Yes, I did introduce you to Lucas. A great guy and a nice family. You probably know he and I bought a storage locker of Fiero parts sometime back. If you need it, he has it or will find it! I met him through a Craigs List add he had and we have become pretty good friends. Ask Damien what he was wearing while my wife washed his pants!
Well good news! Car is still in one piece and runs. Drivers are all healthy and the weekend was a smashing success. I'll post photos and videos as soon as I get calmed down and have a chance to go through everything.
Thanks for your kind words!
[This message has been edited by thedrue (edited 10-28-2013).]
Life has finally slowed down a little and gotten back to normal. Wow, its been a long ride but we had an awesome weekend. Just gonna throw up a bunch of pictures for you viewing pleasure, I should have some video edited soon as well.
Might as well continue in chronological order!
The Thursday night before Tech we finally got the rest of our livery done. Car is really coming together!
We finished the stickers friday morning and rushed off to Tech. The car made it through with minimal issue and we were off to the track to set up our pit! Our year of preparation really paid off!
We got our pit set up and headed off to the gas station to buy an enormous amount of fuel. We filled our 55 gallon drum as well as both our 5 gallon fill jugs and the car has around 8 gallons in it, so all in all we 73 gallons at the track for 12 hours of racing on Saturday.
The last thing we did Friday is aim the headlights, One of my friends took some awesome pictures on the back straight and Projector Retrofit did an awesome job supplying our lighting needs. Very good product and well worth the money!
Im not sure what happened on that last post, Maybe ill try to fix it later.
We all woke up very excited and nervous Saturday morning. Nothing like waking up at the track about to start racing!
We put my wife Katey in the car first, she is the most conservative and we thought that she might do the best job keeping it in one piece as we all try to figure out what we are doing. She did awesome and I think she will definitely be racing with us in the future.
She ran a great first stint, our dog Luna is not so sure about all this but as usual was a fantastic companion!
None of this would have been possible without the help and support from team Pontiaxed, they are a great group of guys and I look forward to racing with them in the future.
After running a wonderful 12 hours saturday and finishing a very respectable 10th place we put the car to bed for the night. She ran hard and gave us everything, hardly a scratch!
We all tried to get a good sleep so we were sharp for the 6 hours of racing the next day.
At this point Pontiaxed had lost their engine and Fiero Dynamics were recovering from a big crash the day before. They were back on track for most of the race the second day though, very good group of guys!
Unfortunately half an hour before the end of the race we had a bit of an incident, we were hit by a 88 Jetta and it did a number to our rear bumper, It didn't effect our race much but it is something I will have to deal with later.
2 race weary cars ready for some tender loving care!
We drove the car home and I cleaned it up and readied it for storage for the next few months while we strategize and prep for the next race. We have a few ideas as we press forward and look to get more competitive! The car held up very well and we could not have asked for a better race weekend. It makes a decent piece of decor for my man cave I think!
There were lots of faster cars we beat because they were in the pits broke down. Then they would come out and drive like madmen. I just let them by We ran the entire race without many "off track excursions" I went straight off turn #7 twice and spun in the chicane once
Kinny standing watch
Fuel man Bob and I
Friday at tech, we met some really cool guys from BC, who brought the shiny blue FieroDynamics Fiero. Early afternoon Saturday, Brent spun in turn 4 and was hit by the Beach Dudes.
Start watching at 1:23 paint exchange at 1:45
The wide angle GoPro footage is a bit deceptive because it makes the cars seem farther apart. Justin and I were both on the track at the time and saw the aftermath. It was painful.
Its been a while, we parked the car and have been taking it easy but it is time to pick things back up!
First thing to do is fix that rear bumper. We straightened the rear sheet metal and made some plates to weld to the end of the frame rails. Got that all back together and she's better than ever!
I have also been working on my man cave, the more it gets finished the more I enjoy my big red white and blue man cave ornament!
We also bought Katey a little tool to practice her RWD car control and heel-toe downshifting... 2013 Subaru BRZ 6 speed.
Last but not least, we spend the day pulling a 3400 out of a 2000 Pontiac Montana. The stock drivetrain held together but we are hesitant to push it too much more for fear of having some major problems at the next race. This engine will let us start fresh and should give us a nice bump in power as well as be dead reliable. The roller cam will be much better for endurance racing.
