Datsun Roadster: 2020 Challenge Build

And now we're gonna do some manga lines, dad.

You have done incredible work on this project, but your son's additions just add so much to it in terms of finish and character! My hats off to him! And 10 point for the father/son collab!

that livery has some similarity to the #4 Mercedes AMG GT3 that raced the N24 this weekend...

All loaded and just about to hit the road.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Safe travels !

Indy - Guy said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Safe travels !

Thank you!

We made it down last night, had some dinner, and basically passed out. There is a Miata and a Manx body lying suspiciously close together in the parking lot. Smells like teen spirit.

However I took a few moment to clean my wheels. Clean wheels and tires are happy wheels and tires!

Waiting for run group c

Damn that looks good sir!  Need to hear times from your runs!

Very well done sir!    
My compliments.  

Alright, well I had planned to update more as the day went on, but as it turns out, I got a little busy.

We were in run group c, so we toddled over to grid for our first few runs of the day when group c was called. First run was hot, 51.5 ish. 

Second run looked amazing (and I swear Alan was on track for a 49.something), but about 2/3 around the course I suddenly saw smoke come off the car. Uh oh. Alan pulled off the course but was able to drive back to grid under the cars own power.

Very quickly we saw the source of the smoke. Another CV axle had blown up (same side) and the resulting grease had been flung all over everything - including the exhaust. Ok, so smoke not huge problem, but CV axle is. 

Back in grid we saw the root cause of the axle problem. Thinking about it, this may have also contributed to my original axle failure too, though the length was definitely not correct either. 

Yes, that's my outer mount ripping off its frame. Some idiot only welded 2 of 3 available sides of that bracket....

But now, midday at the challenge, with a respectable but not as fast as we knew we could go autox time and the entire drag race event to go, we had a problem on our hands. How to fix this. 

The bad decision triangle jumped into action. With help from many sides (and the use of a generator and welder) we devised a plan to hammer the mount back to it's approximate original position and re weld, and then add reinforcement. We came up with something that looked like this, and we did both sides for good measure.

Unfortunately this only solved half of our problem.

We had also ripped the CV axle in half due to the over extension due to the torn mount. And while I brought an extra axle with me, I had not brought an extra "long side" axle. A quick parking lot disassembly of both axles showed that we would not simply be able to put the good tripod on the longer shaft. Drat. Only option is to do major rework to fit a shaft that is about 1 inch too short. 

Undeterred and against many odds, we talked through some solutions and decided we had only one real shot. Move the hub inboard about half and inch (use wheel spacers to move the wheel back out to it's starting position), and then also use a spacer on the inboard side of the hub to push the axle inboard the other half inch needed. Here is the result:

In the above photo you can see where we cut the trailing arm straight across (as straight as you can by eye in a parking lot with a grinder) in front of the two hub bolts. We then moved in over half an inch and rewelded it in using some flat plate over the weld underneath to reinforce and a slice of leftover tube on the side to add a bit more reinforcement.

In the above photo you can also just make out the piece of aluminum jack handle we sliced off the closest harbor freight racing jack and slipped over the axle splines to make our axle spacer.

We got all this done and reassembled with the best eyeball alignment we could do in about 2.5 hours. An incredible team effort.

I sent the car back out to grid with about 30 minutes to go before autox closed. I told Alan and Dan not to baby it. We would either break or go fast. I didn't want to go slow.

Dan did 2 runs, Alan did one, and then Dan took the final pass. 50.9 with 'nocones' was the last pass and marked our fastest run of the day. I think we were about .7 seconds behind FTD for under budget cars. Incredible.

Then we got ready for the drags. I knew we were going to need every tenth we could find, so we installed the nitrous kit I had (fruitlessly, it would turn out).

A couple team members went for hogans sandwiches and brought them back to the track. As we sat huddled under the limited shade of our enclosed trailer, we absolutely feasted. Long day of high intensity and high pressure work, but we pulled through and posted a respectable autox time. As we are the sandwiches that were way too big, we shifted our plans to drag racing.

I did the drag race driving, and on our first attempt I felt slow off the line, but apparently posted a 13.841. encouraged by that result, I ran a few more, but kept going slower and slower. More and more slippage at the line. We tried changing tire pressures, damper settings, etc, but couldn't find the grip. Even the nitrous wasn't working right. 14 after 14 after 14.

But we kept trying and trying and as I was waiting to stage for a run later on, I noticed that the raceway crew was re-prepping the track. I also noticed the guys who had a sick fiero (who looked like they knew what they were doing) staging next to me were clearing rocks from their tires by hand. I decided that wasn't a bad idea so I jumped out to do it myself. I found a 2 inch staple in one of my rear tires, and one of the fiero guys graciously helped me pull it out with his pocketknife. Luckily it wasn't through the tread.

