iLLWiLLeM $125 ISF track car. Yes please.
#196
Intermediate
#197
Tech Info Resource
iTrader: (2)
I didn't think they were active either until I lost my front brakes - Carbotech XP12s, with Brembo LCF fluid. I discovered this exiting the fastest turn on the track and headed into the slowest turn on the track. I was able to scrub enough speed to successfully negotiate the turn and exit the track without disaster, but could not stop the car from 5 mph once I took it down the entrance road to try and let the brakes cool. They were fine the next day, and I never had the problem again because I always shut off VSC at the track.
#198
Moderator
So your turning all stability and traction control off (long push)? No concerns with losing control?
Sorry to derail your thread, William. I am curious how you handle as well.
Sorry to derail your thread, William. I am curious how you handle as well.
#199
Tech Info Resource
iTrader: (2)
#200
Pit Crew
Thread Starter
The next session I did the 10 second push and hold to the traction control and popped it in sport and manual mode. I was something like 6 and a half seconds faster after just letting the ECU sort out the rear end.. the push and hold method is BY FAR and away the better option when on track... and actually pretty unobtrusive. It seems to only drag a caliper on corner exit burn outs. I believe that if it senses yaw rate and sees both rears spinning above a certain speed threshold (defined by the front wheel speed sensors) it just lets you slide. If one rear gets some margin above the other itll drag a caliper to try and match them. As you can see from some of my videos its actually pretty easy to hold controllable power slides in a stock ISF. Not as fast as with an LSD, im sure, but the car is still very capable like this.
Im actually wondering how this is going to work with this new diff. Based on the logic stated above nothing really should have to change. If its just looking at wheel speed differentials then having them spinning at the same speed from the LSD just wont trigger the caliper intrusion. Afterall the 2010+ car came with LSD and i haven't read anything as far as differences in ECU software.
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I can add- the way VSC works (no push) is it just cuts all power for a second or two. Its awful. Not only is it SLOW on track but takes away any learning experiences and neuters the car. I can see if your some old lady driving her ISF in the rain it may work 'OK' but for anything on track its so-so bad. I would suggest turning it off if you're going to be on track. Get yourself used to the car like that and work the speed up as you get comfortable. The car is VERY easy to control in a power-over slide if paying attention. I can't tell you how many students i've had that've developed awful habits from HPDE driving with these first gen nannies on.
Last edited by illwillem; 06-02-20 at 07:51 PM.
The following 2 users liked this post by illwillem:
James7 (06-05-20),
lobuxracer (06-02-20)
#201
Tech Info Resource
iTrader: (2)
That exactly mirrors my experience.
#202
Pit Crew
Thread Starter
Coupla quick updates. Been doing a TON of small time consuming stuff on the car. was waiting for parts for a while but everything finally came in.
First thing I did was gut all of the stuff from the super heavy Navi screen that i wouldn't be using. This means taking apart and doing surgery on the electronics. I needed to disconnect the ribbon cables and circuit boards but make sure I didnt damage anything that I needed to keep. Good thing the service manual is pretty good clear in identifying what does what. The Navi brain and CD disk changer were around 6lb 10oz. Not to shabby for something that I would literally never ever use.
Gutted navi screen brain. Harddrives are heavy, who knew.
Ive taken this thing apart at least 25 times by now. Pulled out the navigation transponder as well that was buried WAY under the dash. Mostly did all this just so it cleans things up and makes whats remaining easier to work on.
Disk changer circuit board. I still have the reverse camera and the climate control functionality which are the only things i need at this point.
Got the new driveshaft parts in. It took no time at all to install the driveshaft itself but took a while to re-take apart the dash and pull out the shifter so I could bend the shift mechanism out of the way of the rotating allen heads. Was kind of annoyed I had to do that. Once that was on I could mount the exhaust. It took a good day aligning the titanium plates so that there was a little stress as possible on the welded joints. I have had a few Ti exhaust decide to crack on me. Worst case scinerio I had one crack under the gas tank and blast exhaust at my fuel tank. Actually boiled the gas. It eventually made the car start to hiccup and i pulled in wondering if I was out of fuel. I think i caught it just in time before really bad stuff started to happen.. that was one of those "i will learn from this" moments.
Got the remainder of the rear knuckle bushings pressed out and had the new ones popped in. Also ditched the rear rotor dust/heat shields, this will help immensely with rear rotor cooling.
My car had so many miles that when the rear axles nuts came off it scored the threads. I spend a few hours with a jewelers file straightening the threads out. Ordered a spare axle to be safe- but this one was fixed up and good to go.
