Rallycross/TSD in my MINI

[Mudhen]

Good luck, we are all counting on you.

:D

I remember that Mazda thing!  Man...I wanted to go so bad.  I think I had a wedding...might have even been mine, can't recall anymore.  Either way I'm more than happy to blame my wife for my failed driving career.   ;D

I've only ever been good at the real tight courses - when things open up I suck, and I suck bad.  My one time doing a road course was a disaster and I never went back.  Wish I had now.

But that's what I'm hoping on Team O'Neil for - once I get the cage in, go up there for help with real road training.  Will just have to wait for a BOGO day or something.   ::)

[Jims5543]

Back when I first got into AX I was being told by some RX7 board assholes that my success in my car was because I was in a small pond. What the Evolution people were telling me was something different, like I said they wanted me at the nationals, even if I co-drove one of their cars.

I signed up for the 1st Rev-it-up event in Miami and when I placed 3rd overall, that pretty much shut up the forum assholes.  Every big dog from the SCCA was competing in that thing and there were no excuses, one car one course.

I have lost my edge, my damn RX7 was so damn fast it messed your head up.  I am no longer for for TTOD, I am more out to just flog a car and have fun I rarely even check the time boards.

Here is an old video of my monster, before the turbo swap and another 100 HP added to it. God I miss that car... I should have never sold it.  When you get to the side cam it is amazing how planted that car was. This was a course meant to keep me from getting TTOD, I ended up getting it in the second run you see on this video. The 3rd was obviously slower but more fun. ;D

http://www.streetfire.net/video/rx7-at-evolution-driving-school-and-local-autox_31549.htm

[94touring]

Have I mentioned how much I love my rx7 lately?

[Mudhen]

Cool video, Jim!

Poking around, looking for springs.  What do people with real racecars do when they say they're running, '600lb springs...I was running 450s and 320s prior to that...' - they must get them custom made somewhere, right?  Fk'd if I can find anyone that will even talk to me...a lady yesterday said to me, 'we sell springs for race cars'.  I said - I have a car, I'm racing it, now put me through to sales bitch!  Maybe it's my approach... 8.gif

I was thinking about trying to get some used Countryman struts...even if I have to chop/cut/rebuild.  They look identical, guessing the tube diameter is so much bigger it wouldn't fit in the knuckle anyway.

And my wife forbade me from even trying our Countrymans...but think I'll swing it in the garage and at least take some measurements while she's at work.   :-X

[Mudhen]

My new sponsor put up a post on their blog page:

http://rennblog.com/

Sucks they have so many cool parts and I have no money... :-[

[Jims5543]

Hey, that is awesome!!

You should be proud to be featured on a site like that.

Very cool!

[Mudhen]

I just noticed my mom wrote a reply at the bottom...lol.   Hey, every hit counts - good thing her last name is no longer Munhall.  That'd be embarrassing.    :(

[Jims5543]

Thought of you when I saw this Mudman...

[Mudhen]

Those guys are like a lot people at rallycrosses - very smart with slightly misdirected tendencies towards modifications.   :D

I think they said they put that car together the week before that event.  They slapped a huge turbo on it - about as big as the suspension and wheels.  It looks to be all cobbled together - but they have a blast with it and I've never seen it break!!   4.gif

[Jims5543]

You have seen that IX in action then?  Small world. I saw the pic posted on a E30 board and thought I would share.

[Mudhen]

Seat frames welded in...what a pain.  I feel like I'm pretty good with the TIG at thicker steel - 1/8"?  No problem.  But the 1/16" body reinforcement plates?  When kneeling on the floor running the foot pedal with my knee?  Ouch.

My jig (what a difference backing the steel up with some copper as a heat sink made - amazing):








So that's the end of putting kids in the back.  Bummer.  Now I need another R53.   77.gif

I also tried putting a Countryman rear strut in.  Ah, no... ::).  Any of you Countryman guys need a right rear strut?   :D



Next up:  temporary rollbar since I have no good place to attach my rear harnesses!

[Jims5543]

Just make the kids bounce around between the roll bar cage, it will toughen them up. No need for another car.  :D

[Mudhen]

Rollbar/harness bar...in...as of about an hour ago.  Holy crap what a job.  No wonder a real rally cage will set you back $3k.

