All the cool kids are doing it..., Low budget progress thread (Slow Race prep.) Options

[BMXerror]

Well, with all the work that I'm doing to my car lately, I might as well start my own progress thread.
Backstory
I bought 4702912742 from my pops about a year and a half ago for $600 dollars, but it wasn't a steal. It had been sitting for about five years and needed a lot of work. He A couple years later he had been looking for a teener for a little while and picked this one up cheap at a dealership in Pomona Ca. He drove it for a while, but it had tons of problems, and soon he decided to sell it. However, the person who test drove it blew first gear, and out to the back yard it was sent.
Fast forward five years to when I was financially ready to get a car to start racing. Long story short, after deciding that I wanted the 914 instead of an older Miata, I told him I was interested. He said that if I bought him a set of mufflers for his bike, we'd call it even.
After that I spent about another 4K just getting it drivable. I replace all four rotors, rebuilt all four calipers, replace the brake lines with braided steel, replaced the hard lines that I broke, replaced the master cylinder, resealed the motor (after my socket and extension locked the motor up), bought two trannies for it (the first one was no good), put a new clutch and pilot bearing in it, put new rubber on the ground (Khumos), fixed and lubed all kinds of latches and hinges to be able to get into all the various compartments, replaced most of the vacuum lines and fuel lines.... the list goes on.
These were all just stock replacements to get it running well. I further had to fight with the injection system for a few months until I figured out that I had it hooked up wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) Of course, this is the very abbreviated version of the story. As anyone with one of these things knows, the words it takes to describe what parts you changed don't even come close to showing the blood, sweat, and yes, sometimes tears that you put into your work. But anyways, it is running decent now (the motor is still a little tired) so it's time to do some improvements. After all, racing is what I bought the thing for. So I'll try to bring anyone who cares up to date on some of the things I've been working on.
Mark D.

[sww914]

I ran my car with a stock 914 seat with no cushion for a long time until I could afford a race seat. I glued a piece of black carpet to the shell because I found that fiberglass slivers in my ass distracted me from my driving.
I like what you're doing.
I'd like to say "keep going and you'll get there", but most of us never really finish our cars, we just wear out jackstands.

[J P Stein]

Depending on who/what/where group you're going to run with, you may have a problem with your seat/harness set up. For PCA DEs, it's illegal. Some regions (most, I would think) are also going to enforce the new rule for AX.

In a nutshell: Your harnesses must run thru slots in the seats (at the shoulders & sub belts).

RTRB.

[BMXerror]

Looks great. I love these threads. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Doin' it your way.

PM me your address. I have a part that's been sitting for 2 years that will work great for you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif)

Is it a 3.2? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/happy11.gif) J/K... Will do.
Mark D.

[Chris Pincetich]

The stock seat w/o cushion works great. I have a neoprene cover for the bottom of my bare-bones seat. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[okieflyr]

JP,

What if he were to weld up some "hoops" on top of the bar for the belts to go thru?
It seems that would provide the desired belt location and stability.(?)
I'm not familiar with their rules though.......

Depending on who/what/where group you're going to run with, you may have a problem with your seat/harness set up. For PCA DEs, it's illegal. Some regions (most, I would think) are also going to enforce the new rule for AX.

In a nutshell: Your harnesses must run thru slots in the seats (at the shoulders & sub belts).

RTRB.

[J P Stein]

JP,

What if he were to weld up some "hoops" on top of the bar for the belts to go thru?
It seems that would provide the desired belt location and stability.(?)
I'm not familiar with their rules though.......

Depending on who/what/where group you're going to run with, you may have a problem with your seat/harness set up. For PCA DEs, it's illegal. Some regions (most, I would think) are also going to enforce the new rule for AX.

In a nutshell: Your harnesses must run thru slots in the seats (at the shoulders & sub belts).

RTRB.

In my experience whenever you go beyond the letter of the rule book, you cast your fate to the wind...or who ever is teching the car. If you spend time/effort trying to work around the "letter", you will probably be disappointed.

This particular issue is PCA liability insurance generated. As a past PCA AX chair, were it my decision, you wouldn't run in the event. No reason to put the region in jeopardy for one guy should something go wrong. WAG.... any event chair is gonna feel the same.

