My fuse box relocation (project log)

[turbosax2]

The video of my best lap is up.


Video is undoubtedly a great tool for review, but boy does it stink seeing how much time I left out there Next time I'll do better!

 

[Justin DuBois]

The video of my best lap is up.


Video is undoubtedly a great tool for review, but boy does it stink seeing how much time I left out there Next time I'll do better!

Good exposure, good camera position. What camera is that and how did you mount it?

 

[turbosax2]

Good exposure, good camera position. What camera is that and how did you mount it?

It's a GoPro Hero3 mounted mounted to the seat, hard-wired to 5v, and automatically triggered from the RaceCapture. I have more info on it here:

https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/my-fuse-box-relocation-project-log.298569/page-34#post-153763778

 

[Justin DuBois]

Very nice - I've got a suction cup mounted to the sunroof glass, but I would like to move it towards the back a little more to get the other side mirror into the view. Your setup could work. I've also got RaceCapture starting and stopping the video capture via Lua script WiFi remote emulator. I'm running a GoPro4, and will also hard wire the power.

 

[turbosax2]

I'm not sure how the 4 is, but the hardest part on the 3 was getting the camera to power on (not record) with the car. I used a little script on a GPIO on PiLink to activate the ON pin on the GoPro's connector. You have PiLink, right? It would probably be better to just get John's camera, much less fuss that way. You lose the feature of RC starting/stopping recording, but for track use I always have to sync up the data and video anyway since they don't perfectly line up.

 

[Justin DuBois]

I'm not sure how the 4 is, but the hardest part on the 3 was getting the camera to power on (not record) with the car. I used a little script on a GPIO on PiLink to activate the ON pin on the GoPro's connector. You have PiLink, right? It would probably be better to just get John's camera, much less fuss that way. You lose the feature of RC starting/stopping recording, but for track use I always have to sync up the data and video anyway since they don't perfectly line up.

My Pilink is already maxed out for connected features. - The GoPro4 is working well. Even when the camera is "Off" the WiFi in the camera still active (blue blinking light), so the WiFi remote emulator script powers on the camera and starts the recording (red blinking light) no issue. The only setup I have left to do for the in-car forward view is power. I think I can tap a 12v source for the sunroof, and connect a 12v to 5vUSB converter, and then connect the USB power supply to the camera. This way even if the camera battery is dead, the power to the camera will keep the WiFi on, waiting for a remote on signal from RC.

 

[turbosax2]

I finally had some time this week to start digging into the problems with the car starting with the power steering leaks. I knew pretty much everything in the system has been discontined by Mitsubishi, but luckily JNZ @DSSA was able to find one MB501603 left in the US so I snagged that. That allowed me to change from a 2gb style return hose to a 2ga style hose along with some Gates 350010 soft hose.

2gb style:

2ga style:

So I got that replaced, started to bleed the system, and noticed a huge leak at the bottom of the rack. That confirmed my fears, one of the lines at the bottom was leaking...again! I pulled the rack and removed the lines and didn't find any damage to the oring, rack, or line. I'm truly stumped. But I figured I'd take one last crack at this and replace the orings. They're discontinued (although oddly look identical to MB192717) so I got some Viton 9263K292 orings from McMaster. Got the rack installed again and still leaking! I give up and have a reman BBB rack on the way from RockAuto. I avoided this for as long as I could since I've read some bad reviews about reman units online, but I'm running out of options and just can't figure this leak out.

I also picked up some new to me Falken AZENIS RT660. They're used with a couple hundred highway miles and the owner decided they weren't going to work on his car. He had these on a Miata!! They weren't my first choice but the price was decent so I figured we'll give them a shot.

Unfortunately, the section width on these is wider than my AR-1's so my clearance to the rear knuckle is down to about 3mm. A little close for comfort, so I ordered some 5mm spacers.

Overall, not a great week of wrenching. I'm really hoping the new rack lets me put the steering problems behind me. And I haven't even got to the rest of my list.

Next up: trying to get the car ready to run with EMRA at Palmer Motorsports Park August 5/6.

 

[turbosax2]

I managed (with a bunch of outside help) to get a solution in place for the leaking power steering lines on the bottom of the rack. More on that in a future post.

In the process, I accidentally found out that there was a restrictor in the soft low pressure hose that attaches to the top of the rack. I was blowing out my original one with air to clean it to put it in storage, and this flew out.