That pass I posted a 13.831. not a huge improvement but an improvement.

That would turn out to be our best time of the night, so we parked the car and got to bed early (yeah right) for the concour the next morning.

That's awesome!

The concour was a fun day as always. It's great to walk around and check out everyone else's "crazy". Haha.

I knew we had a solid car to present on, and I tried to print out pictures before hand of things that are especially innovative and good execution. Before my 3 minutes started, I wrote myself a note card of details I wanted to point out. 

Then I grabbed the cut jack handle to use as a pointer, took a deep breath, and gave the judges everything I had. I think we also earned points for our epic parking lot fix. 

And the matching tshirts helped too.

My son was not able to attend in person, but I did make sure to call out his hard work on the car's theme and exterior. And he was wearing his shirt back home on Sunday with us.

I've long thought it's easier to pick up a point in the concour than it is to gain a second in dynamic time. And pick up some points we did. 

We ended up winning best in concour, and that had the effect of pole vaulting us up about 5-6 positions in the final overall competition. Into 2nd overall!!

Based on all the other very cool and very fast cars in attendance this year, I am truly honored. 

Finally, the gap between fdat and Stafford's 3rd place entry was only .002 (you read that right). That means my 13.831 drag run improvement over my 13.841 run was absolutely the difference between 2nd and 3rd overall. Incredibly tight racing and again an honor to race with these other amazing cars.

Unfortunately missing from the concour pics are Jordan and Evan. I don't know where they were at the time of picturing. 

Thanks to Evan for taking this sweet video of the roadster vs roadster competition that started this whole mess.

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

no bologna face for you!

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I was taking pics of you and Dan talking to the judges.  Still need to upload those. 

Bravo!

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

Congratulations on a job well done 

Awesome job Robbie. It was great as always hanging out with you and the BDT. Display that trophy somewhere prominent. It's a lot to be proud of.

Robbie (Forum Supporter) said:

Unfortunately missing from the concour pics are Jordan and Evan. I don't know where they were at the time of picturing. 

I have no idea. Wish I was present.

That took a lot of BDE to get back up and running! BDT makes for a good read. 

Ok, let's finish out the last post of the weekend. 

Since we are not the type to leave a party early (or even when it is actually over), we decided to stay for the extra "challenge" day at the FIRM.

The car had run great at autox and then at the drags even after our parking lot fix, but we were still a bit nervous going into a track day since the track can be a bit harder on everything. 

We arrived in the morning, gave everything a quick once over. Noticed the chain had worn in a bit and needed to be retensioned - no big deal I had sprung for a new chain before the challenge and even on motorcycles they wear in over the first few miles and should be retensioned. Reset tire pressures and torqued lugs. Filled with gas and they let me out on the track.

I ran a few laps at a tentative pace just to make sure everything was good. Everything seemed to be good, though I was getting a bit of a brake squeal on heavy application, so I came in to check it out. No visible issues and brakes still good so we let the car cool a bit and then put Ian in the car for some laps with a better driver. 

He ran with no issues either (though brake squeal was increasing). I believe I unofficially clocked Ian with a couple of 1:28s.

Now we started really having fun since we developed some trust in the car and learned the track a bit. Dan was able to jump in and hotshoe to an "unofficial" 1:24 and a 1:23 a couple laps later - which is really cooking at the firm. We weren't as fast as Tom in his GTI, but he knows the track really well and is an exceptional driver too.

After lunch, the crowd really thinned out and we all got to drive and ride in many different vehicles. I think Ian scored a ride in a c8 z51. I got to drive a Rich's son's - believe his name was Tyler, hope I'm remembering that right - focus RS (which was absolutely a highlight for me, what an amazing car). Got to drive Dan's blistering MG, Dan and Jordan were driving and riding with everyone too. Lots of fun was had all around. I wish I could've gotten more people into the Datsun for drives, but it's dance card stayed pretty full with just me, Ian, Dan, and Jordan all taking turns running a gallon of gas through it at a time. The gas tank could be a little bigger for track days haha.

Here are some more photos:

All in all, just a really fun day at the track and I was quite proud of the car's track manners. 

We all think that some stiffer bushings in the Miata lower control arms that serve as my trailing arms would be a big improvement, luckily that's an easy and off the shelf upgrade.

And at the end of the day, we loaded a running car back on the trailer and got to drive home happy.

As I said a few times over the challenge weekend, I'm now going to push the car into the corner and sleep for a month.

Btw, from grm themselves for a little context on how a 1:23-1:24 stacks up at the FIRM.

Mr_Asa said:

In reply to Robbie (Forum Supporter) :

I was taking pics of you and Dan talking to the judges.  Still need to upload those.