Update: "Caught in the Jumble"
One of the things I'd like to stress is the amount of moving parts in terms of running the car for a season, happenings, updates, parts coming....in and out...maintenance and logistics, relationships...friendships... Helping people, grinding out 14 hour days and paying the bills.
It looks like a full on Hustle. How much is possible to get done in a day, because it's usually not enough. Not only Am I maintaining the car, but the car is constantly being improved. Why? Why not "Leave it alone?" like everyone tells me to do?......because if i'm going to drive in Formula Drift... I need to continue to develop this car. Until I have complete confidence that I've come across a solid platform that is capable of competing in Formula Drift Pro. Whether that's done with The Wolf....or another Chassis. What's important is that I know how to construct the car into a sustainable competitive machine. The next guys would leave the car alone... 300-350 WHP is pretty safe in terms of maint and keeping the car running. But what if I wanted to have a first hand experience of what it's going to take to operate a pro level program....at a pro-am level? My whole decision process has changed. Bringing the "Pro to Pro-Am." If I can Mimic a Pro Level Program down here in Pro-Am....then by the time I get my License...the transition should be much smoother. I've gotten very very close to what I would consider a winning combination in terms of Chassis. The Wolf has Evolved.. We've got the Engine and Tuner and again I can't be thankful enough to be at Abel Ibarra's Side 5-7 Days out of the week. He's constantly taking me to school. Beating bits of knowledge into me and proving me wrong in certain areas where no amount of reading will suffice. One of the best parts is the constant improvement of things. Abel has a different way of thinking than a lot of people, and it's because he's been through this before. One of my favorite memories of him was walking into his engine room and being a bit surprised at what he was doing. I came around the corner and he has these straight up Einstein Style Microscope Glasses Contraptions that look straight out of DR Jekyll early 1900's style....Holding my Stationary Gear and looking so intensely at the bearing that I could've sworn he'd Discovered the secret to life in it. He looked at me and said "you've got good oil, I thought for sure you were going to Tear this engine up."
So just to give everyone a little run down of what we found in the Engine after last season. And this isn't to brag about being hard on things or anything. But A lot of manufacturers would agree...that if you want to test a parts reliability under stress....Install it on a Rotary. So if you want to ensure that you have a solid product for track use...install it on a Rotary drift car. Drifting is probably one of the hardest things you could put a car through. A lot of the time the courses are 15-30 Sprints with very little to no cooling down periods in between. Sitting on grid...HOT... SET GO!!! Rippin it up and back in line.. sitting...baking... HOT!!! SET GO!!! AGAIN!!! Repeat 6-10 times and you've got an average competition practice heat. 6-10 Tires gone. 15 Gallons of Ethanol...Gone... You'd better make sure you double checked everything, and that everything was in good shape to start. I don't know if I posted about it....but I had to throw my Clutch in the Trash after last season...and I didn't even compete in more than 2 Events last year. The Intermediate plate was stuck on the Crown on my Exedy Cerametallic twin. Warped to hell. I was measuring the discs when Abel came by and and said plain as ever "What the hell are you doing?".........I replied... "measuring the Discs....they don't look done yet." He looked at me like I was crazy....and said... "We just used a 5lb Sledge hammer to get that thing off your engine because it was that warped......" ....I put the micrometer down went to go wash my hands and came back and the whole clutch outside of the pressure plate was in the garbage. Abel said... "You MIGHT...be able to re-use that pressure plate as a back up." He's constantly saving me in the long run. And oddly enough.....I catch myself putting every bit of knowledge he's taught me into practice while working in the pits. While I'm wiring....installing and or helping other aspects of builds.
