shlammed Posted April 19 Report Share Posted April 19 one of those is really nit like the others. an NSX seems like a wild choice. Quote Link to comment
hobospyder Posted April 20 Report Share Posted April 20 Yeah I was confused by scirocco. Didn't even see nsx Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted May 27 Report Share Posted May 27 Howdy folks! It's been a month since our race and I have not taken the time to share any news. We did have a lot more last minute prep work than I think we anticipated but we got it done. Here is the car on Thursday night with the new radiator in place. We would be rewarded for our efforts! Time to get to bed. It's going to be an early morning! 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted May 27 Report Share Posted May 27 Friday we met at Jeff's at I don't even remember what time. But we got the car loaded up and everything in the back of Paul's new rig. It was strange leaving my 620 behind. It has been such a regular part of our race weekends. Paul and I towed the car and Jeff shared the freeway with us in his VW Bus. He was excited to be able to sleep on a bed instead of on the gravel in a tent this time. Let's go! Made it to The Ridge Raceway before the track went green and left us enough time to say hello to our neighbors, unload the car, and get ready to get out on the track. I would say that probably 3 out of every 4 cars racing the weekend participate in the Friday track day. And the weather was beautiful! Thumbs up from Paul! Jeff's turn. Paul taking his order for Cheeseburger, Fries and a Coke! The car ran flawlessly all day! *almost* We had to stop once for a vacuum leak. A rubber plug at the back of the intake manifold had disintegrated. We replaced with tape and sent the car back out. The radiator actually kept the car a little too cool. Enough that we believe it was running a bit rich - something we experienced for the rest of the weekend. If we run another race with this setup we will need to reinstall the thermostat. Paul came in from a session with a flat tire. The inside shoulder was missing about 1/4 of the way around. What-tha?! Further inspection revealed a drill bit (3/8" diameter perhaps) poking through the tread. That would have flattened the tire in an instant and the resultant damage was just from the drive back to the pits. The Garmin "driving coach" was AWESOME. We did not use the audible coaching feature seeing our lap times real time and even sector times as they happen really enhanced the driving experience. At the end of the day everyone takes the cars through tech. The car required very little additional fiddling and after some more visiting and final race prep, we packed it up for the night. Looking good so far! (tell me what I left out Paul and Jeff) 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted May 27 Report Share Posted May 27 (edited) Saturday morning we gathered back at the track for one last fluid & torque check and windshield cleaning before the driver's meeting. These are always entertaining with Kathy Fuss the series owner doing most of the presenting. I even won some SWAG (another Lucky Dog hat). Driver's line up for the day: It looks like it is going to be amazing! We were pitted next to a Toyota Corolla wagon. The team bought it from a junk yard, added the requisite safety equipment, and came racing. They were a great crew and cheered for their car every lap (no exaggeration) and went on to finish the whole weekend! It was fun to see their excitement. The BMW wagon in the foreground is Mad Greek racing. The 46 number is an homage to the BRE cars. They have a really nice early Z car you have seen here in previous race reports but apparently even though it is faster - it just requires too much maintenance when compared to the modern beemer. Another BMW neighbor... They did NOT have a trouble free weekend. We did our best through the day to keep track of fuel levels and how much we added during the pit stops but unfortunately it was a little less than scientific. It's hard to gage as there are so many yellows, black and even red flags. This weekend in particular seemed to have a lot of interruptions. I was worried that Garmina (we named our Garmin) was going to be distracting during the race but it turned out to be just the opposite. It turned out to be GREAT FUN chasing lap times. It was amazing how many times I'd come through turn 3 and find that I was half to a full second up on my fastest lap. Sometimes even when I went through 1 and 2 with traffic. I ended up making a lot of adjustments to my lines through the weekend and my lap times fell as a result. Jeff had the same experience. Paul seemed a little less convinced. : ) It did make catching traffic or a yellow flag absolutely crushing sometimes! On my very last lap of my first stint