap springs without pulling it off the knuckle. Ignore the oil ring, it is clearly slider bushing grease from initial build of the coilovers. These coilovers are inverted, what you see is the cartridge of the damper, not the rod. The rod is inside of the bottom housing and bolts through the bottom of it.



Full droop - roughly 128mm to full bump



Full tapped out bump, feels like you get into the bumpstop a little bit before this - 10mm from the attachment point.



Where I was at in the stroke at prior ride height



If we do some quick math with the proper 949 recommended ride height we get roughly 2" of travel. Funny how that works

These numbers listed here are not exact, just saying it seems clear to me now.

[949 Racing]

Anxious to see how the balance is with the set up dialed in. With all the other set up changes you made to try and free it up, it should actually be pretty loose now with the front flange height and ride height closer to optimum.

[RedReplicant]

Me too, I think there will be a big difference (to say the least).

After doing some measuring, spring swapping, knuckle movement, and collar moving I corner weighted the car today, unfortunately I can't really figure a way to get it much better than this without the ride heights getting way out of wack.

This is where I sit in the stroke at rest now



This is full bump, seems like it clears to me everywhere but worst case one turn of the shock body can be exchanged for one turn of the spring collar while maintaining the same ride height at the track.



I've now got about 50mm / 2" of bump travel from rest ride height, which is more than double before.

This is me (180lb) and 1/3rd tank indicated. Cross is basically 50%



I would love to ditch the Radium surge tank, Radium fpr, and Radium fuel filter that lives in a box in the driver rear of the car, but I think I'm kind of screwed by having the Radium fuel basket in the tank, which I THINK?? requires a separate fuel pressure regulator. My guess is the stupid surge tank setup is at least 20lb itself and I've always hated the idea of having fuel anywhere inside the car.

Min competition weight as classed is 2871lb, so I can cut about 30lb out of the car and still make weight on an empty tank. Ideally, it'd be the surge tank that goes. Investigation needed.

Headed to Chuckwalla on 9/23 to get some testing in and hang out with my neighbor that does like one event every three years in his S2000. It's one of those Chuckwalla promoter days so it should be pretty stress free to make changes.

[RedReplicant]

I only got a session and a half yesterday, both with passengers, because of a dumb mistake on my part. Caught 2nd instead of 4th at the top of 3rd right before entering the bowl, clutch immediately stuck down so I couldn't pull the motor out of the over-rev. Weirdly, the MAP sensor also unplugged itself at the same time ?? so I had to be hot towed off track

9820rpm on the AIM log, clutch disk or pressure plate partially came apart so it vibrates heavily at idle / with revs and you can't shift into gear with the motor running.

Checked compression cold when I got home and found 220 across all 4 (HF gauge, ignore actual, relative is the important part). I borescoped it and found no sign of piston to valve or piston to head but tonight I'm going to check valve lash to be double sure.

I don't love the idea of possible stretched rod bolts but here we are. Ordered another Exedy OEM clutch kit for now and I'm dropping the transmission tonight.

I'm also going to pick up another K24, tear it down, and get it ready to go to put into the car in December just to be safe.

Anyway - the important bit is that the car felt significantly better balance wise, SUPER compliant over curbs, AND it didn't eat the front fender liners. I only got to make one shock change but one or two clicks on these Xidas is pretty transformative... I think I'm well within the right area, just need to make a small ride height adjustment and it'll be perfect for AMP in a few weeks.

[949 Racing]

Bummer about the engine. Hoping you didn't have a bunch of money into the long block anyway.

Stoked you finally got the set up dialed though, or at least in the window. I recall Joe Mcguigan and a few other norcal fast guys driving Blub at CVR and being really amazed at how it just swallowed up the huge kerbs there. Dan Howard had a similar experience to you, needing to raise the flange on the strut casings from the out of the box settings. We're revising our base line set up based on this feedback.

[RedReplicant]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

Bummer about the engine. Hoping you didn't have a bunch of money into the long block anyway.

Stoked you finally got the set up dialed though, or at least in the window. I recall Joe Mcguigan and a few other norcal fast guys driving Blub at CVR and being really amazed at how it just swallowed up the huge kerbs there. Dan Howard had a similar experience to you, needing to raise the flange on the strut casings from the out of the box settings. We're revising our base line set up based on this feedback.

Yeah, fortunately it is a stock junkyard K24 other than a set of cams. Easy to source and cheap.

Double checked valve lash earlier and none of them moved significantly since the last time I checked them earlier this year. Eh.

Can't wait to get more time on the setup