Should have more updates soon as the engine build continues!
We have been busily working on the car and preparing for the season. It looks like we will be running 2 races this year. Both at PIR. A short six hour race in August, the weekend before Fierofest and a 24 hour in October. Plenty of time to prep but we do not want to be rushing the night before the race.
We have been building the engine and I have had a custom window net made, it shipped today so I hope to begin fitting it next week. We also need to get an onboard fire suppression system installed per the 2014 rules and Kinny is working on a front splitter/aero package.
Shiny new engine parts...
I also decided that our fuel barrel should match the car... it gave me something to do during the cold winter months!
Decided to paint our second set of wheels gold to match the real race car... We will be ordering a second set of race tires soon.
My wife decided to vandalize the dusty race car... obviously I need to get it out of the shop a little more often!
I hope to start auto crossing it soon as well as sorting out the new upgrades and make sure it is race ready! Hopefully the car will be in good enough shape to go to Fiero fest in August the weekend after its first race this year...
[This message has been edited by thedrue (edited 04-03-2014).]
One of the issues we had at tech inspection during our first race was the hole at the front of the window net. I talked with seatbeltsolutions.com at the SEMA auto show and the agreed to make me a custom Fiero window net. I think it turned out very well and don't see us having any issues with it in the future.
Our new tires also came in! I was not going to get them yet but the Dunlop Direzza ZII has been discontinued. The replacement will not be available till the winter and I do not feel comfortable going to our next 2 races with only one set of tires.
I also have been working on finishing the wall. I'm working toward getting the shop finished.
We also have begun assembling the new race engine, My wife Katey even got her hands a little dirty!
Last weekend I was going to autocross my red car but Justin Parcher with Team Pontiaxed convinced me to take the race car and Im glad I did! I had just gotten the car out of storage and it was nice to get it out and stretch Miss Fierolines legs a little.
Backing both ladies out of the shop bright and early Sunday morning.
Here I am auto crossing Miss Fieroline with the Oregon Region Porsche Club
We have been pushing to get the car ready for the August race.
The next requirement to make the car legal this year is fire suppression. I finally received the equipment and wasted no time getting it installed.
It installed very easily but I did need to order more tubing, the 17 feet it came with were not quite enough.
I also could not handle the idea of building a shiny new engine and letting it rust in the engine bay... Im sure this will raise some eyebrows at tech but I hate working on rusty and dirty engines.
Some other shiny things also showed up, they may or may not be for the race car...
There are always neat cars at Donesky Racing International, this weekend was no exception!
The co-owner of the car wanted to work on the aero a bit, this is the first attempt at a front splitter/spoiler, this in conjunction with a big extractor vent on the hood should help stabilize the front end of the car. We hope to refine it and develop it as we keep racing.
The last new mod for this season is a master caution light. Team Pontiaxed and I dreamed this up after watching them lose an engine to oil pressure when the light was illuminating twice a lap for the last half of the race. We decided that when driving in a race it is easy to focus on the surroundings and possibly miss the glow of the oil light or temperature light. This big red LED will illuminate when either the oil light comes on or the temp light comes on. I am also working on modifying the shift programming in the ECU and running this light through a rapid flasher to communicate the need to shift if a driver forgets (like I did when I got too excited passing a BMW on the front straight). I think this is an innovative addition and should be unmissable to the driver and hopefully save an engine and possibly a race weekend. I will keep everyone updated on how this goes and there should be plenty of footage of the shift light function working after the race, hopefully the other functions never trigger.
The light will be positioned right over the gages in the direct sight of the driver, when it illuminates it will be very bright and my drivers will be able to figure out very quickly what is wrong and if it is an oil pressure issue will shut down immediately and get towed in, if it is temp they can manually trigger the fan and probably make it back to the pits without doing any major damage.
Should have more this weekend as I rework the harness situation as well as paint and finalize the front splitter and complete the master caution light. Stay Tuned!
I was unhappy with the shoulder harness mounting so since I had to install a new harness anyway I decided to rework the mount system. I welded in a couple threaded bungs that will allow for very easy harness upgrades in the future.
All done!
Apparently injury, death, or worse will occur!
We got our splitter painted and installed for good, believe it or not I can stand on the lip. Hopefully it lasts through the next event!
