Budget Race lude!

[rjudgey]

Hi Ryan will try my best just money being the main problem at the moment, but good news is my mate John AKA (Civvy from the PP.com forum 1.8 carb to B20A swap from ages ago) asked him if he knew anyone that had some wheels and track tyres and he said he still had a set for his old Rex on some 15" kosei and are Toyo R888!! Only downside is the mad man whacked 205/40/15 on them! so bit on the small side I'm hoping it's a mistake and they are actually 45 profile if so will be nearly perfect! )
Anyway you think they'll be good? I think anything will be better than purely street tyres I have vredestein sportrac 3's on at moment in 195/50/15 and if it rains they'll be unbeatable but if try they take loads of warming up to get em to grip and are very soft sidewall only 1 ply so wobble like crazy! lol! I think the only problem will be on the drag strip will have to use an extra gear but that may work out better! We'll see I guess! Oh only downside is they are about 300 miles away so it will cost me a day out of a weekend to get em.

[rjudgey]

I've prepped the cast manifold just in case I need to use it, have increased the primary ports by a couple of mm, and increased secondary ports to 1.75" ready for 2" downpipes and new system, hopefully won't need it and will have a whole custom race header made up but we'll have to see how much I can haggle off the total price! I think either way it's going to free up a lot more power and torque so can't wait for this to get made next week!!

I'm going to mod my camber plates on the front and get some weight out the car this week, what kind of camber you guys run at the track? Mines set to max stock camber but I can increase this quite easily now I have the coilovers in as they take up less room than the old ones!

Got the oil pan changed at least this weekend and the sealant should have set by now solid, going to change the filter and put in some fully synthetic oil as I have quite a lot of it spare hopefully make engine run a little better with less friction! Need to check rocker arm clearances though so will do that this week.

Next up order my hood pins for the bonnet and boot and cut off and remove the hinges and locks and as much metal and sound deadening as I can from them.

Really hoping I can get the weight down to 850kg's or less I think can maybe hit 800kg's if I can get the glass out and replaced as well as cutting a lot of metal out the cars doors, bonnet, boot and inside rear quarter panels, but we'll see I know it's hard to get the weight down on these cars but at least I had the lightest model to try with to begin with! lol!

Will fit the F2 emulsion tubes and hope it finds me a bit more top end zappiness and some bhp too! :0)

Also one other thing struck out on the track tyres my mates dad got shot of them! blooming parents PIA!! So now I'm back to my normal tyres unlikely to get some super stickies now I think, question is, is it worth getting tyre additive to soften the old tyres up a bit, they aren't new couple of years old now. And what pressures you guy's run at the track?

[hondalude86]

awe its a shame you couldn't get the R888, they are suppose to be awesome! I'm not sure really if that stuff is good to use on street tires, i'd probably avoid it, but if you have to run street tires, your probably going to be in the 35-40psi range. Really so much will depend on heat and on side wall roll over, they are def going to be your weakness with the car for sure, even some Toyo RA-1s can be found for cheap used and they'd be much better than most any performance all season..

As far as camber goes, what kind of speeds will the low bank corners be? I'm sure jared will agree, but the most you can get out of these will barely be enough. I'd say 3.5+ neg for the front. on my old green car, i could get between 4.5-5 deg of neg camber out of the front, while only mustering up 3deg neg if i was lucky. really the rear camber amount is the biggest weak spot on these cars, and i'd say that probably has a lot to do with why dave gran is killing rear wheel bearing assemblies!
One more thing, i know your brakes are killer, but make sure you check all your brake lines and the fittings to the calipers! Jared has been having a bear of a time, I'm running the Goodrich SS lines on all my cars and haven't had ANY problems, but when i had others on there, i've had a leaky fitting almost ALL of the time! Good luck with all that weight reduction. you do remember how light my white car was with no trunk, fenders, hood, bumper supports, interior, doors, ect were... i think getting down to 800kgs is going to be tough. even for you mate!

[rjudgey]

I knew you'd bring up your stripped out while car! lol! When I had my car weighed it was bang on 900kg's with a lot of fuel and that had everything inside that I have now, so I think with the support frame gone, engine mount, possible cast header, hinges and locks gone, plus the interior and electric motors to the windows and headlights, should see me down to at least 850kg's and the rest we'll have to see I don't think I'll have enough time to cut out the webbing on the bonnet and boot, hoping to just about have enough time to make up some plexi glass side windows but may have to just find a way to bolt them in shut and ditch all the rails and motors inside the doors. May even go back to a stock seat as it's really light but then again may struggle to keep in at cornering! lol!

