Not just a pretty face.

     Found this is the pocket of my work pants while doing laundry today

oh ya know...just calculating surface areas of available oil cooler options.  As you can see, I'm struggling to figure out what to do for my setup still, since I'd really like to have it higher than the stock location AND give more cooling, but mounting is proving to be an issue.

     Been driving my subaru, and I actually really like it.  Has all the ammenities of a car that should cost a lot more.  still really only planning on throwing an AP stage 1 on it.

on the evo side - I picked up a gruppe s gauge pod so that I can have only boost on the steering column, and then AFR/oil p/oil t on the dash, allowing me to see more of my tach and use the knock light features of Tephra.  Also ordered a deka etx14 mini battery and terminals and plan to just lay it in the factory tray.  This will shed about 20 pounds off the front left of the car for under 100 bucks, as the pc680 is way more expensive and weighs more too!

     I was lucky enough go to the GRC race at Loudon this weekend.  And thanks to my great friend Orod, I got great access to the PUMA team, all the way down to beers and dinner with Mirra/Lasek/Sverre.

NHMS/GRC race photo set

EPIC weekend basically.

Evo will be back out of storage in two weeks...should have lots more to talk about then,

A week of work

    On the cars that is.  I was on vacation from work this past week (my yearly week off for my birthday), so I was able to accomplish a decent list of things.  I wanted to prep the winter car (05 Legacy GT, since I hadn't gone over the car since I bought it back in March, and had some much needed work to do on the Evo.

     Legacy got an oil change, AVO dry panel filter, bottle of techron, tint, tinted tail light overlays and a plasti dipped (blacked out) grill.

     The evo got even more love...

      - Racing Brake slotted/firectional vane front rotors

      - Racing Brake stainless brake lines

      - Fresh brake fluid (ATE type 200...the non blue ATE)

      - Torque solutions Prop shaft bushings

      - Heat wrapped downpipe

      - Rolled rear fenders

     Rotors, lines and fluid went quick ans easy as can be expected, especially with my motive power bleeder.  All necessary nuts and bolts loosened with no trouble, which is always a nice thing.  I was lazy and only did the front SS lines since I actually wanted to not spend all day everyday working in the garage.  On some quick break in stops it became obvious that braking has changed a lot even with the same pads.  I was able to trigger ABS on hard stops with a very definite modulation point on the pedal...could make re learning the braking interesting...  The RC5+ pads have close to 3k miles on them plus 2 track days and have TONS of life left which is pretty cool.

      The prop shaft bushings have been sitting in my parts bin for almost a year.  I had expected stuck bolts and needing to drop the whole exhaust.  I was able to accomplish this easily while the downpipe was off.  No stuck bolts again...sweet.  I actually only did 3 out of 4 bushings, since one was in a pain in the ass location, and I thought maybe it would dampen any increase in NVH.  The car has always given me trouble going in to second gear at low speeds around town, almost requiring a double clutch or 3 count before attempting to put it in second.  That is now gone, along with a decent amount of the "whiplash" feeling when letting off the gas under load.  Very nice improvement.

     The heat wrap is one of those mods that I feel is essential at this point.  A 15 foot roll made it from turbo outlet to just beyond the oil pan.  I probably could have overlapped a little less, but it came out pretty well I feel.

     Rolling the rear fenders...a job I've been afraid of doing on multiple cars for many years.  With the 17x9.5's and 255's, there was question as to if I even needed to roll, and through 1000 street miles and a day at Lime Rock I didn't rub once...but i have a feeling I'm going to want bigger than 255's at some point so I may as well prepare now.  First fender went great.  Kept it hot, and got it nice and flat without any issue.  No body line distortion or paint cracking whatsoever.  Then i got bit in the ass on the other side thinking I knew what I was doing.  Using even more heat, I got a nice paint crack basically the entire length of the roll.  I think i had a bad starting angle on the roller or something.  No body distortion or anything, so I'm not that mad.  I can replace paint.

     Now, just imagine if I/you had payed $200+ to have a shop roll your fenders and they told you they cracked your paint.  How ape shit pissed would you be?  This basically proved my principal of do all the work you physically can so you only have yourself to be pissed at.

     Interesting find of the week...A cracked spacer.  While bolting everything back on after the rotor swap, I randomly looked at the spacer and found a nice large crack.  Now, there are all these arguments against spacers, but I do not feel this is a standard failure, and Ichiba feels the same.  A quick email to Touge Factory, who then forwarded my pictures to Ichiba, and I will be getting a free replacement.  I really have no idea what caused this...

