"STEALTH" : Efini's ChumpCar Build (warning, non Mazda content inside)
04-01-2015, 08:09 PM
#63
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PIT STOP - That's Seefo in the black OMP suit, my cousin in the red A* suit, myself in the Mobil 1 suit and our main fueler in the black and white suit on the left. He's checking and adding oil...
Car on track, crappy cell phone pic. The weather looks really nice...it wasn't, it was cold as *****. That integra was one of the few cars we were able to drag down the straight...
Here are all the awesome trophies...none of which we won. We were ONE LAP short of winning one of the small "Minion" trophies. All of the trophies are hand made out of car parts.
The car POST RACE. Front left damage is from me being too aggressive during the last few laps. Passenger side door is from Seefo getting hit...the dent mostly popped out and the rest of it literally will "buff out".
Car on track, crappy cell phone pic. The weather looks really nice...it wasn't, it was cold as *****. That integra was one of the few cars we were able to drag down the straight...
Here are all the awesome trophies...none of which we won. We were ONE LAP short of winning one of the small "Minion" trophies. All of the trophies are hand made out of car parts.
The car POST RACE. Front left damage is from me being too aggressive during the last few laps. Passenger side door is from Seefo getting hit...the dent mostly popped out and the rest of it literally will "buff out".
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04-24-2015, 01:37 PM
#70
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Finally got around to doing a leak down test on the motor in the race car last night. The back story is the car felt down on power, and ate lots of oil. Lots. The motor in the car is the original, 150k+ mile engine that supposedly had a recent timing belt and water pump.
So...results:
~25% leak down. Eeep!
Most of the leakage is from spark plug hole to spark plug hole meaning a blown head gasket. There's also some leakage through the intake valves which isn't that surprising considering the mileage. There was very little leakage past the rings so that's a happy result. I should be able to get away with refreshing the head and replacing the head gasket, hoping not to have to pull the pistons. This motor will get refreshed and then will be the spare.
The current spare is getting a full rebuild with new pistons/rings and it will be the primary race motor.
Next race is one month from today at Daytona. Need to build two motors and do a bunch of other stuff in the meantime...
Now I don't feel so bad about getting spanked on the straights at VIR...we were losing a quarter of the compression. Also...we did an entire 12 hour race with a blown head gasket... Wow
Will post some more pics later
So...results:
~25% leak down. Eeep!
Most of the leakage is from spark plug hole to spark plug hole meaning a blown head gasket. There's also some leakage through the intake valves which isn't that surprising considering the mileage. There was very little leakage past the rings so that's a happy result. I should be able to get away with refreshing the head and replacing the head gasket, hoping not to have to pull the pistons. This motor will get refreshed and then will be the spare.
The current spare is getting a full rebuild with new pistons/rings and it will be the primary race motor.
Next race is one month from today at Daytona. Need to build two motors and do a bunch of other stuff in the meantime...
Now I don't feel so bad about getting spanked on the straights at VIR...we were losing a quarter of the compression. Also...we did an entire 12 hour race with a blown head gasket... Wow
Will post some more pics later
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04-24-2015, 03:55 PM
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Coolant looks pretty good to me...the car didn't seem to burn any water or have overheating issues.
Apparently the head gaskets on these can fail in between the cylinders and leak oil but the coolant ports will be unaffected. I dunno, that's just what I was told.
I guess I'll find out for sure after I pull the head.
The valve stem seals are also notorious for going bad and causing oil consumption on these motors. So between the head gasket and the (likely) bad intake valve stem seals, maybe that's enough to account for the amount of oil we were going through each hour.
The main race motor will have new pistons and rings...if the spare motor still burns a little oil then that's still better than not having a spare motor...
Apparently the head gaskets on these can fail in between the cylinders and leak oil but the coolant ports will be unaffected. I dunno, that's just what I was told.
I guess I'll find out for sure after I pull the head.
The valve stem seals are also notorious for going bad and causing oil consumption on these motors. So between the head gasket and the (likely) bad intake valve stem seals, maybe that's enough to account for the amount of oil we were going through each hour.
The main race motor will have new pistons and rings...if the spare motor still burns a little oil then that's still better than not having a spare motor...
Last edited by Efini~FC3S; 04-26-2015 at 11:11 AM.
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05-18-2015, 11:33 AM
#74
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Next race is this Sunday at Daytona.
Many things have been happening...no time for pictures and posting.
Re-did the leak down test on the engine we ran at VIR. Actually put the pistons at TDC for each cylinder. Results were: Cyl 1: 25%, Cyl 2: 40%, Cyl 3: 40%, Cyl 4: 8%. The majority of the leakage was past the cylinder rings.
So 40% leak down past the rings better explains the colossal oil consumption.
So I built the spare motor, which had worse looking cylinder walls then the engine that was originally in the car. New OEM pistons and rings, new clevite bearings all around. Just finished assembling the motor late last week.
Started up the motor for the first time Saturday afternoon. Amazingly the engine started up almost immediately with no leaks or issues. Did an initial break-in and a couple oil changed, everything looks good so far. I'm going to put a little more time on the motor and then will do a leak down test. I'm not super confident in this motor, just because the walls didn't look great and you can't really hone the cylinders. As long as it lasts ~30 race hours I will be happy.
I have a ton of race prep to do the next couple days. Finally have a running driving car so I can get started on all the other race prep items including trying to make the car more competitive.
~110 cars registered for the Daytona race. No racing line, just racing through traffic...