All the new figs arms on. I ordered the "shorter' rear camber arms but had to make a ton of adjustments to the cam lobe bolts and inboard rose joint on the lower mega arms to make sure the turnbuckles had enough thread to not be sketchy. If you order these im 99.9% sure you just want the standard length. I may actually re-order the standard length tubes and swap them out in the future. In this case I did a full alignment then pulled them off the car to measure the threaded portion to be sure there was enough. Once they were back on the car I had to restring the car and do a full alignment again. ugg.
Once I had a rough alignment I needed to figure out ride height.
Took a bunch of up and downs but I finally dialed it in. The big concern was getting the cars static F/R heights inside a rake window to ensure the front splitter would be working in the optimal zone creating low pressures. .86* of forward attitude on the splitter was achieved.
Also added the side splitters to the side skirts. Geez- it looks really menacing this low. The tires are absolutely beefy from the rear
Once I had the heights I could do the finial alignment and corner balance. THIS WEIGHT WAS BEFORE CORNER BALANCE. To CB i add 200lbs of drivers ballast so I can get the cross weights correct.. Keep in mind this weight is This is AFTER adding a passenger seat and rail, rollbar, wing mounting, wing, jack point reenforcements and splitter.
for reference here's an old picture I took right before cooling mods shakedown. At this point the car had a completely stripper out interior, a single drivers raceseat. no cage. no speakers no wing no splitter... Im currently 123lbs lighter AFTER adding all that stuff! A sub 3100lb ISF is very possible.
Stock ISF for reference...
Wing and mounts are at the carbon shop for bonding- I had them weigh the element end plates and mounts for a total of 9lbs. For the purposes of corner balance I ziptied 10lbs of weight to the rear uprights.
Final corner balance with drivers ballast in place. Perfect 50/50 cross weight. This thing should handle like a beast.
My stock isf was 3993lbs with driver NOW its 3558lb with driver.... that's 435lbs lighter. that. will. be. huge.
A quick oil change, brake flush later and the last thing to do was take it around the block a few times to see if there are any leaks or noises. I took it pretty easy but i can 10000% say that THIS THING RIPS and it looks and sounds like an absolute unit. I was taking it really, really easy as there were cops EVERYWHERE since it was right before the riot curfew time in LA. Quick impressions are that the solid trans mount makes the car rattle around. Not bad for a track car but wondering what its going to do for the life of the trans.. diff from what i can tell on city streets is a game changer.. its gunna be a huge change on track.
There's a few things that im going to look into- i'll talk about those when i come up with solutions but as of now im really just waiting on the wing and a few more parts to show up from AIM to get the data and display all sorted. In the meanwhile I'm going to be cutting some splitter end plates and doing final adjustments. REALLY looking forward to getting this on track in the very near future, i think its going to be quick.
First thing I did was gut all of the stuff from the super heavy Navi screen that i wouldn't be using. This means taking apart and doing surgery on the electronics. I needed to disconnect the ribbon cables and circuit boards but make sure I didnt damage anything that I needed to keep. Good thing the service manual is pretty good clear in identifying what does what. The Navi brain and CD disk changer were around 6lb 10oz. Not to shabby for something that I would literally never ever use.
Gutted navi screen brain. Harddrives are heavy, who knew.
Ive taken this thing apart at least 25 times by now. Pulled out the navigation transponder as well that was buried WAY under the dash. Mostly did all this just so it cleans things up and makes whats remaining easier to work on.
Disk changer circuit board. I still have the reverse camera and the climate control functionality which are the only things i need at this point.
Got the new driveshaft parts in. It took no time at all to install the driveshaft itself but took a while to re-take apart the dash and pull out the shifter so I could bend the shift mechanism out of the way of the rotating allen heads. Was kind of annoyed I had to do that. Once that was on I could mount the exhaust. It took a good day aligning the titanium plates so that there was a little stress as possible on the welded joints. I have had a few Ti exhaust decide to crack on me. Worst case scinerio I had one crack under the gas tank and blast exhaust at my fuel tank. Actually boiled the gas. It eventually made the car start to hiccup and i pulled in wondering if I was out of fuel. I think i caught it just in time before really bad stuff started to happen.. that was one of those "i will learn from this" moments.
Got the remainder of the rear knuckle bushings pressed out and had the new ones popped in. Also ditched the rear rotor dust/heat shields, this will help immensely with rear rotor cooling.
My car had so many miles that when the rear axles nuts came off it scored the threads. I spend a few hours with a jewelers file straightening the threads out. Ordered a spare axle to be safe- but this one was fixed up and good to go.