I came out of turn 5 a full second up on my fastest lap. I was stoked! Only to find a yellow flag waiting at the turn 6 flag station. D'oh! I *think* we ran trouble free all day. Do I have that right boys? Jeff was black flagged at some point for contact that didn't happen - otherwise we just ran and ran. My highlight was taking the checkered flag after passing the orange RX7 for position in a drag race from turn 16 to the flag stand. I think we ended up in 11th in C. Our short stints are great for giving us all equal time in the car but they don't leave us very competitive since we take more pit stops than the cars in podium contention. Fine by us. We are having a blast! I'll share photos from the race later. Edited May 27 by carterb 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted May 27 Report Share Posted May 27 Overnight rain left the track pretty wet in the morning but the skies made it look like this was a temporary issue. Paul started us out. The spray at the beginning of the race was not inconsiderable Paul and I made it through our stints with the only problem being that the battery in our (rented) transponder had died overnight so we were not being scored. Didn't really matter though because midway through Jeff's first stint he announced over the radio that someone had hit him and sent him off track. I'll let him give you the play by play but while watching for him to come into the pits, we found he was preceded by this Mustang (note the VIP cone of shame on his hood) Here is Jeff. Looks okay from this side: Unfortunately, the opposite quarter panel revealed the damage: Turns out he actually got hit hard enough that we needed to re-adjust the left rear toe. I was able to bang the 1/4 panel back into shape with some good whacks from my palm and after making sure nothing was cracked/broken/etc, we were able to continue racing - scarred but not hamstrung. Then the rain came back! I think Paul finished his 2nd stint in the wet and handed the car to me. It was actually miserable. I think our LSD was set way too tight for a wet track. I spent more effort trying to keep the car on the track than I did racing people. Every lap involved multiple saves as the slightest throttle application while turning led to the rear stepping out, and not in a fun way... Could have been worse - during Paul's stint someone found a wall and hit it so hard they had to red flag the race and bring in equipment to re-set the barriers. That led to the quote of the weekend: Jeff got the last stint and we took another checkered flag. AWESOME! No idea what "place" we were in. Doesn't really matter. With almost 3 hours not scored and with Jeff's damage repair pit stop we were just happy to finish. Any race where you can drive the car onto the trailer at the end is a win! Goodnight Swamp Thing! Thanks for another awesome weekend! 4 Quote Link to comment
Icehouse Posted July 10 Author Report Share Posted July 10 Carter says I gotta update the thread with race weekend activities before we can move onto Honduh motor things. I don't remember a lot of things about the weekend. Besides it being a blast to hang out with my buddies driving a Racecar!!!! Although I had some bad luck.... Friday backing the 510 off the trailer I accidentally went more backwards instead of forwards.... I dented the car and muffler a hair..... Wups.. I guess it didn't matter since Sunday a Mustang under Yellow flag rear ended me. I was busy back in the pits when the Mustang dude came over to "apologize". He said "sorry I hit your car, but I had you!" I was under the car checking the A arm and didn't really want to talk. Later Carter pointed out that he said the second part because he never realized we were under yellow flag..... Bummer because are car was looking so good!!!!! Guess it will need some more mud. Now that the bummer part is out of the way! I drove my favorite non Datsun rig down to the race, my 64 camper bus! It's basically the reverse of a 510 haha. It's got a bed, and ice box built in. A fold out table. Basically 1 step up from a tent. A fellow race found me and said, "check out my shirt!" He said I needed it so went and changed and gave me the shirt off his back! Fun times! So many great dudes at the track, fun to hear all the stories of the day of racing. One team I hang with had a few "new" teammates at this event, they've raced with him before. Both had degrees in automotive engineering. It was fun to pick their brains on suspension design. I asked them a question I've always wondered about, they didn't have the answer. The question is for anyone who is wonder. "Is the return to center different on a car if you swap the sway bar from mounting to the LCA to the strut, since the Ackerman rotates the struts are different angles the sway bar with flex to some degree?" Neither of them had ever thought about it but both agreed it would have to but whether you would notice they didn't know. Also THANKS BRENDA!!!!!! The Garbena digital coach is so rad! Having the slowest car on the straightaway can really effect a fun race against another car. It's hard to beat our car in the corners, but when they get a 25 car lead into turn one it can be a pain to real them in before you are on the straightaway again. So you often find yourself just doing laps, passing some slow guys and getting passed but not racing. When this happens you can just watch the coach and try and learn a few things. SO FUN!!!! 3 Quote Link to comment
