Engine out again !

So…

Have now taken the engine out seeing as I know how to do that and dont have quick access to ramps. In the time it would have taken me to get to ramps I could have the engine out. So it came out this afternoon and I can safely say that the clutch has seen better days PMSL

The issue was that the second clutch plate completely welded itself to the flywheel and the middle plate.

I managed to free this in the paddock but the bits of clutch plate that were still attached to the flywheel and the other plate were stopping it fully disengaging. No photos I am afraid but it is not pretty LOL.

Think it is a new clutch time

TOTB IX Elvington August 2010

Lady luck doesnt like me at the moment

First few launches for the handling circuit went like a dream with 5600 being the magic number to leave two lovely black 11’s on the tarmac and me leading the handling course times overall before lunch.

I decided to leave it on that til the track rubbered in a bit better and have a dabble at the 1/4 mile to get my start and eye in on that.  1st run and the launch was spot on, change to 2nd good with a 1.6 60ft time but still on 1.8 bar boost.  However and it is a big however, my throttle pedal decided to jam itself to the floor !!! So whereas I nromal flat shift for most gears apart from 4-5 and 5-6 it decided it wanted to just rev like foook and scare the living daylights out of me and go on for a top speed run !!

I was looking down trying to see whey the pedal had jammed but then thought I would be better off looking at the strip and keep going til the 1km marker and hit the kill switch to kill the engine and try and bring the speed down.

Scarey scarey.

Knocked it out of gear and couldnt then get it back into gear – i think i warped the clutch plates or cover plate and had to jam it into 2nd and cruise back to the paddock and investigate.

After Julian and I bleeding the slave cylinder several times and adjusting what we could, spacing out what else there was (with limited experience of transmission issues on my car) there just was not enough throw on the mechanism to fully disengage and it was game over me for.  Balls.

11.3 and 123mph  (158mph standing km) was the time but there was much more in it – that will have to wait til i get a new clutch sorted though.

Huge thanks to Julian for enormous help, frendship, laughs and Hemi power and to Steve for his support !!

What a year .. it just has to get better !!

New engine built, in and running !

After countless setbacks and huge amount of blood, sweat and tears the new hand built engine is in the car and running

Now for some running in miles before setting it loose around Cadwell on the 1st August for the next Time Attack round.

RaceDynamix chosen for Team Subaru TOTB

What is TOTB?

Japanese Performance Ten of the Best (TOTB), is a performance road car event run by Straightliners Ltd, aimed at finding the best all round car in Europe. Handling, top speed and a 1/4m drag strip are used to determine the outcome.

It is a team based competition with each major mfr car club entering a team to compete across the discplines at Elvington Airfield in Yorkshire on the 8th August 2010.

Team Subaru:

1. John Stevenson
2. Clive Fulcher
3. Duncan Graham
4. Andy Forrest
5. Justin Andrews
6. Gavin Renshaw
7. Kev Horsley
8. Mikee Singh
9. Colin Greer

Full info on TOTB can be seen at www.totb.co.uk

See you there !

Rodtastic !

We have Connecting Rods !!!

Carrillo Super A Rods in fact from Lateral Performance (Cheers Mark)

Very lightweight at 515g each and very very lush.

Build starts again tomorrow

10 days til brands and counting !

ok latest news… and the plan after a huge disappointment on monday being told that the existing block could not be relinered with the liner I supplied. After ringing all and sundry, the only option was to order a new liner from darton in the US but that would take 20 days min. Not an option.

Also contemplated boring out to 101mm and getting some custom pistons – again not an option in the timescales.

Also contemplated running 2.1 stroker in a CDB block or even just nailing a std ej257 casing in there and hoping for the best but neither of these engines are what I want in the car so were dismissed on the basis I didnt want to spend money on something just to get me through Brands.

So.. Mark at Lateral to the rescue with a damaged EJ257 set of block halves and Paul at Zen with some darton liners that I could then get to the machine shop for them to mate the two together. Thanks guys :thumb:

I picked up the block yesterday from mark and dropped the block and liners over at the machine shop this morning and they will be machining the block to take the ductile steel liners, then flatting the tops of the bores to be ready for the rebuild.

