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.

Downtime Update - New Mods

First, I want to get this out of the way:

[caption id="attachment_178" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Finally, I have a good picture of this thing going fast! Photo credit to Johnathan Gohde[/caption]

Now that that's out of the way, let's get into what's been going on since that photo was taken.

That picture was taken Sunday at MOWOG 4. Monday after work, put the car back up on the jack stands and went to work.

The first thing to come out was the exhaust. Slip fit joints suck when they've been together for awhile. Some love taps with the dead blow hammer, some heat, and a little more prying than i should have done and that whole mess of a system came out around sundown. So.. many.. fucking.. pipes.

[caption id="attachment_179" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The Borla True-Dual Exhaust. Final weight, 52 Lbs.[/caption]

With that mess out, I had free access to the driveshaft and differential. I started with the ones i knew were going to suck, the halfshaft bolts. I picked up a set of extra-long wrenches to give me more torque, but alas, they were still not enough on their own. Time to bust out the torch. A little heat and i managed to break them free. With the axles now dangling in my face, i moved onto some of the smaller stuff. I had to unhook the vehicle speed sensors and the breather tube. Lastly, it was time for the main driveshaft. This was pretty easy as it had already came out when i did the subframe swap earlier, and used anti-seize on the bolts. a little leaning and they popped right out.

At this point, the diff is only attached to the car by the front two ears and the cover. Unfortunately, I didn't have a hand to help stabilize, so i took a swing at it with my trusty harbor freight floor jack. Held it tight, and freed it.. then tried to gently lower it and... got about about 6" down and free when it rolled off the jack. A quick inspection showed no real damage, so fuck it. it's out. It's now 10:30 PM, and the primal brain has somewhat taken over. I drag the differential out from under the car like so much deer carcass, lay a foot upon it and declare victory and supreme manliness. Before I trudged off to sleep, I snapped a picture of my trophy:

 

[caption id="attachment_181" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Gotcha, bitch.[/caption]

A Few days later the final bits from Nissan arrived and i had all i needed to get this thing together.

I threw all the pieces in a Rubbermaid container, and headed over to a local transmission re-builder who was all to excited to work on something more interesting than the auto trans out of an F-150 work truck. A few hours later i got the call back that it was done and ready to go, and swung by after work to pick up the assembled product.

[caption id="attachment_183" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The finished product, and the old open diff in it's coffin.[/caption]

Fighting every urge i have to immediately slide back under the car and begin efforts to try to replace said differential, it's time for the office summer party.

The very next day though, i start by running some errands. I know i'll need new gear oil, and Nismo recommends 75-w140 instead of the stock 75-w90 when using this diff.. but wavetrac themselves specifically state to avoid using limited slip additive. Yeah, only one thing i can find that has both of those qualities is Redline NS, which isn't quite stocked locally. I opted for some valvoline non-syn and figured i can run out the season on that before i drain and refill with the really good stuff. I also picked up a transmission jack to help me put the diff in, as this lil' pumpkin is heavy, and that new wavetrac all full of gears didn't make it any lighter. While i was at harbor freight i also grabbed a sawzall, side cutting drill bits, and some chisels/punches. Remember when i did the subframe replacement? i skipped over doing the diff bushings then, knowing it would be coming back out. Well back out it came, and it was time to drive those bastards out.

I think the process of driving the bushings out got the cops called on me. My drill died, so i couldn't get the rubber guts out to give me access to go at them properly with the sawzall. So much chiseling and hammering ensued. The cops rolled by my open garage real slow like, me with new ballpeen hammer over head, lined up to take another death blow at the rubber bastard. Good news is they didn't stop, and I finished the process.

With the bushings replaced, there was nothing left to stop me from putting the diff back in it's home. And i did so.. twice. Damn bushing instructions. Thick and a thin one.. which one goes up. Oh, newer or out of date instructions that don't clearly say which way? thanks. After installing it i realized with the thinner ones on top, the pinion angle was too high. Great. Pull it back out, drive the bushings back out, and install 'em the right way.

Regardless of that idiocy, the diff is now in the car. I went about re attaching the axles, once again applying copious amounts of anti-seize in the reassembly.

After re-attaching all the little bits, i skipped filling the diff to avoid gear oil drips on myself as I installed the new exhaust.

Said new exhaust consisting of a Stillen Y-pipe and a Momentum performance y-pipe back. This basically eliminated any flex joints or unnecessary bends the whole way back on the exhaust. The new system also weighs in at about 27 Lbs, shaving some good weight off the borla. The "Muffler" (muffler is in quotes, because it doesn't muffle shit.) is also very much a straight through. With the right incline, i'm pretty sure you could roll something down my exhaust all the way to the cats.

With all this installed, i took the final steps of the night, and refilled the diff. It was time to get it off the stands and go for a spin.

Immediately upon start up, my initial thoughts are confirmed. Exhaust = Loud as shit. I hope it passes sound, but that's honestly questionable. I back out and head for a drive. Okay, it's loud.. but it does sound pretty cool. Unfortunately, there really isn't anywhere i can give the diff a proper viscous thrashing to see if it's as great as i hope, but from the roll-ons i did getting on the freeway at various points, it is noticeable.



So I spent a few days days tossing around in that until Monday night rolled around, and the next couple of parts showed up.

The driver's seat bracket (Buddy Club Super Low) landed on my doorstep, and it was time to throw the new Corbra Imola 2 seats in.. well.. seat. At that point i was still waiting on the passenger side bracket. That went in with a little bit of fight, as the seat is still slightly too wide to use the lowest mounting points. The next ones up fit, and it feels like it landed at about stock ride height.

At the same time, I installed the Schroth rallye-3 harness I also obtained for the driver's side. I love these harnesses.. the 2" belts are just so much more comfortable than big 3", and are easily enough for autox use.

[caption id="attachment_185" align="aligncenter" width="225"] New seat and harness[/caption]

Once again, it's test drive time.
While it's not the easiest thing to get in and out of, it does hold you in quite well. It's also amazing how much more feedback you get through your ass when you're truly strapped in.

Since then, I've been daily driving the car for the week making sure to put some miles on the diff before the next event, and while it's quickly becoming a bit too obnoxious for regular street use, it's still a riot of a car to drive.

Mission Report: TnT 2 & MOWOG 4

A little late coming, but not a ton of new info about the events.

