Captdistraction's ST2/GTR build thread Build Thread

[captdistraction]

Trying to figure out cylinder heads is big on my list. Talked to a guy who killed some valves on a s550 head but that’s the lead option. That and some l&m intake cams and production boss exhaust cams should get me to the edge of class rules.

Car came off the track with a hefty 3601 weight last event with a third tank left. Definitely room for power.

 

[drano38]

Glad you're back on track with the 50 car, and driving great as always.

 

[TymeSlayer]

Great driving Capt'n. Always a pleasure watching you drive.

 

[captdistraction]

Pictures from the last couple weeks:

Friday (week before the race): Motor lands in Phoenix (I travel Saturday and Sunday so no work done):



Monday: Open up the motor, order parts as needed to remediate issues found:




Tuesday: start closing up the motor, clean up headers:

 

[captdistraction]

Wednesday: Mate motor to transmission, hate cars:







Thursday: lift drivetrain into car with much help from friends @mattlqx and @steeda5




Friday: finish plumbing and first start, finish build and load into trailer:






Garage is disgusting. Still needs cleaning but just that one car took up all 800sqft. I even installed a sink in the back specifically for this situation.

 

[captdistraction]

At the track:






Track pup visited:



For Sunday, spaced up the brake pedal some to help heel-toe


Fastest mod: distraction elimination


Hard work (sorta) pays off

 

[captdistraction]

Bonus, more crankshaft damage pictures:

(note, I damaged the snout face trying to separate the crank from the damper and timing gear and I also dinged the back of the keyway. The snout itself was out of round, and I scored it up pulling them apart slightly.)
In retrospect I should have left it together for analysis so that it doesn't look like I was just abusive with all of this:

 

[captdistraction]

Reporting in: Bondurant Racing School Track w/Looper with NASA AZ

I barely touched a thing, and drove the car on the trailer.

After another thrilling*, Loving* and motivating* last minute thrash on the car, I packed it up and made it out to this weekend's Bondurant Track event. This is one of the more interesting tracks in Arizona, as it has some very fast complex sections that punish heavy cars with high horsepower. Some elevation changes make for at least two "in air" moments per low 1:00's laps. (*-I'm full of shiznit here)

In typical fashion, the day wasn't without its issues: I lost the first practice session to a malfunctioning autoblip. I had installed one to help with my struggles on heel toe braking but it would put the car in limp mode the first time I'd fully open the throttle, even when off. I redid the calibration, double and triple checked my wiring work, and still the problem persisted in the pits. Removing it from the car fixed the problem immediately and onto qualifying where I made mistake #2: I spent so much time trying to fix the autoblip that I forgot to refuel the car. Oops.

The race was somewhat better: I then forgot to drain about 4psi out of the tires as the ambients climbed to nearly 95* and track temperatures were just brutal. My coolshirt system that I had overnighted back from service in Ga appeared to not be working, so immediately I felt that I was in trouble. Yet the green flag waved and I kept it together, despite melting the tires. What I didn't account for was that despite all the little issues I had, everyone else also had issues of their own. A GTR in front of me went into limp mode despite being a full 4 tenths faster per lap, and others had spins and tire issues. I was able to keep the car on track and cruise to a third place podium finish.

With some good sleep, Sunday went much better.

The tires were now closing in on the end of their life, and we skipped qualify to split the groups into separate races (instead of a combined small and big bore race that would be a body contact disaster), I went out and had a decent practice session. Starting grid was set on laps from the day before, but I was able to find another .5ish seconds improvement, mostly because

RTMotorsports/Ron Ballard was glued to my bumper and pushing me around the track. We had a very exciting battle for 2/3 the race as my tires were done, and his still had some life until they finally let go and he had a couple spins. His car with the GT350 bodywork looks real good, and performs even better. Once he's fully up to speed I will have to really up my game just to be in the same playing field.

Was nice to not have a ton of issues (mostly electronics, along with some bruising from the rough track). I have to repair the wiring for the telemetry system as some crimps were pulled loose but the setup list for the next event isn't bad:

• oil change
• refresh tires
• change rear brake pads
• repair wiring for racecapture, replace a few other segments of wiring to further clean up
• remove yet one more fitting from the oil system to further simplify (can do this during oil change)
• decide what to do with autoblip
• align the car
• change exhaust to AMP quiet config
• replace coolshirt system yet again

I can do that in a couple days which is really nice. From a championship standpoint, I'm now 45 points up in the region after drops. Not a huge margin, but a good workable margin now 5 weekends in with 7 to go.

Here's video from Sunday (will have a chase video soon from Ron's car, which I'd argue is a far more exciting view):

Also here are some pictures from the talented Will Patterson:

 

[captdistraction]

Another update: FRPP finished up with my crankshaft and damper from the dead aluminator and the answer is:

"we're not sure, looks like a vibration issue. run the factory damper".

The setup is off to ATI now but I expect to hear the following:

"we're not sure, looks like a vibration issue. run our damper".

Any future motors I have for this car will be fully balanced from damper to clutch assembly, but I have no idea where the massive vibration could have originated from.

 

[captdistraction]

Better Inspections Required.

Let me preface: I'm a dumb-ass. I went out on track at least one, possibly two events with a bent LCA bracket and broken floor pan in my car.

Recently while working on the wiring of the car I noted the driver's seat was somewhat loose. Scarier yet was the loose section was the mount of the seat that attaches to the floor, spot welds had broken loose. I removed the seat and the problem was even worse than I had feared, the floor had torn away from the rocker panel for a 14" tear (that had drooped almost an inch in separation), and also had a 5-6" perpendicular tear at the rear seat mount going towards the fuel and vapor lines. Daylight shining through and it had definitely been like that at the last race, watching video I thought it was odd I was tightening my belts so much on track and you could see lots of side-to-side play (enough I was researching back braces versus composite seats to try and cradle the seat some).