Your best bet is to find a used race seat....2 if you want a passenger.
Look for a used Kirkey seat. They are used by lots of circle track guys and can be had cheep....not very comfortable on the street tho.

[BMXerror]

Yeah, I was supposed to get some sport seats(with harness hoops) before I got the stockers that are in there now, but they turned out to be unavailable by the time I got there. Good info, though. I'll talk to Mugs and see what he thinks, as the next event I will HOPEFULLY be able to make will be the GPX AX at Streets of Willow. In the meantime, I'm keeping my eyes peeled for cheap race seats.
Mark D.

[theo]

yeah i have got a kirkey seat i love it, it'l keep u in fornt on the wheel in agresive corners, though after an hour your all will hurt. good luck on the car its looking great!

[John]

JP,

What if he were to weld up some "hoops" on top of the bar for the belts to go thru?
It seems that would provide the desired belt location and stability.(?)
I'm not familiar with their rules though.......

Depending on who/what/where group you're going to run with, you may have a problem with your seat/harness set up. For PCA DEs, it's illegal. Some regions (most, I would think) are also going to enforce the new rule for AX.

In a nutshell: Your harnesses must run thru slots in the seats (at the shoulders & sub belts).

RTRB.

In my experience whenever you go beyond the letter of the rule book, you cast your fate to the wind...or who ever is teching the car. If you spend time/effort trying to work around the "letter", you will probably be disappointed.

This particular issue is PCA liability insurance generated. As a past PCA AX chair, were it my decision, you wouldn't run in the event. No reason to put the region in jeopardy for one guy should something go wrong. WAG.... any event chair is gonna feel the same.

Your best bet is to find a used race seat....2 if you want a passenger.
Look for a used Kirkey seat. They are used by lots of circle track guys and can be had cheep....not very comfortable on the street tho.

The PCA DE rule also states that the driver and passenger side must have equivalent restraint systems which includes the seat.


just my $0.02

[BMXerror]

Updates: They are many actually. I'm pushing pretty hard to be ready for the 914 Shootout in August. That's three and a half months away and I need to rebuild the motor(already started), build a front swaybar, replace the rear springs, and build some headers (can't afford to buy them). After the motor is built I need to break it in and remap the D-jet. The new job is giving be a better budget to work with, but finding the time to do the work is more difficult. Even so, the budget will still be tight, since I also need to buy a helmet.
Below are some pics of what I was doing the last couple days at school. It's obvious that this was done by a machining STUDENT, but I'm happy none the less. 12 pounds is heavier than I wanted to start with, but I couldn't run the CNC milling program I wanted to, so I had to chop it the old-school way on a manual lathe. Gotta love cutting that good-ol' German steel!


Mark D.

[flesburg]

John and I share a DE car.

We read and reread the rules and ended up buying a pair of race seats for the 914.

Our home made seats were better.

I made them buy stripping them down to the fiberglass bucket, cutting holes for the harness straps, lap belts and anti-sub belt. I then built up the bolsters with fiberglass, many layers thick. They were really strong, and the stock seat bottom sits down between the slider rails, so your but is down about even with the rails, and you have more head clearance.

We probably should have gone to the DE and argued, but all you need is one guy who cannot do anything but "his best" and interpreting what the rules say, and they say "racing seat, with openings for the harness built into the seat by the manufacturer", not one word about "home made" or "custom made".



I think these home made seats should have passed any inspection, but then it is not worth the risk of spending the money to register, to take off work, to drive to a track only to be sent home....so new "manufactured" race seats...gripe gripe etc.

Dale

[BMXerror]

Yeah. I'll have to check with the organizers of the event up in Marina and see if my mods will be acceptable before I drive 300 miles up there. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dry.gif) It's either that or I'm not running, because I can't afford a race seat before then.
Mark D.
BTW, your home made race seat looks pretty awesome. Couldn't you fab some hoops into it to?

[rufio0205]

do the seat bolts that you put in stick thru both sets of "floors" your fab and the rusted portion? and how far do they stick out?

