martt1ski

Ace37 - Where did you find the: "McMaster neoprene edge guard" ? Looking for same - for same purpose.

ace37

This is what I bought: https://www.mcmaster.com/#8507k11/

I briefly mentioned it in posts #87-88, but I never took a direct photo. It works well and I've been pleased with it. At first I hadn't even deburred the sheet metal so it was starting to look like a minor cut or accident was just waiting to happen until I put this on.

The 1/32" channel width/gap (~= 0.031" or 79mm) is good for single sheet edges. If you also wanted to apply some in areas where they spot welded two sheets together, this exact one wouldn't fit so you'd need to get some with a wider channel. I may pick up a wider channel like that later on as my kid likes to climb up in the car and I've removed the factory weatherstripping so there are a few smooth but thin edges he could get his knees banged up on.

And for anyone on the fence on that, removing the weatherstripping has been made explicitly legal now in the 2019 PCA rules: 6. Bodywork, "M. Seam sealer, undercoating, weather stripping, and tubing for water drainage may be removed." All together the weatherstripping does have a bit of weight, and removal literally takes minutes. Since the cars run without windows it's going to be loud and drafty no matter what.

ace37

Thanks Lemming. I'd like to see that. And with the present wording I am not surprised there are multiple interpretations out there on what we can do with the rear bumper, but I also understand some racers have also modified or removed the front bumper. With my reading of the rules that is not permitted, so it would be nice to see the next rules update clear up all of the uncertainty and differing interpretations about the bumpers and get everyone on the same page.

mark boschert

I'm the other SLC guy and first SPB at UMC looking for more people to race with locally. You need to just get a few more DE's and get your license this year! PCA has some great races at tracks in NV, CO, and CA which we will be going to this year. Tim and I will be looking for you

ace37

ace37

Just ordered a set of Toyo RRs in the staggered SPB sizes from philstireservice. Should be fun getting up to speed - the first local track weekend with NASA is at the end of this month!

mark boschert

see you there

splinterAMG

A methodical and fascinating build.

Thanks for sharing your efforts.

ace37

Thanks for the compliment, glad you like it!

NASA let me pay a bit extra to double register for DE 3 and 1 this Saturday. That’s not normally the way it goes but they’re pretty nice to work with around here. With my driver meetings I should be able to run 7x 20 minute sessions if all goes well with the car and such.

I got a set of Toyo RRs from Phil’s and left them with the nearby Mercedes dealer yesterday. They’ll balance this set and I’m curious to see if the rotate out of balance right away. Probably but I’m curious.

I picked up a longacre tire pressure gauge and just got the really nice analog one figuring it will last a long time.


I also picked up a wireless tire pump, $80 made in China, we’ll see if and for how long that works. It will be nice and easy if it does. Edit: It didn't work much at all for me. I don't recommend it.



I found my heavy street battery dead yesterday. I’ll need to find something locally given the short notice so I’ll probably end up with a cheap motorcycle or ATV battery and just plan on replacing it annually.

ace37

My first set of Toyo RRs are here and installed now! Unfortunately it snowed so I don’t know how suitable the weather will be tomorrow, at least in the early morning, so for now they’ll sit in the trailer and I’ll swap them over if it makes sense. Here’s hoping! 🤞



And I installed powersports battery. It’s not super light, but it’s still a tremendous improvement over the beast that I took out of the car! It was locally available on zero notice which was the real key thing this time. I’ll be surprised if it lasts the next winter but I’m thinking I may just consider the battery an annual replacement item since the car will be out in an uninsulated trailer here in Utah. I don’t want to figure out a battery tender.

HoBoJoe

My shop uses miata batteries, about half the size and fairly inexpensive.

ace37

Last Wednesday evening I installed this Super Start ETX20L battery which has a rating of over 300 CCAs. I suspected it failed, but later I found it was actually my clutch safety switch.


Would have been nice if I'd have thought of that in time. It would have solved the problem nicely.

I got out to a DE with NASA Saturday. They were very kind and, because we have a new baby and I can't get away for two days of the weekend, they allowed me to sign up for two run groups. I ran with HPDE 3 and also at the front or well behind the pack with HPDE 1.


The morning was quite cold and damp, so I ran the first pair of sessions on the old and beaten down summer tires. It warmed and dried considerably before the second sessions so I broke out the electric impact and swapped tires. The tire pump turned out to be junk so it will go back to amazon. It seemed to be a battery issue - wouldn't hold a charge and wouldn't work on DC power with the provided adapter either. I'll look into a small DC air compressor / tire pump to replace it. The Longacre gauge feels high quality and I really like it. I expect to use that for a long time. The car really felt good and, while I had a few minor issues, overall it performed really well. I had a great time!

Going over to the Toyo RR tires from the cheap street tires was quite a revealation in what the car can do! It's big enough that to me it's not simply an adjustment - frankly I'm having to relearn the limits of the car altogether. I'm quite safe but leaving a lot of speed on the table right now, and as the day wore on I continued to understand it more and more but I have a lot more speed to pick up before I'll be sensing tire motion around most corners on the track like I was with the street tires. I need to pick up the pace. I can tell that my ideal cornering arcs are a bit different now. It makes sense - a big increase in grip level with the same power means I now need to get on the brakes a lot later and the throttle a lot sooner than before, and I can feed more throttle in while cornering than I could before so I need to.