A two day weekend, with Saturday being the first day I actually had the car at a test n' tune. This gave me a great chance to really get a feel for the new settings, and get some feedback.

The car felt good, and I managed to get a great feel of just how much grip it actually has through the large slalom we always run, as well as some of the short course stuff on the east side.

I also handed over the keys to a few people.. and I think i'm on to something here, as everyone came back grinning ear to ear. And they all came back with the same complaint: Wheelspin city.

That's okay, because 3 days before the TnT my new diff showed up on the doorstep. Unfortunately, the rest of the parts needed to install it didn't. Instead of crossing my fingers and yanking it hoping they would show, i opted to take it easy this weekend, and just enjoy the car.

On Sunday at MOWOG 4, Steve Meschke had asked if he could co-drive (would 3 emails be counted as begging?) as the FMOD car wasn't quite up to snuff at the time. We had a good time last year, so why the hell not?

With a little finesse, Steve managed to out drive me by a good margin (about 7/10ths). But  he put the car within 1 second of Alex Bahl who took the win. Without a diff.

Even if i was defeated, that made my day. That diff is going to easily be worth more than a second.

Going back over the data logs I saw that i botched the pin turn more than a few times, and Steve frequently had more faith in the car so carried more speed. I'll get there eventually.

It was a good day.

Mission Report: CVSCC 1

So, remember how the car didn't work, and I had plans to do a bunch of stuff to try to fix it?
Yeah, those tasks worked.

I spent the week daily driving the car to run the gas down, and managed to get an alignment from jeff on thursday.

The first thing done was to attack the ride heights. One corner was off, and it was that right rear corner. I decided it looked like the fronts were in the right place, and that i wanted to replicate the factory stagger of 3/4" front to rear. Turns out, height wise that only puts the car about an inch lower all around than stock. In the future, I'll probably take another inch out of it, but i wanted to get a baseline that worked.

Next, being as tall as it was, i took some more camber out of the rear. I'm now down to -2 in the back, and toe is in factory specs, with room to toe out much more than it's set to currently. Again, in the future, I'll probably dial some more toe out into the rear end both in favor of saving tires and loosening things up a bit, just more evenly.

lastly, we ran with corner weighting. With 160 lbs of ballast in the driver's seat, the numbers were almost spot on. I don't have the numbers of exactly right now, but they were good enough we skipped chasing any further adjustment.

And I'm not going to lie, but the car looks a touch goofy right now after all this work, and this rake, and those small tires.

But you know what? I don't really care. The car works.
The previous issue with the right rear wheel is gone, and it sticks much, much better.

I took the car out to CVSCC's event in Eau Claire, WI as their site is fantastic, if not a bit... lumpy. I've run sites that were off-camber on a few corners, but this is safely the only site that I can accurately describe as "downhill". It has a crest.

So, I spun it over the crest once.. Whoops. Every once in a while I have to give myself the ol' slap on the wrist and remind myself that this isn't AWD and it won't self rectify like the WRX will when you lean back on the gas. Coming around will happen.

After I got that out of my system, and a few more runs (we got 8 all day) I finally felt confident enough in the car to really start hammering on it more and dropping times. The results finally started to be apparent. I managed a run that was 1 tenth slower than the leader.

As a bit of a change, i also had an experienced autocrosser drive it too. Steve Garnjobst had a discussion with a deer on the way over that morning that left his car in a less than favorable situation. Steve has a bit of a history with some higher power RWD vehicles, so I did what any autocrosser would do, and threw him the keys.

He beat me. Well, sucks for him. Guess he won't get to drive the final product :)
But he did put up this nice quote on the forums a few days later:
"I co-drove the 350Z at the CVSCC event last weekend (thanks Shane!).
The car was a lot of fun to drive. Very well balanced, a lot of power, plenty of grip.
Ergonomics of the 350Z's are excellent. The driving position was perfect and visibility for autocross is great. (note- the rear visibility is likely pretty bad for street driving)
Even though Shane still has the cheap coilovers on the car, it felt pretty darned good.

Th primary weakness of the car in its current stage of development is power delivery. The car REALLY needs two upgrades:
1. a limited slip differential. With that much power, the lack of a LSD is really limiting the car's potential.
2. a louder exhaust. Combined with item #1, it's really difficult to modulate the throttle to maximize acceleration.

Should be a beast when fully developed!

-Steve"

The car was one-wheel-wondering all over the course, and Steve was right.. it was very hard to know where the car was spinning the tires by ear.

So, a few days later i looked at the budget numbers.. said "fuck it" and started ordering parts. Right off the bat I stumbled upon a y-pipe back single exit exhaust from the now defunct Momentum Motorsports that was almost half off. it's damn near a straight pipe with two gentle radius bends. Perfect. It feels pretty light too, but i won't know for sure until i start weighing parts. Next up, i needed a y-pipe. After a few minutes of searching for a higher end used one.. i said "fuck it" again and ordered one directly from Stillen. It's a cheap unit, but i like that it doesn't have any flex pipes and merges down into a nice 3" collector, which will mate up perfectly with the new y-pipe back exhaust i have obtained. Plus, it's cheap enough in the y-pipe market that i won't be too upset when i have to start cutting into it for later catalytic converter plans.

I got both of these on order, and that was going to be the temporary fix.. until I called Nismo, and started pricing diffs. Okay... that WaveTrac... hmm.. well.. yeah.. that is a good price... and hung up, and started digging back into the functionality of the WaveTrac units. It looks like it's a torsen that can lock. Sounds like a plan. Again "Fuck it", and called Nismo back to order the diff and the necessary parts for install (bolts, bearings).

All these parts should be arriving this week, and if i had a tracking number to know exactly when that diff would show up, I'd probably start that project and jam through getting it installed for this weekend. Sadly, I don't so I'll just have to start ripping into things come Monday after the next MOWOG event.

Now if someone would just take a picture of the damn thing on course...

Mission Report: Corvettes of MN

After MOWOG 3, I had a few things to think about, and a few adjustments to make.

I installed the data logger setup, as well as the SpeedoDRD as mentioned in earlier posts, but I still had concerns about the cause of that spin in the back. The current thought was that I bottomed out that strut, and it threw the car.

In order to remedy that, I jacked the back end back up, and took about another half inch out of the overall length of the shocks. This time, I make sure to add the needed zip tie to measure just how much travel was actually being used. When I checked the zip tie on the other side it was all the way at the top. This is the side that has the extra inch of travel, so I doubted that it was bottoming out. I figured the ziptie was too loose, and had carried momentum from a quick hit past the point of shock travel. I reinstalled new ziptie that was tighter.