[hondalude86]

800kgs is roughly 1764lbs!!! Shit son! that would an awesome goal to shoot for...

Full tank of gas and of course the craziest in weight reduction!






I do think, now that i'm looking at the pics again, that if you do get rid of the glass, and go to lexan, and of course everything else, i do think you can get down to 850kgs/1874lbs! It'd be pretty tough, but with your lighter bumpers and no sunroof, that helps you out already loads. That weight was with a full tank of gas (15.9gallons) 2 gallons of antifreeze, and 5 qts or oil...

[rjudgey]

I don't know how your car can weigh so much Ryan, seriously those bumpers must weigh a tonne! I know my bonnet is already feather lite but the hinges and the locks weight a bit, same with the boot my car when weighed in at 900kg's had a tonne of sound deadening added to boot and side of rear quarters and the rear deck plus all the stock stuff on the floor, I also had everything in the car apart from passenger seat and mirrors, but I still had the aerial, passenger seat belt in which will be going out the car as well as all the roof, and side panels inside the car which i know don't weigh much but also the electric windows etc. Oh I did remove the rear sway bar which I know isn't much but is a bit of weight. But as you say no sunroof also one less wiper on the front and no rear wiper. I don't know it's crazy how yours weighs so much with all that stuff out! I know must be that B16A you stuffed into it! lol! Not kidding though I bet it weighs more than more A20 also you got that giant cast iron hook on the back thats a few kg's!! lol!! ;0)

[rjudgey]

Just had a thought you ever try taking those girders off and weighing them? I bet they are a good part of your weight you still running with them on? Also you have a rear screen brake light fitted! lol! Also the alloys you have are they pretty heavy the ones I have are pretty light nearly as light as the honda ones yours look pretty hefty to me although quite pretty! Also I don't have any of my side mouldings left either they went long ago and the damn things do actually weigh quite a bit like the old rubber spoilers on SI's they're hefty as well! Of course I do have my carbon fibre round gearknob that off course saves at least 100kg's! ;o)

[rjudgey]

Wish I had some scales like that at home! I'd be well happy to get anything substantial off in weight 850kg's would be good still but going to try and see just how low I can go without cutting up the chassis in anyway as potentially I want to restore the old girl later on when she get's retired. Any ideas howmuch a B16A weighs with all the bits attached? Great thing about the A20 is although cast iron it is thin cast and strong so doesn't need much support bracing on the bottom end, and also the head being SOHC 12 valves weighs quite a bit less than a much heavier DOHC Vtec head I'd say nearly half the weight going by the weight of my B20A head which would still be lighter than B16A head with it's hollow cams and non vtec rockers etc.
If I get a chance to corner weight it will be interesting to compare between the two!

[rjudgey]

Ryan and rusty whats the best alignment settings to use?
Was thinking
front camber -3.3.5 degrees
front toe out .15 degrees or 0?
front caster 0 degrees
Rear toe in .15-.25 degrees
Rear camber what ever i can get from lowering as it's fixed at present.

[hondalude86]

Rich, you sure are silly, those wheels werent to heavy, 15lbs per wheel, only like 15x6. either way, I HAD NO DOORS!!! hahahaha

Ok back to serious...
Front camber should be -3.5 to -4
Front toe shouldn't be more than dead on Zero! with track speeds you get more toe out that on an autocross, and this is whati run when i autocross!
Max your caster out, i've had alighnment shops get everything from 4deg postive to 7. more is better if there is alot of turning, but if you still don't like that, then go with a positive 5.

rear toe, run at least 1/8 inch total toe IN! If you go less, your going to get that thing mighty sideways, if your worried about it, then go 1/4 total toe in. that's only 1/8 on each side.

and of course, as much negative you can get, i'd say it'll probably be in the -1.5to-2 range.
Good luck!

[rjudgey]

Well maybe you filled the tyres up with water then! lol! ;0)
Would have been interesting if you had weighed those girders on the front and back of yours though I bet they are a good amount of weight!
Anyways thankfully mine is much lighter than yours and hopefully I can strip it out even more and get things lighter and nearer the 850-800 mark which would be really smoking. Getting Exhaust sorted out on Monday so really hoping big things from this still no joy on tyres yet still in two minds whether to blow £280 on the Toyo Track tyres or just stick with what I have and use some tyre additive Ryan and Rusty you had any good results from tyre softner/additive?