I will pick it up from them on wednesday next week and then go to zen to hone to block to take the new cosworth forged pistons (standard size) and bring all back to mine wed evening to start cleaning it all up (sorry in advance for the mis-use of the dishwasher rachel ) Also picking up the new dry sump pump, bits and custom tank.

Thursday – build starts. This will take all day (and probs late into evening too or maybe next day gulp)

Friday – Test fit dry sump tank into empty engine bay then slot new engine in and bolt everything up ready to fire up late friday.

Saturday – run it in and map it on the new fuel (probably while driving it down to brands in the late afternoon)

Fingers crossed there are no gotchas cos there is no room for movement in timescales

Anyway, it will end up a very strong engine with Lateral internals, ARC race shells and will be good for 700bhp + should I need it. I will continue to run on the MD321V though for this round at least as I think it is very well suited to Brands.

The other block will wait for the custom darton sleeve and will get readied for selling on as a 700bhp capable 2.5 engine.

5th in Class at Knockhill – Round 2 2010

Now back from scotland and round 2 of Time Attack 2010….

All in all it was a great weekened. Steve, Soos and Julian arrived at mine on saturday morning ready for the long drive up there during the day on saturday – i didnt want to do the track day the day before as if something breaks there would be no chance of fixing it so a leisurely drive and arrive at the hotel for a chilled evening was in order.

Sunday first thing we headed to the track to unload and get a spot in the paddock in time for the day’s fun. With surprisingly little to do on the car itself we found our selves kicking tyres and checking things 3 or 4 times to pass the time between the arrival and first session.

It had been raining overnight so the track was sure to be slippery first thing.

First session and headed out on track first and almost span into duffus dip – hmm yes it was slippery. I let most go past while i tried to scrub the tyres in a little and get some heat into them. Unfortunately I had a slight misfire in this session but as it only lkasted 3 laps til an evo dumped a load of oil on the entry to the first corner and it was stopped it wasnt a huge issue.

A quick tweak to the map and out for session 2. Damn still had the misfire but as I had a chunk of vpower in the car still that i needed to burn off for this 30 min session i kept going round to get rid of it and to heat cycle the tyres. They got up to temperature properly this session and although I could not use more than half throttle without misfire I was still enjoying myself and made a trip or two into the gravel. Firstly to avoid the what seemed like a mile wide pulsar that was parked on the apex of scotsman going 2mph – the gravel trap was my only option. Then totally outbraking myself and into the gravel at the hairpin

Times for these two sessions didnt mean a lot to me but seeing what others were doing I knew I needed to be a lot quicker. With E85 going in for the final two sessions and the misfire to cure it should be possible. Prime candidate for the misfire was the crank sensor – which i duly changed.

Some small tweaks to the map and switched over to E85 I went out for qualifying in the hope that it had solved it – it had and full pace had to be learned and new braking points learned to go with them. I got them wrong a couple of times and although not quite fully in the gravel, I was out of shape on a few occasions as the picture above shows. Car was feeling great now and some good tussles in qualifying with the other club pro guys and finished up 5th in class and one point in the bag. This was largely flattering as Andy Harvey hadnt put in a proper time and I was still 1 second off where I wanted to be and what my target time was.

Now for the final. A few minor tweaks to the suspension set up and off out.

It was feeling good but the engine was blowing quite bit out of the breather system – the engine sounding not quite right now but still pulling pretty well. Only running 1.9 bar and down a little on power as a result it was enough to make my way quite quickly around the track… and a little too quickly at times:

I came in at the end of the session having hit my target time of 55 seconds with a 55.8 and that put me 5th which I was very happy with. I had closed the gap on the others in the class a lot and was only half a second behind Paul Doyle in the old zen car. Subsequently looking at the sector times I was quicker than him on sectors 1 and 2 but lost nearly a second on the hairpin due to wheelspin from the inner rear. Not something I could really do much about but a mechanical upgrade to a proper rear diff needed.

