Category: 2015

For those that didn’t see my post on Instagram or Facebook, exactly one year ago yesterday I took delivery of this amazing race car. I’ve had it on the track a few times and have almost completed an extensive and rather exhaustive resurrection. Best of all, I’ve made some AMAZING relationships with some truly great people and shops from around the world. It’s great to see how helpful people are, especially with a 15 year old race car. A special and HUGE thank you goes out to Mark Hein, the original owner/builder/driver. The success of this resurrection couldn’t have been possible without his help.
THANK YOU and I can’t wait to get “old yeller” back on the track in 2016!

To celebrate, below are some historical racing shots in it’s prime; at Spa Francorchamps and in the Speedvision & Speed World Challenge Series:

Continue reading “One Year of Ownership”

For those wondering why I keep working on the car rather than getting it on the track, I’m still waiting on the ELR wheel studs and modified rear trailing arm (I sent it out last July and was hoping to get it back a few months ago). The current ETA is the next two or three weeks. In the meantime, I’m keeping myself busy with a long to-do list since the car is more or less stuck on jack stands until then. Once the arm and studs arrive, I’ll be able to button up the suspension, perform a full alignment and corner weight, do quick dyno tuning session with Lawrence and get it back on the track.

Cobra Sebring Pro Technology Seat
After realizing how small tight the passenger seat was, and considering the current OMP driver’s seat is not the original seat for the car, I was in the market for replacement drivers seat so I could move the larger OMP seat to the passenger side (plus is would give the passenger side head protection). Originally Mark used a Cobra Suzuka and while I like that seat a lot, I wanted something with side to side head protection (the OMP won me over for that very feature).
After some research, I decided on the Cobra Sebring Pro Technology. The seat is basically the same as the Suzuka but incorporates side head protection and is HANS compatible. The seat weight is about 11lbs and uses a full carbon fiber shell. It also exceeds (3 times) the FIA 8855-1999 standards @ 63g. The Technology/Outlast part of the seat is in relation to the foam and fabric used (energy absorbing foam padding, Dinamica upholstery with leather anti-wear patches and Outlast heat/cooling regulating system). I absolutely love this seat.

Continue reading “New Seats + Misc Prep”

Continue reading “ITR Cage work”

Carbon headlight caps & bumper prep
As mentioned in a previous post, I removed the headlights (endurance look) and reattached the original carbon headlight caps (Speedvision World Challenge style). The caps are attached via small black bolts around the headlights. Additionally, and it’s not really pictured but I completely stripped the front bumper to prep it for a repaint. Same goes with the original lip, extended splitter lip and both fenders. (Hopefully we’ll get the paint to be a close match since yellow can be a pain to get perfect).

Continue reading “Getting closer…”

Repaired driver side seat mount
I kid you not, this has been the most irritating flaw with the car. From the very moment I took delivery, I swore I’d have this fixed ASAP. The old and poorly hacked/cut bracket was carefully removed with a spot weld drill before being thoroughly cleaned with a brown fiber 3M roloc disc. The bracket I salvaged from the junk yard (see previous posting) was thoroughly prepped by drilling new spot weld holds, shaping the flange to the floors contour and removing the old paint/coating before welding. The welding was simple enough and even after just one tack weld, the bracket was incredibly strong. To match the seam welded chassis, the bracket was also seam welded in three places. A quick cleaning with the SS wire brush and a wipe down with Isopropyl and the bracket was ready for some soft etching zinc based primer. After two or three coats it was ready for the paint. For the sake of time and since I didn’t have any Y56 paint on hand, I free handed the bracket, surrounding floor and rocker sill with two shades of yellow (one cloudy single-stage light yellow and one deep yellow base). Once dried the color was a pretty good match (lacks a hint of green like Y56). #racecar

Before

After

Continue reading “Tying up loose ends”

Wheel hubs & bearings
While putting the calipers and rotors back on the car I noticed some play with the driver side wheel bearing. Synching it down with an axle helped, however, the outer bearing race kept popping out when the axle wasn’t connected. This to be expected (to some degree), however, given that I didn’t know how old the bearings were, I decided I’d replace them while everything was still in pieces.
So last week I removed the carbon ducts and jumped over to my press to pull everything apart. Much to my surprise I discovered that the front bearings were not using the OE (wax style) grease. While the first picture below looks pretty bad, realize that the grease being used is Redline CV-2 (hence the red/brown color). After some head scratching I recalled that one of the original sponsors Mark had was Redline, and that he may have some more information on the bearings and setup. After some back and forth communications I found out that the front and rear hubs/bearings were likely pieces Mark installed back in 2003, shortly before he sold the car. Apparently (and as some us are very familiar with), the OE wheel bearings fail on a pretty consistent basis, especially when you track the car. Typically the rears fail first but fronts aren’t far off. For the most part, the bearings fail due to the extreme side load and heat they’re subjected to, especially in the rear and especially with sticky tires and large rear anti-roll bars. Mark said he’d typically get 10hrs or so off a set before having to replace them, and for the most part, he’d replace them after race.

Continue reading “Repacking New Wheel Bearings”

Wiring
I forgot to take some pictures of the specifics but I more or less finished the rewiring of the car. Since I won’t be running headlights I removed the associated wires in the engine bay. Similar to my other race car, I’m going to make the entire system modular where I can easily hot swap harness features based on the events I’ll be running. A few small items remain, however, I’ll attack those while I put everything back in the car.

Continue reading “Wiring + New Brake lines”

New driver floor seat mount & bracket
Prior to my ownership of the car, someone removed the factory seat mount on the driver side (shown below). I’m not sure exactly why it was removed or why they chose to permanently cut it out rather than drilling the spot-welds, but I’m pretty sure the former it had to do with a generic seat mount not fitting with the OE mounting points and the latter having to do with convenience. Anyhow, it drives me crazy seeing the bracket missing so I’ve opted to take on the project of replacing the both the bracket and seat mount.
Last Sunday I headed over to the local pick ‘n pull (good old $2 entry fee) to find a suitable donor vehicle. In this case it was a white ’97 Integra LS that had been T-boned. I came well equipped with a battery powered reciprocating saw, a drill and an assortment of random tools. After a few pilot holes were drilled (for the saw blade to fit through), I cut a hole around the bracket and had it out in under 30mins. Yes I could have cleanly drilled the spot welds buy why? I don’t know about you, but the less time I spend at pick ‘n pull the better. I’ll finish up the bracket at home and will prepare it for welding when I get time in the coming weeks.
As for the seat brackets, I picked up a set of driver and passenger PCI Multi-Adjustable Race Spec Seat Mounts (talk about a mouthful). Not only will the brackets lineup with the factory mounting holes but they’ll also allow me to adjust the seats in all four directions and will provide an excellent fifth or sixth submarine belt mount (not pictured but you can Google the mount).

Continue reading “New seat mount + Caliper Rebuild”

New air box arrived!
The new air box arrived last night and wow, just wow. As you can see in the pictures (the original unit is on the left and the new one is on the right), it’s almost identical to the original piece. The main difference is the larger throttle body opening (75mm) and a revised and free flowing air filter element.
As expected the quality is very good, especially given it’s handmade to order.
If anyone is interested in purchasing one of these air boxes, please PM me directly. Given it’s a 100% race part, I’m not sure what modifications would be required on a street car, however, I’m sure the ABS unit has to be removed or relocated.

Continue reading “Carbon Overload + Wiring/Brake Overhaul”