| MIATA BUILD |
|
|
 | |  | May 16, 2011 - Time to start with some of the plumbing.
First, an oil cooler. I'm setting this car up with both an oil cooler and a remote filter kit for two reasons. One, of course, is to keep oil temps under control. That's not liable to be an issue during the Targa, but it's pretty hot around here.
The remote filter is to move the filter up and out of harm's way. Otherwise it's mounted at the bottom of the engine and is just waiting for a Newfoundland rock to elope with it.
entry 823 - tags: cooling, oil | | |  | May 16, 2011 - The filter is mounted up beside the frame rail in the wheel well.
I took a remote filter mount from Flyin' Miata that's usually used on 4-cylinder Miatas and turned it sideways. It's fairly easily accessible but protected here.
entry 824 - tags: oil | | |  | May 16, 2011 - The previous picture of the oil cooler showed the bracket I built to install it in the nose.
It should get a fair bit of airflow here! If it wants to vibrate around, I'll look at installing some braces on the bottom but there's not much to brace to really.
You can also see the amount of damage - I mean "patina" to the nose of the car here. Also, I had some fun with the bolt colors again, copying the Martini colors with a Classic Red, Mariner Blue and a Crystal Blue bolt.
entry 825 - tags: cooling, oil | | |  | May 16, 2011 - Lots of fun with braided oil line!
Bill put a similar oil cooler on Elvis a while back so I knew what collection of pieces I'd need, but I had to make the lines up piece by piece. Somehow, I managed to do this without puncturing my hand too badly. The best tool for cutting the big -10 line was a chop saw.
entry 826 - tags: cooling, oil | | |  | September 13, 2011 - We weren't completely free of technical difficulties over the day.
Just as I crossed the finish line of Pleasantview the first time, I felt the engine go a flat at 6000 rpm. We stopped for gas and the car seemed to be running fine, but it now had a check engine light. We had the long and fast Point Leamington stage ahead before I could get to our service truck, and nobody seemed to have an OBD-II scanner on hand. So we decided to just go for it. It felt like a coil.
The car worked fine through the long stage, even turning off the light until after the stop to help the Subaru. When we plugged in the scanner, it identified the #1 coil as the problem. Odd, that's the same one I changed back at the Summer Camp. I talked it over with Maxime Vadeboncoeur (who we competed against in 2008) and we decided it was heatsoaked. I started using lower engine rpms on the stages at that point and the problem didn't return. Still, I changed it for a spare when we got to our service at the end of the day. I also pulled the heatshield from my air intake, which was trapping heat on that coil. Hopefully the replacement will no longer have a problem. There are no LS1 coils in Gander right now, but we'll have another spare one tomorrow morning thanks to some hard work by Trevor and a local parts store employee.
In the picture, Trevor is also replacing the windshield washer reservoir. We melted the hose.
The biggest problem is that our video camera seems to have fried. There was a wiring fault that started with the intercom power adapter and ended up playing havoc with the USB power that ran the camera. That's all fixed, but I can't seem to get the camera to power on. Such a shame, we didn't get Gander. AGAIN. We'll find a way to get some sort of camera of our own in the car tomorrow. It was working perfectly up to this point, too. My videos are my biggest souvenir of the event, and it's so frustrating to lose them.
entry 970 - tags: 2011 race, coil, video | | |
|
THE DIARY