Weight Reduction v.1.4.2

OKAY!  So first update in 4 months!  There has been a little bit of work done in the mean time, but for the most part, I've been taking some time off and relaxing.  But now, it's back to the grind of making big improvements.


The biggest thing I will be doing over the next month or so is improving weight distribution.  I'm removing as much weight from in front and behind the respective axles and moving it to more closely over the rear axle.

The biggest goal is to get as much weight off of the front of the car as possible.  The Evo's are generally nose heavy and the bad weight distribution.  At the end of the 2011 season, the car weighed in at 2609lbs with a 63/37 front/rear split.

I took to stripping down the front end and removing anything that is no needed for the vehicle to run.  I pulled off the stock radiator fan which has a large steel housing weighing in a 8lbs. 


I have wired up the stock A/C fan, which weighs in at a lighter 3.5lbs, to run off a switch.  This is a fair amount of weight right off of the nose about 1ft forward of the front axle.

At the same time, I removed both horn assemblies and the resulting hardware left from other part removal.  The horns took an additional 1lb of the front of the car.

The next thing to do before putting the front end back together will be to hole-saw the lower portion of the radiator core support.  This section is crimp welded so it is not easily removed.  So instead, I will be lightening it.  It's made of fairly thick steel, given that is is also used as crash bracing along with the front crash beam (removed).

With the fan wired up, I needed somewhere to put the switch.  So I decided to add a nice aluminum switch panel to the center of the dash beam.  I knew there was a reason I kept these brackets bolted there!  The bracket assembly is actually very light.  It is stamped sheet metal and weighs under .5lbs.  But it does a great job of holding the factory gauges and the new switch panel.  When I swap to fuel cell, a pump kill switch will be added here as well.

The next pieces to be taken off a high point of the vehicle was to remove the EGR and Evap hoses from the top of the engine.  A block-off plate was sourced from Modern Automotive Performance in Plymouth MN.  The EGR valve was easily removed and replaced.  The solenoids (EGR and Evap) are located on the back side of the intake manifold and can both be removed.  Next the Evap hose routing on the back side of the intake along with their metal brackets are taken off.   A few vacuum caps are needed for the removed hoses, and some slight rerouting.

These totaled a little over a pound when all removed from one of the highest points on the engine.  There is obviously little need for emissions on a full on race car.  The next step from there was to remove the rest of the emissions equipment from the drivers rear of the vehicle.  The charcoal canister and purge solenoid serve no purpose now.  6 bolts and a few clips and the you have a fair amount of weight off of the far drivers rear corner.











While I was back there, I removed the rear crash beam which takes 17lbs off the far end of the car.  I am trying to move weight to the rear of the car, but having it more centered over the rear axle improve moment of inertia.  This weight will also be located lower after relocation.




Next update will include me sorting out a mess of wiring by just hacking them all out :)

-Mike

Weight Reduction v1.4

Originally posted: 10-15-2011

The weight reduction begins! ......  Again!

About a week ago I began stripping the car down.  I'm working my way from front to back removing any parts I can find that are no longer needed on a race car.


I have been finding various brackets and pieces that aren't needed.  Things that were previously hidden by other items.  I finished removing the A/C lines, which wrap completely around the ending bay before continuing back to the T-case (read as "fun," yey!).
I removed the dash/crash beam from the car to further reduce it's overall weight, and clean up with wiring mess.  I will also be relocating many of the connectors and the ECU behind the crash bar for better protection and a cleaner look. 

With the crash bar and the steering wheel removed, I was able to remove more of the sound deadening tar off of the floor by the drivers feet, and over the drive shaft tunnel by the shifter.  The brown marks all over the floor is adhesive residue from the under side of the tar.  Removing all this tar really makes me wish I had an RS(which didn't come with the tar or the fiber mat on the firewall).

I'm taking some extra time on everything to make it look as clean as possible.  The first 7 months, I focused on getting the car running well without issue, and wasn't as detail-orianted as I should have been, but time was a factor and I didn't have any. So a clean and neat look is what I am going for.  And the nicer finish will pay off in small areas.  Cleaner means more material (dirt, glues,etc.) is removed, which in turn means lighter.  It may be minimal at the end, but every little bit is a step ahead.

