Clean airway

I took out the filter element to my horror I saw some oil in the engine face of the filter. Ok the poor baby chuck some oil. It is time to investigate how it happens.

I drove to Nelson @ Racing Project and ask him to take the air box, MAF tubing and look at the throttle body. The throttle body is clean and does not seems to have oil coming from the engine. Why does it have it in the MAF tube then??

Ah there is a tube that coming from the tube where I put the oil connecting to the MAF tube. I don't why it is there but I am sure it is there for a reason so I left it there. The opening is so high up that I think when I put oil in straight (without a funnel) that I must have got some oil into the tube. That is also why the oil in the tube and filter look so fresh.

Ok, I must now be careful when I put engine oil in and also use a funnel (stop being lazy).

I also change the filter back to the R Magic pipercross. The car felt different but I am sure it is to the better or worse.

Suspension once sort out; future major power mod

Suspension

I went to an expert today. Centreline suspension is one of the oldest in the business. When I said "old", I DO mean "old". A non-computerised, technical, old-fashion, stone-aged, down to earth, suspension centre. They have racing experience from the ice age and hold a barest of the mechanical equipment. Even doing alignment is manual. By manual I mean have 2 lines parallel to the car and measure using a ruler. . I dreaded that I did not see how they did the camber.

I was waiting them to take out the scale for corner balancing. To my horror they did not bring out a balance scale with their pet elephant at the other end. It is an electronic gadget!

These are what they "measured" and aligned.

Front Toe 3mm total. Camber -2 1/4 degree. Caster 6 degree.
Rear Toe 1mm in both side Camber -2 1/4 degree.

Corner weight (with a fat me in it ). Actually not much being done. Since the last time was done about 6 months ago. It is pretty good even I have the front battery change, bucket seat installed (that is about 15kg difference)... I must be gained that much weight???? But actually the car is 7kg lighter than last time. I think even I lost 20kg, because I am sitting pretty much between the car, the cross weight will still be balanced. No point to redo it again for a long time.

FL 360kg    FR 387kg

RL 321kg    FR 355kg   cross weight 50.2%

Total weight with TAKA 1423kg (Full fuel tank)

Also I had them to look at the ride height. They said the A arm is pretty much flat to slightly tilted upward, so if any lower (like last time I was at Philip Island). is too undesirable. So I make some relief.

I don't know what they did. The biggest change is the caster. I think it is driving very well. Must be confident now for next Sunday at Winton

Power end

I went to see Simon @ Promaz with the full knowledge that I will get sucked in and probably end up spending a lot of money to get his stuff. Yes he told me that if I want the car being a race car and not require EPA certificate. He will do it up with electric water pump, methanol injector, engine rebuild, balanced and improve seal, larger turbo, bigger boost, straight exhaust and .... wait for it 300+ kW AT THE WHEEL! He is doing just that to his drag car, but he will detune it for a track racer. OH MY!

800hp bearing tubro.... I just need to find the clutch and LSD that can withstand that . Kaaz has the one for RX-7 as well as the 8 so I at least find one.

Water pump exchanged

I have installed the MazMart REmedy Waterpump. It looks like the stock housing with a new blade on them. They claim that this pump will have twice the flow at 8000rpm. Certainly nice to avoid cavitation on track. The one on the left is the stock one and the one on the right is the MazMart water pump. Nice

 

When Nelson took stock one out, and had a look at the side and found the stock pump is leaking very so slightly. So I guess it is a good decision to change it in the first place.

I also ask Nelson to change the brake fluid (Motul 600RBF), LSD oil (Redline 80W140 aka smelly shit) and the gear oil (Redline lightweight shockproof). Nelson has used my empty fire extinguisher to put them in... what a recycling expert!

I made my old iBlue 737 1Hz GPS to run at 5Hz

This is a method that is well described here.

I am here to explain in very layman's language of how to do it and why we do it.

The old GPS is a bluetooth device and operate at 1Hz. That means a set of co-ordinates are updated 1 time per second. That is very much enough for daily traffic and GPS navigation. However, for motorsports application, it is more advantages to get more data. This unit is also sold with the 5Hz function, which is set at factory.

Someone found out that you can change the update rate on those units by sending a command via computer to the unit. The 1Hz device does not have a link/bridge/wire so that computer can control the update rate. To do that, one must create a link/bridge/wire on existing in the 1Hz device. The link we can use a resistor. Here is how to do it.

Tool required:

• 1 x 0.5W 1K Ohm resistor (a pack of 8 can be purchased from JayCar for $0.32),
• Small spectacle screw drivers (the blade small enough to fit the groove of the unit.

 

You have to open the unit, to do so you find a sharp screwdriver (such as one to fix spectacles), insert biggest one that can fit the tiny grove at the back of the unit (see the picture below), twists, and open it slowly. This is to loosen the clips at the back and on both sides. The front has no clips so just open and pull backwards. Make sure the on/off switch does not drop on the floor.

Once you get it open. Have a closer look at the board and use the two picture below to orientate yourself. Then use one of the resistor to align the two holes together. By linking this 2 holes you can write commands on the GPS. I don't know why the author in the above link asked us to solder the resistor in. But I found that the wire is slug fit the hole and it is pretty secure. If you have enough wires through the hole as shown in the picture, I cannot see how the resistor will come undone. Even if it is undone, you just need to put it back in next time to send another command. Big deal. If I solder it, I am sure I will cross at the wire near all those closely located holes. Coz I am very messy.

Click on the photo and see the wiring clearly.

 

To change the rate. First you have to acquire a program to do so. One such program can be download free from Qstarz download centre. It is a rar file (another type of zip file), so you need a WinRAR to unzip (or un-rar) it.

It is a .exe program and when you open it. You will see this. Pair your bluetooth with your computer first, and take note on the COM number of the connection (or right click on the connection and choose properties menu, I am sure it will be listed somewhere). The bluetooth on mine is COM 41 and I set 115200 as the Baul rate (whatever it means). If you don't have a bluetooth in your computer, you need to buy one. I have not make it work via USB at all.

Ok once it is connected, you will see a set of numbers flash across the big text box below the On button and the SNR box will show you the satellate tracking status.

If it flash roughly once a second, you are at 1 Hz. If it goes crazy, it is pretty much at 5Hz. LOL.

Now click the "setup" tab, you see the fix update rate there. Choose 5. Click Set!



If the resistor made correctly, SEND OK banner will turn up. Go back to status, it will update crazy! WALAHH!

WHY DO YOU DO THIS WHEN 5Hz unit exists:

1. Perheps you have a 1Hz device now and see if you can change it to 5Hz.
2. The iBlue 737 is $69 + postage at eBay and 747 is $79. Qstarz Q818 extreme is $99 + postage.

KIND ADVICE: If you have a flat battery, you will go back to 1 Hz, so keep the battery charged or check it periodically if  it is still operating at 5Hz.

WARNING: See below

DISCLAIMER: Edit your hardware at your own risk, don't blame me if you blow up your house and caught on fire. I will not bear any responsibility on the above I have written. It is like believe me or not!

Chicken! I could not drive as fast as I used to

Back from the OTR track day last Saturday, feeling a bit shit about the whole thing. I really want to have a car back that has nothing really wrong with it. Yes, I did. But being nearly 3 seconds slower will that do?

I decided to spice thing up with a new video blog. Well because there is nothing really to cheer about, I made this sort of nice. Not British car show like but I am going to do the same for the upcoming track day, on the 28th of Sept, with Wayne