Overall length wise, this is about as much as I can take out of the rear shocks before I fully compress the tender springs. Further than that, and I may begin to adjust the static ride height by compressing the springs with the shocks which would demand a re-alignment.

All these tasks completed, the car went back on the ground and for a test drive. No significant changes to the handling.. maybe a little bit smoother. it would have to wait until the event to see if the desired results had been achieved.

Unfortunately, the mid week weather reports didn't hold out. A storm was definitely brewing. The Good news was that STU was running first.. but in the COM ways, they're breaking the heat into three sub groups. By where you stood. I made sure I was standing in the 1A group as I really wanted some dry runs to see if the issue in the back had been sorted out. Also, hey.. what autocrosser hasn't seen the "one dry run was the fast one" situation play out a few dozen times?

I landed in 1A, much to the chagrin of most of the other STU drivers who landed in B and C. Whatever, I'm not really fast enough to be a threat right now anyways.

Antsy as all hell, the car was running and ready to rock when they called for the first group. Right down to the starting line I drove. First car off.

I was a bit tentative, but still laid down a good time... if I hadn't hit two cones. I just can't get my damn head around how wide this car is.

Time for the second run, I'm gentler around that first cone I hit, but otherwise I've bumped up the intensity. it's starting to step out more. I make it to the top of the hill... and... damn. Spun again. Not a comfortable place to spin either, but I followed the rules. No wheels off, no cones hit, and didn't even DNF. At least I don't have to go home early.

As I pulled back into line the rain started. Shit. So much for useable data. And I began to think about my two spins so far. both times when loading up the right rear. In the conditions presented, I should have had enough grip for how fast I felt I was going, but the car just let go.

This last run of the morning, I tried a little more in the slalom. it definitely felt like any time that right rear loaded up, the car wanted to step out, where the left rear felt planted. I'm still not entirely sure if this is just me being hyper-aware of something that I think is a problem, or something that actually is a problem, but I'm going to look into it as a problem.

Upon returning to grid I checked my zip ties. there was about an inch of available travel left in the right rear, and almost 1.5-2 inches left in the left rear. I wasn't bottoming out the struts.

The rest of the day wasn't great. the rain continued for awhile, but letup for when I had to work. and then started again just in time to put me in the wet for all of my afternoon runs. I tried a little more to loose time, but my confidence in the car was shaken after that spin, so I kept finding myself pussyfooting on the gas and braking gently.

Up until the last heat, I had actually been standing in second on the power of my first run, despite the cones as everyone else had to deal with wet runs. But, fortune smiled on a few of them as it stopped raining quickly in 1A, and began drying for B and C where they were able to catch up.

So, now I'm playing through things in my head, trying to figure out what's wrong with my right rear. First one is that the toe bolt may have slipped. here's hoping that's a simple one. Next up is a ride height issue. When the car was at Jeff's I remember there being a height difference between the rear wheels. The margin escapes me and which direction, but we wrote it off as insignificant at the time. Now, I'm starting to think otherwise. And the car was not corner balanced in it's initial alignment.

The good news is that both of these issues can be fixed with another appointment to Jeff, with an order for a full corner weight and alignment. I'm also going to re-assess ride heights a little, and this time focus on keeping the factory height stagger of 3/4" higher in the rear before corner weighting.

I'm really hoping to slide into Jeff sometime this week for that work, but I'm pressed for time and so is he. and my error in over filling the gas tank makes getting a good corner balance a more difficult thing as I need to run it down before that.

If that doesn't rectify the issue, then it's on to bigger problems. That is the corner with the screwed up strut, so a replacement set of Koni somethings for the rear may have to be ordered.. otherwise it's also possible for it to be a shot bushing or ball joint providing too much play.

Fingers crossed it's something that can be fixed with adjustments though, because i'm feeling kinda tapped out at the moment.

Quick Mods: Data Logger

Knowing I'm going to be using my SoloStorm data logger setup a lot more than I have been, I opted to more permanently install a few aspects of the unit.

First up was the biggest, the tablet. Unfortunately, there isn't a tablet mount made specifically for the Hisense unit, so the universal ram mount I bought had to do. It works fine, but the tablet is a little looser in the holder than I'd like.



When I bought the tablet mount, I ordered it with a 2" screw mount base. When took the center stack out to install the Speedo DRD, I also drilled and mounted the base in the cubby hole.



With that installed, the arm and tablet holder just clamp down on that ball. It's a little tricky to tighten, but once it is it's pretty much ready to go.



Next up was the Bluetooth OBDII reader. I've got the PLX Kiwi unit, which used to be the one recommended by PetrelData before they started selling their current "high-speed" offering. It has a pretty quick refresh rate, but it has one downside.. it's got about a 3 ft cord. Why? I have no idea. Every other Bluetooth OBDII module on the planet seems to get away with building itself into the plug.. but nope, not PLX. Gotta be different.

Regardless, I plugged it in, and pulled off the kick panel next to the OBDII Port. Thankfully, there's a generous helping of room in there, so I wound up zip tying it to the wiring loom. Works fine, and still lets me easily plug in a different diagnostic tool should the need arise.



The last part of the data logger is the GPS nugget. A lot of people have mounted these on the dash with velcro, and that works well enough. But after some reading, and a little bit of messing around, I've found you've really got to get them outside for best and continuous line of sight. Otherwise, your accuracy falls and it's drift city. For this little guy, I found a suction cup mount specifically for GPS nuggets on amazon. A little bit of velcro and a zip tie for good measure, and we're off to the races.

Quick Mods - Speedometer Corrector

So, After driving the car for a little while with this wheel and tire package, the speedometer has finally driven me nuts.

I knew it would be off, but it's harder to deal with than I thought.

In comes a post I came across over on my350z.com: DIY: Speedometer corrector

The unit I ordered is the SpeedoDRD U1 by 12oclocklabs, the same unit the original poster used.
It's a simple little single board that's actually pretty powerful. It'll let you do +/- spedo percentage corrections all the way up to 100% (double), as well as convert MPH/KPH or vice versa, and even remembers your top speed for later recall.

But installation requires a bit of cutting and soldering. Thankfully, I stashed the entire FSM for an 08 350z in my Google Drive. It makes it accesible anywhere and easily searched. Finding the wiring diagrams and information was just a search away.

