Roll cage is in, engine runs. Didn’t have time to take many pictures this weekend, but the car is starting to come together now.
Less than a month until the first race…
very impressive cage work:up:
Back on its wheels and halfway through paint prep:
Making great progress! Keep it up man :rockon:
I agree, I also like the boxed strut towers.
Props for saving a CDN GSR, so so rare.:rockon:
WOW , not so muh of a rust bucket now, looks good
Well, the first race weekend is a week away and The Ugly One is very close to being ready. The only things still needed are:
- A transponder to track lap times.
- Some ballast.
We weighed the car yesterday at 2394 lbs with myself and ~1/8 tank of fuel in it. I need to be at 2543 to race in IP3, so we are going to run with a full tank of fuel, the spare tire and about 80 lbs of ballast to make minimum weight. The advantage of this is that:
- To race in the ITS class I can take out the ballast and race at 2430 lbs. In the GTU class there is no minimum weight so I can take it all out and go faster.
- With the ballast, I can put the weight in the car where I want it (low and near the middle/rear of the car).
Some pictures from when we weighed the car:
Thats sweet man, I would totally beat you though…if I was in that plane beside you…
props to u bro for saving a CDN GSR looks good.
people like you and marc are my heros
Now that The Ugly One is almost ready for its first race, I need to thank some of the people who made this whole project possible.
- My Dad. He probably put in twice as much time on this project as I did. After I took the car apart and scattered the pieces around our garage, he put it back together, made it run, and made it run well. He also spent time learning how to do bodywork (and there was a lot of it, too) and how to paint. Simply said, I wouldn’t have had a chance of finishing this project if not for his skill, knowledge, and hard work.
- Tim, Matt, Dave and my other friends who helped out at various stages along the way.
- My fiance Juana, who was very understanding when she found out that the “potential family car” that I had bought was actually a rust bucket that I planned to race :-). Thanks to her for that, and for her help with taking the car apart and prepping it for paint.
Some pictures of the car as it sits, ready to race:
If it is as fast as it looks Jordan you shouldn’t have any trouble taking home some of that coin at the Dash for Cash on the weekend!
Does your driving suit look like a tux?
Hope the weather stays decent for you and keep us updated with a race report.
Well, the first race weekend is done, with mixed results.
The Good:
- The engine has really good top end. At one point I was racing a 2.5L BMW and I was pulling on him at the end of the straightaways.
- On its first weekend out, The Ugly One was as fast as my CRX was after 3 years of tweaking.
The Bad:
- It needs more power in the 4000-6000 rpm range. The power at the end of the straightaway isn’t helping me too much because it’s just making up ground that I lost on the corner exit. A 4.7 final drive would help, I think.
- The brakes are way too rearward biased. I think it has to do with the brake pads I chose for the rear, which I think are too aggressive. Whatever the reason, it made braking zones really interesting due to the back end of the car wanting to be in front.
- The suspension was definitely riding on the bump stops in the corners, which hurt the handling.
The Ugly:
- During the practice day on Friday I went out without tightening my front lug nuts :bang:. I did some serious damage to one of my rims and tires.
- On the last lap of the last race on Saturday, my driver’s side axle exploded. We tried to get a replacement so I could race on Sunday, but both replacements we tried had splines that were too tall to fit onto the intermediate shaft. We then decided to use the old spline and swap the CV internals and the rest of the axle, but the old spline used a 6 bearing CV joint and the replacement ones were both 3 bearing. At that point there was only an hour left, so we figured there was no way we would get the car running in time, so we put it on the trailer and went home.
All in all, I think I’m happy with where I’m at. I’ve got a few things that I can change that I know will make me faster, and I got some of the first race gremlins out of the car. I’m not too thrilled about the axle, but that’s how racing is sometimes.
Sounds like you had an adventuress weekend, thought I caught a glimps of you on the track cams, thanks for the update.
Yes, you need to keep that 1.7 revving to get anything out of them, Missions slow speed coroners really requires a 4.7/4.9.
Didn’t I ask you about one? Yes, I remember, funding!
So you are allowed to use an alternate final drive in IP3?
Don’t know any of the Mfactory people in Bellingham?
Are you running 14 or 15 inch race wheels?
Always, always keep spare “OEM” axels in your weekend tool kit along with local GSR owners contact info you can always borrow parts from!
Call or email next time! 604.220.6309
What is the damage to your tire? Wheel some elliptical stud holes?
Marc,
The wheel had the stud holes reamed out pretty good. The wheel also fell off, so the brake rotor made a bunch of deep scratches and scrapes on the inside of the rim, and the face that matches up with the brake rotor got gouged. I haven’t checked if the wheel still bolts up ok since it was one of my wet tires and the track was dry for the rest of the weekend.
I am allowed to use an alternate final drive. At this point I don’t know if I’ll have the money to do it by the next race weekend. I’m getting married at the end of May, and I expect that my wallet will be feeling the effects of the honeymoon :-).
For tires I’m using a set of 205/50/15s that are left over from the CRX, and have a new set of 225/45/15s that I’m using as rain tires. Once the 205s are done I’ll be using the 225s full time. I don’t think I can get tires any shorter than the ones I have that aren’t narrow enough to cause issues with tire overheating. The 205s already get a bit greasy on the front end 15 minutes into a race.
Due to wedding planning and the fact that I’m away for the next race weekend, I’m going to be taking a break from this project for a couple months. I’ll be ready to go on the June 20th race weekend, though.
I haven’t posted in a long time, but I’m back. I had a second race weekend 2 weeks ago. A video of some race highlights can be found here:
The Good:
- I had 2 fun races, starting 3rd and finishing 2nd in one and starting dead last and moving up 7 or so places in the other.
The Bad:
- My igniter coil was on the way out, giving me a bad misfire and costing me some power.
- The car was too loud on Saturday so we had to add a second muffler for Sunday.
- I got a video camera to record the races, but it didn’t record for the race where I started at the back and passed a bunch of cars.
The Ugly:
- I noticed hairline cracks starting to form on all 8 of my wheels, one of which was cracked right through. Expensive, but at least they didn’t break while I was out on the track!
Nice Job! :rockon: I hope to do some Auto-Xing with my DA someday also… 
The third race weekend is done. Video here:
I spun a rod bearing :sad:. To make it worse, it’s basically stupidity on my behalf that killed it. There’s a long sweeping left hander where the car dropped out of VTEC a few times. I didn’t think through why it was dropping out (low oil pressure) and kept driving the car hard :bang:. We checked the oil afterwards and it was about a liter low. Forgot to check it before going out on track and paid the price…
My dad has the engine apart already and has sent the crankshaft and rods to the machine shop to see if it can be saved.
To avoid this happening again we’re going to upgrade to a Moroso road race oil pan and add in an oil pressure gauge, which I will pay close attention to from now on.
Hello jdi,
Sorry to hear about your damage, I would recommend using a low pressure warning light also, gauges are great on tracks where you have time to look at them however Mission is so short, busy and eventful with traffic, monitoring a gauge will detract from your engaged driving. If you lost pistons I recently tore down my second engine, the P61 pistons are in very good shape and I won’t need them.