6,500 kilometres and 3 months after the twin cam swap, it was time for a minor service. Today we've smashed out:



-New SN/CF 10W30 oil and ryco filter

-75w85 GL-4 transmission oil (Bloody hard to find GL-4, I tell ya. Most places want $35+ per litre.)







-Fresh gaskets for all of the above filler/drain plugs

-Coolant flush and refill: check out the old crap vs the new! Also the excel made for a great coffee machine.











-New spark plugs

-Swapped out two dodgy splug leads



Which concludes the 238.5k service. I was looking at the service book, and the last time this car had been serviced before I had it was in 2002, at 105,000 kays. Some people...



Once that was all out of the way, it was time to get to work on the cluster. I had to re solder the wiring harness pins, as my shitty solder joins had snapped from the load of supporting the entire wiring harness. I broke the harness up into three sections: a short lead coming from the back of the circuit board, a section that actually runs down inside the dash, and a 'body' section that actually supplies the power and signal.







And that's all in and working nicely now :wink:

I ran out of time, so I couldn't swap the gauge into my GX cluster, but I've got the actual gauge loosely taped onto my dash for now.







Perhaps my 02 sensor isn't so rooted after all, it oscillates much faster at freeway speeds than it does at idle. I guess I'll time it and measure it against the guide I posted up above. A new 02 sensor can't hurt for less than a tank of fuel.



So next day off, I shall be swapping my gauge into the cluster and fixing a few more niggly problems. I'm booked in for a quasi track day later in august, so get excited for some positive camber! Thanks for reading

 

429604_286057208134307_408284822_n.jpg

























Really, I can't help myself...

 

So I missed my chance to work on my car last week, sozzles for thread neglect.



Welp, I finally got the AFR gauge done and dusted. Interestingly enough, the plastic cluster frame is different between the Sprint and Gx clusters. So I had to cut out the second frame, and also re-route the wiring on the back of the new cluster. So that's all in and working well.







With that sorted, I wanted to sort out a dangerous handling bug. After installing the lowering springs, swaybars, and end links, the excel has had a dangerous case of diagonal braking: the front right and back left wheels would lock up under heavy braking, resulting in the car being thrown 90 degrees anticlockwise in an emergency stop. It was as hairy as it sounds. I suspected that it was due to large amounts of wedge from the swaybar install, as I simply matched the end link thread lengths with a vernier gauge when I installed em. Hey, not everyone has corner weight machines. I messed around with the rear swaybar end link height until both front wheels locked up as a pair when stopping. The skidmarks left by my test sessions also revealed that the fronts were underinflated, which was promptly remedied.



Now that the front end had correct feng shui, it was time to mess it up again.







After extensive roundabout testing, only the outside third of the front tyres were getting hot under cornering. Ebay to the rescue! It was super easy to install them.







And after the install, this is how it sits.







aand







So after the raw install, we just had a casual 6 cm of toe in. The steering feedback was... 'interesting' with those settings. I went and got a wheel alignment this morning, so now we're running:



FL:

-1.3 deg camber

+2.0 deg caster

+0.0 mm toe



FR:

-1.4 deg camber

+1.5 deg caster

+0.0 mm toe



RL

-0.3 deg camber

+1.0 mm toe



RR

-0.3 deg camber

+1.0 mm toe



Apart from the funky caster (I probably installed the bushes improperly) difference, the alignment is great! There is buttloads of grip from the front end now. It has sacrificed a bit of steering feel and increased steering effort, but that will simply be a case of re-learning to drive the car properly.



To top it all off, I'm booked in for a track day on this thursday. I'm excited to really push the excel and see what happens. It scrubs a bit and is underdamped on the street, so...

 

Just to rub it in, the stock F2 evo wheels are 16", as wide as the FX rims, yet work out at approx 26lbs. Hyundai can get these things right when they try. the stock F2 ones are lighter still, and an inch wider.

 

After putting the camber bolts in, the new found grip caused the rear wheels to scrub again. After somewhat dubious results with the phonebook method of guard rolling, I thought I'd move up in the world:







$4.70 of PVC pipe and a borrowed hairdryer sorted the guards out nicely. It's surprisingly effective and didn't ruin any paint.



So with the car finally sorted, I could hit up the track. I went to the RAC driving centre, out behind the perth international airport. There's a skid pan and a one mile long, basically flat, track. Here's a pic of the facility:







We were running 3 cars at a time, anti clockwise. The laps are not timed and there isn't any scrutineering



Anyway, I got about 9-10 laps in during the day. I got an instructor to ride with me for a couple of them, he pointed out that I was not keeping my hands at '9 and 3' enough, and that I don't need to drive up to the braking cones. Oh well. Here are some snaps and a quick video of a lap:































and a little in-car video:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VL99WlAicw



And that's that! I had a blast, it was definitely worth 65 shitty dollars. Much better vibe/attitudes than what you get at my local drag strip too. The important thing is that nothing broke, and I'm now keen to do more track events because I suck at driving.

