Mechanical

Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

Thank you to Chris and Chrissy

GHIT 0077: Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

Alan, Zombie Vicki, and Bill go over our recent Friendsgiving Work Weekend with special guest from the Everyone Racers Podcast hosts, Chris and Chrissy who came up to guide, instruct, and assist us with several of our cars that, as always, need repair and improvements.

Highlights to the discussion include:

1) Our two and a half Porsche 944s that are available and soon to be posted for sale for HPDE or racing use.

2) Capri update and our updated plans going forward

3) Winter is here in Northeast PA and when the sun goes down, the temperature leaves the garage in a hurry

4) How we organize our garage for both parts and cars and how Chris helped Vicki determine what is good to keep and how to identify the unknown items we have collected since our race team started.

5) What parts are worth keeping and what parts have donated all they have to give

6) Alan’s hamster powered internet shows up again

7) Our plans for the new Honda race car project code name Godzuki

8) The difference between parts replacement projects and part fabrication projects

9) Our repair update of the race truck/El Chrissy/The Bad Hombre steering issues and exhaust leak and the potential for a power steering line cooler to be added

10) Our repair update of the BMW E36 race car

11) How many ignore the potential for their race car to be their own planetarium

12) Alan bonds with several local FLAPS in our area

13) We need a bunch of camber shims to fix our S-10

14) We have renamed our race truck due to this week.

15) Alan gives a visual description of suspension geometry

16) A discussion of our hubs and bearings for the E36 and transferring the brake cooling ducts to our other race cars

17) Vicki and Bill plan to go to a local race shop to see what is available for our use

18) Alanâs fall led to a broken jaw, so does disagreeing with Kate. You can choose which is the cover story and which is real.

19) Alan impersonates a BMW E36 while Chris was investigating our electrical wiring issues

20) Spare parts and supply at the track discussion

21) Vicki, pre-Zombie, and Bill received a welding lesson on our Miller 211 MIG welder and began the learning process in earnest

22) Vicki relates welding to her art background

23) Chris and Chrissy had a spare moment to test our Mazda MX-5 on the test track for a good shakedown run

24) Skid pad event discussion and planning for this winter/spring at Lime Rock

25) Car show Fails on YouTube, a worthwhile time waster

26) The best way to say thank you/bribe people to help you (Hint: Food, drink, and beer)

Bribing Hard — We bribe our guests hard! And that was after we ate.

Special thanks, as always to Chris and Chrissy for coming up and helping. We learned a ton and accomplished quite a bit. We hope our bribes of food, drink, and racing were sufficient to lure you up again, hopefully soon.

If anyone wants a garage tour, we could put up a video (excuse the mess) on our YouTube channel. Just let us know.

E1R is Cool — Everyone Racers podcast is way Cool

Best regards,

Bill, Vicki, and Alan

Hosts of the Garage Heroes In Training podcast

and team members in the GHiT

Immature Endurance Racing Team

Links mentioned

For part ID and a great source for auto parts

Our Miller 211 Welder

Welding related YouTube channel

Everyone Racers Podcast

GHIT 0077: Our Friendsgiving Work Weekend

GHIT 0072: Race Bar Invasion – Part Deux

This week’s guests are once again from Race Bar, repeat offender, James Webb/The Jandy Man is now joined by Patrick McHugh/Richard Freelane, and Ben Dawson/Awesome Dawson, formerly of Winsome Racing and Race Bar pseudonym apparently still under construction, lol. You can blame us for trying to wrangle another episode from the Race Bar team. Instead of a visual guide of VIR, today we get a tour of a boat and the harbor by Richard Freelane.

We did manage to get a bit more of their team history and race car history and a few hints of things to come. If you have or know of any crab related lemons vehicles interested in helping this crazy team, they are looking for you. The stories varied in area, as we have come to expect from Race Bar, but they are always entertaining.

