Saturday, May 07, 2011 - 05:10 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
After much faffing around I figured out how to get the air from the front bumper to the centre of the disc. I made a hoop out of aluminium and pop riveted it onto the backing plate I made when I fitted the big brakes. Would like to see the air better directed to the centre of the rotor cooling vanes but doing it is tricky. (I have read some bad reports regarding having the air cool one side of the rotor face only causing rotor warping.)
I cut holes in the front bumper and put some glass in there. I am not really happy with the result, so more work to go there.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Saturday, May 14, 2011 - 01:16 am, by: Dan McColl(Hoon)
Ben Lipman wrote on Saturday, May 07, 2011 - 05:10 pm:
(I have read some bad reports regarding having the air cool one side of the rotor face only causing rotor warping.)
Correct, as well as cracking. The air needs to go into the centre of the rotor and run out through the vanes in the rotor.
If you're doing proper ducting, get rid of that scoop thing at the bottom of the pic.
Car's looking the goods and great to see it getting used. Cooked it a bit on that second run, though. Wish I could find some events up this way to get into. (That aren't noise restricted to 95dB.)
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 04:37 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Carl- I haven't gone to the track since fitting them. I can tell you you can feel heat coming from the left hand vent (oil cooler side) after thrashing around on the motorkhana track though.
I have a thermo fan fitted to the oil cooler and when that is switched on you can feel hot air blow out the vent. Unfortunately it crapped out at that motorkhana. Serves me right for buying a 'quality American' product. If I bought a chinese copy it would run for a hundred years. Thanks for reminding me I need to replace that. Been a bit hectic lately.
Car is very easy to drive- with the Toyo semis it breaks away fairly slowly and predictably. What isn't showed (camera ran out of batteries) is one of the later runs was in the pooring rain and I spun on the out lap. A dude in his skyline streeter put it into the wall that day as well. Pretty unfortunate. I used third gear on a lot of second gear corners to control wheel spin as well. Didn't have the courage to pull 5th (190kph) through the sweeper though...
Andrew McKellar TryHard NSW Soarer Sports Sedan (well, nearly)
Wednesday, May 25, 2011 - 06:40 pm, by: Andrew McKellar(Toymax)
Nah Ben, it isn't just the "car is easy to drive". You still have to be on top of it on those conditions and you were all over it. Job bloody well done mate.
Monday, May 30, 2011 - 05:20 pm, by: Spencer Cameron(Switchio)
Cool. I'm in the process of fitting my own vertex bar. Its a slow process.. but for the sake of flow to the cooler I was going to modify the reinforcement a fair bit.
Just didn't want to go cutting into it (too much) if it was going to cost me front end rigidity. Judging by the way your soarer handles though, I'd say its not going to be a problem.
Good work in the wet weather btw. I don't think I'd have the self control to hold back when it steps out so progressively. Especially near the end of that video where you backed it in in second. (1:35)
Phil Gibson Goo Roo WA '91 UZZ30, '91 manual UZZ31 track bunky, '94 blk/blk UZZ31
Monday, May 30, 2011 - 10:08 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Agreed Phil.
I figure if I hit something in the track car doing time attack/lapsprint events it'll be a decent shunt and a little bit of alloy bar won't make a great deal of difference.
If I was "racing" other cars and the chance of some contact was there, I might reconsider. Then again I would probably just weld some steel bar there instead, seeing as I don't have the reo anyway.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Sunday, June 05, 2011 - 10:46 am, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Spent a fair bit of time yesterday trying to sort out my "auto wiper" issue. Whenever there is any rain the wipers come on by themselves and stay on well past the screen being dry. I can't figure it out as there is no reference to automatic wipers in the manuals.
After much frustration I decided to rip the factory stalk out of the car and wire in a couple of toggle switches. I can only assume the combination switch is US.
