1991 Nissan Primera GT SDC5000 low buck endurance racer

So, a long vacation break of course means that the week before the race ends up being a bit stressful. We quickly lowered our ambitions and decided to just get the car up to standard again, no upgrades.

After the second place race, we had noticed a large degree of toe out. We suspected a bent lower control arm (from the lost wheel last season and a small off this race). But when we started to take the arm off we saw that the lower ball joint was completely thrashed. Free play was at least 1/2". A new ball joint and the front suspension was sorted.

We only had some bent metal and plastic to sort after that, and we added an extra inner mirror too, trying to aid rear view vision.

A bit too late we checked the weather forecasts for the weekend. It was only Wednesday-Thursday before the race we realized that it would be a wet race. Our 17" Yokohama AD08Rs were planned to last at least one more dry drace but in the wet? Thread depth was marginal on two of them. We had two new ones but no rims to put them on (and we did not want to risk damaging a useable set by taking them off the wheels).

Plan B was to use some of the 15" wheels we had last season - two budget brand tyres with good thread and two Hankooks with less. The Hankooks did well in rain before...

Most of Saturday morning was spent in agony over tyre choice. Rain was pouring down...and the forecasts said that it would continue. Some parts of the track had rather deep standing water too.

It wasn't until after scrutineering we made the choice. Rain tyres it is. The team next to us, and the team who won the two first races made the same decision. That proved not to be the brightest idea of the weekend...

Ending up in second place last time meant we had to start at the back of the field, and in the rain our idea was to keep some extra safety margins. The race is 4 hours, not just to turn number 1, and to finish first, first you have to finish.

Even so, we made a decent start and was soon hovering around 4-5-6. Despite the tyres feeling very slippery. But since we still had a decent spot we didn't swap tyres. Even though we saw that the quick cars started to pull away.

I had a really hard time getting familiar with the car with these tyres. The line between grip and no grip (no grip at all!) was very thin and when the front wheels lost traction it took forever to regain. So I increased the margins trying not to bend the car. Our faster drivers managed to put in some better laps and that kept us still in a decent spot.

My second stint went a bit better but after 4-5 laps I thought I heard a noise increasing and then I got a "friendly" tap in the rear as JMS in their BMW compact was making a pass. Shortly after that I pitted to swap drivers and the next guy came half a lap before the muffler left the car in a very determined way.

The muffler had been a bit ajar in an earlier stop but we refitted a rubber strap but obviously it wasn't enough.

We almost loaded the car on the trailer (around 1 hour left to go) but a track worker offered to look for the muffler and when another team said it was used as a brake marker before the hairpin, we got it back. To our amusement all mounts and clamps were still there so we just put it back on to take the checkered flag.

We had 8 laps up to the number 8 spot (we lost 13 laps on this) so no real chance of cathing, unless something broke for someone. You never know. Then we realized, in spot number 8 was a team with a "rental car" (Polo Cup racer) that does not get points. So in reality we had the eighth position.

Team Nordtrade won in their Mitsubisho Colt (running on the Yokos!), Mayflower was second. But Forsman, who won the first races had made the same bad tyre choice as we did and was in 6th place. This means we are still 3rd overall! Only one point down to 4th though. But way better that we hoped for, all things considered.

Then we thought of another thing. During the season we use a reversed starting order, based on the latest race. This means we get to start pretty far forward next time. But, for the last race, it's the overall standings that give the line-up. If, if, if we are still around 3rd overall we get to start pretty far forward in the last race too :-)

The car is basically intact, we just need to sort the muffler, get more rims and swap some brake pads (I hope).

Gustaf

While preparing the car for the 4th race we found another front lower ball joint that had miles of play. Need to get better quality parts there I think. The other issues were quickly sorted, new brake pads all round and the muffler is secured better (R-clips on the mounting rods and one of them got an M10 thread so a nut can keep the rubber in place).

We sincerely hoped for a dry race last Sunday but that was not to be. A rather steady drizzle most of the day and quite an annoying fog. Visibility was sometimes very low and following the race from the pits was a challenge.

We still decided to use our old set of Yokhama AD08's, there was not much standing water at all. We just rotated them to put the best set up front, and hoped for a drying track. When I went out to bed in the brake pads in the morning it was slippery but not hopeless.

