My slow seat time car.

Another TNiA down and it was good with the new BC coilovers, opted to sign up for the advanced group and it was a lot better getting some open space to actually get some good laps in, not as much traffic but some fast cars. I believe I was the only one with a FWD car. I didn’t go any faster than before but overall felt very comfortable in the car. I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to use my Hans hybrid as it came two days after the event. Glad I will have it for the next event which will be BIR on September 11. Some 245/45r17 RT660s will be on th way before the event, along with a alignment and some suspension bushings in the rear at least I’m hoping all of that will go smoothly.

I believe my last event I will be attending for 2021 will be Gridlife in October at road America this will be the biggest event that I have attended in a long time and I’m excited to see all the GLTC races go down in person.

Here’s one video I posted to YouTube of TNiA this past week. I’ll try and get the rest of the sessions up ASAP.

A little picture of half the crew that we usually go to track nights with. 2 Miatas and a BRZ missing another Miata and a Lotus. Sucks being the only FWD car but fun getting out on track getting some rips in.

Well back from BIR and lets just say the car needs work. First sessions went fine until the end when I started to get a miss first at random turns. went back out for the second session and would act the same. Didn't get much for a clean run or making a decent time but a 2.0 wasn't bad for the first time out. So right now the car is all torn apart was going to get the heads sent out to be decked and rebuilt but I found my crank gear, and reluctor wheel wasnt aligned with each other and the dowel pins were smashed together about a 1/4 turn from where it was suppose to be. so i hoping that was my miss fire issue at high RPMs. Weird part is the car ran fine got decent gas millage and the miss fire wouldn't happen all the time but again crossing my fingers this will fix it for Girdlife. So as of right now im doing all my coolant gaskets, water pump, timing belt, all pullies and getting the car back up and running. Heres some video from the weekend on my youtube channel was thinking of vlogging everything but man that takes time.

Well Friday was the last TNiA event of the season, and let’s just say I was 6 seconds faster with the new tires and brakes, unfortunately I ran that time with my car still miss firing. Good news is on my second session mid run it started to miss fire all the time. So I pull into the pits and I found one injector clip that had a wire broken, I’m guessing my intermittent miss fires was caused by that wire ready to let go and finally did. Upon further investigation I started to notice a lot of my wires are starting to get exposed really close to the connector. Here’s the way my engine looks it’s pretty stock but with a relocated battery and fuse box. When I had the wire harness out I depined a lot of the stuff I didn’t want or need. If anyone has any suggestions on what I can do to get my hands on some pins or if someone has a harness that’s in pretty good condition I’d be willing to buy it so off season I have something to work on. For gridlife I’m changing out all my injector clips along with what ever clips I can get my hands on from a parts place.

whtrabit said:

I have the long cold air intake for mine, but they will not pass smog in California with it on. It is stored away right now. I am waiting for winter to hopefully get some work done on the cars and bikes. I own two houses so that seems to be all that gets worked on until the weather turns cold. ...J.D.

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Yeah I’m lucky cause I’m MN we don’t have smog (who know when that will change) but I have the extension to make it a CAI just took it off cause this time of year we tend to get a decent amount of rain in the Midwest and it was forecasted to see some showers on race day last Friday. Prob keep it this way till the end of the year. I have a house but it’s a town home, been there since I was 18 so maintenance for me is pretty straight forward even though HOAs are kinda a rip off. It’s hard for me to find time to work on my car let alone work out of a 1 car garage, working over nights 4 days a week, and traveling back and forth from NY to MN every weekend (my wife lives in NY and I live in MN) but I just sacrifice sleep to do it after work or I’ll stay in MN if it’s something I need to get done ASAP. I know it’ll be asked at some point how I can travel every weekend it’s cause I’m a mechanic for a commercial airline. What can I say it’s the perks for working at one. Been doing it for the last 8 years and before that I was a car mechanic.

