We got started early today.  It’s autocross weekend and there is a bit of work left to do, as you can see….

I scavenged some hood pins and Stepan got the front bumper hung.

The front bumper hardware that connects them to the fenders all broke off when we got it off the parts car.  So I had to get creative.

Zip ties is always the answer.  We also closed up the front again with aluminum tape.

Bam, done in plenty of time to get the trailer and get to the parking lot.

Not as tight and lined up as I would like it.  Ohh well.

Ready to kill some cones.

We weren’t the only chump there even

The car did great.  I was worried that the steering rack got a little tweeked.  On the test drive in the morning it seemed to be pulling a bit to the right.  On the track, I didn’t notice at all.  If it’s off, its a really small amount and should be able to get put back with an alignment.  I actually had trouble keeping the back end in the right place today!  Maybe the tires don’t have all the grip they did when they were new?  Meh, racers excuses.

I have some videos but they are upside down, appear to be in a wierd format, and I can’t get them edited easily.  Maybe more on that later.

They managed to slid the patch in front’s rails AROUND the stock rails.  This should give us a lot of nice structure back in the front for our next wall hit.

It’s better than before now! (Our previous car had older front end damage when we got it)

We start hooking this up this morning.  Oil cooler out of the parts car, fresh rock-auto radiator, a bit of wiring work, water lines, and fan shroud.

The oil cooler off the parts car looks better than what we had before!

We had to prep a new fan as well.  We take them down from 8 blades to 4.

Fan installed!

I think it may be time for some front harness simplification.  Of all this bundle, we are only using a couple relays, a water sensor, and the pump for the windshield washers.

It starts and runs great now!  I can’t find any issues.  It cools.  It turns.  It revs.  We still need to a bit more body work, but we’re nearly ready for racing!

Ryan also scored us a sweet generator!  It’s an older model but in amazing shape.  It’s basically brand new.

This will come in handy at ORP!

My goals are to log and transmit the following information:

• temperature data (oil, water)
• throttle position and brake
• rpm
• 20Hz GPS
• speed
• G forcess
• lap times and split times

Because I don’t have access to the race car every day, (Seattle to Eugene is a long drive)  I’ve decided to start with the last four bullets.

Blow is the custom data acquisition unit I made.  Features include:

• 20Hz GPS module with high gain antenna
• Bluetooth interface
• micro SD card slot
• 8 +/- 15v tolerant analog to digital input  ports (16 bit!)
• 8 3.3v tolerant digital IO or analog input ports
• 1 i2c port for expansion (eg accelerometer, gyro, compass, etc)
• 1 counter input for RPM

The data acquisition hardware. All custom made but the GPS board (red), which has a BGA package that I didn't want to solder my self.

Since I didn’t want to build a car computer (the logger board does have an 8bit microcontroller but that doesn’t really qualify by today’s standards) with display, I figured the easiest way to collect, process, display, and re-transmit the logged data is an android phone, specifically Leo’s old Droid X.  It already has bluetooth, accelerometer, a nice display, battery (for when the kill switch is off), 3g data, a decent processor, and LOTS of storage space; it should provide plenty of power to process the data we collect.   Since the ‘phone’ has to be mounted in the race car I also 3D printed a two degree of freedom mount.

3d printed cellphone mount. One side gets bolted to the car, the other glued to the phone's case.

There’s a lot of parts talking to other parts in this project, so let me draw a diagram of whats going on so everyone is one the same page.

Block Diagram. Top: raw signals. Middle: processing Bottom: presentation

At this point most of the hardware is complete and its more a matter of software.  I’ve spent the last two evenings prototyping the software in Python and MATLAB (the embedded code is of course in C).  This is mostly because I’m most comfortable parsing text and drawing the track map in python and I’m most comfortable processing data and plotting in MATLAB.  Once everything is done the python code will be ported to java and run on the phone, while the MATLAB code will most likely be replaced by html5/javascript, since its the easiest way to make a GUI and because its (mostly platform independent.

Starting with the Python code, I’ve written a small API deal with noisy GPS data a compute the most likely on track location.  This is actually the most important piece of code because visualization won’t work without it.  You can plot data vs time instead of position but, for example, turn 1 at PIR may be 10 seconds away from the start finish line one lap and 12 seconds away another lap but it’s always going to 300m away (the Python code also helped me compute that distance).   The Python code also helps me validate track maps stored as GPX files, which any trip planner software/webservice will generate.