One of our drivers called in sick in Saturday evening so we had to make the race on three drivers - we did call our replacement guy from the last race but he had other obligations that apparently was higher ranked. Something about brownie points I think...

We started as number 5 on the grid and we soon saw that our first driver had to combat some oversteer in the wet. When I took the wheel all he said was "slippery!" - but still it was way better than last race. The car was pretty progressive and when it started to slide it was easier to get the grip back. I'm still not really confident in a low-grip fwd car so I dropped a number of spots and I think I handed over the wheel in 7th place or so.

By then, I had the right rear door pushed in by JMS when they tried to pass in the tightest S-bend. I tried to make room when I saw him coming but ran out of tarmac - I don't know how to make a Nissan just disappear from the racing line. No big damages and none of us really was slowed much by the incident though.

Now the track started to dry and we felt the pace improving a bit. The tight S-bends was a challenge for our rather large car. With the big wheels second gear is a bit high for that but in 1st you would just get wheelspin. The bend (like a chicane) was voted in during the pre-race meeting since many of us felt that the otherwise long, sweeping lefthander would be dangerous in the wet. Especially since it has a rather bumpy surface and it ends blind as it tightens. Our car would probably have worked great without the chicane, but safety first!

Despite being a bit down in positions we were still not too far behind the leaders so we felt pretty good.

Just when we were preparing a driver change, the driver in turn just had to make a quick pit stop of his own (ie toilet). When the car had half a lap left he was still nowhere to be seen. I started to look around a bit and then my phone rang - annoyingly. Well, it was mister driver from his pit area - "this will take a while, you have to drive!".

When you gotta go you gotta go so I had to get the helmet on and get ready in a hurry. It all went well :-)

The refuelling stop was a mess though. One of the fuel containers dropped its snout and refitting it took some time. Then the battery shut off so we had to restart that.

However, the race line was now almost dry and we picked up speed. Some teams face technical problems too and we kept our spot pretty nice.

Just after another driver change we saw the tow tractor pull away. Where is our car? Quite a relief when two green lights cut through the fog! The team next to us swapped drivers a moment later and could report that Forsman Motorsport and JMS had crashed in the hairpin, with wheels pointing in all directions.

Bad luck for them, previous wet races have shown that the hairpin is tricky, quite easy to dive bomb someone there... Still, it meant we gained a couple of positions.

I went out in the last stint knowing that we had a pretty decent margin down to 7th, but also that 5th and 4th (team Prospects, Mazda 323F, and Allez Allez, Pug 306) probably was on the same lap as we were - but pretty far ahead. After something like half the stint I saw the Mazda in my mirrors. I wasn't sure if they were about to put a lap on us, or if they had been passed by us in some way. So I decided to try and keep up my pace not to be passed. It was some hard racing, but fair, and I managed to stay in front.

It turned out they were lapping us so in the end it didn't matter. The battle for first was more exciting but I missed all that. Nordtrade was in the lead by something like 35 s to Mayflower. But Nordtrade miscalculated the driver change and ran 1 lap too far while Mayflower swapped in time. That meant a 1 minute penalty for Nordtrade and they were second.

This all meant that Mayflower jumped ahead a bit in the totals, with 76 points. They have had a great season, always on the podium (2 second places, 1 third and now a win). Second is Vision Racing (came in at third place now) on 66 points, third is Forsman (65), we are fourth (64) and Nordtrade are fifth (63). Then we have three teams at 53 points.

One race left. A victory is 20 points and then it's 1 point down per place (19 - 18 - 17 and so on). Mayflower will be hard to beat (but not impossible) and number 2-5 is really tight. It will be a very interesting race on Saturday!

I made a quick video of the race from our view:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/_yIPbkSKdgE

Gustaf

Very cool--thanks for sharing.

My first car (ever) in Gran Turismo was a dark grey Primera. Why? Closest thing they had to my old Sentra SE-R.

So it is time to wrap things up with the report from the last race for 2016. This time the weather forecasts were pretty promising and we had some fresh rubber on the front wheels. We felt it was wise to prepare as good as we could, considering the close competition in the overall standings.

Saturday morning welcomed us with a rater solid layer of frost on the cars...