One thing Warren from Pulse Performance in New Zealand told me was ahhh...man you got a good thing going on. You're lucky to have Mr. Ibarra, and you'd be surprised at how many people have one person build the engine, only to have another person tune it. It's something I have thought about in the past....but it was good to hear it again. Every time I think about that...I remember Abel holding my Stat gear and Inspecting my Bearing. It's the best scenario you could put together. But I do understand that it's not always possible to have the same person that built your engine....tune it and be there to rebuild it with you etc. And there are people I know that have built their own engines and or purchased solid builds from people like DJSeven here on the forum...or Lucky7 Racing Etc and had other people tune them with solid results. But Just remember that it's a very thin line with who's going to be responsible for a failure if and or when there is one. There are 3 parts in it. 1. The engine, 2. The assembler of the system, 3. The tuner. Each part is as important as the next.
The engine is very important....who'se building it, thoroughness and parts used. I get to break down a ton of engines with Abel and you start seeing a trend in things and I won't mention any names, but lets just say that sometimes people brag about their engines superiority over others...when really they're junk. Silicon doesn't need to be gobbed everywhere all over our engines. We use very little....and if you clean correctly... you don't need to use much at all. The first time we built my engine...I was amazed at how little we used. But when Abel tells me we've got an engine to rebuild and it's from a select number of "known builders" I know i'm in for an extra 4-6 hours of cleaning. It sucks.
The second part is "The Assembler" and this part is very important and being a huge DIY community....this part is where i'd say 99% of problems occur. Nothing wrong with doing it ourselves. It's where I started, and I know a ton of people here on the forum and off of the forums that DIY. But a good engine is only as good as it's supporting system. If youve got a $10K engine assembled into a jank long block... well guess what... It'll be jank. INsufficient fuel systems, No fuel pressure sensors or gauges,.....Oil lines hooked up backwards. Silicon clogged oil pick up's, ignition systems wired wrong, crossed coils, WG lines holding the valve closed...you name it. Things are forgotten sometimes and we all make mistakes...but remember next time ....If you're booking it on the freeway at 100+ MPH at 7-8K RPM in 3rd-4th.... are you sure you double checked everything? Or when your turbo manifold and Exhaust housing are glowing red on the Dyno and your turbo is Spinning at 115K RPM .....are you sure you tightened all the bolts holding the CHRA in to the Turbine housing or Compressor housing? Not hating at all....juuuust bringing it to attention because at that point.... it's not a game. Your hard earned money, time and effort all went into it. Just reinforcing the "Do it once, Do it right," type of mind set.
Ok ok,...Enough of that......On to the Pics!!!
Not sure if I had posted this yet but... Head to Head Face off with the PBM Twin Turbo V8 Fd. Sorry Mr. LS....The Wolf needs to put your parts to work....on a fast car =-) hahaha
Got to meet another Mechanical Guru of sorts. This man was recommended to me by one of my Driving mentors as being the best there is at setting up Differentials. I've now got (2) FD Rear ends. Both are Carbonetic 2-Way LSD units. One Carbon and One Metal. One with 3.9 gearing and the other is 4.4. Working on a potential 3rd just to experiment with less moving parts in using a Welded unit and or Spool. But the goal is to eliminate failure points. As much as i absolutely LOVE 2-way Lock style....A spool is more reliable. I've never broken an aftermarket Diff unit...but I also don't want to chance it. We'll see where this takes me.
R&D for a new type of Sway bar. Utilizing Speedway components.... and positioning the bar in a slightly more advantageous position...
The Look is constantly evolving. I took the White paint off because it got too dirty at the track. IT was a disaster of a time trying to keep it pretty. Don't even want to admit how long it took me to clean all the ceramic paint off
Re-organized my Track Tool box. With this simple 4 Droor box.. I can pull a transmission while the car is in my enclosed trailer, pull an engine...minus Lift..and pretty much do anything I need to the car. I'd like to go through the whole tools list so that some people could better prepare for their track days.
SuperWow Factory Vinyl is the JAM!!!! Pure Quality!
ANNNNNDDDD a recent occurance... Picked up one of Mr. Bacon's Pans thanks to a member on the forum here. Needed it in a hurry and the Member whom of which which I can't recall his username (because we talked on fb) Let me purchase his pan that he was waiting to install...and I pre ordered a pan from Mr.Bacon.
