ITS BEEN A LONG TIME COMIN...!
Hey everyone how's it going? I hope everyone had a
great weekend!
Sorry it's been so long since my last update iv just been super busy getting the car ready this last month and was praying nothing went wrong.!
So after waiting on the tranny since January, we finally got it back in the car by the end of April and were able to get in all ready for my first day back on the track. May 17th there was practice up at infineon raceway and i finally got to get back out there, where I feel most at home!
We ran into a few minor issues the car was having, but thats what practice is for... Testing the limits of my own potential as well as the machines..
The second session after I got off the track I noticed smoke coming from under my hood and when we popped it we found out that my exhaust manifold melted my dipstick!
We fixed that problem and then in session three a few of my valve cover gaskets got a little loose and it ended up spitting oil everywhere. (didn't break anything just made a mess!)
We tightened everything up and wiped it all down and went out for the last session of the day to see if we ran into any other issues.
Here is the video of my story, you have to watch it on ac computer...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGmdNgpz_4Y&feature=relmfu
I felt good the last session, I finally was getting the feel for the track and was progressively picking up speed as i gained more and more confidence in the cars ability and the tires grip predictability... Then about early to mid way through the session I started loosing power and wasn't making any boost! Come to find out my turbo bolts backed out and I blew the turbo gasket, I blew the bolts out that hold my wastegate on so it was just hanging, and melted a few rubber hoses...
Huge thank you goes it to WORKS Motorsports for all there help prepping the car and setting it up for the track, as well as continuing to help work with me to come up with solutions to get me back out there running and doing as best as possible!
We ended up leaving it with them Thursday night and they worked super hard to get it all fixed and ready to pick up on friday to head to the races on Saturday, and for that I cant thank them enough!
All and all I think it was a great first day back out there, minus the minor issues we ran into that are expected to come with the territory. I felt great to be back out there and got some good practice in I think to get a feel for what the car is really capable of.. The only problems I was experiencing personally was being that I don't have my seat in yet I was sliding all over which was causing my harness to loosen every few laps or so. So every once in awhile I would have to have who Evers in the passenger seat reach over and pull my harness tight.! The only other problem I was having is not being able to shift with my controls so I had to have the passenger down shift in a couple spots to get my rpms where they needed to be.!
We picked up the car last Friday the 18th and drove to Thunder Hill Raceway (which is up kinda by Chico) for my first NASA event so I could get my racing license. Spent the night up there and woke fresh n ready to go do work just like back in the day!
Day started off great, I had to start in HPDE2 (high performance driving education) and there are 4 I need to get through in order to get my license so I was planning on testing into HPDE3 but ran into a few mechanical issues...
The first session was basiclly all under a full coarse yellow caution, so there was limited, to no passing but it was the perfect time to give my mom a ride without giving her a heart attack! Lol
Unfortunately it got to hot under my hood while out in that first session and I melted my dipstick again! We pulled out the melted one and decided to try and cap it temporarily just to get back out there so I can get seat time and test up to HPDE3...
We found some steel braided hose we thought might work and hose clamped it to the dipstick with a plug on top to cap it. In the second session the setup seemed to be working fine but as I came around turn 1 going into 2 on the 3rd lap I felt something blow on my car and lost all power so I had no choice but pull off and kill it as fast as possible!
Turns out I melted the vacuum hoses that control my wastegate to tell it when to open and close which resulted in me making like 35-40psi down the straights... (I think this happend on lap 2) As a result of making that much over boost I blew a hole the size of a golf ball in the silicone cuppler that connects the turbo to the intercooler piping.. The heat also melted the steel braided hose which resulted in a small oil fire under my hood! All bad! But coulda been much worse I guess!
That unfortunately ended our day early so we packed up and headed back to WORKS to drop the car off to start working on different problem solutions to get the car all dialed for the next round.
The next race is at infineon racyway on June 16-17th so im hoping well be all set by then!
thank you all for your continued support and encouragement, stay posted for further updates..!
KEEP EM SPINNIN & STAY BLESSED!