The sun rose pretty quickly though and soon there was just some light moisture left. We passed scrutineering, filled up with fuel and started the ever returning waiting for the start. We had done some research on tyre pressures (and used a new pressure meter, tested against a couple of others to ensure decent accuracy), so we set them a bit more carefully than before. Somewhere around 2.2-2.3 bar warm was the target.

The starting order for the last race is according to the total standings, mean Mayflower on pole, then Vision and Forsman before us in spot number 4. Nordtrade, chasing us in the totals, were just behind. Out goals were actually pretty simple, as long as we were in front of Nordtrade we would keep the 4th spot. If we beat Vision and/or Forsman some mathematics were needed but we knew Forsman would be hard to beat in the totals since they have two wins (in a draw that would matter). For us to beat them, they would have to finish a number of places behind us.

The track was adjusted a bit and now we had a rather fast "double S" after the first chicane, exciting but tight to pass there. We kept up with the three in front about half a lap, then they started to gain a pretty good gap to us. But we also put a decent amount of ground between the Primera and Nordtrade in 5th. Pretty soon it was obvious that it was better to keep a safe 4th than trying to catch the top teams. Our driver Hans made a good start and was very consistent, 9 laps on times between 1.37.802 and 1.36.276 where all 1.36-times was in the middle.

Our first driver swap was pretty good and we caught up a bit, while Mayflower lost a lot of time. We might even have climbed to third spot there if I remember it right.

When I entered my first stint as driver #3 there was soem traffic from lapped cars. But now most cars are so fast, that lapping can be a challenge. Most lapped cars do leave space but you still need to be faster to pass! I fought a few laps before passing the Golf of Team RR and the story was repeated with Prospects Mazda 323. Both cars are a lot faster this year, and it was fun to race them even though my lap times was hurt a bit. I even had a close call with a track marker chasing the Golf.

Somewhere in all this 4Sign caught us from behind in their Opel Astra and they passed us, I think. They have had some true bad luck so in the totals they were too far behind and no real threat. When Nordtrade lost all gears except 4th, we started to feel pretty confident that we could keep the 4th place overall.

When Hans came out of the car after his second stint he yelled "refuelling" (we have no intercom), and that's way earlier than usual. We decided to let Jonas drive his stint but we had the refuelling kit ready, in case he needed to come in early. But Jonas had no issues with fuel (the car quite markedly starts to hickup when fuel is low, and that was what Hans had felt) so I went out in my second stint with a plan to refuel at the next stop. I had some issues ghetting the seat belt to latch so we lost some time there. But I still thought I had better momentum and I gained on both Vision and Forsman in front of us. I even was up in the bumper of the Saab for a couple of laps before I started to get the refuelling hickups and then I backed off a bit to save fuel.

At the same time Mayflower ran like crazy, but were still lagging a bit because of their slow driver changes. Then they came into the pits with a flat front tire - flatspotted during the frenetic chase. But they quickly but on a spare and was flying again.

Then 4Sign came in with smoke pouring from the front wheels - their brake pads were totally gone and the seals burst in the calipers. A sad ending for their season.

We felt that our speed improved and somehow we were in second place behind Forsman. Someone even reported us as leaders for a while but I never noticed.

As I went out the third time I immediately felt a vibration from the front, and a sound very much like the one that preceeded the loss of a front wheel in the last race for 2015. After little more than a lap it only felt worse so I went into the pits un-planned. Angrily revving the engine to get the attention of the others in the team. But they all said they had a noise for the last two stints, just GO!

Vision had now passed us but despite the clunks and vibration I slowly gained on them. But then the vibrations got worse and I backed off, for the last lap it was so bad I decided to just coast with the hazards on to get back to the pits.

In the pits we found that the wheel was full of grease - CV joint fail? Maybe, but more alarmingly the wheel was loose. Again. One stud broken and three where the nuts had backed off. We tighened them and removed the brake cooling duct that was loose (and had cut the CV joint boot and sent the car out again.

Now we were 4th and had no clue how long it would last on three studs and with the damaged CV joint. But we had 30 minutes left to go, so we could only hope. As long as the car finished, 4th overall should be ours. But still, we were only two laps behind getting on the podium again. Mayflower had already worn through one tyre, and Forsman complained about a wheel bearing...anything could happen!

