2007.07.12-18 vacations

Driving my human carrier, visiting places of interest and resting. A lot.
No time in garage, so nothing interesting to put into blog.

2007.07.10 SAMCO'S!

Finally, my SAMCO silicon elbows have arrived. It's a pity, that I'm leaving for vacations. I hope that they will be a key to stop damn boost hoses blowing from the turbo.

2007.07.09 The track...

So went to the racing track. Again. First two laps were OK, and then... Turbo hose blew again. Stopped near the track, put strongest clamp I have (Norma), and it popped after half of the lap. Then I've ditched MTM chipped ECU, and started to run with stock ABY one. Things went better. With no need to worry aboud boost hoses, made around 20 laps.

Very satisfied with the brakes. No noises, vibrations or other problems. Of course they are very hard. When you are braking from 180+km/h, it really requires physical force to make sufficient decelleration.

Not satisfied with suspension. Due to rear spacers, now all four wheels are touching the arches... Very bad feeling when you are cornering, and feel that the tires are rubbing the body. Same on hard braking.

After tracking the car, noticed two things. First - that oil temperatures rise to 170C when pushing hard, and cool to 120C after half of the cooling lap. Next, that I've lost battery charging. For some reason alternator refused to charge. Tried to move wiring a bit, and it started to work. Very strange...

No photos or video footage from the event. Sorry, for some reason DVR was not recording anything.

2007.07.08 Optimizations

It was raining. So it's time for small jobs to do. First dropped few clamps and L pieces from the PCV system. Now it looks much simplier and reliable. From what I recall, I have made it so sophisticated just because had no apropriate length hose at that time...Next step was intake tract. Threw away 3b throttle body reducing piece, and put 76mm SS elbow with welded pipe for the ISV. Not very good looking, however does the job well:

Now car is ready for the track. Let's see what it will bring.

Video lab, or on board cam installation and testing

Brought all video related stuff to the garage. Put it in the car, and realized, that I have nothing to make preview what I will record. I mean DVR has no screen, so I can see what I am recording only at home, using PC. That's bad. Checked local web pages, and found ideal thing for me - B&W auto TV, which has sound defect (I don't need sound preview, because you cannot mount mic upside down :)). Picked it dirty cheap (~10eur), and suprisingly it works. It also runs from car battery, and you can look at it whilst driving. Good. Now I'm ready.

Connected camera to the tv, and started to search for the place for it. First I was thinking to mount it to the metal headrest part of the passengers seat, but it appeared too low position to see what's happening outside the car. So I've took two cable ties and tried to fix camera on soft headrest part. Perfect. One more possible position was rear passenger's "oh-shit" handle, however, it requires some sophisticated 3d adjustable mount to work good. That's why cable ties won:Microphone (that temporary fixing was replaced later by cable tie :)):

Havent' done DVR and all cables mounting and fixing to something, so everything lied as a mess:

Note black box - that's my microphone amplifier. Final overview of the "on board video system":

Here is result from it:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2799531820604317264

On board camera

Finally. Spent lot's of time and effort to get onboard cam. First idea was to mount my trusty SONY TRV-250, but it's size, weight and durability put me in doubt. After browsing some auto forums, and e-bay, I found, that now new approach to on-board video exists. Digital Video Recorders (DVR). Those things are recording to memory cards, so it means no moving parts inside. They are light (also from safety point of view) and relatively cheap. So the saga has began :).

First I've got digital DVR. It's very cheap, with shipping it's about 100$. Yeah right, what you pay is what you get... The thing appeared to be purely designed by China, not a copy of some more finished product. Extremely crappy. Build quality is also scarying raw. Also missed some text in description, and haven't noticed, that it only records half of the PAL frame. That's bad. However it works.Quality is crappy, but at this point it's not so important. Next step was to get some input for this thing. Video was easy - just picked cheap lipstick camera. The sound was something more sophisticated - my DVR has no mic in, only AUDIO IN. There were two possible ways - first to get mic with amplifier (like for e-bay), or other was to use microphone capsule, and make amplifier myself. After some thinking - I made amp myself. It works suprisingly well, no matter, that it's simple as five cents. Cost of whole amp+mic (for materials), is around 5$. If you know how to solder. Here is the schematics (power supply part is omitted, because it supposed to run on batteries, but I've used 7809 and 12v directly from car battery).

Now, when all parts are working together, it's time to bring all this video lab to the garage!

2007.06.16 the presentation

So, car is chipped, clamps on the hoses are tightened - it's time for the little show :). Few friends of mine, came to check, how things go. Before they come, I've decided to check damn caliper once more. Now with the thick stickers. I've attached them to the caliper suspicious places to find out, where it touches the wheel. Shaved about mm at one place, and found, that it's really not caliper itself is doing major touching, but the brake pad steel part. Took angle grinder, and seriously rounded the pad steel part. Put on the wheel, went for a ride - CURED! At least at non race braking/speeds no touching wheel at all. That's very good.

"Presentation" also went smooth as silk, no blown hoses, no problems at all.