good onboard of SS1 at the first rally, McReary
after fixing this failure we re-joined the rally for fun runs and enjoyed some very twisty and flowy roads.
good onboard of SS1 at the first rally, McReary
after fixing this failure we re-joined the rally for fun runs and enjoyed some very twisty and flowy roads.
okay so what have we learned and whats next?
WHAT LEARNED:
IDEA?!
WHATS THE PROBLEM?
WHY IS THAT A PROBLEM?
WHATS NEXT?
HIT IT WITH YOUR PURSE!
ideally some fab work and re-arrange the position and orientation of a few pieces.
I cannot get to that aspect of the project yet as im doing a rear subframe swap on my dads 2011 mazda6. ("thanks" ford) due to improper coating/rust issues so I managed to start parts binning together for what steering version 3.0 will look like.
this is how we ended up Saturday only a few miles into the first stage: the co-driver side was pointing straight ahead btw...
right on the edge of the cliff (picture doesn't do it justice, luckily there were small enough trees to catch us and we weren't going super fast at that spot)
which happened from a rock + dip/bump in matter of seconds:
it below BELOW the pickup point and this was a brand new OEM outer tie rod, it was a bit tricky getting it out as I couldn't pull the bolt through the top because of said taper but by lowering the jackstand onto a stick it was enough for the impact to do its ugga dugga and retrieve the failed bolt. After the stages were swept we had our crew bring us parts and fixed it then drove back to service. With rallies, you always have/need spares. I am pretty good about this as I can't rip parts off another subaru with a blown headgasket like everyone else (theres always one) at a rally.
So this brings us to steering version 3 (or possibly more, IDK - I haven't really kept track so lets just say V3)
I have been told by the facebooks drifty boi's that caravan outer and inner tie rods (roughly 2006 era) work and are far beefer, and they weren't kidding, it upgrades from an m12 bolt to an m14 thread on top of a beefier inner tie rod shaft
From Left to right: OEM/Stock Rx7, S14 240sx, dodge Caravan
lots more material and thread engagement (current knuckles only give about 12mm of engagement on stock tie rod ends)
these mini van ones are beefy, don't let the rx7 one fool you (square flange) as that flange drops off quick. top is 240sx
my only concern is that the taper on the Nissan and Dodge outer tie rod ends leaves a similar gap before the start of the boot to the bottom of the knuckle but it has very similar overall engagement depth as stock one does, but maybe this is no issue as the boot on the stock one covers more taper but the taper portion on both of these are quite a bit longer than stock.
(left rx7, right dodge caravan)
The thought behind all of this is the added force of the electric power steering and the shortened knuckle pickup points are causing more force/stresses in this area. The dodge ones are greasable too which is nice and has ALOT of depth to have the outer tie rod end eat up:
I may even have to shorten the inner tie rod a touch but by going to these outers and being common with S14 240SX stuff, there are plenty of dirfty outer tie rod ends available. I don't particularly like heim joints in this application as I will probably eat a set each day which isn't ideal so going to a different stock style route is appealing. I don't know if I go through with the dodge parts swap on frankenwankel if I will then find another weak point in the steering...
upward and onward, in efforts to improve cooling things are underway:
The plan is to remove the oil cooler from in front of the radiator and give the radiator more angle so we can help funnel the air out of the hood.
and a quick comparison to the old oil cooler, which was within 1sq inch of the stock volume, this larger oil cooler is 40% larger than the smaller unit and is double pass:
Do you run an oil thermostat?
The oil cooler in my '81 is starting to leak and despite my best efforts it is still caked with Alabama clay, have been considering the biggest -10 oil cooler I could find, but thermostats are expensive
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
I do not currently.
mounts are done then spent the next several days doing dull ducting...
but its well covered and ready to rock!
the grand am cars I saw at the Detroit grand prix all had metal boxes funneling the air but given my application and having trees on location where i race a i figure a small off shouldn't DNF me with a new hole in the radiator so I opted to use the mudflap material that you can get by the roll for circle track body panels, plenty of flex and strength, I compiled it with small bolts and many rivets using extruded aluminum L brackets in various positions to help hold the plastic and guide the air directly into the radiator.
apparently there is good science behind the shapes of this and how to do it but I kinda just drank beer and winged it so I hope its better than what it used to be but now you can see a whole lot of radiator instead of an oil cooler out front blocking the flow. Just need to finish plumbing it then I can take a test drive need to get it ready for august basically as we got car shows, rallycross and stage rally ahead and most of July is booked with family activities so hopefully this is done right the first time.