Well, it didn't. We got in at 4th, 3 laps behind Forsman who won the race with Vision and Mayflower in 2nd and 3rd. We had two laps down to RR in 5th.

This meant that Mayflower took the overall win (94p). Vision and Forsman was tied (85) but Forsman had two wins so they get second place. We're 4th at 81 and Nordtrade is 5th on 74.

We are quite satisfied with the season overall. Our first podium finish and barring the wet races we have been fast all the time. The car has finished every race with no big faults.

Weak spots? It's worrying that the right front wheel has wanted to fall off in the last race of each season. It is the wheel that sees the most loads. But we had new press fit studs, the nuts are correct and we have not stretched them warm. We do need to be more cautious using a torque wrench though, always.

We have plastic spigot rings, perhaps they should be metal? They should not bear any load but if the brake heat distorts them or makes them soft?

For this race we had a new (used) set of front wheels, ACE I think. We bought 4 used ones where one wheel had a crack (not the one we use), on the tyre lip. That might indicate a lower quality wheel perhaps, maybe they flex? It is also the kind where the centre is not solid, the surface that goes agains the hub has 4 "blocks", not a solid circle, like the other 17" wheels we run have.

We have some other areas to improve also but somehow this feels like a priority. Keeping the wheels on the car, the racecar, is quite crucial.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2lrpcHNEl4w

The race cam gave us a bit of material to work with, so you may want to quick forward a bit :-)

Gustaf

We actually had a very lazy winter with this car. We fixed the CV boot that came loose, swapped some wheel studs, swapped gas tank and made som adjustments to the front wheel alignment. The big thing there was to work with the angle of the upper suspension link, to get a better camber curve.

Other than that it was just a regular service.

On the other hand, we have been working more with the race series. In February, Bengt Astergren, both a spiritual and practical father of the series, suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Apart from being a tragedy in that we lost a very good friend, and a family lost their father, we had a race series with no leader. Bengt did most of the work, from arranging permits, taking in the race applications to designing the track course and cooking the post-season race party dinner. He was also the CEO of the company running the airfield where the race is run.

We soon realized that the best way to honour his memory, was to keep racing, they way he would have done it. A group of dedicated people have worked hard, even harder since the new owners of the track decided to let us handle it ourselves. They have supported us well but of course need to take care of their business - also meaning that we had to move the track inside the area.

The upside of this is that we now have a track that is almost permanent - earlier most of it had to be taken down each weekend to make room for driver education.

May 20th saw the first race and this time it was really exciting. Would the new track work out? How would the old Nissan fare agains the new teams in their well prepared racecars?

For me, being both a racer and an organizer, it was double the fun (or double the agony, pick one. Or pick both).

The start was a bit late, and we sat a little bit further up than the middle. But our start-man did his work, as always, and soon we were up among the top. When we swapped drivers after the first stint we were second, and I even think we managed to take the lead for a short while.

My first drive was not entirely successful, dehydration set in and I had some trouble concentrating. I was hit rather hard from behind by last years winner too and that put me a bit off pace.

Later on we settled in arund 4th place and when Mayflower (last years winners, the ones that hit me) had more bad luck and smashed their radiator in an incident we moved up to 3rd. That's also where we finished.

The track worked out fine, there is a really narrow and rather bumpy stretch but using that part just gives so much back, that everyone agrees it is worth it.

Enjoy the crappy editing but close racing!

https://www.youtube.com/embed/8kN6ZAMmMTo

Gustaf

Is it still a project or a build when you basically do nothing?

I don't want to jinx things but this year the car had been surprisingly low maintenance. Bleed brakes, swap some tyres, change some rear pads.

Race #2 in June I messed up the camera, so no video. Short story is we finished third again, despite running on 3 drivers.

Race #3 was last Saturday and to be honest it was a bit of a disaster in that we made most mistakes possible. We hit other cars (sorry guys!), we hit track markers (sorry barrels!) and then we ran out of fuel (sorry towing guy!).

And yet, others had even more bad luck so we still ended up in 5th place. Not that we really deserved it...or maybe we did, because the car is rather quick when we keep it together.

Enjoy (?) the 40 minutes left after editing...

SDC5000 August 19th

https://www.youtube.com/embed/XkTr-bltl4E

Regards

Gustaf

An update is way overdue since the season is over by a couple of months.

