Progress and Rage

The work on the z continues since the last post.. I've finished off the Brembo installation on all four corners, and managed to get the old headers extracted. On the driver's side, this did include yanking the steering column, but the rack go to stay in place.



With the headers out, I got the Z1 engine and transmission mounts installed. Everything is out of the way for the headers to go in.



In removing the factory headers, all the studs came out with the nuts. Not great. I contacted a local Nissan dealership, and they actually had everything within 24hrs range. So I opted to replace them all and get a fresh set of factory gaskets, as I didn't really trust the ones that came with the headers.

It was now time. I slid under the car with the passenger header and dropped it onto the studs. Not bad. Added a few nuts, and began tightening. Everything seems good. No contact, position appears to be close to stock, and nothings contacting anything. Great. Tighten everything up and it looks great. Hawtness.

Now, time for the driver's side. The bane of my existence. I'm going to have to slide it in, check clearanced, mark where i need to dimple the tube to clear the steering rack, pull it back out, dimple it.. and finish installation. I never got nearly that far.

the first problem showed up just trying to slide it in the first time. The angle was different due to conflicts from the steering rack, making it impossible to complete at the height the car was at. Okay, i haven't maxed out the jackstands yet.. just jack the whole thing up again, extend the stands a few more notches, and it should get me the clearance to the ground i need.

Wrap that up, slide back under it, and YES! i can get it into the engine bay.. now just line it up with the studs and slide it... nope. the header is hitting the firewall on the rear cylinder primary. I'm thinking, maybe it's an installation angle problem... as i can't line up the rear stud either.

I yanked out the rear stud, and tried again.. more progress, but it's still trying to occupy the same space that the firewall is. I begin to think about the angles... i just replaced the motor mounts with the Z1s.. and they're adjustable. Maybe they're not set right?

So, jack the engine back up, and yank the mounts back out, and checked it with a caliper.. they're about an 1/8th of an inch taller than the oem ones.. and those are rubber... so i imagine there's at least another 1/8 of deflection.. so a full 1/4" too tall by rough numbers. I fight them down into position and preload the urethane bushings inside. drop 'em back in the car and....

They're closer to fitting. But not close enough, and i'm now contacting on the underside of the chassis too. I'm done. These things just don't fit.

So, now i'm torn between my remaining options. Being i didn't originally think i'd have the budget to do LTHs at all, i scored some used berk test pipes to use to remove the stock cats, and let me put the high-flows in the y-pipe as preparation for a set of LTHs to be installed the following year. but i'd hate to throw away all this work to get clearance for the LTHs to have to do it again next year. I'm a big fan of doing things once, the right way.

The other option is the expensive one, spring for the PPE headers right now. I have no idea if i can even get them, or if they're an "assembled as ordered" part like the MCS shocks (that i'm still waiting for). I got a tip from a friend on facebook that Enjuku racing is a dealer, and is consistently the cheapest seller of them, so i called them this morning.

Right now, i'm waiting on a call back from Enjuku. to see if there's a set on the shelf right now or not. If not, it's berks and put off headers to next year. If they do, i may do something stupid.

Construction Begins

Remember how I said that there was really only one big part left to order? Well.. I lied.

I made that purchase.. and have been twiddling my thumbs waiting for it. Might as well let the cat out of the bag.
Currently being constructed for me are a full set of Motion Control Systems Two-way adjustable remote reservoir shocks. This is me not fucking around.

The order time on them is generally 4-6 weeks, and I placed the order with Mike "Junior" Johnson at Evolution Performance Driving School. He was super nice, and we wound up having about a 45 min chat regarding the basics of setup, how much he loves them vs Konis he's used, etc.. Even when I talked to Lex over at MCS directly he was very responsive and had a great conversation. So I'm pretty sold on the product.

Last word I heard is that they should be assembling the shocks as I type this, and hopefully I'll see some tracking info soon.

Backing up, remember how I started this whole post with me lying? Yup. The MCS were supposed to be the last big dollar item I threw at this build this year. But I started thinking about how much I'd like to do more PDX and HPDE events with this car, and I began working my way down some check boxes. Oil cooler? check. Brakes? uhh...

Fortunately and unfortunately, the HR 350Zs came with a significantly larger brake setup from the factory when you didn't get the Brembo package. The two piston front, one piston rears with rotors larger than my head should be more than enough to get the job done under the situations that I'd planned to put it through.. as long as I could get pads.