[BMXerror]

Well, I haven't posted anything in a while because I've been building an engine. This was my first engine and I think it turned out alright. I won't bore you with a lot of pictures of a stocker, mostly because I didn't think to take any! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) This was a budget rebuild due to the fact that I wasn't ready to do this yet. I just lost compression in one cylinder late last year and it needed to be done.
It's not totally stock. I machined the combustion chambers down to 45 ccs putting the compression at about 9.4:1. I did this because I got into the motor and found that one side had been machined and the other hadn't! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/headbang.gif) So I wrote a quick CNC program at school to interpolate the pockets and just changed the offsets to get my proper depth. I just took a couple thousandths to clean up the side that had been done already, but I had to take .062" on the other side to match it. I got all the combustion chambers equal within 1cc without having my CC kit there with me, so I was pretty happy with that. I also had to face cut the underside of the heads in order to clear the shoulder on the cylinders. Fuzzy cell phone pics to follow.
I also lightened my flywheel to 12 pounds on a manual lathe(pics already up). I wanted to use a CNC mill with a program that I made in Mastercam to cut a lot more off, but I wasn't able to use the mill for that job. So I did it the oldschool way.
I used a 440MP camshaft from Fat Performance with heavy duty T1 springs and strait cut cam gears. I also blocked off the stock oil cooler and added a thermostatically controlled external oil cooler with a fan... Oh yeah, it's still a 1.7... I didn't mention that. haha.
Anyways, it's no powerhouse, but it pulls pretty good. It actually has power up to the 5700 RPM redline, where as before it pretty much fell flat on it's face at about 5200! It also runs much smoother due to equal compression from bank to bank! lol (IMG:style_emoticons/default/slap.gif) I wanted to dyno it, but they couldn't strap the car (long story). The whole deal including the machine work, new pistons and liners, new bearings/seals, new exhaust valves, the oil cooler, and an AFR gauge setup cost me about $1900. That's not terrible, considering that some of those upgrades can be used on my next T4 engine. Pretty decent for my first ever engine build, too.
Mark D.

A lot of pieces in that dinky little machine.

The crank needed micropolishing for minor wear marks, but was in print, so I didn't have it machined.

[BMXerror]

I did a full inspection of the case and it actually didn't need any machine work with stock bore sizes! I was amazed!

This is the next picture that I got. I was busy building and not taking pics... That's okay. I'm sure you all know what a T4 looks like inside.

Mark D.

[BMXerror]

More.

With EFI and ignition on the stand.

Mark D.

[BMXerror]

Oops... Forgot these!
After pocketing out the combustion chamber. That was quite nerve wracking for a person who was brand new to CNC, by the way! haha
'
After face cutting the bottom fin!

In process.

Mark D.

[BMXerror]

AA Products piston and cylinder kit.

Note the orientation of the arrow in relation to the wrist pin! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/alfred.gif) The guy from AA never responded when I called him on that little detail! lol. What can I expect for 180 bucks? They run good... At least for now.

Mark D.

[BMXerror]

Technical difficulties!

[BMXerror]

I had to install an AFR gauge to monitor the fuel mixture during break-in. With the new cam and compression, I wasn't sure how the D-jet would interpret the manifold pressure. As it turns out, it has a really flat AFR curve at wide open throttle, but it's a bit fat at partial throttle around town. I'll have to work on that. But for AX and canyon runs, right now it works great. I did have to drop the fuel pressure to about 28 PSI to lean it out a bit. I'm running between 12.8 and 13.5:1 at WOT.
Here's a couple pics of the gauge install. The first one is fuzzy as hell because I couldn't get far enough away to get the camera to focus, but anyone with a Monza exhaust ought to know where this is. It's all the way at the back, between the two mufflers. Ugly ass, flux-core welds, but it's a shitty exhaust that will be pitched soon, hopefully.

The gauge.

This is the control module for the AFR gauge. I HAD to put it in this location because the kit wasn't designed for mid engined cars. The loom from the O2 sensor and the loom from the gauge were JUST long enough to meet in the middle.

Believe it or not, installing this gauge was one of the most pain in the ass projects I've ever done on the 914. It took me a 10 and an 8 hour day (all weekend) to install this thing and get it working. I had to figure out how to route the wires without cutting them, and make it clean and all. I also had to figure out how to wire the thing with their frankly pathetic, 2 page manual. However, the results are pretty cool.... I like flashing lights and numbers. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Oh yeah. I also stripped an exhaust stud in the process... A STEP STUD! So I had to helicoil that. PIA, but it came out good.
Mark D.