The not so lucky (but as it turned out, lucky anyway) race number 3 above, meant that we all tried to make the fourth (and penultimate) race of the season a better experience.

Saying that; I do have to state that racing is a bit like sex. It happens not often enough, but it still is good even when it's not that great. 

We straightened out the worst damages from last race and fitted some new nice BBS wheels we had found. Good priced set but a bit low on ET, so they didn't fit without spacers in the rear. Spacers sourced and the car looked great.

Not sure if we should blame the slightly wider rear track but soon we felt that we had a bit of an understeering pig this time, especially in the slower corners. But we hang in there, around 4th-5th spot. A couple of good driver changes saw us move up the field a bit and on my first stint out-lap I managed to zoom past the BX of Forsman Motorsport and we were second! Then I hit a barrel.

My second stint started with refuelling (see! we learn) and then I got the bad vibrations again - almost like the loose wheel frenzy we had before. But not really the same, it was worse under power and at one point the steering wheel was practically yanked from my hands - and I hit a barrel. During the stop-and-go I radioed the pits about the vibrations and we decided to come in. No wheel nuts loose and upon further inspection, the left inner CV joint was really loose. We decided to call it a day, in order to not damage something else. By now we were down to 7th or so with no real chances to improve on our second best placement (5th from last race). 

The drama on film:

And the sad crew:

When we got back home we yanked a drive shaft from the parts car (and realized, that if we had brought parts, a 15 minute fix would have had us out on the track again) and ordered more spacers. Last race should not be run with the same understeer, we thought.

As the final race was getting nearer our biggest fear was rain. Now, our car has been decent in rain before but having to hang around a wet pit for 5 hours is not that great. But in honesty, we had three dry and one drying race this season so we sort of saved up for a rainy event.

And so it was. Several teams had sever problems with grip and we were not the worst by far. But we felt quite slow and soon we started to feel like we would have to fight to stay around 5th, the hopes of a top finish soon went away. 

Halfway in we had the first big crash of the season, the BMW E36 of Yellow and black fishtailed and hit the barriers.

No injuries and despite the first impression, the placement of the barriers worked pretty good. A short red flag to clear the track and we were racing again. I was drifting.

We were now 5th, and had Björnligan (the bear crew) hunting us from behind. We tried to keep it safe and neat, they had some off-track excursions.

I went out on the last stint, knowing I would have to run around 6-7 laps and try to keep the bears behind. They were gaining seconds per lap, and if I had a spin, or took a penalty, they would catch us. So I was a coward, checked the mirrors and went safe. So safe, that the crew radioed me asking what was wrong!

Nothing, it turned out. We took the flag in 5th.

Despite feeling slow we were only 1 lap down behind the four teams ahead of us, and when the math was done, we finished 4th in the totals. Same spot as last year but competition is harder and with only two "good" races, one "meh", one DNF and one so/so, we were still happy.

https://youtu.be/8vzAj1wF1z0 

Quite soon our silly season started, what should our plans be for 2018? The trusty P10 started to show signs of abuse, especially the BMW-induced abuse resulting in a caved-in drivers door. A team meeting was in order and we decided to try building a "new car". The P11 Primera GT (newer version) we bought during the 2016 season and saved for later, may just come into play. It needs a head gasket but otherwise feels like a decent platform. And as long as the P10 is still running we have a backup-plan.

Then there are our juniors and wifes, some of them are dying to get into this racing addiction too. So maybe they can inherit the P10?

Gustaf

Awesome thread.

I can't wait to read about the new car.

Thanks!

We had the new car in the workshop last week for some measurements. A lot of parts are on order, mostly standard wear items such as brake discs, bushings, a head gasket set and stuff like that. With the regulations minimizing the modifications, preparation of the car is mostly eliminating any weak spots (and on a 20 year old beater there are some) and doing some wise things with what you are allowed to change.

Our basic plan is to work with the front suspension (camber, caster, possibly camber curve) - it is essentially the same as on the P10 and we think we found the way forward there on the old car. The rear suspension is completely different though, the P10 has a strut type multi-link, where the P11 has a much simpler beam axle suspension. However, in BTCC the beam axle was more successful so we have some hope.