That last line is the hangup. The HR calipers are also larger, and were only used on this, and the later G35 without brembos for two years. This is not a lot of cars. So most brake parts manufacturers have stopped short of providing aggressive pads for the car. The set of HPS I put in last year did a decent job, but their shortcomings made themselves very apparent at the DCTC PDX I did at the end of the season. I can't imagine trying to put them through the heat cycling of something like Brainerd or Road America. They'd melt. And they're some of the best pads available for these calipers.

So, what's a guy left to do.. but upgrade. I kept my eye on eBay.. and one day it paid off and a recycler put a full set of Brembo calipers from a track package 350Z up for sale. I Fought long and hard (and not smart) on the auction, but ended up with the win, and got away with a pretty good deal regardless.

With the calipers here, I just had to order pads and rotors to complete the system. While I'd love to drop more coin, and get those lovely Z1 2 peice rotors to cut down some weight, the budget's feeling pretty injured right now. After chatting with some track 350z guys on facebook, I decided to go with a set of duralast rotors from AutoZone. They have a good history, and the full set of four, Brembo sized rotors, shipped to my door... was $126. I feel like I found a loophole, and could start scrapping these to make a profit.

lastly, I ordered a set of Hawk DTC-30 pads. These interested me because they have a very wide temp range (low enough for autox, high enough for RR), but are meant for dirt track guys, so they claim there's excellent pedal modulation available. A few people I know have used them and been very impressed, so I've ordered up a full set from Porterfield.

So, that big ol' hit to the wallet is out out of the way... but this article is titled "Construction Begins", right? Where's the construction?

The Z has been in my garage since fall, sitting on the stands and just waiting for me to dig in. Mocking me, really. With everything on order or arrived, it was time to start tearing into it. The first thing I needed to do is get all the suspension arms detached, and over to Jeff's for some bushing work. I managed to get most of that out of the way within about a week, and Jeff returned the arms with their fresh Whiteline bushings within a few days.

next up was putting all these bits back in. Before reassembling, I took the time to squeeze in all new longer ARP wheel studs. There were questions raised last year about thread engagement, and these will definitely take care of that, and aid in spinning the lug nuts on. With all those out of the way, I started with the rear end, as I'd be able to get farther with it than the front before the shocks come in. Additionally, it was sunny and warm at the rear of the car with the garage open this past week, so I enjoyed that immensely.

I've gotten fairly good at the rear suspension in this car. Reinstalling the arms, torquing to spec loaded, dealing with the annoying e-brake system... etc. I wrapped up the rear end suspension in a reasonable amount of time.. I decided to tackle the rest of the upgrades on that end too. The Brembos were next, and the first thing I had to do was trim the lip off the backing plate, as the rotors are about 3/4" bigger in diameter than the stock ones. With sore hands after doing it with a pair of aircraft shears, I slid the rotors on, and bolted the new caliper in place. Fits like a glove. With everything mounted up, I figured now was the shortest time to switch out the brake line. Fresh Goodridge lines replace the very worn looking stock lines and should help with brake pedal feel and feedback. I'm still waiting for those pads though before I can really wrap up the system. The pads that came with the calipers are in there now, but they're very shot. I'd rather bleed the system with full pads, so that'll have to wait.



With some help from my Co-Driver Jake, we started tackling the headers. They're a pesky bunch, with the bolts/studs in difficult places. Progress is being made, but very slowly. The passenger side has much more access than the driver's so we'll be starting there. We've learned that we'll probably have to pull the steering column, and possibly the rack to clear the driver's side. Wrapping this also slows the reassembly of the suspension, as we need the lower chassis bracing out to get access to much of  the header work. I did manage to get the front left brake upgrades done though.. with the hub just hanging there.

That's pretty much where we've stopped so far. The parts pile is slowly getting smaller, but a lot of work hinges on getting those headers done. I had a feeling they wouldn't be a fond memory of this car.

The Parts pile is getting a little smaller...

The Winter Months

... or "how big is that stack of parts getting again?"

The off season is perfect for building up, and this is my first one with the car.

I forgot to mention in the last post but before she was tucked away, Kira spent a little time on the rollers down at RSMotors when I crashed the MNSubaru dyno-day with a Nissan.




