Car / Motor racing talk.

[Marcus Telcontar]

The car is now due to be raced next weekend. So, today was final setup and testing. Now, most Monday nights are spent working ont he car, today was a holiday so it was daytime work. Today was the seats, belts, other misc work and then firing the beast up and seeing what worked. And what didnt.

So.....

At 5pm, the car is warmed up and igntion timed. It's 5 deg retarded, which allows for the motor to swing into advance later and stop pre-detonation, which in a turbocar can melt pistons. The car, beign fully finished, reveres out and now it time to drive this thing around the bloc a few times. Nothing falls off... but the engine is running badly. It's stuttering and farting, not happy whent he turbo tries to spool up. Hmmmm. This is not good.

The first thign to do is check the plugs. and in the plug holes, there is water. This is not the normal state. After the water is cleaned out,t he plug leads are checked and number's 2 and three, the ones in water are corroded. Hmmm.

Clean and then run. Car runs better, but miss is there, just as pronounced. OTOH, the car obviously wants to run hard as the boost is trying to build, but the misfire keeps on shutting the motor down into low boost mode. In fact, even with that the car is frightenly fast. It got an edge to it that says 'I'm bad. respect me or I'll bite'. One thing I noted that is good is that instead of the explosive building of boost, it's a much smoother car as the computer begins to reporgram itself. Boost is building fast and quite hard from down low. Pity it cant keep the boost building beyond 5psi - it hould run 13psi.

So, tomorrow is high octane fuel and pulg / lead change

[Morgan Evanar]

Could be its not getting clean spark. Water = Teh enemy. Only 5 pound boost?! Mistu/Dodge engines usually can take a hard boost, especially the 80s stuff. You could run 15-20 pounds and not make the block flinch.

[Marcus Telcontar]

plug / lead change

Which is why this is first cab off the rank, we are certain No 2 and 3 are not sparking well. Plug lead rotted

You can get a DSM Gen 1 motor to 15 psi would too many worries, before the standard CPU and fuel pump cant deliver. Fuel pressure is the critical issue - you need fuel to prevent a lean out, which melts pistons. You need lift pups and surge tanks to go much beyond 15psi and you should also have forged pistons, not cast.

And yes, it's worrying us on 5 psi boost. 13 psi is going to be scary.

[Morgan Evanar]

Yase! I need to get my international drivers liscence and passport :O

What do you think its putting out at the wheels? Around 200?

[Marcus Telcontar]

Prolly 200 or a bit over. That'll make about 260 - 270 at the flywheel - driveline losses in a 4wd are high. The torque however is what really this thing's advantage is - feels more like a V8 than a turbo 4. It hauls.

Oh yus, before we were running spanners over the beast, we stripped the diff out of my brother's car. Now guessitimates of it's power vary between 200 and 250 hp at the flywheel, we now say it's closer to 250. There no way a car below 200 hp, at the one time, twists an axle, bends a housing, blows the LSD clutch packs to pieces (and i really do mean blows them to pieces, the diff interior was liek a shrapnel grenade), break the pinion housings, bend 5mm thick steel, and hole 4mm steel in several places. It was one almighty diff detonation.

Edit - oh, my mum has a new 'boyfriend' - who, surprise surprise is actually cool. He has a 70's Camaro SS (pre emission) with a 355 and absolutly done up to the max. Black. It's a frigging wet dream and you could hear this frigging thing come a minute before it arrived. Absolute yummy, even if it's only good as a cruiser / drag car

[Morgan Evanar]

I hope you don't eat another tranny. If you got the Eclipse GSX much past ~230 the engine would eat the tranny. Neat cars, kinda weak transmissions.


Now guessitimates of it's power vary between 200 and 250 hp at the flywheel, we now say it's closer to 250. Score one for turbo rotaries! :o

I want an RX8 or a WRX. Damn my four seater fetish.

[imported_J'ktal Anajii]

I just want my dang MX6 GT Turbo back!

'90 Corolla DX's suck!

[Marcus Telcontar]

Score one for turbo rotaries!

It's.... not a turbo. It's naturally aspirated - however it does have the wildest carbon fibre intake system you have ever seen.

250hp aint bad for a 1.1 litre

[Morgan Evanar]

Well, I guess if you take off all the restrictive emissions crap...

Thats about what the 1.3 RENESIS puts out stock.

[Marcus Telcontar]

The 12A is a fairly restrictive, abeit rev happy motor, standard is 110 hp. Even with the pollution stuff off, it doesnt get much more. The only way to get big numbers (apart from exhaust, a rotary is very exhaust tunable), is porting. Pete's car is a Mild / Secondry Bridge port combo, that gives hp in the midrange (Mild port) and huge top end ( Bridge). The renesis is a peripheral port, which is THE big horse power method for rotaries - the 13B in PP form gets 350 - 400 hp but is horifically noisy, which is why PP's are not road cars - until now. I'd love to see the tricks Mazda pulled to shut a PP up.

The rotary motor to get is the 20B. Biiiiiiiig HP outta them. Tho the RX-7's forthcoming 15G might be interesting.

[Marcus Telcontar]

Update - two plug leads deasd, two plugs with insulator cracks. That be the problem.