All the new figs arms on. I ordered the "shorter' rear camber arms but had to make a ton of adjustments to the cam lobe bolts and inboard rose joint on the lower mega arms to make sure the turnbuckles had enough thread to not be sketchy. If you order these im 99.9% sure you just want the standard length. I may actually re-order the standard length tubes and swap them out in the future. In this case I did a full alignment then pulled them off the car to measure the threaded portion to be sure there was enough. Once they were back on the car I had to restring the car and do a full alignment again. ugg.
Once I had a rough alignment I needed to figure out ride height.
Took a bunch of up and downs but I finally dialed it in. The big concern was getting the cars static F/R heights inside a rake window to ensure the front splitter would be working in the optimal zone creating low pressures. .86* of forward attitude on the splitter was achieved.
Also added the side splitters to the side skirts. Geez- it looks really menacing this low. The tires are absolutely beefy from the rear
Once I had the heights I could do the finial alignment and corner balance. THIS WEIGHT WAS BEFORE CORNER BALANCE. To CB i add 200lbs of drivers ballast so I can get the cross weights correct.. Keep in mind this weight is This is AFTER adding a passenger seat and rail, rollbar, wing mounting, wing, jack point reenforcements and splitter.
for reference here's an old picture I took right before cooling mods shakedown. At this point the car had a completely stripper out interior, a single drivers raceseat. no cage. no speakers no wing no splitter... Im currently 123lbs lighter AFTER adding all that stuff! A sub 3100lb ISF is very possible.
Stock ISF for reference...
Wing and mounts are at the carbon shop for bonding- I had them weigh the element end plates and mounts for a total of 9lbs. For the purposes of corner balance I ziptied 10lbs of weight to the rear uprights.
Final corner balance with drivers ballast in place. Perfect 50/50 cross weight. This thing should handle like a beast.
My stock isf was 3993lbs with driver NOW its 3558lb with driver.... that's 435lbs lighter. that. will. be. huge.
A quick oil change, brake flush later and the last thing to do was take it around the block a few times to see if there are any leaks or noises. I took it pretty easy but i can 10000% say that THIS THING RIPS and it looks and sounds like an absolute unit. I was taking it really, really easy as there were cops EVERYWHERE since it was right before the riot curfew time in LA. Quick impressions are that the solid trans mount makes the car rattle around. Not bad for a track car but wondering what its going to do for the life of the trans.. diff from what i can tell on city streets is a game changer.. its gunna be a huge change on track.
There's a few things that im going to look into- i'll talk about those when i come up with solutions but as of now im really just waiting on the wing and a few more parts to show up from AIM to get the data and display all sorted. In the meanwhile I'm going to be cutting some splitter end plates and doing final adjustments. REALLY looking forward to getting this on track in the very near future, i think its going to be quick.
Last edited by illwillem; 06-02-20 at 09:28 PM.
#203
Moderator
What’s your input on using a halo seat on the street? I refuse to google it because I don’t want to see pages of people arguing over safety.
#205
Pit Crew
Thread Starter
Markos- its around the same size sq footage but I have a HUGE back yard for parking.
The following users liked this post:
Jwconeil (06-06-20)
#206
Nice work, look forward to hearing your track impressions. I’m torn on the “next” 2~3k to drop on mine, but I think I’ll go diff.
Wanted to comment that I enjoy your time outs to talk other track events you hit. I’ve debated ditching the production car turned race car versus a used Radical or NP01 myself. You’re right, I crawl under my American Iron car or Lemons Camry and see so many compromises. But then that’s half the fun re-engineering those. Conversely, I did enjoy the days of tracking motorcycles; non stop flogging for way more machine I could handle. Add fuel, and just keep going.
I’ll second that I’ve never had an issue with a halo seat, as long as the car has proper mirrors and they’re adjusted correctly. I’ve also bounced my head off the halo in an offset wall impact on track. My neck felt fine, and after watching the replay, the halo definitely did its job.
Wanted to comment that I enjoy your time outs to talk other track events you hit. I’ve debated ditching the production car turned race car versus a used Radical or NP01 myself. You’re right, I crawl under my American Iron car or Lemons Camry and see so many compromises. But then that’s half the fun re-engineering those. Conversely, I did enjoy the days of tracking motorcycles; non stop flogging for way more machine I could handle. Add fuel, and just keep going.
I’ll second that I’ve never had an issue with a halo seat, as long as the car has proper mirrors and they’re adjusted correctly. I’ve also bounced my head off the halo in an offset wall impact on track. My neck felt fine, and after watching the replay, the halo definitely did its job.
