Widescreen Youtube

Youtube has just gone widescreen! Kinda cool, but I'm especially pumped cause a bunch of my videos are actually in the appropriate widescreen format and look pretty good. Check 'em out at my youtube channel.

Good night, moon.

So, due to recent life events, car stuff hasn't had a whole ton of attention lately. And now it's getting cold as hell, and with the impending threat of snow and salty roads I figured it'd be a good time to stow away the little monster for the duration.



Have a good rest, you little freak! I'll see you when it's warm out, and we can try to work out some of your kinks.

Hillclimb: Ascutney II, VT

Friday night, my long lost friend Steve joined me from NYC for a trip up to VT. It was a shitty rainy night and the going was slow, but it was a good drive after we met up with Alex of DSG with his 1JZGTE powered Dodge Raider. That's the twin turbo motor from a toyota Supra. His latest project car used to tow his race car ( EVO II GSR ). A totally awesome setup.

We conked out immediately when we got to the hotel at 1am.



The next morning the event began and the course was still pretty wet from the previous nights' rain. I wasn't too worried because FWD in the wet isn't treacherous. Just a guess, but this guy will probably do pretty well:



I could make a "hot chicks with douchebags" reference here, but I won't.

Here's some video Alex got of the GTR launching:



Anyway -- we had a full day of runs and it was fantastic. I was really scared at the beginning of the day -- the surface and quality of the road made the mini VERY sketchy, and the wet pavement made the car feel like it was sliding all over the place and a little out of control. I went slow. But the road dried up bit by bit as the day wore on, and the last run of the day was almost dry, so I had a lot more confidence. Also, by my fourth run I was starting to learn the course a bit.



Who is this jackass?



I think I absorbed the details of this course slower than I would have normally; the first two runs of the day I was paying attention to nothing but keeping the car on the road. Wait; actually I was paying a great deal of attention to the details of the course, the crowns, the camber, the wet spots, the different edges of the asphalt, but I was not learning the overall layout of the course at all. Kinda dumb. I need to learn to just relax and pay attention.

Here's my best run of the day:



Saturday night we went to an awesome restaurant for dinner in stabbyville. Shep left his number for the waitress. He never got a call.

Sunday we awoke to pouring rain with thunderstorms. BOOOOO. So Sunday's runs were cancelled and Steve and I went to breakfast at a seriously ass kicking Diner in Stab Vegas. Doesn't Alex look pumped?

It's time for another PHOTO POST!

Before I post a bunch of photos, I'll say that I bought a new radiator and it arrived today. It's much thicker than my current radiator so hopefully that'll help with the cooling.

On Saturday I washed and waxed the monster, and my friend Mike and I went and shot some silly and artypants shots in downtown Boston. We had a ball and came away with some pretty rad shots. Rad means totally sweet, by the way.





















The rest are here if you're curious / bored.

Weight and balancing

Got the car corner balanced today. It made a pretty big difference in handling and braking, but it'll be much more quantifiable when I'm on the track or at a hillclimb. Torque steer lessened, and under heavy braking it now squats straight instead of squiggly. I'm really pleased with the results!

Now for some numbers.
The car weighs 1588lbs all by itself.
The hood/front weighs 42 pounds.

Before the corner balancing the values with me in the driver's seat were:
LF: 558
RF: 519
LR: 317
RR: 295

After corner balancing:
LF: 555
RF: 519
LR: 353
RR: 310

Now, I'm not sure exactly what is trying to be accomplished with this stuff, but it started out pretty close, but he got it SUPER close. So that's awesome.

I gotta say I'm a little disappointed by the total weight of the car; I was hoping it would be in the 1400's like it was before the transplant. But I guess when you put a bigger, heavier motor in .... your car weighs more even if you take out the heater core and put in lighter seats and take out carpeting and put on lighter wheels and rear trailing arms and lighter disc brakes and ... stuff. And apparently the minitec subframe is heavier than the stock front subframe too. But it's cool. A 1588 pound car is still a pretty light car. And it's cute!

This car is really coming along!

It's the little things. I mean ... obviously it's the big things. New motor, new interior, new electronics, all of that makes this car what I love. But as I live with it and make the little changes to make it fit better or work better, it really becomes the car I adore. And I really do adore it. It's getting to be what I've always wanted: a real custom-fit race car.

The little things:

1) I got new sparco grip pedals which do a couple things: they bring the pedals that teeny bit closer to my feet, which makes it more comfortable. Also, they make the car easier to control and heel-toeing much easier.

