Allen - I realize it's been awhile, but I am hoping you can answer some questions. I am getting ready to reassemble my front suspension. Parts went to powder coat this morning. I tried to go back and read as much as I could but I may have missed something.
Things I am interested in
1) Did you ever rub? – Yes, with the 295 frt and 315 rr A6’s there was a bit of rub inside top portion of the lip on the rear fender, and a bit on the rear inside of the front at full lock. The minor rubbing in the Rear could be solved with ride height adjustment, which I didn’t do b/c of not wanting to disturb my “street stance”. With the Front, I found that my RH hard brakeline was a bit deformed at the frame rail connection point, but I suspect this happened with low-speed maneuvering and not during auto-x transitions
2) How much bump travel did you have front and rear? – Honestly, I’m not sure. I never got that measurement-specific
3) I assume you hit the body before the shock limited. – Never saw this in the front, but in the rear due to my rear ride height.
4) Did you have to bump stop it? – Just used what is stock with the Spax dampers.
5) Were you able to run the lower front control arms flat? - I would have to double check this, but I believe my current ride height results in the LCA’s being “flat”, yes.
6) What was your ride height front & rear? – No sure. As I never got that measurement specific. I basically ran what I thought was aesthetically pleasing with my street tire set-up. I go for a more tucked in, lower ride height in the rear while a bit raised in the front, making the car look like it’s launching forward and at speed from the side profile. I believe to get better traction to the front, which the car desperately needs, it should have a bit of forward rake to move bias towards the front.
7) Did you ever increase the Spring rate? – no…thought about it a bit for the rear to help in rotation, but never went that far.
8) Do you think we need more rear bar? You stated you were at the adjustment limit. – yes, that is true, but it could be any combination of things to balance the car to get more grip at the front.
9) Diameter of the tires? – Hoosier says the 295-35/17 and 315-35/17 are 25.3” and 25.6” respectively
10) Toe? – Never played with this. The owner who had the car before me had an alignment performed per the standard street settings ERA recommendations. I’ve not changed any of it.
11) Caster? – Street settings as recommended per ERA
12 Camber? – Street settings as recommended per ERA
13) Is it possible we have too much front bar? – I suppose it’s possible, but I never unhooked it to see what the result was. A6 tires cover up a multitude of chassis and driver sins, so to fully uncover these details, it would be good to iterate adjustments in a controlled environment on street tires. I just never took the time to do that and sadly haven’t autocrossed the car for over two years. The drag of schlepping big fat A6 tires combined with the fact that I was about 2 sec faster in my STi on street tires vs the Cobra sent my focus in other places. I wish I could be of more technical help to you, but all I can offer from my experience is that power steering and more focused chassis set-up are two areas that the car could definitely have benefited from. As for now, that’s on the back burner for me.
Good luck with your own ambitions, Cliff, and please feel free to bounce things off of me whenever you wish.
What setting do you have for your rear sway bar? I stiffend mine up (set 1.5" in from the end) which resulted in more neutral handling. I don't have PS either, and at first thought it was a problem, but I feel like it's not quite so necessary now, as I can pretty much go from understeer to oversteer with throttle and brakes, and don't have to crank the wheel so much. Remember, the guy who keeps his wheels the straightest usually is the fastest!
What setting do you have for your rear sway bar? I stiffend mine up (set 1.5" in from the end) which resulted in more neutral handling. I don't have PS either, and at first thought it was a problem, but I feel like it's not quite so necessary now, as I can pretty much go from understeer to oversteer with throttle and brakes, and don't have to crank the wheel so much. Remember, the guy who keeps his wheels the straightest usually is the fastest!
Gary
Gary: I have mine set the same as yours and can't get it any stiffer due to clearance to the halfshaft. What tires and widths are you running? I have a bit of a push condition and run ERA's maximum recommended width (275/315)Hoosier A6's on 17" wheels. If experiments with springs don't pan out like I hope, I may adjust my tire width stagger when these wear out to get to a more neutral condition. And main reasons for the PS conversion from a performance perspective is for running more caster with the 275's in front and getting a quicker ratio. My club tends to run some pretty tight transitions..
The clubs that I run autocross with have pretty loose classing, and street tire classes are pretty competitive. I'm running Kumho XS 275/315 x 17. I have camber set at -1.5/-2.5 front/rear, didn't touch the caster, and slight (1/16) toe in up front.
My theory was to increase the traction capabilities in the rear (more negative camber), and then increase rear weight transfer (sway bar) to make the car more neutral. That, and a lot of trail braking!
As of yet, haven't done anything with spring rates. Concentrating on the driver now, that's less expensive!