The result was impressive. 278 HP and 244lb/ft of torque with only only a cat back and some K&N filters. There's a fair bit more to gain by freeing things up, that's become more of a priority. Also, a few upgrades to increase track reliability will probably be in order.

The First batch of gear to pick up was the bushings. 350z bushings are notoriously bad for failing and flexing in the wrong directions. I'd already taken care of the differential and subframe bushings when I dealt with that whole thing, so now I'm down to.. only every other suspension part of the car. I went with Whiteline Bushings as they seemed to be the stiffest ones I could find, and have some of the best durability. On top of that, historically Whiteline has had some of the best customer service I've ever dealt with. Big thanks for the hook-up on these from Race Suit Rentals.

The next round of parts came at thanksgiving. Surprisingly, car part dealers have started doing black Friday deals. An order went out to Stillen for one of their oil coolers and and set of Goodrich brake lines which are a big deal for the z, being the front lines are about the length of my arm.

Also on black Friday, Z1 Motorsports was running some specials of their own. I grabbed a pair of their urethane engine mounts, and a urethane transmission mount. With all these upgrades, shifting and putting power down should be significantly more effective. There's not going to be a whole 'lotta rubber left in this car.

With those sweet dyno numbers coming back, I had a new goal. I wanted to make 300hp at the rear wheels on RS's dyno.. so I had been keeping my eye on the my350z.com forums.. and stumbled upon exactly what I was looking for... a used Osiris Up-Rev with Tuner license. This gives me full tuneability of the stock ECU, lets me add cruise control (after installing a few parts) and does some cool things with launch control and map switching. I'll be able to optimize the ECU for all the modifications i'm doing, as well as utilize higher octanes when it comes to the big show.

With Christmas rolling around, I wound up with a pile of amazon gift cards... and while sure, there's plenty of other smaller things I could have checked off the list.. but screw it.. go big, or go home, right? I grabbed a set of OBX 370z Long Tube Headders. Now, they say 370z on them, and fit them... but they work fine on a 350z according to my research with a little bit of "forceful persuasion" around the steering shaft.




Well, with those puppies in, I'll have to address the catalytic converter situation. When I replaced the exhaust system, I took a critical measurement:



That measurement there is a a critical one, as it's the distance from the flange to the surface of the last catalytic converter. This means from the surface of this flange, I can move the catalytic converter a further 3.5 inches down wind. Well into the y-pipe. So just about any header option can be used, as long as the cats are in the y-pipe.

So, speaking of catalytic converters.. I'll need a pair of 'em. This time, I contacted Ciro Racing, as they have 100-cell metal core race cats that have passed SCCA checks historically (In STU I might add) for not a terrible price.

So with that out of the way, I figured I should free up the intake just a bit. It's been proven that some of the more basic intakes actually cost the HR engines horsepower, as the airbox systems on these are pretty good. But, the pipes connecting those airboxes to the throttle bodies are a little lumpy, and have a few baffles attached. Since the serious upgrade long runner intakes are on the fence legally still (i should really take those pictures, and write that letter..) I opted to just grab a set of silicon intake hoses from Mishimoto to smooth things out a bit.

With all this acquired.. there's really only one big purchase left.. and I'll tell you about that when I do it.

 

The End of the Season

Wow, it's been awhile since I updated this blog. After nats finishes, the steam kind of lets out for the rest of the season, as snow is on the horizion.

I ran the car at MOWOG 6&7 a few weeks after returning from Nats. Both events run at Canterbury Downs, a larger site local to MN that I've liked to run... historically. Despite feeling great at nats, the car was just terrible at Canterbury. This is probably a by-product of what we local Minnesotans have dubbed "Canterberries". Some time in the history of the lot we use it was "resurfaced", where a coat of tar was laid down and layers of small pebbles were laid down and compacted into the tar.



While this works fine to park on, running on this surface introduces annoying challenges. under any kind of load, these pebbles start to come up and it becomes akin to driving on a dirt road.. but a dirt road that gives you a vague sense of confidence before it slaps you in the face and laughs. Historically I've enjoyed the site as I'd run it in AWD cars with a clear advantage. Now, having switched to RWD that advantage is gone and I struggled everywhere to try and put power down. This was unpleasant, and I may find myself avoiding this site next year, or sourcing a co-drive. Who knows..