Learned a ton, though - real usage of the bender, fish mouthing tubing with the plasma cutter...and lots and lots of TIG welding.  Just like everything I do - I always think it sucks when I'm done.   ::)

Temporary, though.  Will chop it all out when I do the real cage.  Practice makes perfect?  Perfect practice makes perfect...something like that.

Laid it all out on the floor for the bends (which I messed up - bent the top portion a little too much...ugh):




I had the worst time welding in the foot pads - 1/8" to the floor?  KILLED ME.  I ended up cheating some and using the MIG for a little of it.  This is the best one:


This was a bad night...lol.  Broke all sorts of stuff in the garage.   50.gif


[Intermission]

It's probably good my wife made me take a break - sorry we missed though, Jim!  I didn't have a clue how wiped out I was going to be - think I was asleep around 8:30 that night - the last day we did 30k steps - 16 miles in there!  Absurd.  But a blast.   4.gif
[/intermission]

Little by little it went in, though.






Final product.  After the race tomorrow I'll take out the seats again and paint it.  Oh, and I need to learn how to create 'taco gussets' for the middle of the 'X'.  Fun!   8.gif

[ADRay]

nice work. let me know if you want more practice  ;D

[Jims5543]

[Intermission]

It's probably good my wife made me take a break - sorry we missed though, Jim!  I didn't have a clue how wiped out I was going to be - think I was asleep around 8:30 that night - the last day we did 30k steps - 16 miles in there!  Absurd.  But a blast.   4.gif
[/intermission]

Yeah, that went over like the Hindenburg.  My apologies, if I came across as a psycho chick stalking you it was not my intention, I was just trying to catch up with you and buy you the beers I promised you.  The bar tab at the NBC Brewery would have been epic. I was planning on taking a cab back to the hotel and you would have been walking.

I had a fun weekend up there anyway, the wife and kid are returning in 2 weeks since he has a week off of school and I am going to meet them later in the week once I get my work shit out of the way. We were purchasing passes then so we just got them out of the way earlier so this worked out good for us to get them early. 

Shame we could not meet up, I just did not want to impose.

[Mudhen]

LOL...you kidding me?  Go out drinking with an adult after a week with the kids?  I'd have given your right leg...  77.gif

Rallycross went ok.  Taking my now traditional spot at 3rd place in Mod-Front, which is around 3rd place overall.  I had a multi-time national Mod AWD champion ride along with me and he didn't have much to point out about my driving...but that 'that Golf can't be beat by this MINI'.  Not sure how to take that - maybe 'then this driver needs to learn to be twice the driver of those Golf drivers'...or, 'then this driver needs a new credit card to pour parts into this MINI to beat that Golf'.  Either way, I'm glad to know I wasn't doing anything really horrible wrong.  Stop making changes and get a better feel for the car I guess.

Not all the pics are in - but the dirt was deep so the pics are epic!

[Mudhen]

Final pic from this event, I promise.  This was a hard shot...but I like the pic that came from it.  ::)

[Mudhen]

Painted the rollbar yesterday (I bought some Pepper White paint to do my tow dolly with...so used that on the rollbar, too).  As usual, learning curve on using the paint gun.

The only other time I used it is when I painted the hood and it seemed like a no brainer.  But this time after I did the primer I grabbed some thinner to clean up the gun before paint, and WTF!...the primer seemed to instantly harden up!  Caked on.  Cleaned it up the best I could and moved on to paint.  Then the paint would sometimes come out, sometimes not!  By the third coat it almost completely stopped spraying.

I didn't realize I should use the reducer to clean up everything (is that really what I should use or is there some other magic cleaner I should buy?).  Turns out the caked on primer clogged up the vent in the top of the reservoir so I guess I sort of vapor locked the gun.  Sucked because it wasn't like it was hard enough to get around all the tubing...



It's always something.   50.gif

Came out ok except on the sides where I couldn't get the gun into.  Of course, that's where you can look in through the windows.  Bummah.  Will find some long thin stickers to go in there.   ::)