The Wankel engine was great if it weren't for the sealing issues. I read that someone is coming out with an new and improved wankel design that is similar, but supposedly better. It's to bad they never improved the wankel more in the past. I read somewhere that they didn't pass emissions with it in the end, but not sure if that was the real issue. The power to weight ratio with the Wankel is amazing!!
They only seem to have sealing issues because that is the only thing to go wrong. When I break a trans and have to wrap the tach needle around the clock to compensate for the missing gear, I don't have to worry about the valves floating or the rods windowing the block or any of those awful failure modes piston engines have
Got it plumbed up and wired, everything looks good so far, just testing for leaks and such but quick report shows positive benefit, even without driving the car.
Need to go for test drives and see, verify the fittings won't leak with some real world vibration, not so keen on the 180* fitting for the oil feed to the cooler but it may workout just fine or need an additional snug. Its not exactly air tight to the hood but its pretty well diverted. the back part is still open as i don't want it to interfere with the crank trigger or waterpump pulley plus it would make serviceability a nightmare. If I ever have to take this structure apart I may be adding in rivnuts to areas to improve serviceability.
It works! too good actually, or its working as it should be. so much so that I need to replace the gutted thermostat with a regular one as the cooling system is functioning normally. I could not get the car up to full temp:
it even was able to get the water temp down from 187F to 150F
I should have done ducting years ago!
back on the automotive ADHD train revisiting the setup changes and having to shift direction, at full drop the drift knuckles hit the control arm and lower balljoint hardware, this is not ideal and its not THAT much droop or travel so I don't want to go to travel limiting straps and having the balljoints installed incorrectly (which nobody seem to catch on the prior photos either) only works on the passenger side, it physically won't fit on the driver side in the same "above" orientation for the balljoints. funny thing is on the passenger side when the balljoints are installed correctly the knuckle contacts the lower control arm far worse than the other side for some reason. I'm sure this car is twisted as its been off roaded and patched up so many times over the past the decade and a half.
correct orientation but still hits:
incorrect and clears:
messing around with the beefy outer tie rod ends too but ever angle just seems so extreme. all the boots seem to not want to stay on with the travel. I really feel like I am the limit of the capabilities of the setup anything else is a major overhaul and expense. not to mention I'm 2 rallies away from really needing all new shocks all around, a very expensive rally maintenance fee so to speak but these have been overhauled too many times and are simply wearing out or will not be rebuild-able soon...
so the stock knuckles are going back on and I'll be getting a steering quickener installed as that was more important than angle, however the angle would have been great for sno*drift and ice racing events.
and yes I ran mcbristol with the balljoints installed 2 different ways and didn't notice it.
Reverted the knuckles back to OEM and upgraded the steering with the caravan tie rod ends, I needed to take off a half inch from the outers and about .75-1" from the inners so I could get enough adjustment which happened at the same time as a hydraulic line busted on the lift.
which made for an emergency test the pin stand jacks test, luckily it came out good and the subsequent test drive was flawless, my theory has been confirmed. I am an idiot - the oil cooler was blocking the airflow to the radiator. Next up is to get the steering quickener in, hopefully intime before the busy August of racing planned...
there is a dyno day this weekend at the local car show host with a mobile unit (high octane cafe and bakery, waterford MI) so lets see how many ponies I lost from 170whp I'm gonna guess I'm about 150whp
:(
place your bets now and I'll mail you some stickers
142hp
fidelity101 said:back on the automotive ADHD train revisiting the setup changes and having to shift direction, at full drop the drift knuckles hit the control arm and lower balljoint hardware, this is not ideal and its not THAT much droop or travel so I don't want to go to travel limiting straps and having the balljoints installed incorrectly (which nobody seem to catch on the prior photos either) only works on the passenger side, it physically won't fit on the driver side in the same "above" orientation for the balljoints. funny thing is on the passenger side when the balljoints are installed correctly the knuckle contacts the lower control arm far worse than the other side for some reason. I'm sure this car is twisted as its been off roaded and patched up so many times over the past the decade and a half.