The following 3 users liked this post by Hardrvin:
#207
Love this build. Long time fan from the NWP/H-T days (white rocket)
I remember the lotto win and thinking "I hope he likes it, 'cause he'll go crazy with it!". And here we are. Lol!
The Evo II's look bananas
I remember the lotto win and thinking "I hope he likes it, 'cause he'll go crazy with it!". And here we are. Lol!
The Evo II's look bananas
#208
Pit Crew
Thread Starter
Ha, Beans- hell yeah man!
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So the thing i wanted to address the other night was the rotation of the rear boxed arms. Once you have all spherical stuff on the car the arms can freely swivle like 35-40* fore and aft. This isn't good for one becasue it CLUNKS and two the OEM ride height sensors attach to the sway bar point and will read this twist as a LOT of body roll and flip out the AFS and potentially the traction control computer.
Swivel front...
Swivel back.
Typically high end kits come with delrin pucks to stop this type of twisting but that wasn't the case here.
I looked around the garage for a solution and found that the heavy duty vulcanized rubber on a jack stand pad was almost the perfect shape to aid this.
I cut the pad in half and slowly worked it down to size using the joint sleeve as a template.
Once I had it the right size I lightly marine greased the arm surface and slipped it between it and the coilover. It sandwiches nicely between the shock housing and the arm and wont fall out of it place.
Now the rotation of the arm stops at about 2*. As the suspension compresses it rolls the rubber puck over the sleeve and stays in position. dosnt look half bad either. This temp solution may become final fix.
I took off the wing mounts off for incognito mode and drove the car around for a while to see how it felt. no problems.
I also finished hooking up all the data sensors to the brain.
Temporarily moved the Dash back into this position to get the cable lengths. I'm going to relocate it tomorrow so i can use the automatic steering wheel tilt function tha'tll help me get out of the full containment seat easier. For the meanwhile I had to turn it off in software to keep the AIM dash from mashing itself against the oem cluster.
In the lower right of the picture you can see where i made a shift lock button. When winching the car on a trailer or if I need to be able to throw it in neutral real fast I don't want to have to switch the battery on to be able to shift it. I simply reach through the window press this button and put it in or out of park. Its a 1/4 thick plastic dowel cut to height and JB welded to the shift lock button pad that buried under the oem shift housing. Im waiting for the finishing cap i got for it to arrive so it looks factory. Its always the stupid small things that i enjoy.
--------
So the thing i wanted to address the other night was the rotation of the rear boxed arms. Once you have all spherical stuff on the car the arms can freely swivle like 35-40* fore and aft. This isn't good for one becasue it CLUNKS and two the OEM ride height sensors attach to the sway bar point and will read this twist as a LOT of body roll and flip out the AFS and potentially the traction control computer.
Swivel front...
Swivel back.
Typically high end kits come with delrin pucks to stop this type of twisting but that wasn't the case here.
I looked around the garage for a solution and found that the heavy duty vulcanized rubber on a jack stand pad was almost the perfect shape to aid this.
I cut the pad in half and slowly worked it down to size using the joint sleeve as a template.
Once I had it the right size I lightly marine greased the arm surface and slipped it between it and the coilover. It sandwiches nicely between the shock housing and the arm and wont fall out of it place.
Now the rotation of the arm stops at about 2*. As the suspension compresses it rolls the rubber puck over the sleeve and stays in position. dosnt look half bad either. This temp solution may become final fix.
I took off the wing mounts off for incognito mode and drove the car around for a while to see how it felt. no problems.
I also finished hooking up all the data sensors to the brain.
Temporarily moved the Dash back into this position to get the cable lengths. I'm going to relocate it tomorrow so i can use the automatic steering wheel tilt function tha'tll help me get out of the full containment seat easier. For the meanwhile I had to turn it off in software to keep the AIM dash from mashing itself against the oem cluster.
In the lower right of the picture you can see where i made a shift lock button. When winching the car on a trailer or if I need to be able to throw it in neutral real fast I don't want to have to switch the battery on to be able to shift it. I simply reach through the window press this button and put it in or out of park. Its a 1/4 thick plastic dowel cut to height and JB welded to the shift lock button pad that buried under the oem shift housing. Im waiting for the finishing cap i got for it to arrive so it looks factory. Its always the stupid small things that i enjoy.
Last edited by illwillem; 06-05-20 at 03:57 PM.
#210
Moderator
I’m curious why you went with a custom swan neck versus something like the Voltex models?