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...