I had already buttoned up and bled the system at that point, so I took it on a test drive anyway. The steering felt terrible. It was loose and sluggish while centered but if you turned too quickly it would feel like you hit a brick wall with the steering wheel. Probably OK for driving on the street if you were always driving normal, but if you tried to autox it like this it would be impossible. I wasn't sure at this point if it was the lack of restrictor or my new bottom rack lines causing this, so I put the factory restrictor in my new soft hose and the problem mostly disappeared. The remaining weird feeling I thought could be attributed to the alignment being a little off so I didn't think too much of it. The township decided to tar and chip our road the day before we needed to load up so I just put an alignment on the car and loaded it in the trailer without test driving again. I'm still curious if factory 2ga lines have this restrictor. I can't tell from Brian's car without yanking the hose, and I asked on Facebook but nobody replied with any useful info.

Oh, and the wheel spacer solved the clearance issue. What a nice feeling to have a part just "install" properly with no fuss or modifications

We left for Palmer at about 1pm on Friday since it's about a 7 hour drive to get there. Got set up in the pits and spent the night in the trailer with the car and a whole bunch of E85 and gas .

This event was run by EMRA and it was my first time running with them. Another group, S2K Takeover, was also running with us so we were all combined. I was hoping to meet @gsxitement there since he runs with this group, but he wasn't able to make it. We'll definitely meet at some point, Jesse! So the format of how this group runs is a little different than the groups I run with normally. They have HPDE, races, and time trials kind of like NASA or SCCA, but way more relaxed. The time trial competition is split into like 10 groups based on weight/hp ratios with extra points that bump you up due to mods. I fell into the highest class, ST-GT, because of how modified the car was, but based on weight/hp I would have been in the second highest group anyway. To be honest, there were so many classes and so few overall drivers that most classes had between two to seven drivers with the top three people in each class receiving trophies. To be eligible to run time trials, you have to either own or rent a transponder. Brian has one on the Miata but I don't own one so I rented one and strapped it to the rear tow hook.

I was in the intermediate class for the weekend since I've never been to the track before. We had three 15 minute sessions in the morning, two 20 minute sessions in the afternoon, then a final 25 minute session at the end of the day followed by the trophy ceremony. The car felt good in the morning but I was getting some power steering fluid seeping out at the high pressure hose at the pump. No clue what that was all about since that hose is new! I also started getting some seepage from the brake master cylinder. I've had the cap come loose before so I'm always diligent about checking it, but this seeping is new. Unfortunately, some sprayed on the firewall and damaged some paint. So both of those got a paper towel zip-tied over them as I found the issues. And my new post-session routine included draining the catch cans and checking the wastegate lines so I didn't have any on-track issues with either of those.

The Falken's felt pretty good. The pace felt similar to the AR1's when they were newer but it was noticeable that my pace throughout the session didn't drop like the AR1's did. The tires didn't talk too much but I wasn't up to their limit much of the time, though I did have a couple slides with them going up the big hill. Pressures seemed to be pretty similar to what I normally run on other tires, about 30-31 on the front and 31-32 on the rear. I'm pleased overall with them and am hoping to see what they do on Pitt Race in a month since I have a good baseline there.

So the day is going mostly well as we go into the afternoon. Still learning the track...trying to make myself late apex everywhere...refining each session. All the while keeping track of our lap times from the transponders throughout the day (although I was way ahead of my nearest competitor in ST-GT). I was hoping that once I got a feel for the track I could break into the high 1:40 lap times. In the last session of the day (which is normally NOT my fastest session due to track temps), I put down a 1:53, then a 1:52, took a cool down lap, then got my best lap of the day, a 1:51.60. I was feeling pretty pumped about that and started a cool down lap to get ready for my next hot lap. As I rounded turn 1 and shifted into fourth gear, I noticed a weird noise and vibration through the shifter. Hmm, that's weird, let's shift to fifth. No noise, no vibration. Third gear all good as well, but fourth is not happy. I came back into the pits and as my speed slowed down I started hearing a noise no matter what gear I was in, clutch in, didn't matter, but fourth was still the worst. I parked at the trailer and rolled the car back and forth a few times. Something binds up sometimes and it always makes a clicking noise as it moves. I jacked it up later just to see if it was something completely obvious, but my weekend was done there. This is my built TRE transmission with 15 track days on it over the course of four years so I'm a little nervous right now to see the damage. The car still drives and all gears work but something is broken. I need to wash the car tomorrow then I can start digging into it. Pitt Race is September 2nd so unless I get a miracle it's not looking good at the moment. The silver lining is I got first place in ST-GT for the day. The fastest time of the day amongst all drivers went to "Mr. Palmer" with a 1:44 - this guy has over 9000 laps at this track

I was having fun with the Civic Type-R on the left most of the day. Super talented driver for sure, but I can't get over how capable the car is (running 1:52's all stock with just tires).

Did our track walk Saturday night since we got there too late on Friday.