Next I focused on the master caution light, Team Pontiaxed did most of the leg work but getting the oil pressure light to trigger it proved a bit of a trick to make work. I also wanted to get the flashing shift light working and am very happy with the results!
I put a little video together demonstrating the function of the master caution light. I think its safe to say that my drivers will have no excuse for missing an oil pressure temp warning!
Man this thread is PACKED with Awesome!! I love how that car looks and it sounds perfect. Congrats on a really cool car man. Enjoy it and kick some ass on that track. Peace
Pete
------------------ "May the grins begin when you turn the key and hear the engine roar over your shoulder" ......Gall57 (slightly modified LOL)
Rick called me and said you needed some help running Auto X last week, if I didn't have to work I sure would have been there! If you ever do need help let me know and if I'm not doing a work related thing I'll be there! After June my weekends should be pretty open.
Love the car, It looks awesome, and I love what you are doing with it! One thing I am curious about, do you know what VW those steelies are off of, and how wide are they?
Here is the info I can find on these wheels, they work great and the price has been right. Its getting harder to find them since VW switched to a bigger bolt pattern a few years ago but these wheels are out there. I got the first set from a friend for 50 bucks for all 4. The second set I got from a dealer that had them sitting around for 35 a piece. They do not use the standard conical lug nuts, so you need to get a set of ball socket lug nuts if you were to run them.
Time for another update! Race day is in just over 3 weeks and Im feeling very good about the car.
I finished up the engine build, I was not going to get too specific online but the cat is out of the bag...
The roller rockers required more height inside the valve cover, luckily I have a plethora of fiero parts and sacrificed a couple sets of valve covers to make one set a quarter inch taller.
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The valve covers work great and when the time comes I will be building a set for my turbo car as well...
I also installed an adjustable fuel pressure regulator so I had a bit of control over the fueling and could dial it in
I buttoned the engine up and prepared to swap it into the car.
I did the engine swap in about 5 hours working by myself, we estimate that if a major component failed on either my car or the Pontiaxed car we could swap the entire drivetrain in 2 hours or less and keep racing.
Here is a quick comparison of the old and new drivetrain.
Note the Dodgerunner belt tensioner, a very nice addition to any v6 fiero. Eleminates belt squeal completely and self adjusts for the life of the belt.
The front lip caused some issues, luckily its overbuilt and suffered no damage supporting the front of the car.
Engine is in the car!
We fired it up, adjusted the rear toe and I frantically drove it as much as possible so when our dyno slot came it had a bit of a break in.
it runs very, very well.
Some of my coworkers seem to have a sense of humor... you would be surprised how much crap you get when you show up to work in a fiero race car!
The day came, we strapped her down to the dyno and gave her hell, I only got 300 miles on it but you know what they say about breaking in an engine like you plan to drive it...
We are very impressed with the numbers to say the least, we were able to adjust the fuel pressure regulator using the sideband o2 sensor on the dyno and it is running very well on the stock engine management with 19 lb injectors. We also optimized the timing. 166 hp at the wheels and 204 ft lbs of torque is outstanding for a 3400 with fiero intake, exhaust and heads... As for as the intake and exhaust go, we have plans. The engine should give us a bit more...
This test mainly was to prove that we were not leaning out and damaging the engine or anything, it would suck to blow it up next time out.
Luna was not happy with the fireworks, she seemed most at home and comfortable in the race car, she's a dog after my own heart!
Kinny and I wanted to do something to help relieve the under hood pressure, we went to Home Depot and came up with just the right solution.
Its a clean solution that should help, quite a bit.
Just my wife and I cheesing while we eat our burger king breakfast after cars and coffee this last weekend.
I also took the opportunity to install a new Richporter distributor, our OEM distributors are very ugly and we hope to have a better chance of making it through race weekend with this one. I did reapply the thermal compound to the ICM since it was a little dry, other than that this looks to be a very nice piece and it is all new. Car is running great on it and we hope to not have any issues, I do have a spare OEM ignition coil in case we have issues with this one.
Thats all for now, I suspect the next update will be after the race, we hope for a reliable car that will hold its own, and the primary goal is to keep it on track and in one piece!
Thanks for the info and the link, will make the search much easier when the time comes. And hey, even at $35 each, and easy to clean up and paint, they are a much better option as far as 16in wheels go compared to just about anything else.
That engine looks really nice too! Cant wait to hear how it holds up for the race.
