Grabbed breakfast, heading to the track soon
Grabbed breakfast, heading to the track soon
Driver's meeting.
Passed tech.
Fisrst in autocross so far!!!
On federal rsr!
Randy Pobst drove our car!
What size are those steelies?.....and what car are they from?
Video?
Indy-kid #2's first Ever Autocross
Amazing day. The car was very well received.
Thanks again to everyone who helped out with the car.
Your car (and family) are amazingly cool!
Wow! This car is like a smorgasboard of good stuff. The whole team seems to be having a blast and so am I following along.
That got around the cones faster than I expected.
Was disappointed in the 1/4 mile ET until I remembered that it still has the stock Miata engine. The car must launch well as the 60ft times are almost the same as I get with the 302 V8 engine. Got budget left for a turbo and NO2 for next year?!
Pete
This makes me really happy!
I know you guys are driving back but it was so cool to see this car and you guys have a successfull challenge. The car is amazing, but the positive vibes your families brought to the event are incredible.
I did not know Steve other then from the forum, but you guys honored his dreams and anyone would be proud of the way you went about it and what you all achieved with his start. You presented one man's legacy, but also created one of your own by bringing together a community to get it done. I'm honored to have had any small part in helping this car get to the finish line.
It's going to be awesome to see what you guys do as you finish and develop the car.
Aaaannnnndddddd......
We made it home safely.
Car is tucked away in the mythical land of Japenden!
More updates after we get caught up on sleep!
DeadSkunk (Warren) said:What size are those steelies?.....and what car are they from?
Michael (Dusterb13) picked them up for us in North Carolina after we negotiated a $400 price for the set.
Michael also got the tires mounted on them for us and delivered em to the Challenge.
Thanks Michael 
Those wheels were so cool. They really finished the look nicely! 😊
Glad I could help you guys. Was really awesome to see you guys having such a good time as well as seeing those federals place that high
In reply to Indy - Guy :
Ah...I'm familiar with those, just never occurred to me that you get a set in budget. They do look properly vintage on the Volvo. I can't help but think it would have been nice if Steve had held on long enough to see what you guys have done with the car. Good on you for finishing the dream.
This car and these humans are awesome.
It was awesome meeting yall and hanging out!
Beginning of theTrip Report from Indy-Guy (Gariathon will contribute his perspective later)
Arrived at the host hotel at 10:15am after driving 866 miles straight through the night from the Indianapolis area:
Michael (Dusterb13d) delivered our care package, a set of Corsa wheels he drove 3 hours round trip to pick up for us, and then he even had our tires mounted on the rims too. Amazingly generous guy!
Gariathon installed the tires one by one while it was still on the trailer:
There wasn’t a real “Parking Lot Build” going on this year, so that energy and magic from the community flowed onto our car spontaneously. Our trunk lid was pretty sad, but had a unique ground onto patina from Steve. Someone mentioned the pattern looked similar to a world map. Someone else suggested labeling the larger portions as though they were continents. This sparked everyone’s creativity: Northern Sweeden has a Lake area! It just flowed. I think it was Mr. Asa who initially grabbed his paint pens and the process began, later, John Brown (Quasi-Mofo) made a trip to purchase more paint pens (thanks). Lots of people contributed.
John and Indy-kid #5 were major contributors, spending hours finishing it up:
Note: “Rost Hink” is rust bucket in Swedish
We hung out the rest of the day with fellow competitors as they arrived throughout the day. The kids swam in the pool and enjoyed the hot tube. After grabbing some fish sandwiches from the Dairy Queen at the corner, we called it a night and grabbed some much-needed sleep.
Friday, Dynamic Competition Day Beginning AutoCross Report from Indy-Guy:
The track is about a 30 minute drive from the host hotel, so up early to grab some breakfast and hit the road:
We saw a UFO enroute:
Obligatory shot with the sign:
We unloaded the car and went for a first test drive on the new wheels. Grinding was heard as the fronts slightly contacted the spring perches, and one of the wheel weights was ground down. Functional, but just barely. We just let them finish self clearancing. (it wasn’t that bad)
(yes, the tape was dangling and needed to be redone)
I asked Garathion to take it for a drive so we could get a second opinion.
.
Steering effort is HUGELY increased with these wide, low profile wheels compared to the stock Miata tire package. While out for the test drive, we heard a bit of a clunk when transitioning directions rapidly. Stopping to investigate, fearing the worst, we concluded it was the engine moving side to side in the large diameter hole of the engine mounts relative to the bolt shank size. We will correct this.