2) The new bigger steering wheel does 2 great things: 1, its is closer to me so it's easier to control it. 2, it is a much bigger diameter so it makes it MUCH easier to handle the torque steer. Love it. Plus it looks sweet.

3) The gas pedal was at a weird angle where it would start almost perpendicular to the sole of my shoe, so when getting on the gas, the change in angle would make a really jerky transition which made smooth application of throttle really difficult. So Bill got the blow torch out and heated the pedal arm till it was glowing red, and bent it to a way better angle. He is very much like a samurai sword maker in his mastery of metals.

4) The fuel level sender wire kept disconnecting so we fixed that and now I know how much fuel is in the tank. Handy.

5) The oil pressure sender was acting like a crazy fool and giving me all sorts of ridinculous readings, so bill switched the ground and power wires and that seemed to do the trick. Rock and roll.

So none of these things are a really big deal in and of themselves, but in combination they really make the cockpit a nice place to be, and fill me with pride and paint my face with smiles.

I love my gas station.

I went to get an inspection today. I was worried about the headlight situation: the right headlight is much dimmer than the left, and when you turn on the high beams it turns off for a second and then slowly fades on. Pretty cool feature!

The guy I was dealing with was a very nice middle-aged russian dude. He noticed the headlight problem and then just proceeded to check the blinkers. He gave me all P's and printed the sticker.

Thanks Expo Motors Inc. in Brighton!

Finally!

I was successful at last, installing the new wheel. It is a Momo Mod 8 - 390mm diameter, 90mm of dish. I wanted it as close to me as I could possibly get it. I came home from work and went to auto zone and found some lug nut washers which fit pretty well around the steering column. Hoorays!



I don't have a fisheye lens, but I really want one. So I made that ridiculous thing. There's a super hi rez version of it if you click it. Silliness, I swear.

I took it for a little drive and found that the wheel size makes a pretty big difference. The car is much easier to steer at slow speeds, and the torque steer on hard acceleration is much more manageable. I can't lie to you, I'm pretty fucking pumped about how this car is sorting out.

I need to bend the gas pedal towards me though because it's at a funny angle which makes it very difficult to modulate smoothly; you start off with the thing almost perpendicular to the bottom of your shoe. That ain't right.

Next week I'm getting the car corner balanced at DSG; we'll see how that improves the torque steer situation. Apparently, according to other VTEC mini owners, it is very effective. I'm not holding my breath, but I'm remaining optimistic.

Wheel and pedals... almost.

So I installed the pedals. It was more of a byatch than I thought it would because the mini pedals are very small, so there aren't a lot of options in terms of placement. Also, the pedals are a rounded, so it's tough to drill them where you marked em, and also tough to get the pedals to actually bolt on straight. Anyway, enough bitching, they're pretty sweet but I'm totally unused to them so they're kinda weird and annoying; we'll see how that goes. They accentuate the problem that the pedal action isn't very smooth. I have to work on that.

I ALMOST installed the wheel. I finally got the right size socket ( that would be 1 and 5/16ths ) but stupidly got it with a 3/4" drive. My impact drill is 1/2". So today I got a 1/2" to 3/4" adapter and was finally able to remove the old wheel with the help of Scott's puller. Yay! BUT the new adapter allows more threads through, and a bit of the spline so when I screw down the bolt all the way, there's still a little play.

Currently on the lookout for some big ass washers.

Photos to come when wheel is properly installed.

Hillclimb: Okemo II

The FJ finally got to fulfill its destiny as a tow vehicle this weekend, and it did its job well. Tristan and I hooked it up to a uhaul trailer and wehauled the mini 4 hours north to Ludlow VT. Frankly, it's not a 4 hour trip, but I'm inexperienced at this towing thing, and hovered around 60 on the highway, and went quite slowly on the backcountry squiggly roads. But she towed like a champ and I'm proud of its V6, air conditioning, stereo, and plush ride. Way nicer than driving to the event in the competition vehicle.

Quy took this awesome photo of the mini taking off at start:




The mini went so fast it was blurry in photographs. But not so fast that it did particularly well in the results. In fact, I got last in my class. But I beat 2 911 Carrera 4 S's, and that makes me glad. I also didn't stuff it into the trees so that makes me even more glad. I had an absolute blast driving this car, it is totally ridiculous. If I can eliminate or just lessen the torque steer it will not only be more fun to drive, but more competitive I'm sure. After watching my in car footage I can see about 17,047 places where I could have done something better; especially the point where I mistook esses for a hairpin. Gotta learn the course.