Before I started the whole process, I took note last time I drove the car of two different speed measurements, one from the GPS on my phone, and the other from the car's digital speed readout on the multi-gauge. Going 67MPH per the GPS, indicated I was doing 74MPH on the dashboard. Using the handy-dandy calculator 12oclocklabs provides on their website (here) that even tells you how to program the unit.

Digging thought the FSM I found how the gauge cluster works.
Under the stereo, what I thought was just the HVAC control unit actually drives the gauge cluster and triple gauge stack. In the case of the speedometer, it converts the CAN-BUS data being fed from the ABS system into a 0-5V signal that's fed to the gauge cluster, and then from there to the triple stack. It's this signal that we're going to intercept and modify. If you are going to try the same thing, but don't have the resources of an FSM.. the guys over at MightyCarMods did a similar modification with their own kit, and show how to find the signal wire with a multimeter: MCM Speedo Corrector

[caption id="attachment_152" align="aligncenter" width="225"] The AC Module under the stereo. All the connections we need to make are on the middle connector.[/caption]

The white wire is the aforementioned signal wire, so we have to cut it in half.

[caption id="attachment_153" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Snip the white wire, but make sure you give yourself enough distance to make repairs if necessary.[/caption]

With the signal wire split, we need to splice in the SpeedoDRD. The plug side is the source of the signal, and the lead goes up to the cluster. So we connect the white wire from the SpeedoDRD to the plug side of the white wire, and the blue wire which is the output from the DRD to the line that feeds the cluster.

[caption id="attachment_154" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The signal wires connected.[/caption]

I used my soldering iron to do the job, and the provided heat shrink tubing. Next up, the unit needs power. The black wires on this connector are ground, and the Yellow/Green wire is an ignition power wire and will do the job just fine.

[caption id="attachment_151" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Power and Ground Connections.[/caption]

A little electrical tape here and there, and it's good for a test.



A short while later, a test drive comparing to the speedo output of my tablet confirms the car's speedo is now dead-on accurate. Now I know if I'm not speeding enough!

Mission Report: The Maiden Voyage

After weeks of work, a little bit of shake down at a DCTC PDX, and plenty of street miles, it was time to finally turn the wheels in anger against a clock.

The venue for this initial outing would be DCTC, and the third event in our local MOWOG autocross series.

DCTC offers a unique challenge in an autocross event. Being a pseudo-mini-road course, if we ran it open it would be too fast to be considered an autocross. So we have to lay out elements on the road course to keep speeds down. Now, this would be a bit more interesting if we had the full 2-3 car widths of a legitimate road course, but DCTC being the aforementioned pseudo road course, most points on the track are only about 1.5 car widths wide. Definitely not big enough for an semblance of comfortable passing even on a straight.

So we make an already tight course tighter. And then I brought a wider car. Oops.

Right of the bat, i'll lay this out: many, many cones fell to the nose of the Z this weekend.
A combination of a tighter than average course and a car that was about a foot and a half wider than what i'm used to (probably closer to 3ft compared to last year) and you've got a recipe for the genocide of the cone race.

Now, on with the car. The handling was downright great. It transitions really well and turn-in is incredible. I'd thought these big ass wheels and tires would make the car feel really loagey, and while it does feel heavier than the WRX, it more than makes up for it.

But one flaw definitely made itself well known: the car needs a diff. Badly.
More than a few times I'd want to roll on the power for a nice smooth track out to only be met with wheel spin. Honestly it's easily the most frustrating part of the car at this point, the inability to use all those enslaved ponies under the hood in situations other than going straight or just the slightest bit of turning angle.

The differential has pretty much been highest on the list since springs, wheels, and tires were all obtained. In the process of building, I didn't wan the next upgrade to be shocks, as it would be so much casting pearls before swine. A diff will change the handling so dramatically, that it's really not worth the effort to chase settings in the mean time. I may play with bumping the front bar up a notch or two at a TnT event to see if it's worth making the car understeer more in favor of helping keep the rear wheels on the ground.

New this weekend was my co-driver Jake. Jake has some seat time in his crazy overpowered, under suspensioned evo, but we've been talking car stuff for a little while as he's been planning his own build of an 818 kit car, and you might say I have some history with Subaru stuff. Taking him for a ride in the 350 at the PDX event shakedown, his response was "mind blown" at how it could change direction, and expressed interest in a season co-drive, citing his need to get comfortable with a RWD platform before his own psychomobile comes to fruition. As a last minute thing, i floated him the offer to drive it, and he was onboard before i could even finish the chat message.

Jake really enjoyed himself, and was only about 2-3 seconds off my pace, but he has some bad AWD habits to unlearn, and some slip angle to reduce. That being said, I think you may see more of him in the front seat.

As to my own runs, i was initially a little disappointed. I'd coned all my fastest runs (okay, almost all of 'em. the other one I DNFed... but we'll get to that), but the times were landing me in the top 5 in STU and about 47th in PAX. I felt kinda despondent about the whole thing, thinking really hard i should be faster. It was when words of wisdom came down from our own local crazy car builder, Mark Yackich, did I really start to feel better. "you're on shitty shocks, with no diff, and an untested setup and you weren't DFL. I'd count today as a win."

Gotta hand it to him, he's got a point.

And finally, I finally got a good test of some of the analysis gadgets I picked up over the winter.
Right off the bat was SoloStorm software, but I've had that since mid last year. I did acquire a Hisense tablet specifically for it though, as well as a mount. It's using the same QStarz 10Hz GPS nugget (except i borrowed this one from Jody as i forgot mine on the charger), but i added the recommended PLX Kiwi for OBDII logging, and a GoPro Hero3+ Black for run video.

After mounting all this shit in the car it does yield some pretty good information, and i used it some to coach Jake, as well try to figure out where my errors are. In-car video isn't great right now, I'll have to mess with that a little more as i really want to see my steering inputs, but the light out the windshield is too bright and saturates the sensor. I'll have to see if I can set exposure manually to favor the outside light.

But when mounted outside, the final product does look awesome. Here's my last decent run, with the camera mounted externally.



In addition, here's the video from the first half of my last run. I say first half because... well.. just watch it.