With that, the autocross season wrapped up. I finished the MOWOG points series in 6th place, and Second in the local Met Council series.. but only attended the minimum number of events to qualify for each in the Z, so as you have read the car was in multiple states of build over that time.. only towards the end has it started shape up as a really good car.

I decided to do one last thing with the car before packing her up, and sticking her in the garage for the long, cold winter months. The SCCA planned a PDX at DCTC, and having never really done any higher speed stuff (only that one night at RS Motors's event), I said "Screw it." and signed up.

I arrived a bit surprised. When I signed up there was a field for experience. I put down a few things i'd done, and how long i'd been autoxing, and showed up to be landed in the fastest run group. A few people I knew were administering aspects of the event, so when I inquired they assured me "Don't worry. you're plenty fast enough." The little warm tingleies from hearing that were pretty awesome, but didn't alleviate my hesitations about passing rules, etc. I opted to skip my first session, and sit in on the novice classroom session.. unfortunately, none of this was covered because novices don't get to pass. Damn.

When it came time to drive, I grabbed Ivan Austin and explained the situation. he was happy to aid in checking mirrors for other vehicles, perform points, and give me some excellent tips. The first session out I was definitely tentative.. especially when some miatas blew by me.. but I was more confident at the end about what I was doing.

[caption id="attachment_225" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit: "Crouse"[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_226" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit: "Crouse"[/caption]

For the concurrent sessions, I remembered that I had bought a lap timer app (Trackmaster) for my phone long ago, and never really used it. I still had all the gear from solostorm in the car, so quickly set it up so i'd have some numbers to see if I was improving. By the end of the 3rd session, those miatas wern't a problem. My smoking brake pads were a problem, but not miatas. I also came to find out I was running very similar lap times to a more road course experienced driver in a similarly prepped G35. Except he had Hoosiers. All in all, I had some good fun, and it forced me to think a little differently about higher speed lines. I think there will be more of these in the future.

That evening after the PDX, I shuffled things around in the garage, put the car up on stands, and threw the wheels and tires into their little warm spot for the winter. Winter mode is officially engaged, and shopping season begins.

[caption id="attachment_227" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Goodnight sleeping beauty.. I'll awaken you again when spring arrives.[/caption]

Nats 2014: It's all lead up to this.

Where we last left off, I'd landed in Lincoln Saturday night and watched a bit of Prosolo.

Saturday morning rolls around, and I opt to take it a bit slow. I've got time until the TnT runs I purchased a week ago at 11am start, so I slept in a bit and grabbed breakfast, rolling onto site around 9:30-10.

It's not a sunny day in Lincoln. The clouds are low, but it's not raining and there's only about 30% chance in the forecast. But that was enough to screw me.

I unpacked the car, and headed over to the TnT course with just my air tank and pressure gauge. Just as I roll up to my grid spot... it starts to sprinkle. Shit.

There's practically no one here right now though, so the grid worker gives me the blessing to run as soon as I feel ready. in a mad rush I adjust the pressures, belt up, and roll up to the line. The starter drops his arm, and the sky opens up to a deluge. hydroplaning through a slalom is a new experience, but I'm pleasantly surprised I can control the car as well as I can in the wet. It's no Subaru, that's for sure, but I could actually get around the course decently. The TnT course is also stellar, easily the best one yet. Lots of high speed elements that are far more reminiscent of proper nats courses than we've ever seen before. Elements that will definitely generate a pucker factor when driven in the wet like this.

[caption id="attachment_209" align="aligncenter" width="300"] At the line at the practice course, just before the dump happened. Photo Credit David Salas[/caption]

Immediately upon returning to grid, lightning started, and so the whole shebang had to be shut down for about 20 minutes. I spent a bit of time thinking through the run I just made and trying to visualize the course.

[caption id="attachment_210" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Thinking...
Photo Credit: Dave Salas[/caption]

Once the 20 min brake was done, the rain had actually stopped entirely. But alas, the course was now soaked to the bone, and it appears that fast slalom had been in the drainage ditch. It was holding water fairly well. I decided to take one run immediately to get a feel where the course was, and get a bit more wet practice. Yeah.. Still wet.

There’s about 35 minutes left in my hour and I’ve got 3 runs left to take.. I decided to keep waiting. The course was drying and that was helping things a lot. While that slalom was still under water it’s puddles were quickly fading. The Duality of being in a drainage ditch at work.