We even managed to have some actual race related information that could allow you to improve. We knew it was in there, we just had to keep digging to find it. Lol.

Highlights Include:

1) We talk through an introduction to Race Capture and a bit about Mega Squirt, what it is useful for and how to use it, especially important when you have a racing team with varied skill and experience levels. We also look at the importance of lap times with respect to endurance racing and endurance racing teams.

2) Special contacts to look for at VIR and Road Atlanta when your car needs a little extra TLC or repair, especially if you are looking for BMW or Miata parts.

3) HPDE and how to get better at racing, both faster and more consistent.

4) Somehow we had a quick review of both teamsâ cars and their history.

5) Brief tire and brake pad selection discussions for endurance racing.

6) A comparison of the progress that can be made at HPDEâs and iRacing.

and finally,Â Bill picks Benâs brain a bit about becoming a driving instructor in the future.

GHIT 0072: Race Bar Invasion – Part Deux

GHIT 0067: Watkins Glen HPDE Review

Welcome to our latest podcast episode where we review our Watkins Glen HPDE with NASA North East at the world famous racetrack. We had a great weekend with 5 of our team showing up and two other friends from the Everyone Racers Podcast and The Three Pedal Mafia racing team, Chris and Chrissy.

We summarize the prepping of the many cars we brought and the debacle it became for almost every car we brought.

Cars we prepped for the Watkins Glen HPDE included:

BMW E36 1998 race car
1. Roll bar prep and Passenger racing seat installation
2. Issue: Will not start as we were prepping to leave. Issue still TBD
1. Roll bar padding and switch to racing seats and racing harness from OEM
2. Issue: 4-point belts are not acceptable so hot swap at Watkins Glen to install two new 6-point harness sets
1999 Mazda MX-5 Turbo Miata with Flyin Miata Turbo
1. Installed new roll bar
2. Issue: did not finish roll bar installation and did not remember to reconnect the battery before giving it to Jennifer
2019 Mazda MX-5
1. Mostly no issue, except cleaning
2017 Toyota GT TRD
1. Bad Lug bolts and Missing Lug bolts
2. Waited until day before to get parts, ended up with bad hub threads and missing bolts, and doesn’t know how to click the pay button after registering for the HPDE
3. Cue the sad trombone please
2013 Dodge Dart
1. Did not have time to change to race seats, nor brake pads and fluid, nor tires from standard OEM
2017 BMW M240i
1. No issues since Chris and Chrissy are always prepared, unlike us.
Race Prepped Honda Civic

Brad was an excellent test passenger for three different cars on the track. He reviews his first ever race laps in the Turbo NB MX-5 versus the race prepped Honda Civic vs a new Acura NSX.

Team photo WGI 2019 — Our team for the weekend

Vicki, Jennifer, and Bill covered our in car instructors and areas we worked on and improved over the weekend.

These areas included:

Track vision
Racing lines in general
Braking points and braking pressure and the proper application and removal of the braking pressure
Turn in Points
Input sequencing
Several drills, including vision and non-shifting the entire lap or session
Car control
Learning and feeling what is correct and what isnât with immediate feedback
Late apexing vs early apexing and turn in
Prep is key to racing

In addition, we also reviewed our thoughts of the track and the NASA North East HPDE event in general.

We also reviewed the relative performance of the Turbo 1999 NB MX-5 to the newly updated 2019 MX-5 ND.

GHIT 0067: Watkins Glen HPDE Review

At Home Wheel Alignment with QuickTrick

QuickTrick at the track — QuickTrick being used at the track

GHiT 0064: Wheel Alignment and Measurement with Gil from QuickTrick Alignment

Gil Winingham from QuickTrick Alignment reviews several wheel alignment and measurement techniques that can be used at home and at the track by almost everyone. Having a minor change to the alignment can lead to very significant effects, increasing speed, decreasing lap times, and easier/safer driving and handling.

