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No progress to report at this point. I figured not that the car was boosted I should probably get boosted too so I did that on Wednesday afternoon. Driving through the fresh hell that is LA is always a bad idea, and doing it during COVID seems questionable at best. I think Patton Oswalt said it best.
Anyway, I'm classified as working in education and working on site with several thousand vectors college students made the boosted seem like a really good idea even outside of the rally. I went down hard yesterday but I'm on the up-swing today. I'd rather lose a couple evenings worth of prep time mid-week than a whole weekend so I feel like I timed that appropriately.
Not my proudest of wiring projects but it is functional!
I found an unused socket in the fuse box and and added a 40A fuse into a 10AWG wire to the distribution block in the airbag hole. From there, on one circuit I've added an extra 12v lighter socket, 2x USB-A quick charges, a voltage display, all through a single switch. Additionally, another switch to trigger a relay for the fog/aux lights I intend to add (if I have time) and a killswitch for power to the wideband, because sometimes you just want to turn the damn thing off. I also got clever and wired the wideband display dimmer input into the fog/aux switch so it will dim the display at night when the lights are on. So far, no popped fuses and it all appears to be working as intended.
I lost half a day if progress driving around town trying to get a spare relay to replace that FIAMM horn relay that's hooked into the IAT circuit. If anything electrical is going to fail in this pile of parts my money is on that relay. I ordered 2x replacements tonight but unknown if they'll make it here in time.
I need to do a free-air calibration of the MTX-L tomorrow and then I should be in business. I've got everything in place for the low coolant pressure warning buzzer/light except running the long wire up to the radiator. Ive never tested it so who knows if it even works. Haha!
Priorities are spare tire carrier, oil change, and repack front hubs, in that order. If I've got time I'll keep working on my Boomslang-ey bandaid harness, but that's rapidly being deprioritized as time gets shorter. I'm leaving for SLO on Thursday
Ye olde MTX-L is wired in so that it'll only work with key on, and then I put it on a kill switch as well. I swapped the switch locations, because next to the gauge made more sense. No, I don't know why I mounted it at that angle, it seemed like a good idea at the time. The left one now does wideband and the right one trips the relay for the fog/aux beams I have yet to mount and wire. Bonus nachos: that fog/aux switch also dims the MTX-L at night.
I spent an inordinate amount of time working on my spare tire carrier.
Spare rim made an excellent heat sink while I welded in the pair of M12x1.5 bolts I picked up from the Blue Home Depot.
Tacky-tack-tack!
It seems to fit exactly where I want it. And now... ALLTHEGUSSETS!
I figured if my welds were questionable, I'd just add more steel and more welds until it looked invincible. I was not disappointed.
That came out pretty much exactly where I wanted it. Woohoo!
I looped this steel cable through the tire, through the hitch, and then it runs up under the car and attaches to the sway bar mount where its locked in place. If it comes off on the road it probably won't kill anyone. Maybe. Hopefully.
Getting the factory bumper back on was a HUUUUUGE bitch and I lost a ton of time trying to get it back together. I don't know exactly what's going on here, but someone apparently decided to hole saw the **** out of the bumper mounts? This makes no sense to me, maybe some of you guys might have some insight here.
And then... time for a drive!
I put it in 5th and booted it. The whole point of this is to see where the AFRs ended up, not to prove any sort of acceleration. At 7psi its showing 10.6~10.7 seems pretty consistent. That's rich as hell.
Remember, this is super old school band-aid tuning. Pre-Powercard tuning. The car is currently setup almost exactly as the Jackson Racing/Moss Motors instructions indicate. The JR rising rate FPR was installed without adjustment and base timing is set to an absolutely miserable 4° BTDC, and the weird relay/resistor/hobbs switch thing is installed in the the IAT circuit. Why so low on the base timing? Well, I wanted to make sure it didn't explode instantly, I plan on bumping that up a couple of degrees to see if I can get some of the bottom end back. Right now she's super soggy at low revs, regardless of boost.
According to the Autometer Phantom Boost Gauge of Dubious Origin, its making up to about 7psi. This is with the stock 2.6" pulley and WITHOUT the check-valve in the IACV line, which the ancients claim is good for another 1-2psi. The boost is nearly instantaneous in that it'll go from vac to 2-3psi on very small throttle inputs as the bypass closes, however the fuel delivery is not nearly instantaneous enough.
If you very slowly roll into the throttle, it'll climb up to about 4psi and will still be in the 14.4~14.1 AFR range but as soon as it hits the 5psi mark, AFRs drop like a stone into the 10s. There is no drama or part throttle "drivability issues" as m.net describes in the historical records, but there is some barely perceptible hesitation. If you boot it in any gear, AFRs will immediately drop. And booting it is super fun because it makes awesome noises above ~4500rpm.
According to the mud tablets left by our caveman ancestors, I can raise the JR FPR base pressure a bit and that should help with the fuel coming in a bit quicker, but the penalty for that is that I'll get richer on the top end. Which I really don't need. Realistically, I want to make sure its safe for mid RPM small throttle inputs, and high RPM isn't going to be a priority atm. I'm going to add a couple of degrees of timing back in tonight and see if that helps with the soggy bottom, but I don't want to get too crazy as again, I have no other timing control right now.
So far, this is going exactly how I'd have expected.
Upon returning to the house post test drive, Rotella T6 15W40 and Mobil 1 M1-110A filter went in as its what I had lying around ready to go, and this car desperately needed an oil change.
I think at this point, I need to start packing. I'd really like to PMCS the wheel bearings on this thing but I just don't know if I'm going to have time. I've got Weds off to finish prep things and I leave to pick-up my co-driver and head to SLO on Thursday.
Better fix that soggy bottom or Mary Berry will have to fly halfway across the globe to scold you.