Also gotta fix the cooling problem - I only got 2 full runs up the mountain; the 3rd time up I overheated towards the end and had to let up and coast. Balls.

Summary:
Main things:
It's awesome.
I need to fix the cooling
I need to fix the torque steer

Little things
I need to fix the speedometer
I need a window net so I can feel the breeze
That's all I can think of for now.

I leave you for now with 2 videos, one Tristan got of me zooming by, and one of the in-car from my best (though crappy) run up the hill.

Toon

Ran to DSG for lunch today and Matt squeezed me into his schedule so I could have a tuned car for the hillclimb. Yay! It went well.

Two things: the car made more power than I could possibly imagine. It's like Ben Kenobi after Darth Vader struck him down. AND Matt, the genius that he is, found out that that there is no vacuum leak, and fixed the weird idle. The car feels SO MUCH better now. Plus fast.



Now, 146.4 may not seem like a lot to you. But let's take a look at what this means. With the stock motor, it made 55 at the wheels. This is TRIPLE THE POWER of the last motor. Which was a bored 1293cc cammed / headered / intaked tweaked A+. And this thing is BONE STOCK!! With a 15% power train loss, 146.4whp equates to about 172bhp. That's just awesome.

And note the smoothness of the line. There is no HONK when VTEC comes on, so I won't die. Again; nice work Matt.

I am pleased.

First VTEC video

I wanted to hear what the crap the car sounded like from outside the cabin. So I put the camera on the sidewalk and drove by it a couple times. I didn't want to break any laws too bad so I didn't go that fast so don't gimme no lip about lack of tire smoke or not stringing out 2nd gear. There were families present and I didn't want to be "that guy" any more than I already was.

My first NASCAR parts.

The fans I ordered just arrived! They are bigger than I thought they'd be ... I hope they fit! The construction is really nice, they have fuses and connectors and ... fans.

Aligned!

Got the car aligned at Direct Tire and they really did a great job. Alignment specs:

Front
Toe - In: 0.125" total
Camber - neg 0.5 degrees
Caster - L: 4.75, R: 4.5

Back
Toe - Out: 0.125"
Camber - neg 0.5 degrees

They got as close as they could, but found that the camber plates in the rear didn't allow for much toe adjustment so we're kinda stuck with a little extra toe in on the back right. Whadayagonna do.

It drives much better now though, more predictable, goes more straight when you stomp on it (but still not completely). I haven't really opened it up yet, I was babying it to work this morning in the 90 degree heat -- it's still having overheating problems. Sure would like to figure that out.

Gravel on my back

Doing a little work in the driveway. It got dark. There was something jiggly wiggly going on with the steering, and with some help from alex, the folks at minimania and the folks at vtecminis.com, I narrowed down the issue to loose bolts on the spindle side of the connecting arm to the steering rack. I tightened 'em up and now there's no play in the system. Yay! So now it's ready for an alignment, which should make it much more fun to drive.

Hello little green.



Side note: bought some carbon fiber inline fans from a NASCAR nextel cup car to use as the defogger. I can't wait to install that shit.

The car is in the driveway.

I'd like to say I'm thrilled through the roof and gazing with swoon eyes out the window at the little car, but I'm just kinda ... still in limbo.

First, the good:
The car looks great.
There is gobs of power. I think there is approximately 1 lightning bolt worth of power in there.
The interior is dope. The seats are sick, the dash is very cool; it's so clean and roomy and comfortable and I feel very in control. I love the gear shift.
The car feels like a race car. It is raw, and it is beautiful.

So there is a lot of amazing stuff going on; it's great, but there are still bits that aren't working. Now, none of these things are real show-stoppers, but they make me wonder why I didn't just leave it till it's done. I guess I was a little excited.

There's an "unfixable" vacuum leak so the idle sounds like a roller-coaster ride.
The radiator fan doesn't work so it overheated all the way home.
It was raining so the front windscreen fogged up and I couldn't see anything at all because we never installed fans for the windscreen vents. Couldn't drive it until it stopped raining. If there's a rainy or cold track day or hillclimb, I won't be able to compete.
The alignment is totally screwed and the car goes all over the place when you apply any gas. I have no idea how much power the car has because I can't apply any. And yes, I am expecting the car to have torque steer and bump steer, but the alignment is BAD. Think of the wheels as those googlie eyes on puppets. Yeah; they face all different directions regardless of which way I point the wheel. And the local alignment shop couldn't do the alignment because the wheels are too small for their fancy ass machine. Balls.