With the dash bar removed from the vehicle, I completely removed the wiring harness that was attached to it to give me the most room to safely work.  There are a number of heavy braces connected to the crash bar to support the dash.  I removed anything not needed for the wiring harness support, or needed gauges.  Some of the items, such as the ECU and OBDII plug, had their own extention brackets off of the crash beam.  I removed those and built a bracket to house the ECU behind the center of the crash bar.  This gets it out of the way of peoples legs, and furthest from possibly getting wet.  I cut off the large OBDII plug holder, and welded the small place holder to the center of the crash beam mounts.

Next step is to reinstall then crash beam, and relocate the harness plugs that currently sit on the floor, to a more rain friendly location.

-Mike

Post National Recap

Originally posted: 09-06-2011

Been a while since I updated.

I took some time off after CenDivs as I was getting pretty burned out with all the repairs, and just the amount of work into the car this year.  It allowed me to get my mind back in the driving game a little more, and worry less about the car.

So how did we do? 

Myself, I drove more or less what I expected, and finished in 13th of 25.  My co-driver Andrew Pallotta, which to his credit only had 10 runs in the car prior, placed 5th in class (3rd on the first day).  The car exceeded my expectation for a first season performance.  With only 7 months of development, I am extremely pleased with how well the car did.

Things I learned:
1. Correct camber on Goodyears is not the same as Hoosiers.
    We found that even at slightly higher pressures, we were rolling over the edge of the Hoosier slicks far more than we did on the Goodyears.  We only had 4 total runs on the Hoosiers prior to competition.  This will be taken into account for next year when the car will be running all year on Hoosiers.

2. Lincoln has higher grip levels than any of the sites I have run this year (and not broken at). 

    Sadly most of this year has been spent fixing broken items, or making changes.  So I had little time to do any suspension tuning or adjustments besides some alignment changes.  I knew before arriving in Lincoln that the car was soft on spring rates, but it really did show at those grip levels.  You can see from the pictures that the height of the car and combine soft rates resulted in a lot of roll.  Which in the slaloms, felt less like a Prepared car and more like a Stock class car.  I have a plan for next years rate adjustments that should help cure a number of issues.

Plans for next year:
1.  Stiffer spring rates
  The car wallowed through slaloms, and the picture comparison between my car and many other Evos shows how the ride height and lower spring rates effect the cars handling

2.  Lower the car more
  Something I couldn't do this year due to budgeting.  This will be done in a few steps.  Wider front fenders to help tuck the tires.  Larger backspacing on all 4 wheels will allow me to set the rear wheels inside of the stock fenders.  The other benefit to this, is a smaller track width.

3.  More weight reduction!
  In Lincoln the car weighed in at 2609lbs with 1/2 tank of fuel.  That is 9lbs over next years minimum weight.  I do still have lots of room to go lower.  So the plan is to remove the weight, and relocate it strategically.

4.  Water-Proof electrical wiring
  Due to having all of the interior cabin stock wiring still in place, I ran 3 windows in the car in case of rain.  This makes the car extremely hot inside while waiting to run.  I am going to tube wrap all the needed wiring that can't be move, and relocate as much as I can from down low, to behind the dash area.


Also in the plans for next year, back to doing ProSolos!  They are just too much fun to give up!  Now that I know the drive-train can be reliable, I plan on hitting 2-3 Pros next season, along with a Tour or two.  I will also likely have a season co-driver, and likely a Ladies co-driver for some events.
I'll be taking a week or so off, then back at it again.  I'll try to keep updates coming as often as I can.

-Mike

16 runs down!

Originally posted: 07-21-2011

The Evo completed a full 8 runs at Eau Claire two weekends ago.  No issues while running at all.  I tried to eliminate my misfire by running 3/4 tank of fuel in hopes that it was a fuel starve issue.  Nothing seemed to react badly during runs.  Although it was a load speed event, so with the permission of the event master, I did some testing at higher speeds.  Everything seemed to work well, but traction was still low (sandy site).
Here's some video from one of my runs.  I also added in some interesting under car video.  It's cool to see how the slicks flex, and the suspension working.