Rendering of PIR to help validate code. It can also be used to select points for split times

In MATLAB I’ve built a data visualization graphical user interface (GUI).  You can click the lap number and it plots, in this case speed vs track position or you can select multiple laps for comparison.  My hope is to be able to compare fastest laps from each driver to see where we can each improve our laptimes.  For example, at Laguna Seca I know from Micah’s video that we can do at least a second better if we stitch together each drivers best sectors!

As a side note, I didn’t have any real data to work with (the data I took at Laguna Seca in December was missing some critical information, so I couldn’t use it here), so I had to create my own track by driving around the block a few times, which is why you see my stopping so much and driving so slow.

I think that’s all I have for now.  If you have any questions or comments please leave them below!  Also, I reserve the right to edit this post for clarity or to add more information.  You’ve been warned.

The good:

• One Hella 550 survived!
• THE TOW HOOK SURVIVED, AGAIN.  It’s survived THREE wall hits now.
• Crumple zones work!
• The motor looks to not have taken any damage at all.
• Brake ducts are still great.
• Can’t find any suspension damage.
• Steering wheel is still dead straight.
• Igniter looks good.
• Most of the wiring looks totally unscathed.
• The oil cooler its self looks super straight and good.
• MAF looks ok

The maybe:

• The hood might actually be able to be saved with enough pounding.  I think we will still try to find a replacement.
• The oil cooler line might have taken a hit.  They are suspect.

The bad:

• The fan is done.  The clutch for it might be fine.
• Belly pan is done.
• Hood pins are done.
• There is no part of the radiator that is straight anymore in any dimension.
• The brand new air filter is completely smashed.

The last two pictures are from a friend’s parts car he let us raid!  Thanks tanner!  Were already on our way back building up.

I showed up early to help out with tech.

Luckily the cops weren’t doing their normal thing and we got to setup direct in the pits early friday.

I got a chance to catch up with some good friends.  Here is our race steward and our tech director heading out to inspect the weather hazards out on track.  Updenkelders seem to have an early developing talent for driving.

Friday went well.  We didn’t bother to setup anything in the pits over night.  We figured it would be nice and dry in the trailer overnight.  We started early on saturday.

Did I mention it was wet?  Very wet.  The early setup went well until two of our headlights stopped working!

Chris took some time to try to troubleshoot them.  We eventually wired around the relay setup with a new fuse holder, directly to the kill switch.  They would be stuck on but its important to be visible in the rain with all that spray.

We gave the car a quick splash of fuel before sending Stepan out first.

Don’t worry micah, cones are made to be hit with cars.  It’s why they are brought into existence.

Stepan reported that it was really “slippery” and pretty “wet”.  Our manta this weekend was “let the idiots be dump, all we need to do is put laps in and we will do very well”.  Sure enough less than 4 minutes into the race, RED FLAG.  Now red flags are rare.  I think in my 3 years of racing now I have seen one, maybe two?  Red flags are thrown to stop the race.  They command the cars to immediately stop on track due to a major safety issue.  In that hand full of minutes we had 4+ cars off track and a major wall hit.  Pure insanity.  The cars were stopped and brought into a grid formation on the front straight and a second mandatory driver’s meeting.

We were told the race could not continue and another incident like this and they would be forced to stop the race for the day.  We reaffirmed our plan to just stay alive and put stepan back out.  We also got permission to remove the rear hatch since it seemed to be making windshield fogging worse.

Some of our more senior readers will remember my personal history with PIR.  I lost my first FD here on a rain track day.  On turn 8 the back end came around and I spun right into the wall.  You will also remember our first chumpcar, spun in turn 8 at a rainy PIR race right into the wall.  Bent to death…

a bit like.. (read: almost exactly like)

Yeah, we hit the wall again.  This was only about an hour into day 1.  This time the car was actually able to roll on its own.  Stepan made it in and we pulled him into the cold pits getting ready for some major repairs.  It really wasn’t that bad.

That poor tow hook.  The fender was pushed back in and the bumper popped back out.  The brake duct was even still attached!  Stepan felt good and was able to go back out to finish his stint.

Chris was cold and wet.  He found a way to get warm.

Micah was next up.  He was facing another long, wet, slow stint.

The first part of his stint was rough.  Lots of contact.  He came in a couple times after hitting and being hit by other cars to inspect for damage.  Nothing major.  You could barely even see it.  Eventually he was able to let it go and settle in for a good stint.  With the wall hit and extra hit stops during micah’s stint we were well down the field.  Pretty much out of competition 12 laps behind the lead.  Micah reported that the track was starting to dry and the speeds were picking up.  We had another red flag incident.  Micah had over half and hour on the front straight waiting sitting in the car with nothing but sandwich lust to keep him company.