[hondalude86]

i believe rusty has used the tire softener on a set of OLD victoracers, still a semi slick race tire... Honestly rich, Tires are going to be the hugest difference on this event/track event, as you probably already know, I'd spend the 280pounds on a set of good tires, or better yet, try and really search to find some good used ones! I just dont think the perfromance all seasons are going to be able to hold up, and no matter how much tire softner you use, the side walls are still going to be like jelly

[rjudgey]

Yeah I know but with the way our weather is at the moment it's likely to be more wet than dry!!! So at least I know I have an alright pair of dry tyres and if it does go damp or wet I'll have a wicked set of wets!!
I have managed to locate some nice 2nd hand TSW rims imola's in 15" 4X100 pattern and not too far! I also have an eye on some Dunlop SP0J cut slick road legals that have just enough tread on one tyre to be legal on road! Both going bargain basement cheap and near enough for me to get to quickly!

Got the car back together good news is my motor mounts minus the center beam and tranny mount doesn't seem to have effected anything but I didn't try too hard as numpty here forget to hook up the main PCV breather pipe to the pan! so was very smokey and smelly driving for a few miles to get back home! lol! good job i accidentally over filled the oil a little bit! lol! So got it back and managed to put it back on ok. I also managed to get the F2 tubes into the carbs and not sure whats up with the tuning used same air correctors and jets as the F16 and it just kills top end power dead. So for now I've gone back to the F16.

[rjudgey]

Well I got my spare upper arms and I increased the slots to 1inch on all the holes which is 1/8" bigger than stock or about 7-8mm in modern numbers! lol!
All I can say is wow! I now have oversteer back again! But went for a bit of a drive and went a bit mad in some back country lanes and after 10 minutes of madness got back on some decent tarmac and the tyres had stopped screeching and all I had was solid grip all round with the mildest hint of overteer to help get round the tighter stuff better! This car is just awesome it's handling is just on a whole new level it's way better than the BMW now and that handles pretty darn good for a 1.5 tonne beast! I just can't wait to get some sticky tyres on this thing it's gonna be insane! I haven't enjoyed driving this car so much for a long long time it's been a bit touchy of late with it's out of balance brakes and soft rear suspension but now that is all gone, even the brakes barely make the car move with the new suspension being so stiff! I know they're still out a bit as one tyres will eventually lock up before the other but it's stopped the wild pulling to the left it had before with soft springs! Just wish I could work out whats causing the fuel cut out on right hand bends most likely think it's crap in the tank as left bends are fine and down straight road. May try to drain the tank but to be honest shouldn't make much difference and it only happens on the main circuit part throttle is fine.
But I'm so happy now with the car it's just stupid stupid insanely gonna get me into so much trouble fast now! I'm going to have to start booking up some more track days now!!

[rjudgey]

Some free suspension mods! :0)






And another pic of my Gaz shock fitted to front suspension.

[rjudgey]