I wrapped up my last few runs with the course still being wet, but significantly better than before. I packed up and dismissed the runs. It was helpful data, but without any rain in the forecast for the next 3 days I wasn’t terribly worried about having to make wet runs. I’m a little disappointed that the first runs I’m going to get at full tilt in the dry since the reconfiguration will be my first runs in competition.

The rest of Sunday is spent getting the car teched, and  watching the ProSolo challenge rounds and the CAM invitational. Watching these behemoth power muscle cars on street tires try to put down power on pro courses that were still damp was fairly comical. Color me impressed though, there are some downright fast times and a few really talented drivers in the group.

Monday is pretty much a time to kill day. There isn’t enough data to support tuning the car any further, so I just focused on getting my course walks in. I started on the East course and my does it feel fast. lots of wide open sections.. but looking at them there are a few very pinchy points. Good braking will be an important factor on this course.

After grabbing lunch and chilling at little Minnesota a bit, a few of the new arrivals begin to ask me how the TnT runs went. I responded disappointing.. and they snapped me out of my funk. “Go buy some more damn runs” I think were the words Jody uttered to me. What the hell.. and trekked down to the TnT course to see if they had any more walk up spots available. They had a few left for the last hour of the day. I snapped one up and returned to Lil’ MN a little happier. I won’t really have any time to correct and test if I find something utterly fucked with the setup, but at least I’ll know how I can push it on the surface.

Fast forward a few hours later, and I’ve made my runs played with pressures a bit, and left smiling. The car feels really good. All the settings changes I did appeared to have paid off, as the car can now plant and roll on the gas coming out of a corner without trying to murder me. This will be very useful. The whole concept is summed up in a Facebook post I made right after finishing the runs: “Holy shit. The car works.”

A few minutes later I’m chowing down on some excellent BBQ provided by the SCCA as part of their Monday night welcome dinner.  An old tradition has been revived, the talent show! J.G. Pasterjack of GRM handles MC duty  through a few fun “gameshows” and couple of brave souls who actually appear to have some legitimate talent.



It’s now Tuesday morning. I landed a cool gig as an announcer assistant, so I don’t have to wake up to work first heat. A little extra sleep is appreciated, and I’m not rushing around as I don’t run until third heat. grab a quick bite from the hotel breakfast bar and head over and wash the car. Pick up a little detailing spray and some towels and get it shiny. Turns out you can polish a turd.. it just looks like a shiny turd… But the cameras are far enough away the little things shouldn’t show.

it’s now time for the lunch course walk. Usually I skip these, as they don’t seem particularly useful being there’s so many people on course you really can’t look at the line. For some reason I decided to take this one, and I’m glad did. Sure, maaayyybe I was eaves dropping a bit, but I heard more than a few drivers who had run in heats one and two giving excellent feedback about just giving it up for the pinch points, and that earlier thoughts regarding trying to drive a smooth arc through a few of them was a flawed premise. Give up the speed and cut the distance. I revised my plans accordingly.

Time had come to run. Interestingly, almost all the Zs were gridded together with myself in the middle, JG Pasterjack of GRM to my left, and Brian Peters and his co-driver to my right. There’s one more way at the end. I’ve been shooting the shit with JG back and forth a bit over the weekend about GRM’s Z build and getting to watch Brian run is a real treat.

The first run didn’t go so well.. Feeling confident after my practice runs the previous night, I went out in full force. Andddd spun it. Damn. In all my course walks, I wasn’t paying enough attention to the changes in surface, and in the left hander right in the middle of the course there was a crest. Not a big crest mind you, but enough to unsettle the car if it’s loaded up and going flat out. Whoops. Well, I know exactly where I have to watch my ass on the following runs.

One of the down sides to single driving is that you have a ton of time on your hands, but this gave me a chance to watch a few other drivers from the heat make runs without feeling rushed.

When my turn for my second run came back around, I gambled on going flat out again. I know my brain would force me to be tentative in that section this time, so making up the time on the rest of the course was going to be critical if I was going to finish decently. It worked, and I wound up with a 65.964. Not a terrible place to be, landing me .014 seconds behind JG on the same run. and sticking me in 11th.

Finally, the last run came around and I tried to push even harder, but I got off my game knowing I had a safety and screwed up multiple places leaving me a half second slower. No good, no good.

In the end I finished the day a hair behind JG in his Z in 11th place. It’s a close fight and JG is a fun dude to have a battle with.