Lastly, I have an additional point of view from that last run. I borrowed a pair of Google Glass from my office, and recorded from about an inch off my right eye. The effect is pretty cool



My theory is that I may have bottomed out the back right shock, and then unsettled the car when it couldn't travel any more. It's the one with less travel, remember? I don't want to pull any more droop travel out of the rear, but that may help. Sadly, I forgot to put the zip tie on that one to check travel, but there wasn't much left on the passenger side.

Alignment and Shakedown

With the car being where I wanted it assembly wise, it was time to swing over Jeff the Alignment Guy for his unique brand of cheery disposition and precision race alignments.

At 10 AM I was the first customer for the day, and rolled right up onto the ramps as I arrived. The first task of the morning was to check all the ride height's I'd set and make sure they were close enough to be within reason. I'd do this at home, but I don't trust the concrete slab in my garage as anywhere close to level.

Next up was the front camber. Shockingly, this needed to be dialed BACK. The listed adjustment range on the Megan arms was 1.0 to -2.5. I thought I'd get 3 out of it after the car was lowered, which would be enough, but I was pleasantly surprised. I'd set them at maximum negative when I installed them.. and when we put the alignment gear on, they read -4.9 degrees. Holy crap? Why are people futzing with the Kinetix arms that are $20 less a set, but have to be modified to gain this kind of camber, when these straight bolt in and work exactly as I want? And I don't even have to unbolt the upright to adjust them... Not saying their easy to adjust though.

[caption id="attachment_136" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Jeff, elbow deep in some 350z[/caption]

Next up came pointing the rear end the right way. This was all kinds of wacky. this car likes to toe in as it loads up the rear end, so with the car being lower than stock there's more than a bit of toe in to dial out. In the end, we had to add a little more camber than I'd like, and a little more toe in. That may hurt the power on rotation more than I'd like. After reviewing some of the rules and discussing any sort of interpretation with a few very rules literate people (members of various advisory committees).. all the common options for fixing the toe problems on the back of a 350z (replacement arms, aftermarket toe bolts and notching the subframe)are all not legal. The only method I've been able to think up is some offset bushings for the rear lower control arms. I haven't found anyone producing these yet, or even anyone mentioning them in any forums.. which leaves me slightly concerned for some of my competitors.

With the alignment done, the final task of balancing out the front endlinks and attaching the front sway bar was completed and the car was done.At that point it's early afternoon, on the Friday of memorial day weekend. to say there was some traffic around would be an understatement. So effective fun was pretty well halted, but did get a run at a decent on ramp on my way home, and ho-ho does it feel good.

so. much. grip.

After a bite for lunch, I had to decide how I'd spend my Friday evening. Two options came to mind.. a throw back to the old days, and head on over to university avenue in St. Paul to watch the ricers try show off how big their balls are in mom's Volvo, or down to DCTC to hang out at RS Motors' sort of pseudo PDX event. I opted for the latter, figuring if it got boring, I could still get to St. Paul with time to spare.

Immediately upon arrival, Sean Carroll came up to me parking noted I had the Z in good shape, and asked if I would like to instruct for the night. A little hesitant due to the higher speeds and novice drivers, I had a chat with Ron Solomon and Brandon Ranvek about the standards, minimums, and the driver promotion system. Feeling a bit more confident, I agreed. As an added bonus they said I could take the Z out later as a thanks for instructing. Well, twist my arm why don't ya.

Instructing was pretty fun, and it didn't hurt an old buddy threw me the keys to his GTR for a few hot laps. That certainly reset my perspective on speed. It's like driving a sledge hammer.. with some finesse.Finally, it was the last heat of the night, the defined "Volunteer" group. Another buddy Jacob hopped in the car, and we tore out onto the course. I kept thinking to myself "you're going to take it slow.. you just put it back together." yeah.. that's me lying to myself again. Hammer down on this bitch, and lets see what she can do.

I got around a couple tight corners, thinking how well it gripped, before I got to the point of revelation.. the slalom. after about 3 cones in at some good pace I uttered gently.. "HOLY SHIT CAN THIS THING CHANGE DIRECTION!". I'm not a poet, never said I was. Jacob seemed surprised, but agreed. It's ability to dance is astounding, and this is riding around on terrible stance shocks with no diff.

All this joy was repeatedly dashed by the fact I kept catching up to other cars on course.. but probably for the best. It gave me some cool down time while I'd pull off  and wait to go back out, or slow way down and let the car in front of me get some distance.At the end of the night, I'd probably done 5-6 laps in the z, and had a riot doing it. It was a great shakedown at speed, and gave me an excellent test to find out a general idea of how fast the car can be.

In the end, after all the money and time invested so far, I really feel like I made the right call in starting this build.. and that's what matters

The First Drive

It's been awhile, but I've been looking forward to this moment since I saw that the 350z was made legal in STU, and that I could have 285 wide tires.

I finally get to drive the car with the big tires.

With the major overhaul, the unknown alignment specs, and the fact that it's now dark out, I opted to make it a fairly short drive, ramping up as I felt comfortable.

I fired it up, and the exhaust was noticeably quieter. Looks like that missing clamp was adding to the drone in the cockpit.

The next challenge is getting out of the driveway. My driveway has a fairly aggressive rake to it, so getting in and out with a lowered car can take some finesse. I took the same angle out that I took going in and cleared it fine.

I'm now in the street under my own power, and driving around. Nothing has fallen off, had a signifigant bang, or tried to change direction when I didn't want it to.

I kept it to residential neghborhoods for a few miles, making sure the brakes worked, and that the almost random alignment doesn't try to step out anytime I get on the gas. I decided it was ok to step it up to the faster frontage roads.

It was here I found out how bad the alignment actually was. At this point, the car has so much toe in, loading up an outside wheel makes it actually want to oversteer the opposite direction. Not good, but it feels manageable for the remainder of the test drive. I step it up to a few laps of some on and off ramps on 394 and the frontage road. Everything outside the alignment is looking good and even with that, I can feel the tires have insane levels of grip. This is going to be so much fun once I get it straightened out.

With an adequate test drive completed, it's time to head back to the garage and decompress, and get some sleep.

[caption id="attachment_131" align="aligncenter" width="300"] a quick night shot on the way home..[/caption]

The next day I had taken off to go to Lincoln for the Spring Nats Pro-Solo, but opted to skip in favor of finishing my car. But I still had the vacation booked, and was going to use it.

I put the car back up on the stands to check for any sort of loosening or movement in the rear end, and found none. Next up was to dial out some of that insane toe in. I eyeballed it (poorly), and put it back down.