    
      Evo is now resting in the garage for about a month to save some miles, since I'm quickly approaching the 60k mark (60k service).  That and I though it would be a good idea to do some real world testing on the legacy, since it's been sitting in the garage since I bought it.  So far, I really like the car, seems like a solid beast.




     Back to work tomorrow...I am SOOOOO excited.  (can you feel the sarcasm through your monitor?)

The funny part is I'm afraid of roller coasters.

     Time to try and recap another awesome day...

     I didn't get much sleep (read that as about 3 hours) since I got home from work Friday night around 11:30pm.  I still had to pack up a few things and go over the mental list, then I tried to relax and couldn't due to bullshit from work.  Long story short...fell asleep around 2am and woke up around 5am and just kinda layed in bed till about 6am.  Jumped in the shower, packed up and headed out...to Dunkin for coffee and breakfast.  Finally hit the road for real at about 7:45am.  Got stuck behind some slow people and finally made it to the track around 10:45am.

     My dad arrived before me and staked out a spot, so with my help we quickly got the EZ-up up to have some shade.  I hit registration and tech, then went about pulling the front wheels off to check the torque on the spacers as well as what the brakes looked like.  Checked over a few other things are all systems were GO.

Cliff notes style recap:    

Session 1 - 15 minute run time.  Told myself I wasn't going to push too hard and just re learn the track and find the limits of the new tires.  Well I wound up doing none of that.  Right off the start getting on the brakes for turn 1 provided a nice shudder in the pedal, and a now expectation that the brakes were shot, and not gonna have a good day.  Had a few moments missing turn in for turn one having to stand on the brakes so hard, but rode it out and luckily it seems it was just deposits cleaning off from street driving as the judder mostly went away, and I put down a 1:12.66 lap.

Session 2 - 20 minute run rime.  With a little more confidence in my brakes I was just gonna go out and drive and practice some hot lap cool lap ratios/strategies to try and keep the brakes and tires at useful temps.  Dealt with some traffic because one of the guys thought i was a slow car and not cooling so he subsequently dive bombed me into turn 1, and i was able to ride his ass for two laps before he got the hint.  In clean air right from the green flag I layed down a 1:12.09 then 1:09.92 then a 1:08.86! NEW PERSONAL BEST!  For the rest of the session I hovered in the 1:09-1:12 range.

Session 3 - 20 minute run time.  By now I was psyched, and was planning to push it.  Did the warm up lap and then got up on the wheel and pushed (this is what you will see in the video).  In three hot laps I ran 1:08.34, 1:07.87 and then 1:07.79 for a new PERSONAL BEST.   Unfortunately the session was black flagged due to two wrecks right after I layed down three of my fastest laps

Lime rock 6-16 from Nathan Bookbinder on Vimeo.

     I know 3 spots I'm leaving time on the track.

      - I can't get the braking point/turn in point dialed in for the left hander (turn 3), even though         

        I have big bend figured out (turn 1 and 2)
      - Slowing too much for west bend
      - Need to use the downhill to 7 to my advantage. Compression=grip, and if I can run

        harder into/out of turn 7 I will lower my times

     Guys running around 1:03's claim a turn 7 exit speed of 100mph.  Early in the day i was in th elow 80's, but definitely increased that exit speed and it became very obvious the benefits...my top speeds were climbing all day (best was 115.6mph) 

     Anyway...the question now stuck in my mind is, that due to the fact that i was pushing MUCH harder and the brakes showed signs of this, is it the pads, old rotors, or fluid?  I have new rotors, lines and fluid waiting to go in.  Definitely need to get my cooling ducts in now too...

Can't wait to get back to LRP and get my 1:05.xx

    
  

Some dope new stuff

     Got some new duds just in time for the race this weekend.

Very good friend of mine was heavily involved in the design the new PUMA GRC shoe comparing as well as the design of the cars.  Lucky bastard got to go hang out with Dave Mirra and Bucky Lasek to show them the shoe...but hes still awesome and hooks me up.  So without further ado:

   PUMA GRC street Mid (BIG THUMBS UP to OROD on these)

 

Shoe side shot, plus the Alpinestars tech 1 race gloves.  The gloves are SFI with some nomex but not very high up FIA tags.  Picked up a pair last minute just to try and will probably upgrade quickly since these are a tad small.

     I'm super stoked for this weekend.  And can't wait for the pro version of the shoe to be out.

Here's some more about the project

PS - 250 views on this page and no comments??? come on people its getting lonely around here!

Hangovers give you a lot of time to think

     I had a trying week at work this week, so my head has been swirling and working over time more than normal with life issues in addition to all the car stuff.  Then, last night myself and a large group of friends took a party bus to Foxwoods...it's all a little fuzzy after that...