At the end of the session I came in and the engine had been breathing very heavily and was also suffering from a rocker cover gasket that appeared to have been sucked in and was pushing oil out that side too. Not good. Compression also sounds iffy with a very suspect starting sound – logs show quite a bit of noise on 2 and 4 cylinders so I am guessing some issue with pistons or rings there.

I had been planning to pull the engine shortly to refresh – seems it has to be done now. What is it with knockhill and engines for me?

Anyway, had a great time and pleased with the result and my time (2.4 seconds quicker than last year), there is possibly a little more in there but no way in the current set up that I could have bettered my position.

Thanks to Steve (eureka) and Soos and Julian for their hard work and support over the weekend – top work guys and thank you.

Thanks also to my sponsors/supporters/helpers and anyone interested in reading these updates.

2010 Time Attack – Round 1 – Oulton Park report

Round 1 was a great learning exercise for me in a new class, a very different car and lots of unfinished (and unchecked) parts.

It went well on the day but the pure number of hours put in on the car (and working/mapping beforehand) meant that it was going to be down to the wire.

Thanks to some awesome help from ABW I had new doors 2 days before the round and windows arrived the same day and with Tim’s help got those on the day before setting off to Oulton Park with Julian.

I had not driven the car in the new state til rolling out of the pit lane for warm up and ran low boost to get used to it – it felt great and was immediately 2 seconds quicker than last year’s best time even on old tyres that had done the whole of last year’s TA season, a trip to the ring, cadwell and lots of road miles. (unfortunately that is all I had tyre wise)

Brakes bled and off out for practice and boost was upped and more time got whilst learning the car and relearning lines – all was good aside from issues with the centre of the new bonnet lifting (cured with some tape) and windows bowing out (again tape to the rescue)

Qualifying and I couldn’t stop locking the brakes under braking and i felt the car lacking in normal power and increased noise but put it down to lack of interior and vowed to try harder in the final and get the braking right.

The final came and went and I gained almost a second over qualifying but the car felt even less powerful and with worsening braking problems.  I put it down to my overeagerness to late brake until I came to the final lap and I lost the brake pedal altogether and cruised into the pits to see fluid leaking all over the wheels and tyres.  This was why the braking lockups were happening.  Turned out to be the union pipe that joins the two caliper halfs on the drivers side – the nuts had come loose and were dripping fluid.  I have spoken to ksport about this and they have now added a bolt check into the install instructions (i hadnt checked mine and I guess the heat cycles had done it).

At the end of the day I felt a little disappointed about my competitiveness in the new class even though I ended up 3 seconds quicker than last year, the car handled superbly on the new BC coilovers and felt very nimble through the corners – the lack of weight now is very noticeable which was very pleasing and the cage made the car feel tight.

After the event and on driving the car on the tuesday up to Leeds (daily driver duty) the boost leak was obvious with only 0.7 bar available and lots of hissing – the noise i heard on saturday on track was obvious now.  Split pipe from turbo to IC:

Very annoying that I didnt spot this on the day as it now explains why my speed traps were falling during the day despite carrying more speed through the corners.  On the main speed traps, i was 10mph slower at the end of the day than I was during the warmup.  If only ..

Anwyay, all fixed now and other finishing work done on the work that couldnt be done pre oulton and almost ready for knockhill with full power and full braking :thumb:

Other items done:

- central aerocatch for bonnet:

- some bling APR mirrors that I can see sod all out of but look lovely courtesy of Amber Performance :

- door sealing rubbers
- window retaining clips
- engine bay is now spotless too

Roll Cage built and interior painted

SHP Motorsport were trusted with the job of building a weld in cage for the Impreza in order to comply with the regulations under MSA rules for Time Attack this season.

They have done an awesome job !

Some initial pictures are below:

The rest are in the gallery on here.

Adam – 2003 STi – 351.8 bhp

Scoobycity Member: Only The Brave

Car:
2003 Impreza STi

Mods:

Walbro 255lt fuel pump
Full 3” milltek system with high flow spots cat
Aem cold air induction kit
Gt spec gen 2 headers with DEI heat wrap

Mapped by RaceDynamix:
Power: 351.8bhp
Torque: 298.90 lb/ft