Special built shocks are on order from GAZ in the UK. Our rules allow adjustable dampers but not "coilovers with adjustable spring platforms". All in the spirit of keeping costs down, something that I support, but the reality is that "cheap coilovers" are cheaper than fixed Bilsteins now. Anyway, our GAZ dampers turned out pretty good in price and I have used them before with some success.

Springs are still an unknown, generic lowering springs are a bit soft. A rule change now allows us to use 60 mm race springs or other springs as long as they can use standard platforms. So I have some ideas.

First plan of attack is to weigh the car for a baseline as it stands, and the rip out the interior to judge how much rust needs to be fixed, and then get the cage fabrication going. Then a new corner weight and get some springs ordered.

Gustaf

What is the airfield you race at so I can look at it on Google Maps?

Love this story.  What are your entry fees and costs?  I get the feeling from reading this thread that it's lower than most LeMons or Chump racing here in the States.

The Google Maps coordinates should be 65°05'56.9"N 20°46'01.6"E

However the Google images are quite old, the Swedish Hitta site is fresher:

https://www.hitta.se/kartan!~65.10499,20.76587,13.499668687958149z/tr!i=XUpzHBbz/tileLayer!l=1/search!i=~dlCXHGGbk!q=Skellefte%C3%A5%20Drive%20Center%20AB%2C%20F%C3%A4llforsheden%205%20F%C3%A4llfors!t=single!st=cmp!a=65.11650:20.75921/GPS!l=65.09968:20.76690

(if the link works)

We race now in the south end (bottom of the screen) part of the airfield.  There is an ongoing construction to build a real racetrack on the northern end of the area. 

The way we have the series setup now, the entry fee is SEK 3000 (around 330 USD) per race or a lump sum of 12 500 (just under 1400 USD) for the entire season of five races. The drivers license (insurance) is around SEK 500 a year (per driver). Splitting the cost between four drivers means it is rather manageable, I think.

We have made a rough budget to put the new car on track, and around SEK 40 000-45 000 (4400-5000 USD) should get us there. That is less new tires and fuel but includes most other parts that are needed. A season of racing for us is generally 8 new tires, 2 sets of brake pads front (ST43's) and 2 sets rear (stock). We tend to use around 80-90 litres of fuel per race. 

There is money involved, but I have been pretending to do dragracing before and I think a season when I normally made three races cost me more than a season of endurance racing. I don't dare compare the seat time :-)

We have also been lucky to find some sponsorship for the entry fees, a couple of tire sets, fuel and some oils. As long as we are that lucky I won't complain about costs.

Regards

Gustaf

Last night we made the real start on the new car. We're using a new workshop closer to home but so far, it means the car stays outside when we're not working on it. Hardly ideal...

Goal of the evening was to get most of the interior stripped out, to assess if there was rust to deal with and to prepare for the cage. But first, establish a baseline for the weight.

This is less driver, and with an un-known (but small) amount of fuel in the tank, spare tire still in the car. This is a heavy thing! Let's hope a lot of that weight is the airbags (driver and passenger, plus side bags in the seats), and the nice seats, and the AC...and...something else that can be removed. The rules only allow lightening through stuff that can be un-bolted, no cutting.

We sort of got it all stripped, except for the dash - we need to get some tamper-proof Torx bits to remove the airbags. 

I also ran across the Nissan NATS system, the immobilizer. We need to get a battery in and check that we haven't upset anything about that, apparently it is a bit temperamental and not really easy to disable. Good I guess for the stock car when it was new but may turn out to be an annoyance when building a race car.

As for rust? We found it, in abundance. All four corners of the floor, the rear wheel wells, trunk floor...let's just say there will be plenty of welding. But that's what you get when you start with a sub 500 dollar car I guess. 

Gustaf

Small and maybe insignificant update, but still an update.

Race seat and steering wheel has arrived, found a deal on a seat that will probably work fine. But I need to order a slider seat mount - on the P10 we re-used the sliders from the standard seat but that won't work in the P11.

Me and a team mate got a couple of hours last night, and the first thing to do was a test start to see if we have upset the NATS immobilizer. Thankfully, it started as great as ever (after standing for 6 months). It even starts with the inside motion sensors disconnected, and part of the central locking loom. 