The toe-in looks much better, and I decide I may as well put some miles on it today. I had to go to Nissan and pick up the remaining bolts that I had ordered, might as well take the car.

It feels much better toe wise, and handles really well. It's daytime, so there's traffic in the way everywhere, but I still managed to enjoy a few on ramps.

Bolts aquired, I ran a few errands, and helped my Dad out shopping for a new car. At this point, I'm confident it's back together and pending tomorrow's alignment, ready to go.

[caption id="attachment_132" align="aligncenter" width="300"] After dialing some toe out, I went putzing around a bit.[/caption]

Wrapping Up Round One

Now that the car is on the ground.. it's time to... roll it back into the garage and finish.

it was fun while it lasted, sitting out side over night where I could look at it longingly from my bedroom window. /sigh

I rolled it back into the garage, and put it back on the jack stands to wrap up some of the final tasks of getting it properly running.

First up was getting the exhaust back on. This Borla system is a rather large pain in the ass, and some of the clamps were in really bad shape. I picked up a few generic ones from the auto parts store to replace a few, and i'm glad I bought extras. I had to address the missing clamp under the passenger seat, and another was cracked. When I took the impact to it, it actually snapped in half. Oh well, it's off and getting replaced anyway. After a lot of finagling, I got the muffler and pipes back in place, but one of the bolts for an exhaust hanger snapped off in the new subframe. Hooray. There's more than enough support without it, but the exhaust moves under load and hits the subframe with the hanger. Damn it. I tried to shove half a rubber exhaust hanger between the frame and the hanger on the tube, which worked for about 10 minutes. Damn. Fuck it. I'll fix it later, a little banging never hurt anyone.

With the exhaust back in place, I can tear into the ride height. I took a few inches out here and there, and evened up the sides. I jacked each wheel up to see where it would land under more or less full compression, and settled that I was happy where it would probably land. It would have to get on the ground again before I knew exactly where it would sit.

Lastly, I had to top off the diff. When I had the subframe off the car, I inverted it, and forgot there was a blowoff tube on top, so a measurable quantity leaked out on to my garage floor. I wrote it off, and figured I'd just top it off. So I reached under with my wrench, broke the fill plug loose, and began to turn.. to be met with an out pour of fluid. what the hell? the car's level, and all you have to do is fill it to the fill plug. Jesus tap dancing Christ, how did you fuck up this hard previous idiot? So the diff is overfull, and the fluid pouring out is basically black and smells of burnt horse's asshole. If I'm making a mess, I might as well make a bigger mess and change the diff fluid completely. I had to swing back to the autoparts store to pick up another bottle of "synthetic" gear oil. I'll care about the quality when I get something that's better than an open diff in the pumpkin.

That's it.. right? I keep running through things in my head. I'm not done. I'm forgetting something, right? There's got to be something left... I can't be done.

Holy shit. I am done.

I put the car back on the ground, and the ride heights appear to be about where I want them. I torque the wheels, and step back..

It's time to do something I haven't done in weeks... It's time to drive it.

Playing With the Front End

Our brave hero continues his labors, and moves on to the front end of the car.

The first step was to free up the brake rotors, and remove them. If 've got to replace them anyway, I might as well get them out of the way while I work on the control arms and shocks.

Next up, I pulled the upper control arms, and replaced them with the Megan Racing units I mentioned in an earlier post. This I was hoping that the removal of these would give me enough room to get the shocks out, but alas, it was not to be. I'd have to detach the lower arm that attaches to the shock to get it out. When I installed them, i set them to maximum negative camber. That should ensure the wheels don't hit the fenders when i put the car down on them, and it'll tell me just how much camber I can actually get.

When I removed the top bolts for the struts on the driver's side, I found that one of the holes has been notched quite aggressively. At least an inch long. Awesome. I don't know why anything surprises me on this car any more. One day, I'll have some metal added back to that, but the gigantic washer appears to be holding fine, and there's two more bolts holding it in place that are just fine.

Getting the lower arm to swing away was a bit tricky, as the bolts were of course stuck. some clever use of my floor jack on one side, and some aggressive kicking on the other freed them both up.. only to find the pocket where the control arm attaches on the passenger side is actually bent. Probably dragged it on a curb. It appears the mount point is fine, and in the right place, but the ears on it are bent back a little. With some aggressive pounding, i got the arm out, but it'll put up a fight every time I need to do that. Once I can get it on a lift, I may have to go at it with a dead blow and try to straighten that ear out a little.

With the shocks free, I can start disassembling them. First thing was to free the springs so they don't lunge at my face like so many house cats before them. Here's where it gets a bit interesting on the front. When i measured the springs on the car, i measured them at a little below 6.5", assumed they had loaded about a half inch of pre-load and ordered 7" 1200 lb/in springs.  Once I broke them free, and started turning the preload adjuster.. it kept turning.. and turning.. and turning.

When i finally freed the spring, it was over 8" long. The previous owner (who from now on will now be referred to as "previous idiot") had dialed in over 1.5" of preload on the front springs. WHY THE HELL WOULD YOU DO THAT? Droop travel? fuck that noise. Let's just ride at full extension ALL THE TIME. /Sigh. The 7 inch springs will work fine, and a quick hit with the impact gun gets the tops off. I didn't measure the front travel like I did for the rears because honestly, I can't take much more in the bad news department today. But side to side they appear to be closer than the back ones.

Like the rears, I set the initial height to be as high as it will go to make sure it won't damage anything. To figure this out, I had to spin the lower mount off so I can measure just how far the threading goes and how much I'll have to feed back onto the shocks. It's spinning these things off I make another discovery about just how cheap Stance shocks are.

The lower mounts are the same for either side, but they need to orient opposite directions for the brake lines, ABS wires, etc.. are you ready for the cheap flag? THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO CHANGE WHICH SIDE THE STICKERS ARE ON. Passenger side? branding sticker is visible. Driver's side? it has to face inwards. period.

Anyway, the threads are 2" into the lower mount, so i thread them back on to that engagement point, and hand tighten the spring perches so that they're just tight enough to keep the spring in place. BECAUSE DROOP TRAVEL, MOTHER FUCKER. Not that there will be much of that with 1200 lb/in springs and no tenders, but it's nice to not completely eliminate the possibility of it.