It’s time for some beer walks. Those unfamiliar with this practice, it’s fairly simple: Obtain beer, perform course walk. Rinse and repeat until course is memorized or further memorization is not possible. One of the perks of having a big crew from MN is that there’s plenty of input after day one. Being one of the only drivers from the group who ran the east course, a rather large group of people appeared appreciative of my offer to lead a group course walk and provide insights to things that may not have stood out otherwise… like the crest..

After leading the east course walk, a few people who ran the west course offered to lead a walk with me and provide their insights. A helpful scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours situation.. with beer.

The west course appears more technical, but the information gleamed from drivers like Steve Garnjobst and Preston Jordan is that the course actually flows better than it looks at first glance,  and how it opens up or gives you room that may not have been initially apparent. This course should prove to be very fun.

The sun comes around again on Lincoln, and it’s time for day two. The west course awaits. The car still being clean from yesterday requires no attention, and gives me a chance to relax and watch people run on the west course. Oh look, another crest! glad I got to see a few runs before taking mine, because that probably could have been a larger problem. My car being over sprung and under dampened doesn't take well to significantly unsettling things like crests.

[caption id="attachment_213" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]

The first run I crack off is a 62.545.. I definitely felt like left some on the table there though. The deceptive elements still have me spooked, but now I’ve got my head around just how much room and speed there actually is.

Run two, it’s time to go push. More gas in more places, and it paid off. Pulled a 62.094.. dropped nearly a half second on that one and really feeling good. I got more aggressive on the launch, and it felt like it helped, so I’ll probably try to do that again.

[caption id="attachment_212" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]

Run Three… it’s time for death or glory. Last run, got my safety, and there’s nothing to loose. Lets do this. I line up and launch like a bat out of hell, reach down and grab second. Shit. The car wasn’t settled from the launch yet and it started to fish tail. I managed to catch it, only to find myself on the wrong side of a cone. the 3rd cone on course. damn it I’m not even 2 seconds out the gate on my last run and I’ve pissed it away. DNF. I start to slow.. and a thought hits me: “Now, I truly have nothing left to loose.”

[caption id="attachment_211" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Photo Credit: Perry Bennet[/caption]

 

Any pressure to try to execute perfectly is gone, there’s absolutely no way that this run can be faster because it won’t count anyway. I’ve reached autocross peace. I’m truly free. “Fuck it.” and gun it. Time to find out just how much grip this damn thing actually has, what slip angles it likes, and just how late can I brake. It’s all on the table now, and I’m just driven by pure hatred. I have one last pass at what may be the best autocross course I've ever driven on, on one of the best surfaces in the country. It's go time.

I hammered that run for all it's worth, and had an absolute riot doing it. When it was all over, I pulled the data logger out and looked at the times. It looks like the overall run time was a match for the previous fastest run... but if I hadn't slowed down after that DNF, if I'd have kept my foot in it, it was almost a second dropped. I wish I'd been driving like that for the last two days.

With that run, the story of my competition at nats closes. I managed to pull ahead of JG who was having a really rough day two, and land in 10th place. My highest nationals finish to date.  I got some feedback and setup discussion from Brian Peters who I finally got to meet in person, and overall was really happy with how things went.

In 151 days I took a car that was fairly stanced out and abused, and turned it into a pretty decent race car. I'm not at at all displeased with this result, and am looking forward to the upcoming off-season to build something even better.

Now, with all that pesky driving out of the way, the REAL drinking could commence.

MOWOG 5 and The Road Leading up to Nats

I apologize for the delay in this posting.. The last few weeks have been absolutely insane after I made the fun little discovery on my way back from Milwaukee.

Shortly after the last post I made, I had a change of heart. I've gotta get this damn clutch done sometime, might as well be now. I ordered a new flywheel from Nissan and an OEM clutch from a rebuilder. Those were both about a week out, so in the mean time I kept that appointment with Jeff to reconfigure the suspension.

Upon rolling it onto the rack, and taking a few measurements I decided to take a half inch of ride height out of the front, 1.25 inches out of the rear (going for a level setup) Take a scoche of camber out of the front, and set the rear to the point where I know can get to zero toe.

This landed me -3.3 camber in the front, -2.8 camber in the rear. Definitely more camber than I want in the back, but unfortunately it's the best I can do until I can get some offset bushings made for the rear lower control arms that will give me more toe.