During this process, we discovered a fluid on the under side of the hood and on one of the brake lines. OUCH!. But the car was stopping fine? And master cylinder fluid level looked good? We cleaned it all up and tentatively test drove it again. More fluid but less this time. Then Garaithon had a brilliant discovery: it was power steering fluid from the rack and pinion lines that were left open (no P.S. pump installed) Ok, on to the morning drivers meeting and course walk after passing tech.
Then onto the stagging lanes for our first run session:
It’s a Fun car to drive on course and my time was decent. More importantly, it survived without incident.
(foreshadowing) But the temp gage seemed a bit high as I pulled back around to staging.
Awesome, I love these updates thanks for posting them up.
I have to make it to a challenge. It is the 14hour tow down that scares me away.
More AutoCross Update: Randy Pobst ! ! !
I’ve been a fan of Randy Pobst for years. Both of my sons (Indy-Kid’s #2 & #3) grew up watching him test the RoadKill crazy creations and other Motor Trend on-line content with me. So when I saw that he was going to be a Pro-driver available at the Challenge, I was super excited. I must get him to drive our car was my thought.
After the first run through the Autocross course, the temps were pretty high on the gage, so we parked in the stagging area and raised the hood to allow the engine to cool. After several minutes, Gariathon went out for a run in the car and it got hot again, so more opening of the hood to cool off between runs.
Then after getting out of someone else’s car, Randy walks over to ask if he can drive our car ! Are you kidding? I was trying to find him to ask !
He came into the stagging area, and asked if he could drive it again!
ABSOLUTELY !
That’s when he recorded our fastest time of the day, and temporarily put us into first in class.
We couldn’t believe it. In a span of about an hour, we went from fluid leaks, grinding wheels, clunking engine scares to sitting in the top spot as the first run group ended. What an emotional roller coaster!
Very awesome on every level and way!
AutoCross Afternoon Session & Fun Runs.
After a break for lunch, we returned to the staging area for two more timed runs. We had already used up two of our Pro-Driver tickets in the morning session, plus Gariathon and I both drove once. Pro Driver Dave Marcus took the car out and hit a cone in the first slalom after my run to warm up the tires. We weren’t able to improve our time from the morning session.
The temperature gage would climb to the 3/4 hot mark after each run, but would settle into the 1/2 way mark once cooled for a few minutes. So we had some fun runs. I think I took two more runs, and Indy-Kid # 2 made his first ever AutoCross run. He did FANTASTIC missing all the cones, staying on course and not getting lost. Plus it was reasonably fast. He did a second run, which I was able to record on video.
After those runs, Gariathon took Mary (Michael’s daughter) out for a fun run. She commented that it was much smoother and enjoyable compared to the ride in Rob’s V6 swapped RX8.
After these runs the car failed to start after multiple attempts, so we began to trouble shoot the cause. It would try to fire a bit, and then die. The intake manifold was scorching hot, as well as the lower radiator hose. But the upper radiator hose, and radiator themselves weren’t very hot. We suspected heat soak, so we left the car on grid to cool down and walked back to the pits (it was the break between fun runs and the beginning of the drags at night)
Autocross take aways:
Steve’s vision and desire to improve the Volvo’s handling characteristics was an Absolute Success! Randy’s comments were the car felt neutral and predictable, with no weird oversteer or understeer. He commented that the tires were pretty good (Federal 595 Rs-pro). His only suggestion for improvement was an observation that the break bias was a little too much for the front. He hinted this is a common trait that Miata’s share and that a more aggressive pad compound in the rear would probably yield good results.
Specifics to this event. I didn’t realize that we were supposed to get 3 runs in the morning session, and then 3 in the afternoon. It just didn’t sink into my brain during the drivers meeting. An observation: the fastest Autocross times were seen in the afternoon session. This is probably because the pro drivers have more familiarity with the course. For those of us on street tires, the extra heat would help with grip. Perhaps we could have gotten a few more tenths of a second faster if things were different. Maybe not. Either way, we finished 5th in our class with a best time of 42.544. Pretty amazing for a car that we only assembled but wasn’t sorted or developed yet. Thanks Steve, you engineered a really good starting point for us to improve upon.
You'll need to log in to post.