After reinstalling the struts, I took the liberty of hucking the plastic engine cover in the corner. Doesn't serve a purpose besides making things look pretty, weighing more, and getting in the way of any emergency services in grid.

with the struts back on, I installed the fresh front rotors to rid myself of that under braking vibration I was getting, as well as the Hawk HPS pads. I opted for something milder than the HP+ I used on the WRX, as the rotors on the HR 350z are gigantic and I felt something with that much initial bite would be hard to modulate.

Finally, I installed the Hotchkis front swaybar, but left it disconnected. I'd need to sort out my ride heights before I installed and zeroed out the preload on the adjustable sway bar end links i purchased.At this point, I still need to reinstall the exhaust, but Karl has been getting punchy about getting his garage space back. It's time for the moment of truth. It's time to put the wheels on and put it on the ground.I basically replicated Brian Peters' wheel setup, so i was quite confident it would fit, but there's always that moment where it's tension as you put the spacers and wheels on.Wheels mounted, i put the car down on the ground. No major catastrophes so far, time to back it out of the garage to re-orient it.

[caption id="attachment_121" align="aligncenter" width="300"] It's back on the ground![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_122" align="aligncenter" width="300"] But Christ is it riding high..[/caption]

It was loud as hell without it's muffler , but it moves around under it's own power.

With that, I spent the rest of the night tidying up the garage enough to get Karl his parking space back, and enjoying a good night's rest.

The Subframe Saga

Where we last left our brave, handsome hero he was facing down the unpleasant end of a damaged subframe. Having ordered it's replacement, along with some nice stiff bushings from the good guys over at Whiteline, he awaited the day the battle would begin.

I return today declaring victory over that bitch, but not without it's casualties.

The subframe showed up a few days after ordered. I'm really starting to appreciate having a junkyard with a few Zs in it within a couple hours drive. Little far to drive, but stuff shows up quickly. The bushings showed up the next day, and I took both down to Jeff the Alignment Guy and tasked him with making two into one in exchange for money. He accepted the task.

[caption id="attachment_106" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The new subframe... as it was shipped. Just slapped a label on it.[/caption]

I took a time out from worrying about the Z for that weekend, and headed over to our local autocross events MOWOG 1 and 2 all weekend. I missed my car, but it's amazing how trying to hustle a Camaro SS and a Birkn through a sea of cones can take your mind off of things for awhile. Big thanks to Eli and Steve for the co-drives on short notice!

By Monday afternoon, the subframe was back from the Jeff, and it was time to start the battle.

The first step was removing the exhaust. This Borla "True Dual" system is HEAVY. it's gotta go, and hopefully sooner than later. I'm hoping I can find a good deal on a lightweight single exit exhaust and a Y-Pipe to cut that out. But I'm getting off track. Thanks to this "True Dual" bullshit, it's got more connections that a hooker in Vegas, and they're all slip fit with rusty clamps. Hooray.
Come to think of it, that also sounds like a problem a Vegas hooker would have.

After a few hours with my trusty cordless impact and a sacrificial screwdriver, I managed to break the clamps free but all the slip fit joints still refused to move. Hooray! why couldn't it just be flanges.. with bolts. I can break bolts, and things still come apart. but, After some aggressive use of my big 'ol dead blow hammer, things started to come apart.

Next up was the drive shaft. That had to be broken loose, and there's not a lot of room to get that done. but a couple wrenches, and some hate, and I managed free those up. A few good raps with the trusty dead blow and the flange came.. HOLY SHIT. Few.. Thank you subframe brace and exhaust, or I'd probably have a slightly less pretty face. More manly though. "Hey, how'd you get that scar?" "Took a drive shaft to the face." {Swoon} (That's how it works, right ladies? Right?)

Next I've gotta pull the calipers off.. not a big deal if I hadn't just replaced the pads. /sigh. Get to do that whole thing over again. Oh well. They came off easily, but the caliper brackets put up a damn good fight. At this point I'm realizing how nice I had it on the Subaru all those years. with it's big, open rally wheel wells, it was cake to get big tools and bars in to deal with this crap. No such room exists on the Z.

Regardless, after some more hate, the caliper bolts are freed. Next was the rotors, as I need to free the e-brake cables. Yet another service i've just done, undone. As I adjust the e-brake tensioners all the way in to allow the shoes to clear the hat, I start to question my sanity a bit. Hooray.

Now with the rotors off, I can get the pin out to free the cables. A Pin? who the hell uses a pin. a stupid ass drop through the hole every time pin. BOLTS PEOPLE. BOLTS DON'T MOVE. Wound up having to completely disassemble the e-brake system to get the damn cables free, only to pull it out and go "ohh... that's how you do it." If I was the hulk, this car would be a tiny ball of metal, and every bird in the neighborhood that wakes me up on a Saturday morning would be dead.

Next up is the "W" frame, and it runs from some rear bolt points to the middle of the car to reinforce the chassis. Should be easy enough to get off, a few 14mm bolts and.. wow. Previous owner had this car LOW. It's been dragged across something enough times that the bolt heads of the front two bolts are nearly ground flat. I managed to get them off by tapping a larger socket on and hitting them with the impact, but those won't be going back on the car like that.  It's the same story for the outer bolts for the "Kidney Braces" I'll get some replacements from Nissan.

At this point, I can drop the subframe. With the continued assistance of my trusty roommate Karl, we lowered the subframe out on to the floor and moved it clear of the car. Halfway! right? RIGHT?!? At that point, it was time to declare a battle won, and enjoy some well earned sleep.

[caption id="attachment_107" align="aligncenter" width="225"] The beast has been freed![/caption]

The next day at work, I got some of the best news. Karl feeling ambitious, Generous, and possibly bored went ahead and broke loose almost every bolt on the rear subframe.

When I started again, I unbolted the control arms from the subframe as well as the diff, and lifted the subframe off the whole assembly. Then I dropped the replacement subframe back into place and reversed the procedure, but only finger tight. The whole time I'm applying liberal amounts of anti-seize compound. I know I'm going to be back through most of this stuff, in the future, might as well make it easier on myself when the time comes.

Now it was time to finagle the subframe back in place. A task surely easier when the bushings in it aren't made of a very stiff polymer. But it'll be all worth it in the end. Plenty of back and forth the the floor jack, some shuffling, and some good whacks with the dead blow and things are lined back up and bolted into place. I spent the next few hours loosely reassembling everything making sure I didn't have a pile of bolts left over before tightening everything up.