I was going to sit out Sunday but Brian convinced me to codrive the Miata. He jumped up into advanced and I stayed in intermediate. With the exception of a few laps at NYST, this would be my first time driving it. He also had a student all weekend and I had a student Sunday so it was a busy day. The format was mostly the same on Sunday except they had a one-hour enduro event at the end of the day open to all intermediate/advanced drivers so Brian ran that. We considered doing a driver swap just for fun but part of the session was black flagged anyway so he just finished it out. It was a good test for the Miata to see it doing double duty all day plus an enduro. We did have a couple weird problems with it but are getting closer to trusting it for w2w racing someday. It was fun driving the Miata since we could compete. Brian put down a 1:58 and our friend with the black Miata had a 2:01. I had been putting down 2:01's and 2:02's all day and put down a 2:00 towards the end of the day but she managed to beat me out with a 1:59. So I ended up with third place in ST-8 for Sunday.

It was a long drive home and we didn't get in until 2:30am last night. We got everything unloaded this morning but I'm taking the evening off from the car and will resume tomorrow. Send prayers for my transmission

Once EMRA posts up their photos I'll get some more up here. We were all pretty busy this weekend, especially Brian instructing both days, so we didn't get a ton of photos.

The track was super pretty with all the rock and TONS of elevation as you'll see in the video below.

And here is the video of my fastest lap. It wasn't a terrible lap but I certainly improved in a lot of areas on Sunday while driving the Miata and continuing to learn the track. No camera in the Miata yet but we're working on that. I know this isn't MiataTuners but I'm lucky to have had a backup car that was available haha. It's starting to look pretty appealing being able to run a car all day with little to no issues...


If you listen closely, you can hear fourth gear start to make noise at 0:36. I didn't notice it during that lap due to all the noise, but the microphone is on the firewall near the transmission so it picked it up. I only noticed it during the following cool down lap when I wasn't on the gas as much.

 

[gsxitement]

Awesome!! Great run!! Yeah I really wanted to make that event, but with GridLife Lime Rock right around the corner, it would’ve been too tight with family responsibilities and the such. Definitely gotta catch up soon. I love Palmer. Great track. So much fun. You definitely have a 48 or a 47 in the car judging by that video. Great job!!

 

[turbosax2]

Awesome!! Great run!! Yeah I really wanted to make that event, but with GridLife Lime Rock right around the corner, it would’ve been too tight with family responsibilities and the such. Definitely gotta catch up soon. I love Palmer. Great track. So much fun. You definitely have a 48 or a 47 in the car judging by that video. Great job!!

Thanks for the kind words! And totally understandable, family comes first of course. Palmer was sooo much fun, I'll definitely be back again. There were some folks there really talking up Lime Rock so that one made the wish list as well.

 

[gsxitement]

Thanks for the kind words! And totally understandable, family comes first of course. Palmer was sooo much fun, I'll definitely be back again. There were some folks there really talking up Lime Rock so that one made the wish list as well.

Lime Rock is my nemesis. Hopefully this next event goes well there.

 

[MindBlowin03]

Great work with everything.

I wish I seen the posts earlier because I have a NOS Mitsu steering rack and 2Ga hose in storage.

 

[turbosax2]

Great work with everything.

I wish I seen the posts earlier because I have a NOS Mitsu steering rack and 2Ga hose in storage.

Thanks! I might still be interested in those in the future if you're willing to part with them. Would you mind looking in the 2ga hose to see if there is a restrictor? I'm still curious about that.

For the moment I have bigger fish to fry. Just found this when I drained the trans so I'm starting to pull the trans now and will be reaching out tomorrow to TRE about what options I have.

 

[MindBlowin03]

Thanks! I might still be interested in those in the future if you're willing to part with them. Would you mind looking in the 2ga hose to see if there is a restrictor? I'm still curious about that.

Sure thing.

 

[turbosax2]

Not much of an update but my transmission has been at TRE since I got it out and Jon just got back to me with the damage report:

I gave him the approval so he's going to get it all fixed up. In the meantime, I started to collect some parts and design a transmission cooler to hopefully get a better service life on this rebuild.

And I finally convinced myself to buy a 3D printer, partially to help with making ducts for this project. I've been enjoying the process of learning about 3D printing and even started making a product for the community.

https://www.dsmtuners.com/marketplace/fuel-cap-holder.5802/

Unfortunately, my racing season is done at this point but the car should be ready to go for next year. We did do an event at Pitt Race at the beginning of September so Brian and I co-drove the Miata - it took it like a champ! We don't have video on the Miata yet but my friend let me drive a few laps in the Camaro for the first time and put together this video haha. What a fun car that thing is!

 

[gsxitement]

That blasted 4rd gear

 

[BeatupVR4]

Out of curiosity what kind of printer did you pick up? I recently got a Prusa MK4 with the enclosure for prototyping/production parts.