Due to pit land traffic (the ENTIRE race pitted as soon as the red was lifted), micah had to do a couple laps before coming in.

I was next up and sure enough the track was really drying.  I had another red flag wait.  This time only 15 minutes or so but all of it under open sunshine.  Beautiful track drying sunshine.

… then the race started.  What a great stint.  Easily in my top 6 race stints of all time.  Great conditions.  The car was running awesome.  The driving on track was awesome.  So much good passing.  Chris was next up and in for a treat.

With about 2 hours left in the race, we found our selves in a close battle for 17th with our neighbors and fellow eugenians, the soccer moms!

They put their ringer in, and we put stepan in for a real battle.  They were slowly catching up with us.   We only had about a lap of lead.  After a long wet stint, stepan managed to keep them at bay and secured 17th for us!

Cheers!

Sunday was a new race.  This time, only 6 hours.  We would have three stints (Micah, Leo, then Chris).

It wasn’t dry but it wasn’t soaking wet either.  Micah ended up getting some nice dry laps and a good stint in.  I was next.  Unfortunately, my pants had sag before I tried to jump the wall to get in the car and destroyed my pants.  I just simply could not go back out.

Chris had to get dressed and ready to get in the car while we were in the pits!  That made for an extra long pit stop.  It started raining again as well.  Stepan ended up getting a stint to bring us home.  About an hour before the end of the race, we got our real wall hit.

That push the wall back four inches!  We missed the SLS lights by inches.

Looks pretty bad.  It rolls but boy is it pushed in.

But the important parts look ok.  It doesn’t look like the motor took much of a hit.  Also, the strut towers look totally intact.

We loaded up and pushed her in the trailer.

So all in all, a mixed bag for the weekend.  Some great stints.  A good solid finish on saturday but mixed with some big damage.  Fingers crossed, we think we can fix it.  Stay tuned for repair updates!

Saturday’s 10 hour race will have at least a couple hours of night.  That means we need to get the headlights back on.  Micah, new to the pain of headlights, decided that he wanted to try to improve them.  Good on you micah.  Welcome to my nightmares.  His first idea was to fit the apex spot lights into the OEM popup housings.  They needed a bit of trimming.

You can see the family resemblance to it’s miata nephews.

We also have a slight glare issue with these hellas.  The glass surround bleeds a little light back at  the driver and it messes with your night vision.  I masked them off to paint the outer edge.

We also remounted the front tow hook.  Looks like the wall hit tweeked the captive nuts in the frame a bit.  It’s solid here though.  Still functional.

We had these extra straps so I tried zipping them on to give us a better hand hold for getting in and out of the car.  They work pretty well!  Why didn’t I think of this sooner?!

Some buddies at Deviant Customs are getting our race-inspired stickers ready.  We just have some little things left and we will be 100% ready.  PIR is only 2 weeks away.

Stage 1: Straighten

Matt was in town for work so he took a couple hours to give has a hand fixing the wall hit damage.  The parts car was first up donating to the cause.

Dang, look at that fancy straight, still-in-one-piece bumper

Nice fender too.

Doctor, your patient is ready.

This one needed a little more coercion.

Things were bent back and a spare fender was swapped back.

Micah and Matt decided it would be easier to fix the old fender than either of of our spares.  Only the finest most graceful tools for us.

All mounted up.

Not perfect, but amazing what you can do with a wood block and a hammer.

Bumper yeah.

Do work…

How much better is this!

Stage 2: Smooth

Starting out with a quick wash.

The roughness continues.

I got a fancy new multi-tool from the freight and got the trim goo off the doors.  Came off like butter.

It has a sander function too.

Time for the big guns.

All ready… for…

Stage 3: Dexter Paint

It’s looking a bit better with all the dust cleaned off.

I started some of the primer to see how well it would go.  It was quick work but I needed a respirator.  After a couple trips to get more primer and to the freight for some tools…

Were ready to start the color.  I choose a rustoleum spray paint that they care at autozone specifically for cars.  Seemed like a good idea.  I had to go to two stores to get 4 cans of each color.  I figured since I only used 7 of primer and it was going to be a two tone paint job I’d have enough.  This is as far as I got with the 4 cans.  Its hard to tell but its really only about 70% coverage.  Also the back has big areas with no color at all.  No one else carries this line of paint and I was out of autozones to raid.

I had to switch to plan B.  Old school (cheap school?).

