ws6transam

2008 was quite successful for "Excitement".
I got in a good long-haul drive to Memphis TN where I autocrossed & road tracked the car.
I also got in an SCCA autocross with the mid-Michigan SCCA
I did a two-day track event with the Windy City BMW club at Gingerman Raceway that involved a 260 mile round-trip commute each day, and about 100 total laps over the course of the two days.
Then, I did some drag racing in October up at Stanton, MI.
I also drove it each week to several car shows.

Now, it's the end of the year, and the car is up on the stands for the season. Although I didn't break, the car showed some stress during the various competitions. I'm putting them down as sort of as a project note to myself:

1) Road course: Oil control. Coming out of long right-handers, when I hit the straight, the PCV slurps up a big snort of motor oil and scares the track officials with the resulting smoke. The AFR195 head seems to have a drainback problem under heavy lateral loads. I need to think of either a solution to the drainback problem, or else get better baffling into the PCV line.

2) Road course and drag strip: Oil control. Oil pressure fades out under hard braking after long straights. This one got progressively worse over the season. I currently use a Moroso 6 qt drag race pan with teflon windage tray and hand-fitted crank scraper, with a blueprinted Melling standard volume oil pump with press-fit pickup tube. I've now ordered a Canton 15-246 road race pan and a new Melling oil pump & Canton pickup tube. I'm a little worried about that press-fit tube: It must be sucking air under hard acceleration. The Canton pan & pickup should provide better oil control.

3) Road course: Rear suspension. Rear axle hop under hard braking over rough asphalt. BIG wheelhop! SCARY wheelhop! It's either not there, or else it's bad, bad, bad wheelhop. I think I need to inspect the decoupled torque arm, make sure everything is still in alignment, and purchase a new set of shocks. The Herb Adams shocks were installed in 1996 about 30,000 miles ago when the suspension was still stock.

4) Road course: Axle fluid control. The Moser 12-bolt axle is blowing axle fluid all over everything under extended high-speed operation and heavy gear loading. I've tried extending the vent tube upwards but it didn't work. I think I'll try a smaller tube, and put in a little catch can somewhere. Moser has no idea how or why its boiling off the axle fluid.

5) Drag Strip: Nitrous!. I have a nice NX kit in there, but with too many safety interlocks. One of them doesn't work, and as a result, I have a full nitrous bottle, a bunch of low-12 second passes, and no nitrous engagement. I discovered that one at the track. Major bummer. Troubleshoot it over the winter and also get the bottle heater circuit hooked in.

6) Street: Rattles. The exhaust developed a rattle due to interference with the driveshaft loop and a burned up exhaust hanger. The dash has a squeak (No surprise, it's a 25 year old third-gen). The dash has an electronic circuit buzzing in there. It might be the Crane Hi-6 ignition. So I need to fix the rattles!

That's my winter list.

Tricked-Out-Toy

Wow that's a great list. The oiling issues I took a peticular intrest in. Ill be following the same perscription to take care of my oiling. Good luck!

FryedClutch

if by decoupled torque arm you mean a cross member mount arm instead of a tranny mount arm that could be your wheel hop problem right there
while excelent for drag racing that is the main problem with the x member mount arm is under hard braking it will wheel hop so you might want to lookinto a good trans mount arm and beefy tranny mount

ws6transam

Close, but not quite right. By decoupled torque arm, I mean that when under acceleration, the force vector is indeed applied to a crossmember via a rubber snubber, about 30 inches in front of the axle. However under braking, the force vector is applied via an upper sliding link that is directs the force down the longitudinal axis of the car, putting the instant center at the front tires, which is actually farther forward than a transmission-mounted torque arm assembly.

See http://www.unbalancedengineering.com for more details.





Unbalanced Engineering decoupled torque arm versus Spohn crossmember mounted torque arm.

Capn Pete

My rear-wheel brake-hop issues got MUCH better this year (not quite, but almost non-existent) after doing the full Strano suspension (springs & bars, w/Koni SA's) and running very aggressive pads in the FRONT ONLY (Hawk HT14's) and just street pads (ceramic) in the rear .

My car hopped REALLY bad before, to the extent of putting my car off the track at ~120 mph in Oct. '07, and hitting the tire wall . However, I made it through the full season of '08 with no major issues .

ws6transam

Howdy Captn' !

Well I got my wheels done today: The Kumho XS looks the goods!
I am still waiting for the oil pan to arrive but will start disassembly after next weekend, once I tidy up the dirt bike project.

mitchntx

Sorry I'm a little late to this ...

I had the same problem and went a remote catch can for a season. It was a successful experiment, but had other issues that followed, like draining the catch can. If it goes solid, it's a mess.

I removed the catch can and a friend came up with a very elegant solution.

We ran a line from the valve cover vent to a barbed fitting we installed in the long oil fill tube. Just drilled a hole and the barbed fitting, bought at Lowe's, self tapped right into the plastic filler tube.

Cheap, simple and easy.


The pump you are looking for is Melling Select. It has a thicker casting and is more robust. And have that pickup tube brazed on.



Shocks would help.

And I see you have already opted for Jason's DCTA.

My solution to insane rear wheel hop on braking was .... down shift later!

Instead of using the motor to help my braking, I changed my driving style so that at the last possible second, I downshift.

I noticed that the wheel hop initiated when I let the clutch and would go away as soon as I slammed the clutch back to the floor.

I can only assume that the increased rear brake bias of the engine braking and the fact that the compression strokes are not symmetrical, induces some sort of imbalance or harmonic that triggers the hop.

Audio is not the greatest, but if you listen close, you can hear my downshifts in this video ...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE-ILKGNH7k


Good luck with your winter projects.

ws6transam

I've got some Koni double-adjustables coming in March, and I'll be swapping my street pads into the back. I think that should help for now.