Many things have been happening...no time for pictures and posting.
Re-did the leak down test on the engine we ran at VIR. Actually put the pistons at TDC for each cylinder. Results were: Cyl 1: 25%, Cyl 2: 40%, Cyl 3: 40%, Cyl 4: 8%. The majority of the leakage was past the cylinder rings.
So 40% leak down past the rings better explains the colossal oil consumption.
So I built the spare motor, which had worse looking cylinder walls then the engine that was originally in the car. New OEM pistons and rings, new clevite bearings all around. Just finished assembling the motor late last week.
Started up the motor for the first time Saturday afternoon. Amazingly the engine started up almost immediately with no leaks or issues. Did an initial break-in and a couple oil changed, everything looks good so far. I'm going to put a little more time on the motor and then will do a leak down test. I'm not super confident in this motor, just because the walls didn't look great and you can't really hone the cylinders. As long as it lasts ~30 race hours I will be happy.
I have a ton of race prep to do the next couple days. Finally have a running driving car so I can get started on all the other race prep items including trying to make the car more competitive.
~110 cars registered for the Daytona race. No racing line, just racing through traffic...
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06-08-2015, 07:05 AM
#75
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Four week long thrash on this car (including 28 hours of racing) is over and I'm burnt out.
Truck blew it's transmission to bits on Thursday while towing to NCM...had just at 20k miles on a rebuilt transmission.
Truck blew it's transmission to bits on Thursday while towing to NCM...had just at 20k miles on a rebuilt transmission.
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06-08-2015, 01:38 PM
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Sorry about the luck with the tow vehicle and I saw were you had some issues at the race too. The car has some straight line speed. It also punches a nice big hole to draft in too for a little Miata. Sorry I wasn't able to come down and introduce myself. There is a reason we're changing our team name from Liars Anonymous to RPM (Rarely Prepared Motorsport). Though in all the chaos Saturday morning, we forgot to reset the tire pressures from rotating the tires and found a better setup.
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06-08-2015, 05:11 PM
#78
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"COPY FROM CHUMPCAR FORUM - WEEKEND RECAP"
3Brothers Racing and the #53 Honda Prelude had a pretty rough weekend, starting with our tow rig blowing up its transmission 2 hours into an 8 hour tow on Thursday.
We managed to procure a "back up" truck and made it to the track late Thursday night.
Had to rush to finish prepping the car for Friday's race. Despite not having the car 100% ready to go we were running ~P6 after 65 minutes and then we had two wheel studs fail. Fixing that took some time but we got back out on track (basically in dead last) just to have the master power switch get burnt up by some loosening alternator wires. Diagnosed and fixed those and ran strong the rest of Friday minus some fueling issues.
Friday evening we had time to get the car "better" prepared for the Saturday race. Put the air dam on, actually ducted the brakes, properly tied down the cool suit cooler, etc.
Started strong again on Saturday running ~ P9 after about an hour when our staring driver got sick in the car and we had to do an unplanned pit and driver change. Fueling issues continued and we could only get the car to take about a gallon a minute.
New driver got in and we fought our way back into the top twenty just for the top radiator hose to blow off and spew water all over the track. Lost 12 minutes fixing that and got back on track. Car ran strong the rest of the race but we still couldn't fill the gas tank. Pit stops were 10-12 minutes and that still wasn't enough to fill the tank. Something was preventing the tank from venting properly and needs to be fixed ASAP.
Managed to finish P13 on Saturday despite all the issues. Apparently ChumpCar noticed our fueling problems and gave us a hunsaker gift certificate, thanks for that!
Daytona and NCM basically back-to-back plus the truck trans blowing up has pretty much wiped me out for a while...not sure the next race we'll do, probably Sebring.
Cheers,
Luke
3Brothers Racing
3Brothers Racing and the #53 Honda Prelude had a pretty rough weekend, starting with our tow rig blowing up its transmission 2 hours into an 8 hour tow on Thursday.
We managed to procure a "back up" truck and made it to the track late Thursday night.
Had to rush to finish prepping the car for Friday's race. Despite not having the car 100% ready to go we were running ~P6 after 65 minutes and then we had two wheel studs fail. Fixing that took some time but we got back out on track (basically in dead last) just to have the master power switch get burnt up by some loosening alternator wires. Diagnosed and fixed those and ran strong the rest of Friday minus some fueling issues.
Friday evening we had time to get the car "better" prepared for the Saturday race. Put the air dam on, actually ducted the brakes, properly tied down the cool suit cooler, etc.
Started strong again on Saturday running ~ P9 after about an hour when our staring driver got sick in the car and we had to do an unplanned pit and driver change. Fueling issues continued and we could only get the car to take about a gallon a minute.
New driver got in and we fought our way back into the top twenty just for the top radiator hose to blow off and spew water all over the track. Lost 12 minutes fixing that and got back on track. Car ran strong the rest of the race but we still couldn't fill the gas tank. Pit stops were 10-12 minutes and that still wasn't enough to fill the tank. Something was preventing the tank from venting properly and needs to be fixed ASAP.
Managed to finish P13 on Saturday despite all the issues. Apparently ChumpCar noticed our fueling problems and gave us a hunsaker gift certificate, thanks for that!
Daytona and NCM basically back-to-back plus the truck trans blowing up has pretty much wiped me out for a while...not sure the next race we'll do, probably Sebring.
Cheers,
Luke
3Brothers Racing
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