[caption id="attachment_196" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Jeff, once again elbow deep in Nissan.[/caption]

The car now officially looks 10x more bad ass, and just driving it a bit on the street feels more planted.. But, you never know until you get on course.

Now, the question comes down to do I go in cold to nats, or head down to MOWOG 5 and try to test the car at this great new site but risk needing to be trailered back should my clutch fail?

Fuck it. A few of the MNAutox family offered to tow my gimped ass home should it come down to it, so I packed up and headed down.

I hit the road early Sunday morning, dismissing my earlier plans to head down the night before. I figured should I wind up gimped on the side of the road, I wouldn't mind knowing some fellow autoxers would be driving by shortly behind me.

I made it to Winnebago fine, and started the event. Big sweepers and a giant slalom greeted me, and I thought I had hit the jackpot for testing. The only unknown variable to me at that point was the surface, but one run in I'd probably know enough.

Wow. Talk about a surprise. The surface was ROUGH. What seems flat enough to the naked eye can be a hell of a disruptive force when you're traveling at 50mph. The surface hasn't been tended too in a fairly long period of time that there's a unique situation. The oil leaking from the workers cars, always in the same spot created little bulges in the pavement. Pair that with the fact these bulges are always right between two heavy points that created divots and you've got for a hell of a washboard effect.

Some drivers weren't as disrupted by this as I was, and for that I blame my stock bushings and terrible shocks that did absolutely NOTHING to try and control the wheels.

And these washboards were everywhere. Absolutely impossible to avoid, and they ran the big slalom right down the middle of two of them.

Data Invalidated, and not a good day.

Now Monday, I have a 5 Days until I head out for nats on Saturday. This was also the day I had scheduled to drop the 350 off for it's clutch job. But guess what hasn't shown up? The damn flywheel. I had called Nissan 2-3 times the week before having ordered the flywheel on Monday I was expecting it Friday. I didn't get a shipping notification until about 4pm on Friday, with tracking numbers saying it would show up wed.

I called the shop, and lined up my appointment for Wed morning to drop the car off, figuring they can at least yank the transmission and get the old flywheel and clutch off, and as soon as I got the notification the flywheel had been delivered, tear ass out and pick it up. The shop was a-ok with this arrangement, as it was planned to be a multi day task anyway.

Right around noon, the shop called me while I was eating, and asked if I had forgotten to drop off the slave cylinder. The Wha..?

Unfortunately, I got some bad info from a forum that the slave did not need to be replaced. This is accurate to the OLDER 350z, pre HR engine. The HR cars the slave is actually inside the bell housing, wrapped around the output shaft.. and to top it off is integrated with the throwout bearing. Crap. No way I can get one from Nissan in time, I immediately start checking auto parts stores to see if anyone carries one. NAPA lists it on their website, but it's a "Call for Availability" part. Shit.

I called the Napa in St. Louis Park (which is the area warehouse) and they confirmed, no, it was not in stock.. But I was informed I could get one in 3 days. So, it's in stock somewhere else, and it's a matter of shipping. "What will it take to get me that slave cylinder tomorrow morning?". I think he heard the desperation in my voice. "let me make a few calls, and call you back"

I practically stared at my phone with baited breath. I still may be able to get this done in time. It's not going to get alot of break in miles on that new clutch before heading out of town, but it'll be a new clutch.

about 30 min later, I got the call from Napa. Overnight shipping is a very real possibility, but it may be kinda expensive. short of yelling "SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY." I told him that's fine, and to call me the moment it gets in tomorrow.

When the flywheel finally showed up, and I dropped it off at the shop the mechanic pointed out the slave cylinder. Yeah, that bearing is a bit on the noisy side, and would probably destroy the new clutch.

Skip ahead to Thursday afternoon, and I get the call that the slave cylinder has arrived around 2pm. Flying out of work almost as fast as I can drive, I pick up the slave and drop it off at the shop. I was hoping to have seen a bit more progress than I did when I was there, but I'm assured that it would all be put together and ready to rock tomorrow afternoon.

The next afternoon, I get the call I'd so desperately been waiting for: "The car is done. Come pick it up." Sadly, my schedule for that day was quite full, being that i'm leaving for a week. I paid the shop over the phone and told them to lock the keys in it, as I'd have to pick it up after they closed at 5pm.