To complicate things none of the wiring diagram colours matched up with what I was presented with on the steering column. SO I went old school and ran a hot line direct from the battery to a sewing needle and one by one I used the needle to feed 12V to each of the wires coming out of the wiper wiring. There were some sparks and burnt fingers, but I managed to isolate the 'slow','fast' and constant 12V wires. I wired these in to a pair of toggle switches so I can now select slow and fast speeds for the wipers. Only downside is I have to time the turning off of the switch to get the wipers to stop in the down position. I can live with that.
Peter Nitschke Junk Filterer South Australia UZZ30 UZZ31
Monday, June 06, 2011 - 04:54 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
No peter. The bloody things kept going. I pulled fuses but that didn't work, so I ended up removing the wiper arms completely.
I have refitted the drivers side arm and rewired it through a pair of toggle switches.
I assumed it was an auto wiper option until checking the manual I couldn't find a reference to it. The only way to stop the wipers was to hold the rotary combination switch between 'clicks' so that nothing was engaged. Hence, why I thought it was a malfunctioning switch.
I am going to take Friday off work and try and get the car in some sort of running order. I want to take the car out to the practice day at Mallala on Saturday. I had hoped to get to practice last friday but just can't find the time to work on the car. I feel I need to go drive it to find the motivation again.
Winter temps, the short days (lack of daylight) and the city grind are really taking its toll on me. I don't know how people live in Northern Europe. It gets dark at about 5pm here, and isn't light until after 7am. Only 10 hours of daylight. Hmmmph.
Thursday, June 16, 2011 - 08:45 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Yeah, didn't get the car to the track. Went out for a look at the time attack on Monday though. Spoke to Brad and a few of the FD guys- there are three serious ones out there now.
If I can't get it to the practice day on the 25th of June, I am going to pack the lot up in the shed, lock the door, and wait for summer. I hate winter.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Sunday, June 19, 2011 - 08:14 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Some pics of my track rims now they are fluro green.
After my rush job on the motorkhana rims the fluro green colour started growing on me. I went out and bought a litre of fluro green acrylic, white base, and clearcoat.
2 coats of white were laid down as a base help the fluro colour come out. Three 'double header' coats of the fluro green (now called giggle green, as that is generally the resulting noise heard when people see it on your wheels!) were laid down 10 minutes apart as per the instructions. This was followed by three 'double header' coats of clear and then a very light mist coat all 10 minutes apart.
I think they turned out allright.
I am now considering fluro green stripes down the side or big GT stripes over the top. The missus wants me to paint the splitter and wing fluro green as well. She is a woman though...
Monday, June 20, 2011 - 07:56 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
It did cross my mind...
I opened the shed this arvo when i got home and it struck me just howe bright they are. I giggled a bit myself. All you can see is fluro green reflections on the roof, the walls, the other car, and so on.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - 07:22 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
I have discovered that if you look at those wheels in the morning with a hangover your eyes will actually bleed.
Matthew Sharpe wrote on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - 11:39 am:
For some reason I'm reminded of the Wizard of Oz...
Nope, I don't get that one. Guess I'll have to google 'wizard of Oz' images. If I end up trapped in a maze of never-ending beastiality porn site popups, you are to blame.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 - 08:15 pm, by: Andrew McKellar(Toymax)
Congrats on cracking 1000 posts Ben...
What about using the lines back across the bonnet, from behind the headlights, as the green bits (include the high beam surrounds too). Then follow along the top of the door and rear window sill, widening across the rear guard and wrapping around to finish above the tail lights.
Saturday, June 25, 2011 - 05:57 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Had a bit of a bingle today.
Tore the front bar up pretty good, and pushed the intercooler back about an inch. Looks like the lower aluminium mounts just bent, so hopefully the actual core isn't damaged. Time to build yet another front bar.
On the upside, I did manage to set a new PB of 1:21.6. It was trying to better this time that led to me bending the front.
There were very few cars for some reason, given that it was a nice day. It is a pity I bent the car in the third session as my little group had worked ourselves into a decent order so everyone got good track space.
The oil temp is 10 degrees lower, peaking at 120 and sitting on 115 mostly. That is with the dodgy american fan removed from the oil cooler and a new duct/shield that separates the wheel well from the back of the oil cooler and sends air from the cooler out the vent in the guard.