Just spray on the left.  Spray with a coat of rolled on on the right.

Now that the base is down, time to add the style .

The first coat was a little thin.  Kind of a cool marble effect, but not what we were shooing for.

After the second coat it started coming together.

The third coat sealed it.

We left it over night to dry before…

Bam!

What do you need to do with a fresh 12 hour paint job?  Go show it off at an autox!

Take that cones!

The internet had varying opinions on the power we would put down.  Numbers varied from 87-135hp measured at the wheels.  Creative answers were “It’s a rotary, so it will probably even infect the dyno and have it break down as well”.  Well, this is for all you haters:

143 baby.  Apparently I can build an engine right-ish.  The dip at 3800 is at the transition point from the primary to the secondary injectors.  We have money left in our budget so were going to see about improving this a bit.  Now that we have a good baseline on a friendly local dyno, we may have to come back later and see how much things have really changed .

My personal goal was to beat my rather meager previous best lap.  Managing only a 1:58 last time around was a bit of a disappointment (Since micah and chris both did over a second faster laps).  I’ll be the first to admit i’m not the fastest driver, but I don’t think you can be a racer and completely get over a blow like that.  I wanted to best my time and due to micah’s awesome video editing it was clear where I was loosing most of it.  (Hint: It’s turns 5 and 6.  I was being too wussy on the uphill entry speeds.).

As team goals, we had made some major upgrades.  Our brake ducts carried the whole team’s hope of solving our brake vibration issues (unsure if it was pad deposits or warping).  Our new wheels and tires were expected to be stickier and hoped to not have any interference with the body or suspension.

We again traveled in the comfort of our new (to us) team trailer.  This makes race logistics at least 2x as easy, if not more.  She is a bit of a beast at 24′.  Manageable, but very tall.  Even on doug’s new dodge we only got 11mpg (my truck ~10mpg).  It’s worth the hit in fuel economy.

We had hoped to get out of Eugene early friday afternoon (Doug,Derek,Matt and I.  Chris and his crew flew in.).  This was a 12-13 hour trip last time and we needed to make tech Saturday afternoon at laguna.  Matt called and said he cut him self pretty bad but was going to come anyway.  Later he was persuaded to go to the hospital and get 11 stiches.  We got out of town a little late but still made good time.  We stopped for a full nights sleep and nice mexican meal in redding.

Get it?  It’s funny.  It’s funny because its ah, bigger than, ah… you know, a normal hat.

Sunday morning we got up early and hit the road.  The scenery down here is pretty awesome.  You really don’t get a sense for the elevation changes in video games.  These hills are pretty steep.

Stopped for provisions and make it to the track with plenty of time to spare.  Is it some kind of joke that “RACEWAY” is the last on this list?  Visit the world famous… range?

No major changes to the office.  Business as usual.

I was bitter about the penalty laps at the last race, so this time I brought a ton more documentation and got our competition down well under the $500 mark.  We breezed through tech (Let this be a lesson to all of you out there thinking of starting your own teams).

We decided to cheap out and camp at the track’s camp ground.  Really a pretty nice facility.  Full RV hook ups so we could use the trailer lights and they even had showers.

Camp Apex of Failure

It was pretty cold and wet that night.  Due to an equipment packing error our cooking setup was not functional.  We went into town for dinner.  After a couple drinks around the fire we all hit the sack early.  The dampness didn’t end up being too bad in the morning and the racing surface was able to dry out pretty quick.

We decided to send the newbie out first, Derek.  He was a bit nervous and its always nice to let the newbies not have to worry about merging with traffic.  They get to do a hand full of laps under yellow and calm down.

Another good showing at Laguna for ChumpCar.  Mostly established teams with well sorted cars.  The competition was going to be pretty fierce.

Derek had a good stint.  Despite some earlier slickness and a spin or too he brought the car home intact.  Matt was the next out with is <2 day old stiches.  He manned up well and put in some good times.  Right about as his time slot was up, he radio’d in that he was starting to loose concentration and make little mistakes.  This is our “time to come in alarm” and being our most experienced racer he recognized this and radio’d that he was coming in.

Apparently he didn’t recognize it soon enough.  On his in lap, exiting turn 4, he went off.  No spins or anything but put some wheels off.  He didn’t give any hard inputs and let the car bounce along the dirt on the outside of the turn.  While rejoining the track, the car lost control and shot him across the track diagonally towards the other tire wall.  The car impacted on the passenger front.

The damage didn’t look too bad.  We had to wait for fueling to finish before we could jump in there are start the damage assessment.