[caption id="attachment_110" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Hooray! It's In! (Picture was taken after a few more steps..)[/caption]

It was here I realized what had caused the damage in the first place. The hole that the lower arm goes through is sloted, as confirmed in the other picture. but when I disassembled it, there was no concentric washer. without that to stabilize the bolt and keep it from moving, it was able to move back and forth in it's hole as much as it wanted, and did, until it became a big hole. I had to head up to Nissan and, shockingly, order the concentrics. I'd have thought being they're part of the alignment adjustment, and this is Minnesota where every aspect of a car used to align it will immediately rust solid upon crossing the state line, that they might have had a few on hand.

By this point, a few weeks back when I started this mess, I opted to change a few things as well. I lined up the parts needed to adapt standard 2.5" springs into the the stock spring bucket arms from BC Racing. Not the highest quality of shocks, but these adjusters should prove serviceable. I also lined up some springs from Hyperco. 7" 1200lb/in for the front, and 6" 850lb/in for the rear.. As I don't have shocks that don't suck yet, I'm forced to mount these heavy duty bastards to the Stance shocks that came with the car. The rears had to be disassembled to remove the springs and perches to convert them to basically be just a shock and that's when I made a lovely discovery...

[caption id="attachment_109" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Almost 5 inches of shock travel isn't bad..[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_108" align="aligncenter" width="225"] ... Hey, Wait a minute.[/caption]

That's pictures of the rear shocks, at full droop, next to a tape measure. Notice any difference? One side has an entire inch less travel than the the other. Now, I'll be the first to admit I don't have anywhere near a full history of this car, and one could easily be damaged.. but conversely, I could easily see this being a manufacturing defect that would go unnoticed until you actually tore them apart like this, something very few people who actually use these shocks would do. Unfortunately I don't have the budget to throw at good struts right now, so I'll have to make do with these turds. on the plus side, being that their overall length is adjustable, I was able to dial them to be even on each side at least as far as drop goes. as long as the shorter one doesn't bottom out though, it should be OK.

after that depressing fact, I installed the the factory lower arms along with the replacement offset bolts and concetric washers, and dialed them in to toe in. Doing this was a bit tricky as I'd never worked with a spring bucket control arm before, and I had to jack it up and fight it back and forth as it pre-loaded my tender springs and 850Lb/In main springs. This probably would have been easier if I hadn't set the height adjusters to full height before installing them. I have an old habit with coil-over installations that I set everything as high as it will go, as I want to make sure that when I put it down the first time I don't damage anything.. and that I can get my floor jack out from under it.

[caption id="attachment_111" align="aligncenter" width="225"] Shocks, springs, and control arms all installed.[/caption]

Next up was re-assembling the brake system, and finally getting to install those pads again for the second time. The e-brake was a fun pain the ass. With all the parts of it being pre-loaded, disassembly meant things went everywhere. And reassembly meant everything fought back. At least I think I know how to do it right next time, if there is a next time.

Who am I kidding, there will be a next time. Fuck you, E-brakes.

Lastly, I jacked up each hub and torqued each bolt to spec. The rear end has been assembled. /fistpump

Now to move on to the front half of the car...

 

The Joys of a Used Car

Over the past few weeks, I've been digging into some aspects of the car and cleaning things up.

The sunday after i got back from the drive, i got curious as to what one of those thunking noises was.. Behind the driver's seat there's a chamber for a Bose subwoofer system, or the glove box on the RHD vehicles. Popping this open revealed an amplifier for a subwoofer that's no longer there. Just flopping about, not fastened down in any way. Oh good.

I yanked that out, with a large sum of stereo wiring that was no longer in use.

[caption id="attachment_96" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Oh look, it's a big pile of previous owner.[/caption]

After that, started cleaning out the trunk. There's some sort of oily residue all over the inside of the trunk. About a bottle of 409 degreaser, and a roll of paper towels later, that nasty mess was cleaned up.

Next was the window tint. I kind of like it on the rear, but it's way too dark on the fronts.. So that had to go. I picked up a heat gun at harbor freight and went to town. It actually came off fairly easily once brought up to temp. A little more work with a razor blade and what was left of that bottle of 409 took out the rest of it. I can now see out the windows in less than sunny weather! huzzah!

Minor tasks rectified, it became time to start attacking the suspension with  the replacements and upgrades i'd purchased.

I jacked the car up, and attempted to take off the wheels.. Whoops.. forgot to break the lugs loose before I did.. not a problem, i have an electric impact and it makes.. oh. Damn. These are really on there. Had to get a little clever with a jack handle to get the fronts off. Oh look.. there's two different sized lug nuts on each wheel.. 19mm and 21 mm.. WHHHYYY??? i get if you don't have a full set of the same size, but why would you inter mingle them like that? I can see 1 wheel having 21s, and the rest being 19.. but this? WTF?  Whatever, moving on.

Next I attacked the light task of swapping out the brake pads and decided i should get that pesky e-brake adjusted too. Both of those went pretty quick once i figured out the procedure for adjusting the e-brake properly.

Next up was the rear swaybar. I yanked it out, completely. with what i want to do, i wan the rear wheels having full articulation. The big Hotchkiss unit i have for the front should keep body roll in check enough for both ends.

Next was dealing with the aftermarket toe arms.. Hooray.. toe adjusters. I got the passenger size off with out too much fighting, but the driver's side was absolutely seized. I would need a torch, and it was already 10:30 on a work night. Time for bed.

The next night I came back, torch in hand and PB Blaster at my side and went to work. After much heat, and some agressive use of a floor jack for additional power, it started to move. The last arm was free, and I was going to be able to wrap up the back end! Huzzah! Pull the bolt out, and.. Crap.



One of these things, is not like the other. One of these things doesn't belong.
The metal under the toe adjuster has been worn away over the car's life, now leaving a big ass hole where a bolt should be fastening to metal. Continuing to make things worse, this is part of the sub frame, which is made of aluminum. So, welding would be difficult, expensive, and beyond the scope of most of my car buddies. Not to mention, this pick up point controls toe, so if it's slightly out of wack, and gives me more toe than i should be able to have.. it's protestable.

So, at this point, I've ordered a replacement subframe from a junk yard, and have also ordered whiteline's bushing kits for the subframe and differential. I guess if i have to tear everything off the car, i might as well get those hard to reach bushings while i'm at it.

On top of everything, I'd spilled my beer fighting the car to free the toe bolt. Damn.
I called it a night, and went to bed.