The wiring in this car is massive, with all of the alarm, central locking, power windows, airbags and stuff. But I'm not sure it's worth cutting it all out. Time will tell.

I fought the airbags (driver and passenger), the steering wheel was easy but the passenger bag does not want to come out. I guess we'll get to that when we remove the dash for the cage build.

Other small things done was to remove front fog lights, washer fluid container and intake resonator. These things are sat in front of the wheels, effectively blocking all air flow to the brakes. We removed the stuff on the P10 and it made a great difference so it can't hurt doing it on this one too.

That's about as far as we got. We need to get the cage ordered and decide what comes first - cage build or ripping the engine out (it needs a head gasket). On one hand, it is very helpful to have the car driveable for as long as possible. On the other hand, the engine work may well spiral into a complete rebuild. And that takes time.

Gustaf

I'm very happy to have found this thread. Long time Nissan fan here. I chose a 1993 Infiniti G20 to build for a cheap endurance series here in the states (chump/lemons/lucky dog). Unfortunately I can't find any information on people doing this kind of racing in this chassis. This thread is gold. I have so many questions. For now, I look forward to the updates! Please post more info/pics on the alignment mods you've done if you don't mind! Thanks!

That's nice to hear!

I have been looking at Chump/Champ/Lemons a bit over the net, and I would to visit a race sometime when I'm in the US. I family on the West Coast (Bay Area) so it might happen.

The most important changes are in the front suspension. Most of it is snagged from the G20.net forum where a poster called "CovertRussian" has made some nice analyses of what happens in the suspension geometry. The top links are shortened 10 mm (you can buy those from Cusco it seems) and for 2017 we also lowered the inner mounting point for the upper link (remove bracket and redrill holes for upper link, about 15mm lower and 5mm back).

This transformed the car, from rolling onto the outer edges of the front tyres we now have even tyre wear. If you look up the camber curve measurements CovertRussian made you see that these mods will give a much better camber compensation curve.

Otherwise we have tried to dial in a bit of toe out for the front wheels. For the rears we run camber bolts in the P10 to get around 2-2,5 degrees negative camber.

This is on a car with "too soft" springs though so if you run stiffer springs and less suspension movement maybe it's not as revolutionary.

A lot of my inspiration also came from the MotoIQ G20, although it is heavily modified now the early articles give quite a good starting point I think.

On another note, I have received a large number of boxes containing stuff for the P11. Most exciting is the GAZ adjustable shocks we ordered. Sounds really fancy to have custom made shocks for a $500 racecar but as I said earlier, the price is right. A very nice find is that 2,25" springs fit over the dampers, cheap springs are available! I have a small collection of springs from the development of the Capri and new ones are not costly.

Next workshop session is planned for Saturday and this time it actually looks like all four of us may be able to make it.

Gustaf

We had a pretty decent working weekend. Two of the floor holes are patched, the front end with bumper, lights etc. is dismantled ready for engine removal and some checks. But the main reason for that was to get rid of the stubborn light cleaning system. The motors for the small headlight wipers are heavy...

I stripped all doors from the electric window motors, and then went on to build a seat frame for the racing seat. Meanwhile my buddies stripped the non needed electric wiring for airbags, electric windows, central locking, heated seats etc.  We got rid of all of the wiring down the right hand side of the car, really nice. We never got this far on the P10...

We are now more or less ready for cage building, the instrument panel is also removed so we just need to get the seat frame done and get the cage ordered.

A funny thing is that we can't seem to find the immobilizer box. We have disconnected "all" control boxes we can find, except for the engine ECU, and the car still starts and runs, and the immobilizer LED still happily blinks. 

Next wrenching session it might be time to put it on the scales again to see how much weight we have lost.

Gustaf

In reply to therealpinto :

That would be really cool if you could check out a champ/lucky dog Race when you visit the states. I think thunder Hill is close to the Bay area. The owner of the Miata that I raced with in chump has actually won the 25 hour race there in a spec Miata. Apparently it's a wonderful track. Most likely the p10 will only be raced at Portland international raceway, about 10 hours north of there. 

Thanks for the suspension information! My suspension was/is going to look like this:

-shortened upper links

-Tien springs (only ones available!)

-custom 1" raised upper shock mount

-camber bolts for rear

And thanks for the tip on relocating the upper link mounting point! I hadn't thought of that at all... I'll look into that as well as covert's posts.