So some of you guys might ask why the Pan and the reinforcement plate? Well... when we refreshed my engine. We saw signs of the engine twisting. Installed the Engine plate..But on the Dyno Abel pointed out something very very critical. I was 100% packed up and ready to head out for Vegas Drift after work that night...but Abel not just ruined my event...but saved my engine as well. He pointed out that my oil pressure was dropping for just under a half a second and that if I wanted to blow up the engine.... go to the event. I was immediately frustrated but this is where I've put my trust in Abel...and I had to tell myself to just shut the hell up and listen. Every time he's been this adament about something....he's been right. So I cancelled on attending Vegas Drift Round 1 and dropped my front subframe in order to check out what was going on with my Oil pick up. Just like Abel had said....even though I added the Engine Reinforcement plate and made sure that the OIl level was correct. The additional oil would also create even more slosh...and with the pick up not as close to the bottom of the pan as it should've been....there was going to be a major issue if I beat on it. So I pulled it all and am currently installing the new Pan to make sure that the engine is sufficiently supplied with oil.
Trap Doors in the pan to keep oil surrounding the pick up on hard switch backs.
I also started working on my new Wing Stays. Going to be making and designing them myself. There are a lot of wing stays out there...but I want something a little bit unique and not so much like the one's i've seen out there. Thanks again to Rays Factory for supplying me with everything I need to make this work.
Random...Made a new friend Mr. Horse haha He loves apples and Carrots
Full Oil System Flush. FOr those of you guys looking to install an dual oil cooler system...if you can..Id highly recommend NOT installing them like mine. The Dual set up is awesome. Whats not awesome is that there is a tendency for sludge to build up in the bottom of the coolers. And upon further inspection..which took far more time than it shouldve...and that I'm kicking myself in the ass about still....
Those of you guys on E85. And Using Klotz Benol reg and superTechniplate. I don't know if you guys have the same experience...but i'm guessing you have. But our Oil level actually rises due to our fuel diluting our OIl. If you've ever noticed while doing an oil change...just how much the oil smells like fuel. Well It wiggs me out that people think that that goo crap is ok being in the engine. Well since our Oil gets saturated with Ethanol... And we Premix our fuel... where do you think that Goo is going? YUP....Just kicked myself in the ass again because the only thing I didn't do last year when I re-vamped my entire fuel system to get rid of all that Benol Goo left in the fuel tank and system was Flush my Oil coolers out. While Flushing them out yesterday I noticed that there was a good INCH OF that shit clogging up the bottom of my Oil coolers. Took me 4 hours in the Parts washer with Mineral spirits and Gasoline to get all of it out. After I drained the oil from them I was thinking to myself.."Damnnnn these things are Heavy." ....then a few min later with a flashlight and a long piece of welding wire..." SHIIIITT,"....after I immediately recognized the thick sludge on the end of the wire. If that's not a reason NOT to run that crap....then I don't know what is. It settles at the bottom of whatever sump it's in. Next time I re-do My oil coolers I'll be reworking my system to have the inlet and outlet facing the ground. This way I can have a clean system..and not worry about the coolers getting clogged up. In this case...it might've helped me and luckily the stuff doesn't really move much when submerged in Ethanol. It just keeps building up on itself. So I don't think it got into the engine.....pretty sure it didn't actually but it was still reducing my oil coolers cooling efficiency. Not cool....literally haha. So, the goal is to have a clean system 100% of the time... not counting on the coolers to collect goo... I need it all working correctly. This is something that I need to bump slightly into a higher position on the priority list.
Anyways... If that's not a good enough reason to run a pre-mix that doesn't have sludge in it....then I don't know what is.
Version #1
More today......Updates soon!!
Stay Tuned!!!
Also.....Any Questions about anything... Feel free to hit me up guys!!!! I'm missing my Forum Bros!!!