Trophy24 Posted July 10 Report Share Posted July 10 Ok my turn to update I have waited too long to add to the story here. I will start with the most exciting part of the racing that weekend. RAIN Racing in the rain is very exciting. As Carter mentioned, the car wants to step out under throttle when the track is wet. The difficult part of that is getting a feel for how much traction you have "here and now". How wet is too wet? Get out of the racing line that is drying out and you are in for a surprise. Our car corners very well in dry conditions. I found myself in a pack of cars on a long turn keeping up just fine. I witnessed a car that normally was faster than we are drift to the outside of the corner and suddenly shoot off the track right in front of me Pewwww! One lap you can brake into a corner for the apex, next lap because of shower activity, that same corner allows absolutely no braking! I found myself flying off the track too. It was amazing to me how many cars left the racing surface that weekend. Mustang guy clearly was unaware of the yellow flag two corners before he hit us. Video replay reveals so many things. We race with an amazing group of people. I had someone come up to me and tell me how rad it was to race with me while we were out there together. An amazing feeling to hear that. 2 Quote Link to comment
shlammed Posted July 11 Report Share Posted July 11 An ABS system with a little stability control would probably help a bit. Its something I will be toying with at some point shortly, I just need to figure out how to mount a compatible magnetic tone ring and sensor in the front hub with the JBC s13 adapter spindles. Quote Link to comment
Icehouse Posted July 18 Author Report Share Posted July 18 Check it out boys!!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment
]2eDeYe Posted July 18 Report Share Posted July 18 Dang, nice increase in power. Where is the dyno? I have a friend that needs to tune a new engine. Quote Link to comment
Icehouse Posted July 21 Author Report Share Posted July 21 Picking up the 510 from Paul's house day before dyno day. I pulled the overload springs from my D21. It rides better bump wise but tows worse. I did expect that. Maybe some leveling bags will bring it back around. Next morning at the hotrod shop. They do all kinds of different rigs. Seems like Subarus are their main brand. Both in the shop to get tore down!! A team getting it done!!!!! Can't slow those guys down! Just like that! We have 8 weeks to finalize the K24 into the Racecar. We would like to get it down a few weeks early and do a track day! 1 Quote Link to comment
Icehouse Posted July 22 Author Report Share Posted July 22 On 7/20/2024 at 8:19 PM, iceman510 said: I call dibs on the SR. It's Carter's engine. He also collects SR's like me. 3 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted July 31 Report Share Posted July 31 Well Jeff dropped the bomb. The K24 looks like a winner and we have started the swap into Swamp Thing. We need to do a little back fill. Every part of this swap has been a puzzle. Turns out no one has done this - at least like we are. It was a job just getting radiator hoses for instance. We used three hoses plus a piece of exhaust pipe to change diameters to match up to our monster Griffin radiator. In the end the factory couldn't have done much better. Thanks for letting us back behind the counter NAPA! 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted July 31 Report Share Posted July 31 (edited) The intake piping was another challenge! Thank goodness for Solidworks and 3D printers! There is not enough room to with the radiator installed to install or remove the intake so I designed a split collar attachment to the throttle body so the intake can be extracted from the side. It worked awesome and the two piece construction allowed us to swivel the lower portion with the cone intake just right! Snug as a bug in a rug! Edited July 31 by carterb 3 Quote Link to comment
