While I was finding price for new cv shafts ($1400, ouch) I went over to check out the Scion FR-S aka Subaru BRZ aka Toyota GT86. It being the second day available to general public it was fairly busy. Took the automatic out first since the standard was on the road. Finally being able to sit in one, the first good thing is the seat is a nice fairly snug fit. Not anything close to astronaut cockpit fit of Dave’s M Coupe, although that means it’s pretty easy to get in and out of. Not luxe like leather, but the cloth is grippy. Didn’t notice any weirdly placed seams that bug my butt like the Yaris. Recline, fore-aft, seat height and headrest height adjustment, all manual. Telescoping & tilt adjust wheel. Can gets good driver position as opposed to Yaris monkey arm ergonomics where I can’t get quite comfy.
Archive for the 'car' Category
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Darn, just got a call from The Drive Shaft Shop (yes that’s their name) that they received my shafts. If it were a crusty old guy he would have been saying, what the heck you sending us this krap? We can make ya shafts for these, but don’t come back cryin to us when you break the joint instead. The guy was actually very nice. He advised me to find original Toyota Oem shafts, that they are far better than aftermarkets. If we used these there is a good chance the joint would fail. They’re the experts so im going to have to go looking now! Sheet, expensive lesson there, FedEx 2 day was not cheap!
Got under the rally FX this afternoon, yeah, that don’t look right. I’ve now done this so many times that with the impact gun, it took me longer to air up the compressor, jack up the car and put it on stands than it took me to pull out the CV shaft. 
Is it supposed to do this? I suppose the good news is that the splines did not strip so I don’t need a new hub, which would be harder to find than the shafts. Although these shafts are getting hard to find through common channels too. Last time I ordered from Napa, the one they ordered from the mainland was the last one they showed in stock. Empi make all kinds of shafts, although they seem to be known for VW parts. Unfortunately it looks like these new proudly manufactured in China in ISO9001 facility shafts still cannot handle the stress of rallying. It actually may not be a fault of the manufacturing and the specs of the OEM shaft are simply not high enough to hold up to the abuse I’m putting it through. Continue reading ‘Snappy’
Unexpected late day at work on friday threw a monkey wrench into my plans. By the time I got fome & dinner was done, it was well into the evening. I wanted to finish the battery relocation by Saturday’s race. No heavy fabrication to do, but I ran into a snag that I didn’t have a 6mm bolt long enough for the battery hold down. Luckily I made it to Home Depot just in time & they just barely had a bolt long enough. So this is up front where the battery used to be. Mounted a power post I picked up from West Marine.
I routed the extension 2 gauge wire through the fender well to the power post. Things finally came together pretty well.
The rubber terminal covers is a bit ugly, but oh well. Hidden under that second cover is actually a honking 150A fuse. Wow, the spare actually does still fit, as will the OEM jack!
Didn’t run into any major roadblocks at this point, but it was 2:00AM by the time I finished & cleaned up. Yikes, I need to wake up at 5:00 to get to the rally cross early enough!
In cutting out the big ol hole for the battery box, I over shot on this edge. 
I was left with plenty pieces of sheet metal to make a patch with. It’s always nice to patch with pieces of same metal, when the pieces are different thicknesses it can get tricky getting a good heat and speed in welding without blowing holes in the thinner piece. Continue reading ‘Patchy’
The Ckuckster brought over his little speed demon over to do some welding on the shock towers. He’s converting from torsion bar to coil over, which means the shock mount will be supporting the weight of the car, which it wasn’t originally designed for. For a little peace of mind he decided to complete the welding on the seams of the mount. 
A little clean up and he went to town with the welder. Scat slid by just as we were starting and laid down some metal also. No fabrication needed, so it wasn’t anything too difficult. Continue reading ‘Of Shocks and Batteries’
Weekend started with finishing off the front end grill area of the Scat Sled. We knew what we were going to do so the work went faster. Chuckster showed up in the morning so getting the turn signal patch cutout, flattened and tacked in was done by lunchtime! The patch was soon fully welded in and by the end of the day all the center seams were also welded, and there was still daylight left! Movie here.
Is there some new addition to the HRS that I haven’t heard of? I think it’s an intentional falsehood meant to freak people out. I’m sure if a law regulating this actually passed, the news media would have been abuzz about it for at least a week. In any case, hasn’t the danger of phone/gas pump interactions has been thoroughly debunked, the most familiar example being by Mythbusters? Of course, I took the picture with my phone while filling gas!
Saw the vanity plate, “BF8FUL”. I’m fairly certain this individual is of the evangelical, new-fashion religious variety (“be faithful”) and not the meat-loving variety (“beef ate full”). Too bad he or she doesn’t have a full command of English, since the plate reads “be fateful” and not “be faithful”. There’s a big difference there (hint: go check a dictionary). Maybe this is one of the friends of the “discreet”/”discrete” guys…
(0)Saturday after a long break, had the SCCA RallyCross out at KRP. As always, insane fun! The space we had to work with was drastically cut, but we made do with what we had.
Here’s one on car view of one of my runs:
It sounds pretty good run like this, I like! The new CV shafts held up, looks like the main nut also at the bearing stayed tight. Only big problem I had was the generic made in Chine silicone hose on my intake failed. Duct tape to the rescue! I’ll have to find some real hose and fab up a good mounting bracket. The little FX that can is a contender here, with some good driving I know it can place in the top. Only major tweaking that would be nice is if I could find a set of the mythical TRD FX rally springs and some good struts to go with them.