Rodger3G said:

Good video presentation and track videos! Keep them coming

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Thanks, Ill try and do some Vlogs when I'm out at road America and a little more about the car. Until than here's some of the footage from the last TNiA

First session out Ran my personal best of 1.11.68 even with the car still miss firing. The car feels a lot more peppy with some decent power after figuring out my timing issue and no more loosing coolant after changing every single coolant gasket on the motor.

Second session this is where things get kind weird. I decided to just send it and keep driving hard even with the miss fire do I can do more checks, during lap 6 I completely lost a cylinder it wouldn't comeback. I go for another cool down lap to check my AFRs and they were between 13.1 - 14 not that bad, good part is it didn't go straight to rich or lean. I pull into the pits and find out that one of my injector wires for cylinder number 6 has broken off. Upon further inspection of all my injector clips I can see they are all starting to brake close to the clip. Exposed wire, some wire strands broke but still working. I decide to shove a piece of hard wire into the socket of the injector and wrap the wire around it held it on by electrical tap so I can limp it back home which worked great, got home and started to inspect all my wires. 20 years of old wire an you can really see the toll it has taken, I've depined most of my wiring so I can slide shrink tube over it to protect the wiring until the off season to take care of it in a more proper way. I really though I wasn't going to get to go to Road America but glad its something I can fix pretty easily, again crossing my fingers that this will solve my miss fire issues.

This to be fixed before RR
Finish all my wiring, changing out all 6 injector clips, coolant sensor clip, Crank position sensor clip, and MAP sensor clip.
Do a hardware check of all the nuts and bolts
Pull the fender a little more on the pass front.
Check for any rubbing areas in the front and address as needed. EX cut everything out that is rubbing
Change out Power steering belt along with the alternator belt
Remove all center caps (GridLife rules)
If it comes in time change out my coolant reservoir bought a Mishimoto universal one pretty standard and easy thing to install.

2 weeks is going to come quick but I'm excited and scared at the same time to get to another big track

Some new pics of the ride out at the last TNiA for Minnesota. Wish my front bumper was the same color it would look a lot cleaner but overall I love how my car looks and feels. Thinking a front splitter and a 9lives wing will make it look a lot more aggressive.

Well back from Road America and let’s just say car is still miss firing which is quite a bummer, I did get out on track 5 out of the 8 times. We missed out on the morning sessions on Saturday due to heavy fog that didn’t clear up till early afternoon, and I sat out the last 2 sessions cause I didn’t wanna chance my car blowing up or me going into a wall due to rain. Weather wasn’t the best only good weather we had was Saturday afternoon till track close Sunday was damp, humid and misting with some scattered rain. The whole weekend I saw 7 cars get wrecked most of them were going through the kink and one was right before turn 1. 3 of the 7 were GLTC cars and on top of that 3 more that I didn’t witness happen everyone was able to walk away from everything with no serious injury’s. Road America is no joke it was scary going out on track and trying to push, I didn’t even get close to what my limit of my car can handle.

I did have Tom O’Gorman drive my car and it was a huge eye opener for what the car is capable of, how late he brakes going into the turn, getting the car to rotate his exit speed. It truly amazing his ability to just hop into a car he has never driven and push it as hard as he did and make everything feel planted and stable. The bummer part is my go pro wasn’t recording and I didn’t have my track addict set up to see what time he was running. A lot of my gopro footage is crap becuase I hardly had any clean laps but I will try and put something together.

Road America is a very strict FIA regulated track, I got back flagged twice one for pointing people by on the out lap which is a caution lap and one for when I went back out I crossed the pit lane blend line to early. I guess Sunday morning they had a totally of 25 black flags on people in 4 sessions. Overall it was a really great experience and a lot of learning the crew I went with couldn’t have been any better it was a hell of a drive there and back home.

seeing as the season has now ended, I have alot of plans for my car all for the most part pretty basic things. I’ll post when parts start to roll in until than here are some pics of the weekend.