In 2006 I ran the drags (96 Probe GT) on my A6’s and got best 60’ at 13 psi. I made a ton of runs, started at 20 and dropped 1 psi per run, down to 11, before starting back up.
2.35-ish at 20.
2.007 at 13.
2.4-ish at 11.
2.010 and 2.009 at 13 again.
Minor Confession: I made up that 2.009. I don’t remember the 60’ time from my third run at 13 psi from a race 13 years ago.
Back on the throttle body issue...I tried the easy obvious stuff like cleaning the MAF and TB, checking fuses, and swapping relays. It's PWM by the ECM, so without an oscope I can't for sure check if the ECM is sending what it should be. I'm just gonna replace the whole TB with a junkyard unit and call it wear and tear. It didn't have this issue 1500 miles ago and that's a lot more than most Challenge cars get.
I REALLY don't like having a non-running Challenge car the month before competition and not knowing 100% what the problem is. This is kinda stressing me out.
Have you tried a new throttle body? I wouldn't stress toooooo much until you give that a chance.
In reply to mazdeuce - Seth :
Can't get to the yard til this weekend, so I'm just gonna stress about it all week instead.
maschinenbau said:I REALLY don't like having a non-running Challenge car the month before competition and not knowing 100% what the problem is. This is kinda stressing me out.
i have no idea what you're talking about. Sounds stressful.
I hope you figure it out. I want to beat you, but not like this.
Went to the yard this morning and pulled the TB's from the 2 nicest looking G35s in the lot. I love the ubiquity of this donor car right now! Interesting that half the donors were missing their TBs too...so this is a common problem.
I cleaned the gunk off one, bolted it in, and it fired right up and revved freely! It even set the idle speed automatically and cleared its own codes after warming up. Glad it was this easy! And now I have a backup just in case. Maybe the wet shot a couple inches upstream limits the life of this part.
In reply to maschinenbau :
You should disassemble your known bad unit and see if there is an obvious electronic failure, like a bad wiper arm on the pot trace.
You should also test your spare to make sure it's a known good.
Or, check some of the basic electronic signals from it while it still works- that way if/when you have future problems, you have a baseline to judge against.
Glad to see it back in the hunt!
Went nuts under the hood with a drill brush and some paint. I probably won't wire tuck, because that involves removing the intake, but I can make it presentable.
Tomorrow I'm attending a stance/drift car show called Clean Culture. The flat-brim hat folks seemed to love this car at Gridlife, so they probably will tomorrow too.
Clean Culture was kinda fun. If it was any further than 15 minutes from my house, I probably wouldn't have gone. It was me and like 2 other actual race cars, and everything else was show-only stanced out hellaflushmobiles. Not a terrible way to spend a Sunday afternoon though.
Glad it was simple!
Reading this thread has been amazing. It's inspiring me to start the planning on doing my own paint job on my car! (It really needs it).
Thanks! I see documenting this project as a way to give back to the community I've learned so much from over the years.
Exactly 1 month until the Challenge. Tire decision has been made. 1 more autocross planned to scrub those in. Big scary nitrous jets ordered.
Still need to weld in the roll bar and harness.
Im so looking forward to running head to head with you. You're already faster in a straight line, but i think i have you in autocross. Making us even dynamic score in my mind. Then concourse.
It would be AWESOME to have a tie with you!
I will be trying a version of the ECWTS. I wish box flares could be useful on my car. I may have to do them anyway just because of Datsaniti.
Allow me to summarize ECWTS: drag radials up front = massive understeer. Drag radials out back = massive oversteer. Lower pressure (like really low 20 psi or less) helped both. I was faster with front radials. Both were slower than 3yo used Rivals.
I benchmarked my times from 2 autocross events at the same venue against 5 similarly fast competitors who I know to be experienced, steady drivers with figured-out cars. 1st event on Rivals, 2nd event split between ECWTS#1 and ECWTS#2. Compared to those 5 repeat competitors, ECWTS was over 1 sec slower on a 60 sec course compared to the used Rivals, by averaging my time differences compared to the other 5 drivers. I'm sure I'd be even faster on a full set of freshly scrubbed-in A7's, so that's what I plan to bring. What I'll lack in 60' at the drags, I'll make up for with more nitrous.
Michael - You'll tie me? You'll never have me. You'll never have your car 
Lol.
Damn ricers.....
This was planned, I swear.
I'm swapping out the chopped front lowering springs for some chopped OEM springs to free up $79 in the budget. Over a year ago I bought these used G35 lowering springs on eBay with hope they would normalize the ride height again due to the massive decrease in weight. It was still too high, so I had to chop them anyway. But they are non-linear springs, meaning the coil winding density changes along the height for a progressive spring rate. I ended up chopping more than 1 coil from the "stiff end" at the bottom. I should have chopped from the top to keep the spring stiffer. During autocross, the tops of the front UCA's often bottom out against the steel-reinforced upper spring perches. It's not a good sound.
These lowering springs advertise a rate of 384 lbs, but are progressive, and I cut from the stiff end. 7 coils total. So who knows what rate they actually are now.
The OEM springs are 314 lbs and linear, so they have a constant coil spacing. After the chop, they will have 6 coils total. The wire diameter seems a little thicker than the lowering springs too, so they should have an overall similar or stiffer rate than what I've been riding on. Hopefully that means no more bottoming out. And they're free in the budget, which is mainly what I'm after. Now I just have to guess n chop.
Also this car is so easy to work on. Both struts out in under 20 minutes, including body removal. I didn't even take the wheels or UCA's off.
when your car is so low you have to lift it before you can lift it, you're doing it right.
This is the 36 hour roll bar install. Also my first roll bar. I've been putting this off for way too long. I'm tired now.
You don't need a roll bar until 11.49s in the quarter, which this car may never do, but going over 110 MPH in an 80's Japanese tin can that I welded 4x the stock power to is bit sketchy for me.
1 pre-bent roll bar for a Pinto/Mustang II shipped from Amazon for $43. The other tubes are scrap ag equipment parts from work. Even though they're free for me, I charged them in the Challenge budget at the same rate I pay for off-cuts at the local yard. $0.75/lb
OH and now the berkeleyer is throwing P0102 for the MAF sensor. It's acting like the MAF isn't plugged in at all. Runs like E36 M3 and won't rev past 2500ish. When you unplug it while running, nothing happens. Tried cleaning it and still won't go away.
I did try cleaning it last week when I had all the throttle body issues, so maybe it doesn't like MAF cleaner. Or it randomly failed in the past week. Or I tugged on some wires or some E36 M3.
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