Digging further, I found that one side of a LCA relocation bracket had been fully bent inwards, 1/2" thick steel (two plies of 1/4 or more) bent into the rod end of the LCA. I thought maybe I just did it at the last event, but at no point did I go off track or over a hump in such a way to hit that part of my car. It definitely started back at Chuckwalla when the aluminator let go, where the car hit the curbing at T1/T2 sideways as it came back on track, I think it caught that LCA bracket and bent the inside of it. Then subsequent events made the damage at the seat mounts worse.

Long story short, Fathead Fabrication was able to repair the chassis and weld up the floor, tying the seat mount into the frame rail and outer rocker well with some boxed steel to better distribute the loading. Now everything is nice and super solid.

However the point of this post is that the way I did post track inspections was to lift the car up in my garage, take the wheels off, sit on each wheel as a bench and inspect items at that corner (sometimes getting under the pan or the rear axle as needed). Though I put my hands on every link to verify tightness, from the angle I checked things I only saw the outer part of the relo bracket. and I had missed the tears in at least two post-event inspections. Much of it comes from the hurried pace I've had to deal with this year, but the take away is:

Be thorough, vigilant, and methodical in your inspections. Take the time as its important. If the car had been run much more as is I'd hate to think of what a whole seat mount failure would have been like.

Some pictures:







Also, as usual huge thanks to BMR Suspension (Kelly Aiken) and Fathead Fabrication (Junior Rios) for their support in quickly and cost-effectively resolving my errors and brutality on the car.

 

[VoodooBoss]

Glad this didn't cause an off for you.

 

[captdistraction]

Super Tourers 2 - Summer Racing at Arizona Motorsports Park

"You boys like Mexico?!"

SPOILERS AHEAD: (Chris wins his first race!)

For once, things came together nicely on the car, made some changes and repairs that were needed, added a new datalogging system from Autosport Labs, and even some sticker hoosiers were ready to go.

All set, Arizona motorsports park is a local track with lots of variety in straights and turns, and has the benefit of being run in both directions (CW and CCW). The big downer is that you have to prep the car to pass sound ~94db IIRC. So corked up and turn-aways added to the exhaust. With ambient temperatures nearing 100* on both days it was hard on both equipment and body.

Saturday I qualified on cycled out tires and swapped to stickers for the race. While I expected that plan to work out, I didn't expect for the positive battery terminal to contact the oil catch can nearby and short out the power steering. I had to come off track from P3 in class, lost 3 laps while @ArizonaBOSS checked out the car. I re-entered without power steering and wrapped up the race, shockingly ending up P2 as the leader's car failed sound, and another class car did one lap and parked due to a brake caliper failure. I was somewhat frustrated as had I stayed out, I would have found my first win. That said, another local racer and TMO member kicked some serious ass and took home the win in that carnage fest, wrapping up his provisional NASA license in the process.

Sunday went better. I practiced on the new config (CCW) which I had never run before on old tires, and that worked out great since I was able to run the fastest in practice. I didn't quite qualify as well, 3rd overall, 2nd in class for the start, but just a tenth back and 2 seconds faster than practice (back on the good hoosiers).

The race start was pretty wild, all the cars stayed together and P1 and P2 (a GTR in ST2, and a well setup E36 in ST3) changed places a few times and I was right on their rear bumpers waiting to capitalize. Luckily, that chance came fairly early and the GTR went off the track and had to really leverage its AWD. At that point to the end of the race I was able to cruise on to the finish, earning an emotional first win!

Video:

The points race is going very well for me, now up 65 points after drops or 145 before. As long as I continue to execute and find my way near the podium I should be in good shape for the end-of-year double points enduro that will close out the regional championship.


Lots of huge thanks to go out: (tags not working for me )

Tim at OPMustang, Kelly at BMR Suspension, @ArizonaBOSS , Kevin Yang, Derek Eckley (both TMO members), Brent at Autosport labs, Will Patterson, most importantly my wife and many more are all owed huge thanks in getting me to this win. Without their help and support it would not have happened and with all the trials before I might not have kept going.



I feel this program is really coming together. Some large changes coming to the car to help prep for the next race which is the NASA Nationals event at COTA. I might not have the speed, but as Derek Eckley proved this weekend, "To finish first, first you must finish". More on those changes soon.

Some pictures from the event: (courtesy Will Patterson and Adina Evanson):

 

[Grant 302]

For once, things came together nicely on the car

Great to hear! Nice to start off one of your posts this way. Congrats and looking forward to more posts like this!

 

[302BOB]

A Hannibal quote from the A-Team.........." I love when a plan comes together"

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Looking good, buddy. You EARNED that one. Keep it up (until I get back?)

 

[gripdriver]

the 6th on track picture (making the right turn) is pretty badass.

 

[RES_22]

Objects (and BS) in the rear view mirror deserve to stay there.

Well done...you’ve endured.

 

[captdistraction]

the 6th on track picture (making the right turn) is pretty badass.

Doing what I can to conserve tires via lifting them, lol.

 

[ArizonaBOSS]

Chris kind of glossed over this, but in his Saturday race, after the mega fuse blew and the power steering failed, he went back out and drove the rest of the race (about 2/3 of it) at full tilt, without power steering, in 95* heat with a 3600lb car and 315 Hoosiers on the front. Dude toughed that one out to finish!

 

[steveespo]

Pushed (with driving skill, not bumper) the GTR right out of the way to victory. Did you just back down the pace or was the BMW just too strong for you?