Are you really reading this? Why? You could've read this on FB already.

Why aren't you watching people you'll never meet get married for an unspecified amount of time before the first ever Royal Divorce? Oh wait, that's not in America.....


Updates? Well, you've now officially missed a race or two, but rain events don't count, so for those keeping track of G-Fab points, you have now learned a few things:

1. The points system was not made for you to win

2. I have almost completed the 12th chapter of the Book of Excuses
3. Fast Five comes out tonight, and you bet I'll be there with a bunch of hooligans

4. No matter how many points you get by the end of the season, it will pale in comparison to the amount of bonus points each and every G-Fab member gets.

On to the good stuff:

At the most recent NER Points/ G-Fab non-Points event (except Jenna gets 70.948 bonus points for beating Wiley), the Panda Team figured out that Falken RT-615 (non-K) tires are better than 5 year old Hoosier Wet Radials (non-HWET) but not as good as Dunlop Direzzas, Toyo R1R, or Hoosier HWets.

Photo by Ed Savage. Thanks, Ed!

They're probably on par with Hankook RS3's in the rain, which absolutely BLOW. Because of that, the Falkens have been relegated to street duty on the STU/X G35:

New Hoosier HWet H2O tires are on the way, so we'll be armed and dangerous for the NJ Pro Solo coming up at the end of May. On top of that, we're making some super top secret suspension changes. Now if only I could get all our tires to fit in the truck so that we can run our regional tires, 12 run Nats tires, and have the sticker tires for an emergency, and also the rain tires, and maybe I should mount up a set of intermediates, and also some street tires might help if it's cold.... and that's also not including wet (Contis or Toyos?) and dry (Shaved RS3) tires for the ST car. Maybe I should get a set of Dunlops for that car, too?

One thing is for sure, I reeeally should invest in a tire mounting machine, or seek sponsorship from CT Tire, which has been our go-to place for mounting rubber because they have yet to damage a wheel (unlike everywhere else that has nicked the crap out of my CCWs).

More good stuff:
If it looks like I'm hunched over something that looks like a Skyline R33 GTS25-T RB25DET transmission, it's probably because I'm trying to figure out how to bolt it to my S14 KA24DE-T.

In some earlier post I showed how 3 bolts don't line up, while the rest are just about perfect. Well, when things don't line up, you either beat them into submission or cut them out entirely. Unfortunately, I didn't have a big enough hammer to beat the transmission into shape, so I took out an angle grinder:

I probably don't want a huge chunk of transmission missing, so I took an old transmission that lost its second gear (why do I have so many?) and cut a similar piece out. Like pieces of a poorly made jigsaw puzzle, they almost fit together!

And with that, I'm done.









No, not really. The entire assembly will go to 240sxMotoring where it'll be jigged up and TIG welded to perfection. For now, we're getting ready to head up to NHMS for NER Points Event 2!

FCSCC Points Event 1

Did an event on Saturday with a local club (FCSCC). It was a super small lot, but still managed to get 16 runs on the car (3 drivers at 5 runs each with 1 fun run) without any fuel issues, and we were done by 2pm in order to get out before the afternoon rains hit.



The car performed better than ever, but still has some quirks. The summary of performance is as follows:

Max GPS Accel G: 0.46
Max GPS Lateral G: 0.90
Max GPS Braking G: 0.32
Top Speed: 42mph
Average Speed: 28mph

I'd expect on a warmer day and a better surface the Lateral G number to be higher. Temps were in the 40's, with 25mph winds blowing over cones every now and then. The Hankooks, which are better hot tires, were likely never up to temp, even with 3 drivers cycling through the car.

The fact that the car accelerates better than it brakes means something is wrong. I'll go over the caliper slider assemblies and re-bleed them before this weekend. Seems like one caliper is locking early, or a tire is loading up too fast:


I also need to corner-balance the car a bit, and check the ball joints that I haven't yet replaced. I had the car up on blocks last night to check all the bushings up front, although at some point I need to burn them out to swap in the Energy Suspension bits.

Despite all that, I was able to outrun a friend's STR NC MX-5, which we had spent all Friday night setting up after one of the Ohlins height adjusters jammed up.

Having to disassemble the upper control arms to remove the shock is very annoying in that car. If he lets me design some new upper arms, I'm definitely building in the ability to swap the shocks out easily. Still, his car and the ST car are at the same level of development, so they seem to make a good pairing. On a small lot like the one we were on where we couldn't get up to speed (probably needed to downshift to first on a few corners we didn't), the handicaps even out. Sadly, an EF Civic with its shorter gears was able to outrun the ST 240 by a half second.

This weekend is another NER event on the runway course. Speeds there are more like National level events, so I'd expect the 240 to lay the smack down. Some small setup changes and another fresh tank of gas should make the car even faster, although I'm behind on working on the Panda so how much I'll get done is up in the air.

Presents for G-Fab!

For those of you that didn't know, I have decided to invest in a present for G-Fab!