All it needed was some gentle panel bending, zip ties, and a hose clamp.  We made short work of it.  It looks like all the suspension was spared.

We sent Doug out next.  He reported no issues with the car.  While doug was out, we got a chance to wander around the pits and check out some of the competition.

Jerken in deed.  These guys had some sound issues and spent the first couple of hours making a new exhaust in the pits.  Eventually they made something happen.

Racey Diva was there again.  They ended up being our closest competition all weekend.  We didn’t know it though, since live timing was down with technical difficulties.

Model T GT was there as well.  Awesome car, but at the very least, its on the ragged edge of the rules.  It was easily the second fastest car on track (behind Geometro Gnomes).

Chris was next up after doug.  Chris seen here playing with his cell phone minutes before joining the race.  It’s okay, hes excused, hes building us hardware and software to perform data logging for the team.  He can be excused while he prototypes it .

Chris also had another good stint.  He can be seen here chasing the leader (unsuccessfully).

I was our anchor driver.  I would take us home to the checkered.

Determined to beat my previous best lap, I started getting situated and feeling the limits for the car as it sat.  I had some solid laps in and started building on them.  We clearly had one of the better cars on track.  In the right hands we were easily in the top 5 quickest cars.  I eventually challenged by fears with the uphill lefts and conquered them.

Around then, a battle started with me and Krider Racing’s B13 Sentra SE-R.  Picture for reference (it was taken after the race).

Due to the lack of timing information from race control, they were treating everyone as if they were directly racing on the same lap, for position.  We had it out for it must have been at least 10 laps.  I would catch up in all the turns, and under breaking, but they had the legs on us out of all the turns.  Clearly they had a way better power/weight ratio than we did.  Every lap I would out break them into 11 on the inside and they would just take me back again on the front straight.  I eventually got by and started putting in the really fast laps.  At one point I did a 1:54 (that’s a HUGE improvement for me!).

Thats when I started catching up to Model T GT.  Now that was a race.  More race than I could really deal with .  After only a lap or two building on them I lost it into turn 2 and spun.  Letting all the cars I had just pass, pass me again, including Krider! I spent the majority of the rest of the race behind krider again.  This time I made my move on turn 6 going up the hill.  I had a much better exit and was able to nearly catch up to them by the cork skrew.  Taking advantage of our brakes, I dove in on their inside and out breaked them.  Pass secured I was able to stay out in front and pull away 3-5 car lengths a lap.

By the end of the race all of our hopes for the changes, and our goals for the race were accomplished.  We even finished 11th another best-finish-to-date for us.  A top 10 is in our near future.

Great track!  Great race!  Great team!  Geat event!

First up, how did the tires fare?

These are both of the fronts.  They have a pretty decent amount of tread left.  The outside edge definitely got the most wear.  We should probably get them flipped and try to get some more negative camber in the front suspension.

Brake pads look okay too.  At least for the next 7 hour race.  I’m a bit worried about the rotors.  We did have some major pulsation at the end of the last race.  They are grooved slightly.  I tried putting a gauge on it to measure any warping but I couldn’t hold them straight enough to get a reliable measurement.  I’m not sure what to do here.  Getting new ones is probably about as much as getting them turned.  Maybe its time to step up to a name brand with fancy slots or something?

I pulled the drain plug.  It sure looks okay to me.  I went ahead and cleaned up the threads a bit and got a measurement for the threads (M14x1.5).

I got the tap ready and cleaned up the threads in the oil pan as well.  They were a little worse off than the bolt.  I got a new crush washer and tightened it up.  Felt normal and snugged up good.

I also drained a gallon or so of water out so we could get some glycol in the car.  I’m going to start parking it outside again and I don’t want that water freezing.  Boy does the car hate being cold.  Runs great warm though.

I gave her a good oil change too.

I did a little R and R on steering wheel adapter.

The threads on everything look good.  The bolts must have just backed out a little.  One of our readers suggested drilling through it and getting hardware hard enough to go all the way through and putting nuts on the other end.  It might just get some fresh lock tight for now.

The wheels stepan got us are looking mightly nice right now too.  Maybe its time for another tire upgrade .

Our air filter is getting a little tired too.  It came with one of our previous donor cars.  We recharged it once but the metal mesh and filter element is getting a little frayed.  It’s probably time to do some service on this too.

Were thinking of putting an exhaust manifold on the car (now that we have our AIV down).  It’s going to make the exhaust louder, we might want to make a laguna seca elbow.

All in all, looking pretty good!