I decided to run the same amount of fuel at CenDivs in Milwaukee.  The vehicle once again developed a miss/hiccup on course.  I tried adding more fuel, but it still did it on every run.  It sure made it hard to drive when mid-corner rolling onto the throttle, the car would shutter.  Here's some video of Day 1.  On this run, I managed to Index 19th of 204 for the day.

On day 2, I ran it up to a full tank just to be sure.  The problem seemed the same, if not worse.  I didn't managed to get a very good run at all this day.  My fastest (only clean run), the brakes faded out on the final corner causing me to shoot outside.  I rode the cone all around, amazingly not hitting any of them, and lightly through the finish.  On the data-logger, it showed between 2-2.5 seconds lost.
The one thing I am really pleased with, is the unearthly way the car drives on a Nationals Style course!  In the sweeper after the first slalom, I am able to roll onto the throttle near after corner entry and carry a ton of speed through the following "stairs".  This car, even with the hiccup, is just too fun to drive!

Day 2 "fastest" run

:

Here are the results from this weekend:
http://www.scca-milwaukee.org/solo/2011/e4/CendivFinalClass.html

After speaking a lot with the tuner, I will be doing some testing at this weekends event.  Going to log the ECU as I run, and try to narrow down possibilities.  He thinks there may be a chance that the crushed BOV is reacting poorly under mild load/high boost and opening prematurely.  Hopefully we'll be able to pin it down this weekend, and then on to Nationals!
-Mike

Originally posted: 07-04-2011

The Evo completed 4 run at the recent Corvettes of Minnesota event!
Sadly, it was only 4 runs.  Midway through the 4th run, I heard a large clunk.  Nothing seemed to change, so I figured it was another random noise that comes up in a gutted car.  But the steering started to feel odd as I finished the course.  And then on the return road, the previous mystery clunk (Has been around for a while) had gotten a lot louder, and it was obvious it was coming from the left front.  The top nut of the coilover that goes through the camber plate had done some on the fly weight reduction itself, and was no where to be found.  The coilover had dropped into the strut well and was held in with just the vehicles weight.

Here's the video of that run.  You can hear the clunk at 1:14.

After closer inspection, I did find that I am missing part of the top hat on the left front coilover.  But thanks to Jake Diehl, I'll be back in business shortly.  He was nice enough to offer to pull his top hats off his coilovers(that were currently unused) that are the same as mine, and ship them up to me from KS.
This is one of the things I truly love about the Evo Community.  There is very little that people won't do to help you about.  When my car broke last year, these were local Evo owners stepping up to sell me the parts I needed at a more than reasonable part.  When my transmission broke in Mineral Wells and I decided to go to a 5-speed, I had Terence Cox E-mailing me that he had all the linkage/shifter/mounts/sensor and mailed them up to me without asking a thing (I owe you a few beers at Nationals for sure!).  And once again, I have another Evo owner, Jake, offering to help out.  It really gives you a good feeling when you know so many people have your back.

Here's the video of my last good run prior to the coilover issue.  Still ended up late on the last slalom.  The misfire exiting the offsets will hopefully be fixed by running more fuel in the tank at the next event.



I'll never be willing to go 100% at DCTC.  Just too many chances to break something.  As you
can see, I let off throttle and was braking very early for the sharp corners.

I've done some more weight reduction since the last post.  The trunk, including the springs and hinges has been replaced with my 4lb carbon fiber trunk.  4 captive hood pins hold it in place.  This took about 30 lbs off the rear of the car at a relatively high point.

I was getting a little worried about the wire mesh over the headlight holes.  Although light weight, if it was to rain heavily during an event, I was worried about it soaking the air intake that is behind the driver side, or getting too much water onto the belts and other things on the passenger side.  So I replaced the wire mesh with some dry carbon fiber headlight covers. 