Well had some fun tinkering with the car this weekend! managed to get most of the things i wanted to get done finished!
First off found an excellent place to get the suspension setup local and cheap race car outfit based in a WW2 fort near me! cool location too!
They checked my setup my lovely new elongated upper arms actually gave me -4 degrees camber!! So we dialed it back a bit to -3.5 degrees as suggested by you guys, that's with me in the car and full tank of petrol. The rear camber came in at -2 degrees although I need to work on the righhand side a little as when i hit a large hole in the ground going off track at Oulton Park a long time ago it's clearly bent something a tiny bit as it's only just over -1 degree hopefully can pull out the arm a bit or I'll try to move the shock in a little bit on the tower and elongate the holes etc. Rear toe set at 15 minutes in, front toe and caster 0 degrees. Handles beautifully and nice and straight. Didn't corner weight the car unfortunately as I didn't get time to strip out everything and their scales were off at a race meet anyways will get this done maybe next weekend.
I did manage to get the car on their rolling road dyno dynamics dyno as i wanted to check A/F ratio and also state of the engine as I've felt that since summer it's been not running very well and felt down on power.
I was right only showed 163.9bhp so lost 20 odd bhp from last engine which had lower compression ratio so if anything should be a bit up from that build!
So went back to basics and did a compression check think I've lost a bit since but I'm also using thinner sythetic oil showing 185psi on all 4 cylinders which is ok but I'm more use to getting 210psi and sometimes more, but it was cold engine and had been left standing for whole night so most the oil probably gone from rings as well. Checked the rockers they were a little tight but not amazingly but readjusted from cold to .17mm on inlet and .25mm on exhaust, but biggest issue was using the wrong plugs forgot I'd switched them to normal crappy ones so I didn't wear out my expensive racing ones! doh! Stuck them back in and put it all back together again. Damn thing wouldn't start pulled it all out checked spark good, fuel pressure good, tried new plugs just in case still not firing! Hmmm tried easy start into carbs started! WTF is wrong with carbs, used a bit of choke and started working! ran for a bit and eventually sorted itself out never had that happen before! odd thing is all i did was adjust two top nuts on one carb and replaced the rubber washers which had perished? Couldn't have made that much difference surely?
Anyway thing is running way better now! easily another 10-15bhp back and top end and midrange much better! But biggest shock on the Rolling road was that the mixture was so lean on idle, low revs and midrange that it could clasify as low emissions engine!!! So have to look at changing my idle jets to something much bigger and also my pump jets as well as they have more of an effect on midrange. Interesting thing is on the dyno graph was it was pulling like a train climbing very quickly to 163bhp then at 7000rpm just dies so think that's my exhaust bottle necking the engine for sure!
So now the car is in the exhaust shop now hoping he can build me a new header and system but he's up to his eyeballs in work so may have to make do with a downpipe and system for now but that should still be way better than what I have at the moment we shall see hopefully get it back wednesday night or Thursday night at latest will let you know how it goes all depends on price and time!
Other things though i managed to do was completely strip the hell out of the car! glove box and few bits attached to the lower dash all gone, fitted extinguisher where box was, I've removed all the interior trim and all the bits that they fitted into, the roof lining all gone, miracoulously the rood had next to no rust on the inside! aerial gone, extra sound deadening from boot gone, headlight motors gone, rigged up an engenious way off fixing them up and down, drilled a couple of small holes through the arm and into the chassis and used a giant size R clip to hold it in place! works like a charm and the weight of the motors and bolts were pretty substantial! Gutted everything out the doors apart from the manual winder mechanism as didn't have time to fit plastic windows and thought might as well use them! but i removed every little bit of metal that wasn't needed from the door, the thing that holds door in place was heavy, and all the brackets and tabs that were screwed in for the panels to hold em in place all removed. Also removed a few heavy duty bolts that were for the rear belts and also the sound deadening on the front bulkhead, I'm thinking about some harnesse's so i can ditch the heavy mechanism for the seat belts, also ditched all the rubber finishers round the windows, and doors, and anything else that was rubber removed from boot and bonnet, amazing howmuch those things weigh when put together! So the car is about as stripped as it can get only the windows are what I can save weight on in future so probably only able to get it 10kg's lighter or so by plexi glassing the side windows. Didn't get time to bonnet pin the bonnet and boot, tbh don't think i would have saved much as the weight of the pins and catches weren't much lighter than the hinges and locks and the inconvenience off having to undo them all the time I think would drive me nuts! I may do the bonnet as this has the heaviest hinges but something I'll look at another day! Will weight them first just to see if it's worth doing! I think i would have only saved a few kg's by doing this and would have taken me too much time which would have stopped me doing other mods! Wing mirrors are on for now will take em off when I get to the event! Spare seat and belt still in incase i need to drive a passenger their and back but easy to remove when their and will give the bird something to sit in if it's a nice day! lol! Must say the interior looks pretty cool now it's all stripped out later on I'll get some cheap plastic sheet and cover the rear quarter and doors to tidy things up a bit. All in all quite a bit of weight removed and car feels definately better for it! I did add some weight on though I cut up an old front speaker from a prelude and glued the magnet to the back corner off the fuel tank to try and collect the crap swimming around in the tank that's blocking my fuel pickup, i think it is working but will probably need a bit of driving to collect all the debris, I may move it as well as I think if it's a lot that it still may block the pickup as I've got it right near it at the moment may move it to the middle of the tank or maybe cut up another speaker and add one to the other side. What do you guys' think about that mod then worth a try? as can't think what else to try other than new tank but won't have time for that!
Anyways hoping to win some nice sticky dunlops tonight I have a set of TSW Imola 15" wheels to put them on will update you all on the exhaust in a day or so! Can't wait for Friday hoping i can find my camera stand for the car and take some in car footage for you all!

[hondalude86]

HOLY SHIT, 163whp, thats great man! Kinda jealous even, up here at alitude, that same power would turn into (provided its tuned equally well) 139whp! I'm so jealous of sea level folks right now!

[rjudgey]

Mate I'm not happy it was 183bhp on the old engine with a bad tune and was only 8.8:1 CR ratio!! :0(
This one is in bad need of a rolling road tune up, mid range is so lean and idle is just zero emissions and even leaner! The CR ratio is at least around 10:1 so should be making more power than last engine, but as I said after i did some tinkering it's at least back up to around 175-180bhp but I've not changed any jets yet so could be more to be had, I'll tinker more with it after the exhaust is done as it will need re doing again anyway! Also I think I put one of the carbs out of alignment when I changed some rubber vibration washer that were shot. So should be able to put down some good power by Friday hopefully be hitting the 200bhp mark again. Main thing is i got most the excess weight out the car so when i do get the extra power it is gonna really fly!!