Basically, I know we can fix this stuff, but I don't want to get in the car and drive it. I just want to leave it alone till it works right, because I have no fucking clue how to fix what's wrong. So I don't know why it's sitting right over there ->

Damn I can't wait till the quirks are ironed out because the car frigg'n rules.

Hmph.

Holy Shit!

The Mini is running!!
I just got a call from Nick at DSG and behind him I could hear the sweet sound of the B16. It sounded a lot like digital compression noise but that's okay. I am so pumped I'm having difficulty remaining in my seat at work. AAAAAAA!

Still needs a bit of work before it's roadworthy; none of the guages are connected, it's missing the oil pressure sender, and it needs an alignment worse than your momma, but other than that it's so frickin' close I can taste it!

Yargh!

More news as it progresses...

Side note

I was running out to the Asgard to get some Nachos for dinner because I'm on a healthy streak, and saw a bunch of kids standing around a parking lot testing what looked like a go kart on crack:



I couldn't help myself, so I stopped and got out to talk to the nearest guy, who turned out to be an MIT student. Turns out it was a project for a school competition where they have to build a car and make it fanancially viable as well as competitive on the track. They chose to build this space frame thing with the motor from a Honda CBR600RR (the rules are such that they have to use a motor under 600cc).

The thing sounded fierce, and weighed 450 pounds so it went like hell. The driver kept squiggling around and nodding his head with an "awwwww yeah" motion.

My nachos were cold by the time I picked them up.

Circles

Those shiny round things are the new wheels for the car! Hoorays! Plus some kick ass Yokohama A048 tires. I'm very excited about these things. Wheels are 13x7, and will be my racing wheels since they have such nice rubber around them.

I think they look pretty awesome, but would be way sweeter if I got them powdercoated black. Haw.

Also the exhaust bits arrived! 2.25" stainless; a resonator and a silencer; I want this thing to be quiet. We looked under the car and decided that I don't need those 90 degree bends; it'll just be straight out the back. Oh well. I heart wasting money. Anybody need some stainless steel mandrel bent tubing?

Some progress, some pics...

Fuel system is being fitted - here's a shot of the cell in the boot. A thing of beauty:



It was all custom fitted to plop right into the boot space, but we still need to modify the space a bit to hold it more securely. Kinda funny. Maybe I should have just gotten a square. Oh wellz!

Anyway, here's a shot of the dash, the remote reservoirs will be going in the passenger's lap, next to the fuses, next to the switches. Easy access is the name of the game.



Still needing work ( that I can think of ):
Finish fitting the fuel lines and mounting the cell
Clutch and brake lines
Complete dash and switches
Create Shifter and modify shift linkage
Get some wheels

There's probably more, but I can't think of it right now...

Fuel Cell Arrived!

The fuel cell finally arrived on Monday - it is bananas! Behold:

Sway bar arrived!

And here's a pic!



It has actually been here for a while, but was missing the end links. We just got the end links and installed that shit yo.

Still waiting for the Fuel Cell. Thumbs twiddling.

Now it's like a real car and shit.

This morning Alex and I put the seats in. We were anticipating having to cut the floors' crossmember and stick 'em in through there and do all sorts of crazy fab to get the brackets to hold the seats in the right place. But; they totally fit BEHIND the crossmember.



Now; this is cool for a number of reasons. A) The driving position in the mini has always been something I'm not crazy about. The seats are too high and too close to the steering wheel, and the wheel is at a funny angle, and it generally doesn't feel like a sports car. The new seats being bolted directly to the floor behind the crossmember fixes this problem completely. I now sit nice and low, the pedals are the perfect distance away, and it just feels awesome. I'm pumped. 2) It's wicked easy to install them there!

One thing we're trying to figure out is the panel clearances for the hood; as you can see they're a little off. More on that as it progresses.

Nose job!

Alex did a bunch of work manipulating the snout to get it to fit back on. The results are spectaculicious! He had to cut a little out of the mouth to accommodate the headers, but the cuts should be well masked by the grill when it is applied.



I'm just going to make the whole front of the car removeable, no need to utilize the old hood; leaving it detached would compromise the strength of the snoot.

In other news, the modified pedal box came back and has been installed:




Now we have to put in reservoirs and lines for the clutch and brakes. Damn, this shit never ends! At least it's really fun and interesting and ... expensive!

Waiting waiting waiting...

Waiting on a number of things at the moment:
Pedal Box
Fuel Cell
Remote Oil Filter / Oil Cooler Kit
Sway bar ends for Disc Brakes from KAD (they're replacing them yay!)

And then there will be updates. But as for now ... waiting.