The time rolled around, and I got a lift to the car from my dad. Fired it up, and.. wow.. it's heavy and grabby as hell. But it's fresh, so I've got to throw some break in miles on it. I fill up the tank, and head out. I drove about 50 miles, from Hopkins to Minneapolis to St. Paul and back to Minneapolis, never touching a freeway. They recommended stop and go driving for fastest break in and that's what it would get. About 2-3 hours later, it felt much better, and I can pretty easily modulate it off the line. It's not a full break in, but it's got some miles and actuations on it before I head out for Lincoln in it not 12 hours from then.

It was now Saturday morning and getting to be time to leave. I'd spent so much time trying to break the clutch in the night before, I wound up not getting the laundry done I'd needed to pack for the week. Oh well. I'll get a little later start, and it gave me more of a chance to be detailed in packing the car.

Finally about 1pm I topped off the gas and hit the road for Lincoln. The drive was thankfully fairly uneventful. After the long haul to Milwaukee a few weeks prior, I decided to try my Bose noise canceling headphones. HOLY CRAP. I know it's not quite legal to wear headphones while driving but, damn. These practically annihilated the drone from the exhaust. Flip on a podcast, and I was in a pretty nice place. To the point that when I took them off about 3 hours later to get food and gas, I thought something was broken. Everything was just so much louder it blew my mind.

After a little more than 6hrs behind the wheel, I landed in Lincoln and actually saw the end of the first day's ProSolo runs. Little MN was almost entirely vacant, with only the handful of ProSolo guys around the site. It's amazing to see a site this large, this empty. I had arrived, and all the work of the prior week feels like it's paid off.

Mission Report: TnT 3 and the Tri-Pod Challenge

With the diff in the car and the test miles on, the day I'd been looking forward too had finally come: the TnT.

I actually wasn't the first person to take it out with the new diff. It was actually Steve M, who had driven the car a few weeks prior at MOWOG 4. Steve started the day on a down note when his FMod car wouldn't move under it's own power so I offered him a drive to make sure it wasn't a wasted day.

He came back with a grin. "it's better. But.. weird" To sum up his description, it now has everywhere oversteer. Lift off? yup. On power? yup. Off power? yup. It'll pretty much rotate everywhere. Hmm.. sounds tricky.

I took it out myself, and agreed. it does want to oversteer just about everywhere. It's fun, but definitely a handful. I found if you drive it on throttle or on brakes.. as little costing as possible it's fairly controllable.

A few other people took it for some runs, and all came back with a smile. Even with the handling difficulties, it's a crazy fun car to drive.

Then, just this last weekend is Milwaukee's not-at-all-famous Tri-Pod challenge. A two day event at Miller park, a gorgeous site with surface conditions very similar to Lincoln and higher speed elements than we generally see in MN.



A few runs in and it was clear, the car was too loose now to effectively put power down. The sentiment of a few was that the rake in the suspension setup may be leading to the instabilities of the rear. We'd discussed lowering the car, but being I'd have to put about 350 miles on it getting back home to Minneapolis, I didn't want to risk getting the settings wrong and destroying what's left of the Z2s, tires that are not at all obtainable anymore.



So after day one, I was emailing Jeff about available shop time this week. It's time to revise things again and fingers crossed that I don't make it worse with only one event and no adjustment time left before nats.

One interesting thing Mike brought up co-driving the car was that he kept hitting the rev limiter. Huh? this thing is geared so it shouldn't be possible on this site or just about any autox site out there. Looking at the data logs it was easily confirmed he definitely wasn't getting to the 67mph top speed of the car.. but I had a suspicion.

Neal on his last run at the TnT mentioned that he thought the clutch was slipping. The ol' 6th gear pull still held strong so I thought it was just a restrictor pill slowing the clutch out causing some slippage. After both complaints, I ran another test.

Heading home from Milwaukee, I found a good straight on ramp and laid into it. Damn. it is hitting the rev limiter around 60mph. I found a similar on ramp after a dinner stop, and decided this time I was going to feather it more. it got to 65 before hitting the rev limiter. The clutch is definitely slipping. Not enough that it won't hold the power in the lower RPMs, but when it hit's it's power peak it just lets go.

There's no time to even think about swapping it before nats, so I'll just have to settle this year with being at roughly the same output and top speed as the DE guys with a weight penalty. Chock another one onto the "winter projects" list. Damn.