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I'm feeling bouyant today.
The GTR has taken shape and I'm happy with what I see. To everyone who observes that I didn't build it myself, you're right. I have neither the skills nor the spare time to put something like this together. More of a driver than a thinker... :thumbup: Hats off to Cam and his team at Lightspeed!
As some of you may know, I thought I'd have some preventative maintenance done to address a persistent migration of oil into the coolant. This had been happening for 3 seasons and I figured I'd deal with it on my terms.
Turned out to be a cracked block, so I secured a good new one.
The head was off, so I thought it'd be a good idea to take a look at the valves and it seemed like a good idea to fit new 1 mm oversized intake and exhaust valves.
If you're doing valves, you might as well replace the springs and retainers with light weight ones to match what the rest of the valve train can do...
I was planning to run race rubber, so lateral g's were going to be higher. A desire to 'do it right the first (ok, next) time' made me spec a dry sump.
The combination of 5 lbs of cr*p in a 3 lb bag and a desire for better weight distribution made me want to place the oil reservoir in the trunk with the battery.
You need big lines to manage pressure drop and cavitation. -16 FTW! Now try to route them.
And for cold starts and the off chance that oil flow could be interupted before the ECU cuts ignition, an Accusump was fitted. Things are starting to come together.
I liked the plug & play ViPEC, but wanted to add 'per cylinder' knock control. The price of an external knock amp wasn't that different than the upgrade to a V88 unit that also had enough analog inputs to enable 6 EGT inputs for real time fuel trimming. Tune closer to the edge and add fuel if temps exceed a threshold. Of course it's hard to tap OEM cast exhaust manifolds, so decent ones were fitted, tapped for EGT probes, and stuffed into the 3 lb bag. (See above.)
Dumping fuel to cool EGT's makes for inferior fuel economy, so a multiport water/meth injection system was fitted. If the flow sensor says 'not', the ECU reverts to the 'safe' map. Until then, the engine is running at something closer to mean best torque rather than the knock threshold.
Things have kept a bit on the neat side.
As one learns after a bit of seat time, the best mod of all is to tighten the nut behind the wheel. A weekend with Allen Berg in Formula cars showed me what a guy can learn from data, so a full data acquisition system is installed to record driver behaviour (a humbling experience I might add) and the response of the car.
It's been a long road, but it's been fun to think through the details and make a plan.
I love it when a plan comes together!
The GTR has taken shape and I'm happy with what I see. To everyone who observes that I didn't build it myself, you're right. I have neither the skills nor the spare time to put something like this together. More of a driver than a thinker... :thumbup: Hats off to Cam and his team at Lightspeed!
As some of you may know, I thought I'd have some preventative maintenance done to address a persistent migration of oil into the coolant. This had been happening for 3 seasons and I figured I'd deal with it on my terms.
Turned out to be a cracked block, so I secured a good new one.
The head was off, so I thought it'd be a good idea to take a look at the valves and it seemed like a good idea to fit new 1 mm oversized intake and exhaust valves.
If you're doing valves, you might as well replace the springs and retainers with light weight ones to match what the rest of the valve train can do...
I was planning to run race rubber, so lateral g's were going to be higher. A desire to 'do it right the first (ok, next) time' made me spec a dry sump.
The combination of 5 lbs of cr*p in a 3 lb bag and a desire for better weight distribution made me want to place the oil reservoir in the trunk with the battery.
You need big lines to manage pressure drop and cavitation. -16 FTW! Now try to route them.
And for cold starts and the off chance that oil flow could be interupted before the ECU cuts ignition, an Accusump was fitted. Things are starting to come together.
I liked the plug & play ViPEC, but wanted to add 'per cylinder' knock control. The price of an external knock amp wasn't that different than the upgrade to a V88 unit that also had enough analog inputs to enable 6 EGT inputs for real time fuel trimming. Tune closer to the edge and add fuel if temps exceed a threshold. Of course it's hard to tap OEM cast exhaust manifolds, so decent ones were fitted, tapped for EGT probes, and stuffed into the 3 lb bag. (See above.)
Dumping fuel to cool EGT's makes for inferior fuel economy, so a multiport water/meth injection system was fitted. If the flow sensor says 'not', the ECU reverts to the 'safe' map. Until then, the engine is running at something closer to mean best torque rather than the knock threshold.
Things have kept a bit on the neat side.
As one learns after a bit of seat time, the best mod of all is to tighten the nut behind the wheel. A weekend with Allen Berg in Formula cars showed me what a guy can learn from data, so a full data acquisition system is installed to record driver behaviour (a humbling experience I might add) and the response of the car.
It's been a long road, but it's been fun to think through the details and make a plan.
I love it when a plan comes together!
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