Big Thanks!

I have been thinking about my statement in a previous post about their being too many people to thank and that is just not true.  So here are some of the notable people that I want to thank for helping me successfully complete this huge undertaking.

1) Rob for giving me a great deal on a great car.
2) Eric Langbein for modifying the car to accept he Honda Fit engine and for imparting some of his knowledge to me.  I look forward to working with him more and learning a lot more!!
3) Tim Minor for answering all my questions and sharing his wealth of experience and knowledge with these cars to me.  Btw, if anyone in the Fairfax, VA area needs a good mechanic -- take your car to Tim Minor's shop -- Automotive Specialist Center.
4) Jeremy Grenier of Ski Motorsports for sharing all the cool things that he has done with his FF.  I just hope I can be as fast as him!
5) My good friend Bruce for his continued support. 
6) Brad Baytos of Primus Racing for helping me figure out what I need and for giving me some great deals!
7) Dave and Warren at Everware-CBDI (the company I work for) for giving me the time off when I needed it to finish up the car and for always supporting me in this racing hobby.
8) And most importantly, my beautiful wife (and crew) Terry.  Without her support, absolutely none of this would have been possible -- and it definitely would not be any fun without her!!  THANKS TERRY!!!

Finally Got To Drive It!!

Well, I drove it last Friday and it was AWESOME!!  I took the car to Eric Langbein's shop the Tuesday before and we did a complete set-up (which went pretty smoothly) and he finished making my shift linkage.  It really felt comfortable right out of the box -- mostly due to the "safe" (more towards understeer than oversteer) setup that Eric put on the car.  The only time you need to use the clutch is to get going so I was left braking and I found out that I really need to work on my shifting.  I just need to perfect the timing of the throttle blipping with the engaging of the lower gear when I'm down shifting.  I pretty much have the upshifts down although they can use some improvement as well.  I did go faster every session and here is a video of my fastest lap.  But this by no means a fast lap -- I left lots of time on the table!  Btw, the gear numbers are not correct.  For some reason it jumps from 2nd to 4th instead of 2nd to 3rd.

Driving the car was great but we did have one issue that we expended a lot of time and effort on.  Unfortunately the data system was showing that I was losing fuel pressure in the corners.  Here is what we were looking at:

The blue line shows lateral gs (in other words, the peaks and valleys show left and right hand corners) and the red line shows the fuel pressure.  There is definitely a correlation between cornering and the fuel pressure dropping and we did lots of things to try to resolve the issue but to no avail.  As a result, I decided to withdraw from the race weekend.  However, I'm glad I did because I was tired!!  I hadn't driven a race car in over a year and driving this car took a lot out of me! 

We really thought that there was an issue with the fuel cell (which is brand new) so I planned to call the manufacture on Monday.  I did pull the fuel cell over the weekend after I pumped the fuel out of it using the fuel pump and there was virtually no fuel left in it -- which meant that the pickup seemed to be working the way it should.  I could also tell that the pickup was fastened to the bottom of the cell.  So these two facts pretty much ruled out the cell as being the issue.  The one fact that was sticking in my mind was that I never got real consistent fuel pressure readings.  I actually thought of this before I pulled the cell but my fuel pressure sensor was mounted in a 45 degree fitting in the fuel regulator.  I used the 45 degree fitting due to space limitations and I think that there might have been an air bubble in that fitting.  I moved the fuel pressure sensor to a different location and no more fluctuation of fuel pressure!  I'm cautiously optimistic that fixed the problem but I obviously need to run the car again to be sure.

Overall it was a great day.  I got a good feel for the car and I will practice the timing of my shifting using my online simulator.  If the worst problem is an air bubble in front of the fuel pressure sensor than that isn't so bad!

After Graphics!

Well, here she is!

It is about 95% complete and I will be taking it to Eric Langbein's shop this week to get a complete set-up and a modified shift linkage.  There is actually one graphic missing -- the WWP website.  It will go on the sidepods but the graphics company forgot to give it to me wo I will get it from them this week. 

I again spent an incredibly long time in the garage this weekend though.  The graphics took a while to apply but I also calibrated the shock sensors and I wanted to make sure that they were truly linear so I created a chart comparing the voltage produced by the sensor as the arm moves to the amount that the shock moves.  I was a little concerned that the curve wasn't going to be linear but it turns out that the curve was linear which was good news. 

That was good news but I also ran into an issue.  I was running the engine again and monitoring the sensors with my computer and noticed that the battery voltage really dropped when I reved the engine.  Since this car has an alternator, the voltage should be increasing.  Well, it turns out that I didn't hook up the positive pole on the alternator so that it could charge the battery!  It took a while for me to figure that out and changing the wiring was no small task.  However, I'm really glad that I found that issue before I got to the track because there is no way that the battery would last more than 2 sessions without an alternator charging it. 

I also finished the seat.  I had to trim it some more and I covered it with gaffers tape.  I'm really happy with how it turned out.  Here it is with the seat belts installed.

Converting this car from an F2000 to a F1600 car has certainly been a lot of work but has been well worth it.  Frankly, I love the challenge of projects like this.  A lot of people have helped me along the way, really too many to mention.  But that is the good thing about this kind of racing, there is always someone willing to help you if you need it.  Racers are really great people.

The blog isn't done though.  I still need to make a scoop/cold air box and I will be documenting that process.  Plus, I plan on at least posting at least one in car video after next weekend.  I'm sure that I have a lot to get used to in regards to driving it I know that there are many more challenges to come in regards to learning about how to optimize the car's set-up and I look forward to those challenges just as much as the challenge of the build.

Before Graphics

I still have some work to do but here is a pic of her before the graphics are applied.