[hondalude86]

Wait rich are these powers in bhp or whp?

[rjudgey]

Flywheel hence why I'm not happy! lol!
It's getting better though exhaust is done and F me is it bleeding loud! Engine is definately up a whole different level and sounds so much more lively because of it!! Have to completely go over the carbs having so much fueling issues at the moment really hard to get it to start which was never a problem before!! Not sure what's happening at the moment also need to mess with plugs and ignition again.

[hondalude86]

Damn rich, you really need to megajolt your carbed car! totally worth it! way more adjustment that the silly stock dizzy!

[rjudgey]

Well found the issue and spent a whole night raggin it up and down a dual carraige way with a petrol station at both ends of a roundabout to change jets, pretty much got everything spot on apart from now after the 999 challenge it's gone a bit wobbly over 7k rpm could be fouled plugs will clean them and try and again.

Spent the whole night trying the jetting, still have F16's as on the AFR it was running at 12.5 which is fine any richer and will be too much! In fact I've actually leaned it out a bit more so probably more like 12.75-13 now, went up to 180 airs and 150 mains, I've also sorted out the lean idle and mid range, I drilled out the idle jets and pump jets to .65 mm and seems way happier! I can actually have the idle screws screwed in to the correct level for the first time ever!! they are set at 1.75 turns out, I also found out the issue with one side which had the idle screws out 2 turns more than the other carb so probably why it was being a pain to start, seems to be better now but we'll see when I get home!

So the idle, midrange and mains circuits all seem to be in tune and at a good A/F ratio running much better but still getting fuel cutting out on right hand bends so need to do something about the tank must be something rusted up inside that's loose blocking fuel.

Got everything up and running for last Friday car ran lovely to the track was about 1.5 hours drive. Took the spare seat out, passenger belt, and the wing mirrors off then hit the drag strip first.

Now still running 195/50/15 size tyres with Vredestein sportrac 3's which are really a rain tyre ok when really warmed up in dry but rain is their thing!
Ran consistent 14.13 seconds with terminal speeds just a smidge under 100mph fastest one was 99.97mph so was well chuffed! Personal best before was 14.5 at 94mph so big improvement over this!! Was hoping to get into the 13's and over 100mph but started getting issues above 7k rpm possibly the plugs had fouled as had done quite a few hard runs and engine was getting pretty hot too. But to be honest with the tyres I had being smaller in diameter I was having to change upto 4th gear although this was quite early I think hanging it out in 1st-3rd would be better and having 205/50/15 which are bigger diameter would have given me more speed in each gear and would have not needed to use 4th gear! The new suspension helped loads I jacked it right up and traction even with an open diff was pretty impressive!! Beat plenty of RWD and 4WD drive cars easily off the line where as before they allways got the first few metres on me!
Came 3rd overall out of 40 cars all in the same budget and only ones that beat me were a Scooby with upped boost and NOS and a Fiat Coupe with upped boost and NOS and they both had better dry tyres too so I was well happy! Main thing is that I beat the MR2 with the Camry V6 conversion!!

Now the Handling circuit in the afternoon was a bit of a mix bag, first run I put the rear of the suspension back down to the ground and pumped up the tryres to 28psi, way way way too much understeer tyres screeching like made absloute awefull! And to top it off no power coming out the figure of eight to the stop box so was loosing at least a whole second there! So next one I dropped the tyre pressure on the front to 20psi and this helped a bit but still hard to get the back end round and the fuel problem still there, 3rd run and they ran out of time so couldn't get anymore in so I jacked the rear of the car up 3 inches, and then softened the dampers on the front and attacked it best i could, the car was oversteering now which was perfect for the figure off eight and posted 6th fastest time after I pulled out over a second improvement on previous time. managed a 26.17s the MR2 was 24.43s and the scooby was 25.53, was enough to put me overall 4th which I was happy about but annoyed as with the right tyres and no fuel cutting out issue could have easily won probably both events or at least won overall.

So will tweak and tune and re enter next year and should be way faster but will probably do some auto slalom/X events and hill climb to have some fun in because I think this car has become seriously competitive now!!

[hondalude86]

Damn rich, that sounds great!!! Let me know if you need more setup help! hahaha

[rjudgey]

Some pics look how flat it corners even on the figure off eight probably roll a bit more on stickier tyres though!

[gfrg88]

Wow, look at the body roll.. err should I say no body roll..

Good job, Rich. Keep up the good work!!