I attached them directly to the bumper with some 4mm bolts and washers.  They can be removed if needed.  However if I really need room to work, the whole bumper can be removed in about 2 minutes with a total of 4 bolts and 2 clips.  I believe the C/F headlight covers are so cool, they may actually have a negative weight... :-D

I'm still in the process of making fiberglass tail light replacements.  I decided to start over and do everything the right way.  With a Plug, Mold and then a final product.  I'm trying to make them as close to the actual tail light as possible.  If everything works out as planned, I should be able to bolt them in with the factory hardware.

Hopefully the next update will be about the car completing 6 flawless runs at Eau Claire next weekend!

-Mike

Diet v1.3

Originally posted: 06-15-2011

The Luxo Recaros are gone.  In their place sits a single Sparco that even I have issues getting into.  My apologies in advance to any future co-drivers.  The A/C and heater core have been removed, however the vehicle still stays plenty warm inside the cabin with no barrier besides the fire wall. 

The next step was to remove the sound deadening.  I did this using our good friend dry ice.  Dry ice is perfect, since it holds a temperature of -109 degrees F.  And unlike normal ice, it sublimates into CO2 gas rather than melting.  So no mess.  Just make sure to wear thick gloves and work in a well vented area.  I took a number of brakes between patches.



A couple minutes sitting on a patch of tar, a hit or two with the hammer and it pulled right up leaving only small spots behind.  The tar in total added up to about 12lbs of weight.  Considering the RS model never had this, it's no question it had to come out.



These all added up to a fair amount of weight.  In a matter of a few days, I was able to take 149lbs off of the car.



Cross weight improved to a perfect 50%.  There is still some wedge, but very minimal at 50.7%.  The rear weight ratio stayed the same at 37%.  2629lbs is still heavy for the class, however I am a lot happier being this close than I was before.  Still more to go.



Due to another cruddy event, this one due to operator error, the hood pins came loose and the hood came up.  So it was another event cut short.  To avoid needing another windshield in the future, I've installed 2 rear hood pins and removed the hinges entirely.  I was able to modify the weather seals so that they sit in pretty much the same spot.  So I should still get a good rain seal on the hood. 






Some future projects in the works:

I'm working on making my own tail light replacement covers:



And I'm also modifying a bumper for a custom fit.  Hopefully will look nice when it is done.   

The goal is to have those body parts made and finished before Cendivs.


Here's hoping nothing new breaks!
-Mike

Diet v1.2

Originally posted: 06-08-2011

The diet seems to be working.

Think of it as Atkins but you unbolt your stomach and put it in a box to possibly reinstalled at a later date....


I pulled the what's left of the dash out, and removed the heater core and evaporator core from the interior, as well as the blower motor.  I haven't had a chance to weigh it all yet, but I'm guessing those alone were between 5-10lbs filled.




With those gone, there is a lot more room behind the dash.  Plenty of room for the new flux capacitor (waiting to hear back from the SEB to make sure those are legal).  In this picture, it is just bolted back together so it can be driven.  I have some work to do still to clean up all the wiring and make sure it isn't flopping around.



The compressor, bracket and all lines have also been removed.  Thanks to the wonderful information source of Evom, I was able to get the part number for the Gates belt that fits without the A/C compressor.  It worked out perfectly, and went very smoothly.


The next fun piece that showed up today, makes like a lot easier (and lighter!).  Thanks to Dave at SPS, I received my new Sparco seat mount and sliders in the mail in just 2 days from ordering.  His helped saved me a lot of hassle, and a bunch of weight.  The stock Recaro seats are 30lbs each, and the stock rails add 7lbs.  The Sparco I have (Sprint?), that Flyin' Miata was nice enough to sell for $50 last year, weighs in at 17lbs.  The bracket/sliders add 5lbs to the mix.  That's a net savings of 48lbs just in the seats!  The seat still needs a good cleaning (dust storm in the shop parking lot the last few days), but you can't beat the price!



My list of things to do before this weekend is getting pretty short.  Left to be done, making some minor rear toe adjustments to see if I can get on the throttle mid-corner better, and removing the sound deadening from the floors.


I'll hopefully have time to weigh the car again before the event on Sunday, and get another update posted!