I too learned a lot from the Motoiq article. It seems to be the only well documented, serious build that pertains to road racing. I both love and hate how rare this car is in road racing. So Motoiq and your build are super valuable! Keep up the good work. 

In reply to SuperTouring :

Are you building a G20 Track car too!!??

In reply to SuperTouring :

Im building a g20 for Track Days and eventually WRL/ Champ Car. 

Here is my build. I have a lot of parts if you need anything let me know! 

G20 Build

I'd be curious to know why getting the white parts p10 required a crane? Loved the thread, I briefly owned a pearl white g20.

Thanks for the comments guys!

Actually, Portland is a place where my Bay Area family goes from time to time (think they have some friends there) so who knows...

Before our rule change to allow non standard diameter springs, I tried to research other springs that might work. But I started with rear springs and since our P11 has the beam axle that info is no good for you. The front springs with their weird conical shape also means they are hard to replace with other, similar looking springs.

One of our drivers is a crane driver and the easiest way of getting the white parts car was to use the crane. Quicker than pulling our my trailer in the middle of the winter :-) The car was basically free ISTR and I don't think we even met the seller in person when we picked it up, literally. I was just waiting for the neighbours to call the cops :-)

I have ordered some external mirrors (more on that as they arrive perhaps) and tonight I hope to be able to finish the seat mount.

Gustaf

B13Birk said:

In reply to SuperTouring :

Are you building a G20 Track car too!!??

Now that I officially know of 2 people that are building/racing p10's I guess I should make a build thread on here!

I think that going with a more common spring diameter will be key.  I purchased the tein springs because I don't want to get distracted reinventing the wheel when I have a car to prepare for the track.  I'll install these tein's and hit the track and see if I can come up with a solution for the soft springs at a later time.  I'm sure that will be an issue that I'll need to solve. 

P10 or P11, keep the pictures of the build coming!

In reply to SuperTouring :

Ive got tons of parts. And there is a group buy going right now on the last haul of p10 rear sway bars. That you will for sure want to get your hands on. If you are on facebook find me and send me a friend request. Ill add you to two FB groups where you can find loads of parts and get in on the group buy. My name is Jon Birkmire

We've been working with the cage fitting and yesterday we got as far as having the main hoop and the front stays connected to each other.

This time we are fitting the front stays as far forwards as we can, in front of the standard dash bar that the steering column fixes to. It meant redesigning the heater a bit and we might need to move the fuse box a bit. But it's probably worth it to get a "bigger" door opening.

Boxes and plates will be built as we go along.

I have also been working on the seat, we found a brand new one at a really good price. But it turned out to be too narrow for at least 50% (probably 75%) of the team. Meaning, it fits me (with  a rather non-deserved Formula 1-driver body shape) great but not the other three.

Whe stole the seat out of the old car for now but I have another seat coming. With old seat we finished the seat mounting. We use sliders (se paragraph above for explanation) and this time they are more carefully positioned. The most forward position is where I want to be, and we put stops for the most rearward position the others will use. This means only two settings with no risk of going to far either direction.

The rails also slope upwards towards the fronts to effectively shorten the hip bands for me. No belt fitted yet but I have some hope it will work out good.

When the other guys notched cage tubing I fitted some brake lights in the rear window - LED truck lights, all plastic and light with lightweight brackets. I am a bit worried they may fatigue and break off but we'll see. There is a third brake light in the spoiler also but you can never be too cautious.

Gustaf

Winter season in Northern Sweden means a couple of things. Usually cold and snowy (and storing a race car to be outside is less than ideal), but for our team it also means a shortage of time. 3/4 of the team have campers in the mountains for skiing and snow mobiling. That takes away precious garage time.

Still we are slowly trickling forwards with the cage. But we need to pick up speed to get the thing done in time for the first race so I feel that next work night may mean we split the forces and start working on ripping the engine and transmission out.

That will make the car non-driveable but I think we will have to manage. I'm think about building a tow/push bar, the car still has a trailer hitch mounted. That would make it reasonably easy to pull/push inside, I think.

Anyone with experiences from pushing a car with a bar like that? It would need to be pushed inside the garage, preferably using a standard car.

Gustaf