I have a few ideas for the new front bar too...
Phil, yep completely stock fuel system. My fuel surge starts about 1/3 of a tankful. I generally just keep it fairly full, which is the same as throwing a couple of bags of concrete in the boot. I end up carrying 30L of fuel around that I cannot use.
I am going to switch to a fuel cell (20-40L size) when I finally start on the turbo/management/fuel side of the house. It may be the next major mod, coupled with fuel pump(s), but first I need to get the front fixed.
Saturday, June 25, 2011 - 07:10 pm, by: Daniel Clarke(Dieseltrain)
Late brake indeed , minor damage , PITA just to remake a front bar for you though . WOnder if you could make a prototype and get it remoulded a couple of times ?
What BOV are you running ? Factory or aftermarket ?
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Saturday, June 25, 2011 - 08:43 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Hey Daniel,
Stock factory BOV. You can really hear it from that camera location though.
As for the front bar, I'm a dumbass for not properly finishing this one and taking a mould. I have a drawing of the front bar I wanted to make but when the Vertex one came up local and cheap, I decided to just modify that one. This time I will actually make the front bar I drew up by cutting the factory bar back to the top of the radiator opening and using block foam to shape the lower half.
Annoyingly one of the two front diffusers is a total loss, so I will have to remake that as well. The rest of the splitter might be salvageable to use as a core/template. I am happy that the design 'worked'.
Monday, June 27, 2011 - 07:46 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Cheers Aaron. A lot of work will go into the next one too.
I rang a bloke about buying polyurethane foam to shape the lower section of the front bar from scratch. That crap aint cheap! 3mx1.8mx.0.6m is $1700. Now I won't need that much, but will need to be very accurate with how much I do need, and how I plan to use it before I go and buy some. He said we might be able to work out a deal with offcuts etc if I can use them.
I have now got the original front bar back on the car and have cut everything away from the radiator intake down. All I am left with is the 'bumper bar' and section between the headlights.
Thursday, June 30, 2011 - 09:24 pm, by: Michael McKellar(Mickmini)
don't start from a blank of foam like that - way too expensive.
Start with an unmodified original bar - or at least only the very necessary removed - and get some 2 pack expanding polyurethane. Mix it yourself and add it to the original bar, then shape.
Or even just some cardboard backing in roughly the right shape and add the 2 pack expanding polyurethane to that.
Should work out much cheaper - after all it will only be plug for the mould, not the finished item!
cheers michael
Peter Nitschke Junk Filterer South Australia UZZ30 UZZ31
Friday, July 01, 2011 - 04:58 am, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
Thanks Peter.
Michael, my plan is to use the factory front bar as the basis for the new improved model. The top half will remain stock. From the top of the radiator opening (basically where the Vertex one above has torn away) down will be completely new. I though starting with a clean piece of foam would be simpler than using polyurethane foam from a can or liquid would be a simpler, less messy option. The guy I spoke to was very helpful and even said we might be able to work something out with a sponsorship deal. I probably will not pursue the 'deal' but may take him up on the offer of utilising some offcuts. A couple of small blocks (300x100x200mm etc)would go a long way to getting the uprights either side of the radiator and infront of the wheel arch formed and equal either side.
I did not like the fitment of the Vertex (copy) around the headlights and guards bar any way, so starting with the original bar suits me as the fitment is, well, perfect.
Ben Lipman Goo Roo SA Soarer TT manual, plus TT track car
Saturday, July 09, 2011 - 08:45 pm, by: Ben Lipman(Ben12a)
I got out into the shed today and began pulling the front of the car apart. The radiator has a small hole in it where a bracket was pushed back into it. All the sheet metal needs to be redone (or at least pulled apart and straightened). The oil coolers look OK, as does the intercooler apart from a bunch of bent fins.
I need to get all that right before starting on the actual front bar itself. The question now is do I buy an aluminium radiator, buy a direct replacement, or get this one fixed. The end tanks are less than 2 years old. I may go talk to a radiator bloke and see what he reckons.