Originally Posted by msmola2002
Stodgy.
Greetings fellow Bake-Off enthusiasts!
I miss Mel and Sue and as much as I usually like Noel, I dislike Matt so this is not an improvement for me. And I miss Mary, I liked her a lot more than Prue
This year the California Rally was a 3-day on-road rally where the organizers are a bunch of sadists who legitimately try to make us as miserable as possible. You get points based on how hooptie your ride is, in addition to checking in with points set out before hand. You know where you'll start and end the day, but you don't get the objectives until you get your registration packet on Day 1 right before departure. You can also score points for random acts of stupidity, roadside repairs and helping other participants fix their broken ****. This year they added some obscure "Go find it" points that were worth extra points as well. The scoring is all done through Instagram so you can find all our check-ins and various other shenanigans over there: https://www.instagram.com/somewhat_potato/
Day 0
I departed my house in Chico, CA and drove down to pick up @gesso in San Francisco as he offered to co-drive this heap with me.
As I mentioned previously, base timing was set to 4° BTDC because its incredibly conservative and I didn't know what to expect. The 200mi drive to his place was rather unremarkable, other than me shitting water the whole way down as I'd only had about 40 miles of "testing" on the setup prior to departure. What could possibly go wrong?
On the way down to SF the car was an absolute cacophony of wind noise, hard top squeaking and 85 dB(A) of general noise and fuckery. I was genuinely looking for ear plugs. At his place we took some time to install a set of hard top mounting brackets to the car to replace the completely stretched and mangled latches that were included with the top. I bought a 4 piece set + Frankenstein bolt delete w/torx hardware from the folks at Hall Racing Products. It was pricy but also very well made, and they got it to me the day before the rally. On the way down to SF the car was an absolute cacophony of wind noise, hard top squeaking and 85 dB(A) of general noise and fuckery, so spending time to get the top correctly attached was time well spent.
Unfortunately the massively chowdered up cheese grade bolts Mazda loctited into the top had to be removed with extreme prejudice.
Gesso got dem skillz
Also a tiny Ez-Out
SORTED!
The results are NIGHT AND DAY better fit on the car and you can actually hold a conversation inside it again. I wasn't able to use the Frankenstein bolt delete kit on the NA because things are far enough off that it wouldn't fit, but the 4 brackets by themselves were totally enough. I plan on buying another set of 4 brackets for the NB, and the Frankenstein bolt delete kit will go on the NB as well.
From there, we packed up the car and it was another 200 miles to San Luis Obispo.
Day 1
We started in San Luis Obispo, got our registration packet, had a safety briefing and got on the road. Menu here:
Google Maps only lets you do 10 destinations at a time, but this should give you an idea of the route. Traffic in LA suuuuuuuucked.
You can add a couple hundred miles and a few additional hours to that trip distance, lol. We were more than happy to have an Uber take us to a bar in San Diego for dinner.
Day 2
We left California and headed east, into the desert and Arizona.
The "Go find it" points were kinda fun, the world famous museum was a tough one, but we got it.
Rather than stay the night at Bolder City in NV, we made the bold choice to drive a bit north to stay in Henderson NV in one of the worst hotels I've ever stayed in. Jesus that was terrible. To get there we took the OLD Route 66 out of Topock north through the town of Oatman, and the desert donkeys tried to kill us.
EVIL DONKEYS!
Day 3
From Nevada back to San Luis Obispo
The Zzyzx, CA location is actually misspelled, but its not like it didn't stand out. Hah.
As usual they gave us a bunch of locations in Bakersfield, but we got the hell out of there and back to SLO for the closing ceremonies.
So, how did we do?
Out of 26 teams that started, we finished a quite respectable 8th place in points. You'll notice that we started with the least number of "inspection" points of any team that finished in the top 10, which makes our finish at 8th that much more impressive. The car just wasn't terrible enough to get more points, apparently. While we didn't think we would win the overall, we surprisingly DID win a "Judges Choice" award, so that was rad. I'll leave it to @gesso to try to remember what the verbiage was on that one.
We finished up at the brewery, drove the car back to the hotel and walked to another bar. Many beers were had and we zonked the **** out.
Day 4. Or maybe Day 3+1
Not an official part of the rally, but we did need to get home. Gesso needed to be home by 10am so the 200mi trip back into the Bay Area started way too early. For me anyway. It of course went without incident and I finally landed at home later that afternoon. Road time flies when you aren't constantly going our of your way to find checkpoints.
And of course the only rain I saw on the rally was when I got home.
By the numbers: 2,341.7 miles driven 100.4 gal (of 91+)
for a cost of $497.03
That's an average of 23.05 mpg at an average cost of $4.95 per gallon.
The car "used" a minimum amount of oil, needed no coolant (after I swapped radiator caps) and somehow, we are still on the original supercharger belt. The belt alignment isn't perfect so its been rubbing bits of rubber off the back side of the belt, but its still working so I intend to continue to send it.
That was ONE HELL OF A TRIP. Again, big thanks to @gesso for taking on co-driver & navigator duties (I'm absolutely rubbish at nav) and keeping me motivated and moving with coffee in the morning.
The Lemons Rally Hell On Wheels California 2022 dates and basic locations have been posted, and this time we'll be in NorCal in the August heat. I'm planning on signing up for that one, I'm just not sure what to drive.
Thanks for the Monday morning reading G, it's exactly what I needed to start off the week. Looks like you guys had a blast and looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend!
Thanks for the Monday morning reading G, it's exactly what I needed to start off the week. Looks like you guys had a blast and looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend!
You are very welcome! We absolutely had a blast, someday we'll need to get you out on one of these rallies.
Looking forward to seeing you guys again too! I'll drive this thing over then you can experience the fuckery first hand
10-29-2021, 12:18 PM
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