shlammed Posted July 31 Report Share Posted July 31 awesome work on the intake thats cool. does 3d printing material stand up to heat and vibrations? Your way of doing the swap is mostly oem bits which im sure complicates things a little but ultimately should work well! My rad hose solution will be fabricated aluminum tubes with short hose couplers (at least thats my plan) less time spent behind the parts counter but probably far more time building them. Quote Link to comment
Icehouse Posted July 31 Author Report Share Posted July 31 5 hours ago, shlammed said: awesome work on the intake thats cool. does 3d printing material stand up to heat and vibrations? Your way of doing the swap is mostly oem bits which im sure complicates things a little but ultimately should work well! My rad hose solution will be fabricated aluminum tubes with short hose couplers (at least thats my plan) less time spent behind the parts counter but probably far more time building them. We printed the parts on the printer at work Nylon12 which should be fine to use. it's super strong. Using aluminum or any pipes in-between the engine and the rad seems bad to me. You want the most flex you can get. You don't want to put stress on the radiator. Longer the hose the better. Quote Link to comment
shlammed Posted August 2 Report Share Posted August 2 On 7/31/2024 at 3:01 PM, Icehouse said: We printed the parts on the printer at work Nylon12 which should be fine to use. it's super strong. Using aluminum or any pipes in-between the engine and the rad seems bad to me. You want the most flex you can get. You don't want to put stress on the radiator. Longer the hose the better. Sweet, yeah I dont do much 3d and last time i saw someoen do printing for that intake it melted but that was probably 10 years ago on a miata forum lol. Way to go! Exited to hear how it works on your next outing! Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 Back to the past - May 30th we had it running enough to take it for it's first drive up and down Jeff's street. I have some video but my my iphone thinks its cool to record video in a format that you can't play back now unless you have a VLC player. : ( I think Paul has video. Maybe he'll post it. Engine is still in limp mode at this point. It's running but we have a ways to go. Hopefully Jeff and Paul will tell a story about how many ECU's and resistors we went through... 1 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 More work on the Dilly! I think I mentioned earlier that we mounted real trailer tires/wheels. The larger rolling diameter means we need different fenders so we took at session to make fender mounts. We welded them directly to the hubs so they stay on the ground instead of tilting up with the deck. 1 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 (edited) Finally we got the K24 running out of limp mode and we were confident enough to commit to the swap. Before hand - Jeff wanted to dyno the SR20DE and then the K24 on the same day - on the same dyno - so we'd have a solid comparison - and hopefully a reward for our effort. So Jeff and I took the morning off work on the 16th of July and towed each car down to Drive Autosports in Everett. The SR20 was first: https://datsun510.com/uploads/monthly_2024_07/07162024swampthing(6).mp4.f8880cfd9eca40c34956314de056f6b9.mp4#t=1 Swamp Thing is still putting down a healthy 125hp at the wheels at 6,000rpm and 112 lbft peak torque at 5614rpm. Torque is around 90 lbft across most of the rev range. Next was the Gobstopper with the K24 What a lovely noise! Those revs just keep climbing and climbing!!! https://datsun510.com/uploads/monthly_2024_07/07162024swampthing(7).mp4.def6285bd76cd0fa6796e9944136275c.mp4 We were not very excited to see 136hp on the big screen when we arrived to pick up the car. We expressed our disappointment to the guy behind the counter and he realized he didn't report something correctly and proceeded to "click click clack" away on his keyboard... Then he produced a corrected dyno chart: 174hp @ 7190rpm & 150 lbft torque at 3,488rpm with almost the whole range about 120! 40% more power and 30% more torque! Game on! I'm just hoping those are actual numbers and not some imaginary results due to the keyboard clicking. We were expecting around 180hp from what we had read about the motor though so there should be no reason to worry. Swamp Thing's last day with an SR20! Edited August 10 by carterb 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 (edited) The very next day we pulled the cars into the Hino garage and started the swap! Someone remind me to put these hood spacers back in Engines out! What have we done?! Edited August 10 by carterb 2 Quote Link to comment
carterb Posted August 10 Report Share Posted August 10 Jeff built 3" exhaust for the K24. We still had the stock exhaust hole in the crossmember. Apparently this is my specialty! : ) I finished it off with BBQ paint! 😂😂😂 2 Quote Link to comment
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