June 2017

Ballast

My truck is mostly all good to go.  Brakes were surprisingly unworn.  I flushed the system and lubed the chassis.  It still needs a transmission filter, which I'm going to have done in a shop.  A new serpentine belt wouldn't be a bad idea either since it's 10 years old.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm borderline on weight.  I should be good, even on an empty tank, according to my scales.  With scale variation from site to site, I decided to get some insurance weight.  I decided to place it on the passenger floor low. I went with a lead brick bolted to angle iron.  The brick is coated in about 5 layers of Plastidip.  The whole thing bolts to the forward seat rail mounts.

Events 4 & 5

I headed into event 4 with a comfortable points lead having won the first three events.  Race tire classes were in group 2.  About half way through group 1, it was still raining steadily.  The rain let up and the sun started to peak through.  I made the decision to stay on slicks.  7 of 8 cars in class also went on slicks.  The course was pretty slippery, but improving on each run.  I never really put a complete good run together, but I managed to pull off a 2nd.

Event 5 was the following day.  My bad day finally rolled around.  The car wouldn't stay running or restart in grid. I lost fuel and stalled near the end of the course and coasted in. I leaked fuel, which fortunately turned out to be a fuel cap issue.  I blew a great, probably winning, run on a missed gate.

My fuel tank should be over half full and my multi-meter agrees.I'm leaning toward a varnished fuel pickup bag in the tank or a cracked pickup hose.  The chassis has 176k miles and I didn't open the fuel tank during the build.
My 100k mile engine also has unknown age/quality ignition coils.  The fuel pump, coils, and wires are all getting replaced. I think I'll also bump the idle a couple hundred RPM.
Packwood Championship tour is three weeks out.

Repairs and Updates

Mt daughter is coming to visit next week and car work time will be minimal. I went after my issues this weekend.  I pulled the cowl and petty bar to get good access to my wiring.

I found that when I held the harness in a certain position, that the engine would cut and the fuel pump would die. after tracing back, I determined that the engine fuse power was cutting out and dropping the coil side of the main relay.  I unwrapped the whole mess under the dash and found that I'd made a crappy 2 into 1 connection that was intermittent.  when the harness moved under cornering force, it would drop the main relay.  I went ahead and checked all my connections while I had it unwrapped, all good.
While I had the cowl off, I installed a new AEM wideband with a real life digital display.  Nice to have AFR readout again.

My fuel pump, coils, and wires were all of unknown age. I swapped all that out with new parts and set the old aside for emergency spares.
Finally, while the cowl was off, I reinforced my center support which was a bit sloppy and added some camper tape to dampen vibrations that have been bugging me.

My hot restarts are still an issue, I have to hold 1500 RPM for 20 seconds or so or she'll stall.  I'm optimistic that the car is ready to go for Packwood in 3 weeks..