 

The smelly tree enjoyed the ride

:biggrin:

 

Well, I've had to change my wheels just now. The tires on my 15s are becoming shot, so I've thrown on the 14in wheels and tires from the s-coupe turbo.







eep.







I have to admit, it's been a big improvement over all.



+The 14s are shitloads lighter, I didn't weigh them but still

+Wet grip

+185 instead of 205 tires means less steering effort

+Far less kickback from mid corner bumps

+Smoother ride



-Less peak grip, probably

-Needs more steering input



Here's how they look. I prefer the look of the FX wheels in white, oh well. They wheel like wheels ought to wheel.

 

What is it with you and center caps? get them bishes back on there.

 

But Tom, they're all broken and I'm lazy.



Well there haven't been any updates for a while, mainly because there has been nothing to update. Anyway, I'm back in the garage these days and already back to breaking things.



First of all, I had another RAC track day. This time we were out on the skidpan instead of the mini track. There was less overall grip on the skinny tyres, but I still had a blast and the excel was handling sweetly all day. I also did a quick oil-and-filters service before I went out, nothing much to report there. The engine and transmission oils were both in good condition, the air cleaner not so much.







and the fun pics from the day



















Upon getting home though, I found this.







So I got this







and I did this.







then this happened,







But I managed to get away with filing down the damaged thread with a hacksaw blade. Disaster averted, that could have got ugly because it was 11pm on a sunday night, about an hour and a half before I was due in at work... phew.



Another pain in my arse has been the heater. The bastard has not been working for a while now. Only one heater hose was getting hot, so I did a full pressure reverse blast on the core and got rid of all the crap from the core.







But still, no heat. Not a smidge. I suspected it was a problem with the HVAC plenum itself, but visual inspection showed that the bowden cables were all moving their little plastic levers properly. However, the heat control didn't feel stiff enough (ha.), and sure enough, there are actually two levers that the heat control operates; the upper arm that is not directly operated by the cable is broken.







So manually operating the lever gives strong heat, just in time for summer. All I have to do now is replace the busted little arm and we're good to go.



There's still a lot of stuff to do on this car:

-The horn has stopped working

-I need to make a bracket for the sohc A/C compressor to mount to the dohc block

-The AFR gauge circuit is blown

-The dash is less stable than America's credit rating

-I suspect the driver's window run channel is bent



So stay tuned! 100 degree days mean my tea won't go cold while I'm fixing this pile.

 

Found my memory card adaptor just now, may as well update this.

• HORN

Has been replaced with a factory airhorn from an R33 skyline. JDM LYFESTYLE

• AFR GAUGE

I bought another circuit, but was too lazy to wire up the new PCB. I tried swapping the new chip into the old PCB, which generated some white smoke from the chip and a circuit that was just as dead. I took the whole mess out and just put the original warning light cover back in there. That's one for the too hard basket.



I didn't fix any of that other crap. Additionally, the poly driver's control arm bushing is now squeaking like mad. I tried lubricating it from the outside, but it's really going to need some zerg fittings and grease jobs every few thousand miles. How very 60 years ago.



-The front roll stop is broken in a bad way. Putting a 99 dohc alpha into a 95 sohc chassis means that I had to adapt the bolt the sohc roll stops onto the dohc block. It's fine at the back, but at the front only one out of the two bolts fits. This one bolt has now pulled the thread out of the block. I'll probably sort that out this weekend. Maybe throw some sikaflex in the mounts for lulz.







-I was getting really sick of the tinny, buzzy, beehive piece of crap exhaust. I'm tearing down my beta accent, so I had some spare exhaust lying around...







Old one is on the bottom.







I had to throw the LC1 4-1 manifold on there as well. That required a mini extension harness for the 02 sensor, plus the heatshielding and one of the bolts were interfering with the engine mount. Dremels and hammers sorted that quite nicely. There was also some random ceramic debris in the cat converter, so I cleared all of that nonsense out. Ahem. This leads my onto my last point...



-As you can see, the new exhaust has no flanges, from manifold to muffler. So I had to drop the rear multilinks off to get the exhaust hanging. Except all four nuts and bolts on the rear control arms seized, then stripped. I got the trailing arm and swaybar off, but it was a rat of a job. ANYWAY, the 15x7 RD1 wheels have been rubbing on the trailing arms. It's just fine when you're static, the wheel spins freely, but under cornering, the tyre deflects and scrubs on the arm.











That explains the inexplicable, intermittent oversteer I was getting at the last track day.







And look! Another plastic asian blob from the 90s!







I ought to get a comparative exhaust sound clip, it'd be in-car compared in-car though. Maybe you'll just take my word that the new exhaust sounds lovely.