Please contact Gil at: https://www.quicktrickalignment.com/

GHiT 0064: Wheel Alignment and Measurement with Gil from QuickTrick Alignment

Car to Race Car Conversion Priorities

Race Car Dialing In — **It is a process to take a “normal” car and dial it into being a race car.**

GHIT 0063: Car to Race Car Conversion Priorities

Priority and Sequencing Towards Dialing In Your Car

Our team now has a new race car build about to begin. Long Roof for Life: Project Codename: Godzuki!!! It is a new to us Honda Civic that we are converting into an endurance race car after this season. Since we know our “Mr. Honda” we will have backup knowledge to assist us as we go. Our plan is to build this car as a demonstration project for our listeners. Do you have any ideas or thoughts, and suggestions on what we should do? If so, please let us know within a podcast review or on our email at [email protected].

On this GHiT Team focused episode this week, we covered what we have been up to in the garage recently. Lots of HPDE and NHMS race weekend prepping on all counts. Vicki has been obsessed with car detailing for the past two weeks on her turbo 1999 NB MX-5. Inside, outside, in the engine bay, adding decals, etc. Alan avoids the Capri with everything else that could possibly be worked on. Bill is working on the 4 HPDE cars for Watkins Glen. Plus two additional race cars this week (The cheap Boxster is trying its best to avoid remaining cheap). We also get into the Race Truck brake issue and our path forward; still not sure we have a plan. Vicki makes her point that we could use an additional team member with mechanical skills, but…. We still do not know how to find our missing skill set.

We cover how to go about converting a streetcar into an endurance racing car and in what sequence.

Our general priority is to first make sure it is safe by stripping it down and making sure what is structural is sound and repair as needed. After this, we add in safety features like the roll cage, racing seats, racing harness, and fire suppression systems etc. Do not forget to address the brakes and braking system with good racing pads and racing fluid. Also, we will likely improved brake rotors and calipers. Please review our episode #59 with Wendy from Porterfield’s if you would like much more detail in this area. Tires and brakes are probably the biggest performance bang for the buck improvements you can do.

The next priority we like to follow is to improve our driver skill and the durability of the car towards the abuse it is about to receive. This would include better grades of the various fluids, better suspensions, oil coolers, radiator improvements, transmission coolers, differential coolers, etc. Potentially adding a better clutch etc. as they fail during racing.

As far as driver improvements, we really like HPDE events for the type of racing you will be doing, for instance NASA HPDE for road racing, EVO School for Autocross, etc. Really any type of coaching will usually lead to significant improvement, especially if early in your racing career. Do not forget to use your daily driving time to help practice and improve several aspects of your driving skills, like heel and toe, hand positioning and movements, and long range vision etc. At this point you have a good solid foundation and you can work to dial in the car further and continually improve.

Once solid, we start looking at better clutches, improved drivetrains by adding in an LSD or a Torsen or even a locked/mini spool type etc. and avoid the open differentials where you only drive one of the wheels. The costs of these improvements tend to be a bit higher than the earlier steps.

Nice/Next level additions to have at some point would include:

Telemetry and video analysis to allow you to compare driver styles and performance via the data collected.
Engine power increases can be a very expensive path unless you swap out the engine
Suspension improvements like lowering the car, improving handling with springs, sway bars, coil overs, etc. Lightening the vehicle.
Aero is also another great path to improve performance at a reasonable cost.
Do not forget alignment is a great bang for the buck potential improvement, especially a good alignment and then a racing camber and toe adjustment.

We ended with Vicki’s Tool of the week for use with vinyl decals, stripes etc.: It is called Knifeless Tape and it allows you to cut any designs and shapes needed into any vinyl to make your desired edge designs.

And finally, Vicki volunteered to list several of our cars for the “we” of our team. “We” shall see.

Again any questions, suggestions, movie references, and/or car purchases, please contact us at our email at [email protected] and or even better within a podcast review.

GHIT 0063: Car to Race Car Conversion Priorities

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