correct orientation but still hits:
incorrect and clears:
messing around with the beefy outer tie rod ends too but ever angle just seems so extreme. all the boots seem to not want to stay on with the travel. I really feel like I am the limit of the capabilities of the setup anything else is a major overhaul and expense. not to mention I'm 2 rallies away from really needing all new shocks all around, a very expensive rally maintenance fee so to speak but these have been overhauled too many times and are simply wearing out or will not be rebuild-able soon...
so the stock knuckles are going back on and I'll be getting a steering quickener installed as that was more important than angle, however the angle would have been great for sno*drift and ice racing events.
and yes I ran mcbristol with the balljoints installed 2 different ways and didn't notice it.
It shouldn't really matter which way the ball joints are installed, right? Basically the straight line between the inner pivot and outer pivot doesn't change whether the joint is bolted on top or bottom.
I have run them both ways and not have it make a difference.
In reply to wvumtnbkr :
Correct but I physically couldn't get the driver side to be installed this way, it just wasn't going together. the passenger side was a bit of a fight too but it did work.
another thing to note is that I upgraded the steering rack bushings to a polyurthane style, the 37 year old rubber finally gave up the ghost and with the added torque of the epas it was walking the rack within mount, steering feels great now (minus is being slow as balls).
howe 1.5 ratio quickener is coming in soon
Rain came and washed the dyno opportunity away, so much for that...
I sometimes look an NB racks and wonder if they would bolt in to an FC and work with an extender on the right side. They mount with through bolts on the quill side instead of a clampy bushing thing.
Kind of like the difference between an STI rack and a WRX rack, WRX has the NA/FC style clampy thing and the STI has through bolts that mate up to the clampy things' mounting holes.
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
that could be interesting, not sure if they run an m12 or m14 for the inner tie rod pick up plus I could move the rack around, right now to fit a quickener in under the hood is extremely tight... and there physically isn't enough space under the dash.
I have dropped it off at my friends shop for a good attempt and we will go from there, otherwise it looks like I'm doing limit straps and drift knuckles I guess...
This weekend is rallycross and open track day, the following week is woodward dreamcruise (burnouts) and then a central UP rally for the last weekend of August - super busy car month (I LOVE IT!)
race testing weekend went good! car performed flawlessly at the rallycross, temps all stayed good and the steering felt great! I think side by side comparison I like the drift knuckles better, the power steering seemed to be more effective there compared to the loss of power through the quickener but overall in general very smooth still pretty great!
great pictures too, I'll post up some videos from the track day as the cellphone mount was more effective there compared to bouncing around. For a stage rally I will use the data and overlay it with the gobro video
Oh wow, is that Auto City?
In reply to Pete. (l33t FS) :
yeah, the site is very large and drained well. it was dusty and they brought the water trucks out but they were useless, it was dry at the start once the water truck got to the end. it had been rainy the week leading up to it and even the day of but the surface held up and didn't rut up too bad and we had about 60 cars so it held up great. We don't use the tarmac portion unfortunately for a mixed surface event but the field is pretty dang good for this. If you get the chance to come up do that site/event.
In reply to fidelity101 :
It's definitely on my list of things to do. I would need to unshelf the RX-7 and finish the trailer wiring so that I could haul my rally tires, and currently the RX-7 is covered with tools from my previous job.
New problem: car has permanent 74 numbers on it 
had too much fun at woodward and all the other motorsportings this month, now the gearbox sounds like a box of rocks:
it was not doing burnouts so I forced it and it still wouldn't do standing burnouts, kept wanting to plow the front end along. even with cheapo all season tires that were old
found no teeth but maybe all the syncro materials are in the bearings for good now... every gear works just sounds awful under load, quiet on coasting.
checked the rear diff fluid and that seemed normal wear and tear, checked the axles - they are intact as are the stub shafts. pinion is still tight and when I spin it it moves both wheels so I don't think the diff went...
When I had the trans out I couldn't really replicate the noise and there are no missing teeth and still a lot of life on the synchronizer rings seemingly... I found a spare transmission I can toss in and hopefully get a few races out of it since I can't find a local 09-11 rx8 transmission the 04-08 will do fine enough and are far more plentiful.
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