 

[turbosax2]

Out of curiosity what kind of printer did you pick up? I recently got a Prusa MK4 with the enclosure for prototyping/production parts.

I got a Bambu X1C.

 

[BeatupVR4]

A great choice for sure. Definitely the belle of the ball right now and I've heard mostly very positive reviews.

 

[turbosax2]

Time for an update I guess. Not much happened over the winter, we spent most of the time working on Brian's Miata to get it better-prepped for this season. I got the transmission back at the end of December and got that reinstalled, then started getting the transmission cooler in.

Here's a detailed post on the trans cooler setup:

https://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/transmission-cooling.434313/page-3

The inlet duct also feeds the air intake box. Instead of the tubing I previously had, I switched to a silicone coupler like I used on the power steering cooler. And I also integrated a transponder into the pump mount so I can run more timed EMRA events.

I also got my hands on a NOS power steering rack and full line hard/soft line set so I installed those - apparently they were from the old Archer Racing stash! Since they're 2ga parts, I checked the soft line at the rack before installing and there was no restrictor like my 2gb had. I installed everything without it and had some similar problems like I had before of a hard feeling on quick movement, but it went away after a bit. I put the restrictor in my track spares box just in case it ever has to go back in.

Brian and I went to Mid-Ohio last weekend for three days. They just recently repaved the track so we were some of the first to be on the fresh surface. Most people were really excited about this and itching to compare it to the previous surface. We had never been there before at all so it was going to be new regardless! We were only instructing students on Saturday and Sunday and were hoping to use Friday to really get to learn the track. The weather had different plans - super windy and rainy nearly all day. We went out for one morning session then called it a day. I brought along my old RS4's as rain tires - well...even though they have plenty of tread, they're really terrible in the rain considering they're seven years old now. Lesson learned. And Brian only has RA1's on the Miata and that set was basically slicks at this point so even more sketchy than my car.

Saturday and Sunday were perfect weather and we had a blast. It was really fun to be able to run the car all session long and not focus too much on lap times. I'm new to the track, I know I'm going to be slow, but it was fun to learn it. The car mostly did well. I drained the catch cans after each session just to be safe and a considerable amount did come out each time. (I did a compression test today and the numbers were 140-150. Not great but definitely getting tired. Not a surprise for a stock junkyard engine.) No problems with power steering leaks or coolant leaks at the wastegate, but I did have a persistent transmission leak from the top of the transmission near the new inlet. I wasn't able to reproduce it on the street, so I'm suspecting it's either something to do with sustained high speeds or RPM's and too much flow from the pump going on - not sure yet. After every session, the front of the transmission would be slightly wet from the leaking. Not enough to stop me from running, but definitely something I need to figure out.

And at the end of the day Saturday I started to notice what sounded like a very slight exhaust leak but it wasn't too bad yet. It got worse and worse on Sunday so I eventually called it quits to avoid toasting anything too bad. I ripped it apart today and it was the o2 housing gasket that gave out. The turbo gasket was looking OK but wasn't too far behind. I looked and it's been about 8ish track days since the last time I did these gaskets. At this point the blankets aren't looking quite as good anymore and the flanges need to be resurfaced like I always do. The material on the o2 housing is getting a bit thin, this might be the last resurface it has left in it. A new v-band turbo/manifold is looking better every day but they price is still shying me off.

I'll get a video of Mid-Ohio up once I get it edited. Pocono with the Cumberland Valley Corvette Club is coming up next weekend so the goal is to get it back together by then!

 

[Justin DuBois]

View attachment 728879View attachment 728880

I'll get a video of Mid-Ohio up once I get it edited. Pocono with the Cumberland Valley Corvette Club is coming up next weekend so the goal is to get it back together by then!

What the heck is the red stuff built up in your housings and on the turbine blades?

 

[gsxitement]

What the heck is the red stuff built up in your housings and on the turbine blades?

Looks like octane booster.

 

[turbosax2]

Honestly I've always wondered the same thing haha. And I just got back from dropping the hot parts at the machine shop and they asked the same thing. The red color starts about 2" into the exhaust manifold (none in the head) and continues on all the way back to the muffler. I only use Sheetz E85 and put in Lucas Ethanol Stabilizer so I've always guessed it's something from that combo but don't have any proof.

 

[Moonlight GSX]

Could be the detergent in the petroleum, I have seen similar stuff in mine but I wasn't using any octane booster. Or it could be the cast iron breaking down from the heat (rusting).

 

[Justin DuBois]

Ooof, well it would be interesting to know if there is metal degradation under it.

Many questions:
Does it come off easily?
Is just iron reacting this way or is it all exposed surfaces?
I'll bet your WB02 gets some residue - do they last long?

I'm guessing your fuel setup is way reactive - like corrosive - at high temps on iron.