     Swapping the o ring on the map sensor didn't solve my fuel trim issue, which sucks.  I think I finally pinpointed the spot in my AFR map that is causing a big rich dip just before peak load.  Hoping to try out a new map tonight.  Hopefully I've solved it, since I probably wont have any time to make another map before I get out on track next weekend.

     I'm on vacation next week, so I have a few maintenance things I can get done on the car.  I think I'll be ordering some Racing Brake slotted/directional vaned rotors as well as stainless lines, but I haven't decided if I'm going to put the rotors on yet or just carry them as spares for now.  The stock rotors are not showing any issues but do have all 56k miles of the cars life on them.  I need to get my cooling ducts set up which is proving difficult to plan out.  There is a good discussion going on right now between a few bigger evo time attack/time trial guys so I'm following that.  

     Off to Lime Rock again next weekend.  I'm trying my best not to think about lap times, but its tough.  I think that just by not having to deal with the running around to the classroom as well as a lot less anxiety in the realm of what to expect from the day/car/myself that I will be more relaxed and as a result faster.  I keep randomly watching my video from last time, and there are some very obvious spots to take a different line.

   I still need to figure out what to do about tire pressures for the RS3's...thats kind of important I think.

                                               I can't freakin wait for next weekend

    

10 cent o-ring=$10 headache and the Indy 500

     Quote of the week: "I had to stop seeing her...she got a case of the feelings"

     I've been a tad sleep deprived fr a few days, working day shift for 3 days straight when i normally go to bed at 3am and get about about 11...getting up at 5 am really shocks your system, it really starts to exaggerate everything (feelings, emotions...yes I do have each of those).  Anyway, for the first time in years I was not able to watch the 500 live, and just finished watching it off the DVR last night.  Two things:

          1. The Dan Wheldon tributes bring a tear to my eye 

          2. HOLY EPIC RACE.  The new DW12 chassis is awesome, the racing was awesome and 

              I spent 3 hours on the edge of my seat.  It really is the greatest race in the world.

     Back to the previously mentioned O-ring.  There was a random post on Evom from someone who appears to work at a tuner shop stating that the O-ring on the omni map sensor that I runis a little lackluster.  For a long time now I have been battling a fuel trim issue on the car to the effect of the car thinking it is very lean at the oxygen sensor, indicating a boost leak somewhere.  So since I had the factory map sensor with o-ring in the glove box, I spent 5 minutes swapping the o-rings...and damn was the omni sensor loose.  No resistance to fitting the sensor port AT ALL.  With the factory o-ring, a much tighter fit was obtained...This very well may have been part of my issue, but I still think I need a bigger ring.  

     Tried out a new fuel map last night too.  AFR's are close, but still need some tweaking.  Some spots are definitely touching a tad leaner than I would like.  Whats cool to see is the pickup of ~10whp and 10 plus wtq in the mid range. The numbers are a little whacky due to the new big tires though.

 

          Also, was watching top gear this morning and they were doing a segment on "lapping days" as they call them.  I wanted to share this...Clarkson just sums up the feelings very well.

    

Like a Bauce

     Headed to my parents house this weekend to attend a good friends wedding, and accomplished a few things on the car...new wheel setup is on, alignment, oil change, new WB sensor, and the harness bar is in.

     This is all I have in the way of pictures, the weather got crappy so i didnt pull out the good camera.

     The setup is VERY wide, the RS3's are F-A-T.  The one worry was the rear rubbing, as the setup sticks out 3mm further than factory setup but in 250miles I have yet to rub once.  The clearance to the rear trailing link is minimal and with any deflection I will probably polish the arm.  If I can swing it I'll pick up a set of R/T Ernie's offset links to allw for 275;s in the future.

     Next up was the alignment.  I was targeting -2 degrees front camber, -1.5 rear and zero toe all around, but with my luck I figured something was gonna go wrong.  Not to disappoint...the shop called to tell me that they could swing the left all the way to -2.4 degrees but the front right camber bolt was seized at -1.7.  Rather than trust a shop I've never used to fix a seized bolt, I had them match the left to it and call it a day.  It also appears that the tire i wrecked at lime rock may not have been due to toe...dammit.

Final Alignment

-1.7 camber front

-1.5 camber rear

0 toe

~3.8 degrees caster

     Now...the Buschur harness bar.  This was an impulse buy I shouldn't have made for various reasons.  In a fit of frustration yesterday, I think I have decided to sell it.  Oh the ups and downs of building a street driven race car...oh and life too I guess...

Until next time...