The minor issues were:
1. Clutch - The clutch was still overextending, and I realized this when towards the end of one of the morning sessions I was having a hard time shifting. This happened last fall and was because after the carpet is removed, the clutch pedal has more travel than should be allowed. A clutch stop is the solution. I dug out some gear from the new-to-me trailer . Slapped some duct tape over a few plastic spacers I found and I had a great temporary clutch stop. Worked like a charm. I thought about making a permanent stop after the DE using something like a riv-nut in the floor, all-thread, and a flange nut, but I decided to order one instead. We now have a 6 week old infant so I can't commit much time to the car. (What if the thread or riv-nut ends up loose or gets loose after a few track days, is the all-thread undersized, what spacers, do I just get it welded, whatever.) So instead I ordered RSS's clutch stop (http://roadsportsupply.com/rss-clutch-stop/). It seems a touch expensive for what it is but the design looks to be of good quality and is simple. Essentially it's just a clamp for the back of the pedal with an adjustable stop screw on the back. I like simple; simple is usually less prone to failure and easier to diagnose and fix if it does.

2. Battery - The battery worked well until about noon, then it just wouldn't start the car. This was true even when I connected it to the Range Rover with jumper cables and gave it some time to build up charge. Later I found the battery wasn’t the issue - my clutch safety switch wasn’t engaging. Ignorant of this, I ended up push starting the car twice and left it idling between sessions when I could. It was fairly cool out and I still have both radiator fans and a fan on the oil and trans coolers. After talking to locals about race car batteries, they've had good luck with Braille batteries lasting a few seasons so I ordered their 11.5 lb battery, the B14115, from tire rack. I'm thinking over the winter I'll have to either store it in the basement on a tender or I'll just plan to replace it every spring as preventative maintenance and not worry about it. To mount it to the car I picked up a riv-nut tool and plan to use that and some scrap sheet metal (it's unalloyed titanium I think, I forget the thickness) to make a battery mount for it. The plan is simply to cut a few metal strips, bend them to mate to the battery and car chassis, match drill holes, install riv-nuts in the chassis holes, and bolt it all together. I could use traditional nuts to get equivalent performance and functionality but I'd like to do it this way to gain experience with another tool and technique.

3. Alignment - In the afternoon I noticed I was tilting the wheel left several degrees to go straight. I'll need to get the alignment checked out and see what's causing that before it becomes more of an issue.


I purchased a photo from one of the local photographers, Chance Hales. I think I'll throw some black vinyl wrap onto the bottom of the front and rear bumper covers to match the black of the side skirts.


And finally, in the late afternoon they were behind schedule so I pulled on to the NASA official scales for a weight check with me (190 lbs) in the car. 2625 lbs was the number and 2650 lbs is the minimum race weight. I had a few things I could pull out and I still need a cage, so I figure it's time for a weight checkup. I suspect going from the stock roll bar and three points to a full cage and harnesses will add around 125-150 lbs. So the way I had the car set up Saturday would have me around 100-125 lbs over weight. Also it looks like I'll do well to have the car corner balanced when I stop messing with the car.



At the time I forgot to check my fuel level and had two sessions in a row at the end, so I took that picture of the fuel gauge the next morning. The car's weight was measured before 40 minutes of runs, so in my mind I can just say all the remaining fuel in the tank and a bit more wouldn't be needed in a race. The indicated fuel level after the sessions was just under half a tank. Since a stock 986 carries 17 gallons of fuel which weighs just over 100 lbs, I had about 50 lbs more fuel in the car than I needed.

So for weight reduction, here are the useful and easy options I see:
-50 lbs - run at minimum fuel level
-34 lbs - pull passenger seat and the heavy Planted bracket it's mounted to
-?? lbs - hardtop weight reduction

For the hardtop I could go fiberglass or just gut the top hard and consider lexan. While I've removed some of the material so far I haven't gone far yet, and I've heard the top starts out at a hefty 74 lbs from the factory. I also have read from a builder here that when you include the hardware, a fully gutted/cut up/lexan'd factory top is only a few pounds heavier than the fiberglass tops. So I'm not sure what I'll do yet, but I'll shed some weight either way.

I expect those three changes together will be enough to get me to weight. But who knows. To go farther I can lose some weight myself (let's be honest, it wouldn't hurt me to drop 10 lbs), I can find a little more weight from the doors, I can go to a lexan windshield with tearoffs, I can pull the driver's side radiator fan, and for a few painful pounds I can resort to removing more wiring and more of that chassis sealant goop. Since I'm no jockey I may have to go here if I decide to run a coolsuit and not run overweight.

PGas32

Remember that you'll get called to scales at the end of a session when the car should be on E...so basically with no fuel in the car you need to be at 2650 less your weight. Also, if you already have a factory hardtop, just gut it and replace the glass with lexan. It'll be very close to an aftermarket top

Quadcammer

Fwiw, I use a magnapower etx-16 motorcycle battery on my boxster. It runs the car just fine and doesn't have any problems firing it up, even after sitting it for a week. I think you either got a bad battery or may have a charging issue.

ace37

Yes, this confirms what I was thinking. Thanks.

Edit: the issue turned out to be the clutch safety switch wasn’t engaging

I was a bit perplexed at just how spectacularly it seemed to have failed and had that same thought. If I got a dud battery so be it, that’s easy to fix and I’ll have another shortly. If my alternator gave up or I have an electrical short that’s another matter. When I put the new battery in I plan to grab the volt/ammeter and check the voltage with the car running to verify the alternator is working and then with the car off check the current for a high parasitic draw to rule out an electrical short. The kill switch was off when the original battery died so I’ll probably first check it that way - if anything is happening with the switch pulled I’ll need to go through the system to resolve it anyway.