I wanted to buy us a new Keurig machine.

Here it is!

See how well it works?

Event 1

Last week was spent with the gas tank empty as Jenna took some Scotch Brite pads to the tank interior. Cleaned up all the gunk on the bottom and shop vac'ed it out, hoping to get rid of fuel issues once and for all.

This weekend we finally got out to the runway up in Devens, MA for a weekend of autocrossing. Saturday started out great, with the car running strong all the way up to the event (2 hour drive). Got into paddock with a spot reserved for red cars with Hankooks on flat black wheels (the other car is a STR MX-5).


Over by itself was a lonely Panda, waiting to stretch its legs and get back into shape:


After a few runs the ST car developed a leak around the oil drain fitting (car used to be turbo and was reverted back). Easily plugged up, but that didn't stop crank case pressure from blowing a half quart all over the driver's side of the engine bay. I'll have to plug and weld it for now, and I've got a fresh pan for the new motor.


During the final runs of the day, the ST car developed a stutter, which we traced to be a dirty fuel filter and sock. The fuel sloshing around looked to have loosened up more rust/ varnish from the sides of the tank that we couldn't see. Figuring it was no big deal, we carb cleaned the sock a few times and kept going.

That night we sidetracked a bit as we put some work into the MX-5:



Swedish instructions absolutely suck. Despite having the wrong tool sizes called out (among other things), we got everything together. We also had tons of help:


Sunday came along and I decided to run the ST car instead of Panda, while Dave would take sole control of Street Mod duties to keep wear and tear down (still on a stock KA tranny while the new tranny gets fabb'ed up). Morning runs started off well enough, with me being about 2 seconds off pace and feeling I had driven poorly enough to reflect that (my driving style is geared more towards having power). Unfortunately, the car started bogging before we could really figure the course out, and we were back at square one.

We ended up buying a new fuel pump and filter at a nearby Autozone, and cleaned out the fuel sock with carb cleaner, but the car would just not hold fuel pressure. For some reason, it would start fine, and slowly get worse until it would nearly stall out. Shutting the car off and turning it back on seemed to reset it, and it would run for another short burst before doing the same thing. I have a sneaking suspicion that there's a clog in the fuel line itself, or the breathers aren't letting the tank suck air in fast enough to keep up with fuel being injected (causing the pump to have to fight in-tank vacuum). Regardless, I'm going to replace the fuel tank and soft lines, and clean out the hard lines as best as I can. If anyone has any other ideas, I'm more than welcome to them!

Luckily, I get to do the work in style, as we've found a new location for car storage while we look for a new house:

Fingertight =/= Fun

The debut of my ST car was fun. Until it wasn't. It lasted about 7 runs, and then we had fuel issues again, which meant cleaning out the sock and installing a new fuel filter. That helped a bit, until there were BAD NOISES coming from somewhere around the engine and tranny. We figured it was knock, then gears, then who the butt knew?

Dropped the tranny and as it turns out, the flywheel bolts were only finger-tight, and did not have any Loctite on them. Note to self: Check previous owner's handiwork. At least it wasn't an expensive fix....or so we thought.

As it turns out, all the debris that lodged itself between the flywheel and crank fused itself to the crank and ripped the piss out of the flywheel. Not knowing what would happen, PJ installed a spare flywheel and took to fixing the crank. An angle grinder, metal file, dental pick, and indicator later, the car is within spec and running again.

All this (plus Panda) has made me realize the fragility of the KA. So we picked up a built motor, in pieces, from a ONE member. It's a 0.020" overbore stock rebuild, with brand new OEM or OEM equivalent replacements. It will be my first engine assembly...I've only taken them apart...and those had blown up blocks.

The goal is to have it assembled and installed before the Jersey Pro. T-minus 7 weeks. Panda needs a new butt as well, and a new transmission, so we'll see which car takes precedence.

After the nightmare that was ordering wheels and tires, the new wheels and tires came in. Drag DR-42's in a +42mm offset. Not ideal, but we were desperate, and EVERY set of wheels we wanted/liked were backordered, sold our, discontinued, or abducted by aliens. These are actually far less ugly than the eBay picture, so I'm happy with that. We'll be running the Hankook RS-3's, in the hopes that the heavy car will perform better on them over Toyos, and that they'll be able to handle the heat of 3+ drivers per event.

The challenge now is to get the wheels (1 hour from us) and the tires (1 hour from there) to CT Tire (one hour from there) and have them mounted, and then installed on the car (35 minutes from there), before Saturday.

In other news: Bad gas is bad.

We cleaned out as much as we could last night with a sponge, a siphon, and Shop Towels. Tonight (assuming it doesn't downpour), we will be taking a ScotchBrite pad and Shop Vac to the tank, since it's been drying out since yesterday. Though not totally spotless, it should be ok for the weekend. I'll probably have to source out another tank, since this one is fairly shot and the baffle has rusted off.

And a final thought to end this entry: gasoline will MELT your plastic gloves to your hand. Do not recommend.