Cobra Make, Engine: ERA 289FIA 2131, 331 stroker by Dan Dalena with 48 IDAs by Jim Inglese, AC Cars AC8 "Rosso Chiaro" (PPG Nexa code FG39) by Connecticut Custom
This past weekend was another great one for auto-x. The air temps were about the same as two weeks ago (mid 80’s) but the sun was out in full blaze making surface temperatures more of a factor for those of us with the sticky-come-greasy A6’s. A conservative approach to corner set-up and execution was key to avoid overly greasy tires…but alas, win some, loose some on that front. The course, as you will see in the video included below, was nicely technical, taking advantage of the compound sloping of the lot to form off-camber turns, connected by quick straights. The course started out with a double (inner/outer) loop then stretched over the center of the lot to a figure-8, then to a stop box placed centrally near the start. Larry, the course designer, (Kenny Bell blown Silver FFR below) consistently delivers. FTD was earned by the feared and revered Wade Chamberlain in his vortec blown FFR (37.90) followed by arch nemesis Fred Kelley in his naturally aspirated FFR (38.49) with Larry Casey nipping at his heals (38.54). CDC organizer Mike Moran produced a 40.62 in the wifey’s FFR followed by “yours truly” with a 7th place raw finish in at 40.73.
Overall, I was very pleased with the day’s results. I found what I consider to be the root of my tire lifting issue captured in a photo from the Winchester event two weeks ago. I’ve also rescinded on the shortened rear springs as that was just a mismatched and silly idea. I will likely proceed with changing the rate, however, but not until I can do the proper calculations on natural frequency. Wasted money IMHO at this point and more improvements to be made with the nut-behind-the-wheel.
The pictures below are courtesy of friend Michael Kelly.
The FFR’s of FTD winner Wade Chamberlain followed by Fred Kelley
The potent and incredibly loud FFR of Larry Casey
The FFR of Jen Moran and husband Mike
Fellow CACC’r Corky who can be seen pirouetting at the end of the youtube video below..lol
…..and the video.
Enjoy!
- Allen.
Last edited by Fullchat289; 07-12-2011 at 12:39 PM..
Cobra Make, Engine: ERA 289FIA 2131, 331 stroker by Dan Dalena with 48 IDAs by Jim Inglese, AC Cars AC8 "Rosso Chiaro" (PPG Nexa code FG39) by Connecticut Custom
How did the silver S2000 do? Any idea if it was modded?
He did pretty good.. Had a top 12 raw time and top 8 index time. As far as mods go, I worked the course when he was running and it sure did sound like it was force induced...Definitely had an aftermarket exhaust, but I was told it was NA. I think he was running up-sized wheels and Dunlop Star Specs or an equivalently sticky street tire. Seemed to collect a cone or two each run, but his times were pretty consistant over the 6 runs.
Here are a couple of "glam" shots taken by the official PVGP photographer... BTW, the yellow duct tape on the HT is my quicky rain seal - works great!!
- Allen.
Last edited by Fullchat289; 08-05-2011 at 12:34 PM..
Well here it is the middle of October and I’ve found myself making a mental switch to the long cold Winter ahead of us here in the North East. With it having been nearly 2.5months since entering an update in my ownership log for 2124, I thought I would give ya’ll a look-see into what’s been going on.
Early in the Summer this year, a good friend of mine and I were resurrecting the idea that he should sell his fully auto-x prep’d ’04 Subaru WRX STi to me and that he should move on to his next auto-x car – a C5 Z06. ’04 was the introductory year for the STi in the States and is the year I believe to be the most “pure” and “purposeful” towards it’s true intent. I fully expect these cars to be rolling across the Barrett-Jackson stage in another 25yrs as I gaze into my crystal ball, but probably not this one as it is being fully enjoyed as a foul-weather weekend warrior, and a reliable daily driver during the weekdays. So the first of September, I took possession of this car and out of the kindness of my heart, I am letting my good friend finish his points season out with three auto-x events left to go. (he’s leading at this point!)
Requisite crappy cellphone pic:
So re-winding a bit, it was the middle of August when there was a couple of weekend events happening. One was the final Winchester auto-x held by our local club, and the second was an annual car/hot rod show held at a local public recreation park. I thought it would be very nice of me if I suggested to my dad that he take ERA2124 to the car show and spend a little time at a show-n-shine, meanwhile, I would go to the Winchester event getting familiar with the soon-to-be-mine Subaru. Seemed like a win-win to me. Preparations were made, I delivered the car to Dad, and learned of his cunning plan to clean the engine bay of the cobra before taking it over to the show. I was later told that he followed every precaution to the letter as to make sure no moisture would keep the car from starting after the detail. After a 3hr effort, he started the car up on the first try and let it get nearly up to temp, shut the car off, took a well-deserved shower, and upon returning to the car with an hour to show-time, found that it just…would….not…start. Apparently somewhere in the process of cranking, the starter gear had a fight with the flywheel ring gear, and the ring gear lost a couple of teeth..4 to be exact….a group of three and a lone tooth further round the circle to be perfectly precise.
Well, the car did eventually start, but Dad never made it to the show….and I felt bad for him. After hearing the story about what happened and making my evaluation of the damage, I took the glass half-full approach and decided that maybe we could get by for the rest of the driving season with the few missing teeth. Trouble was, the starter and the ring gear from West Virginia weren’t getting along and hitting the switch produced the most terrible racket. 4 missing teeth quickly grew to 10 and I decided it best to leave the car sit until I could get some time to plan my approach and make the needed reparations.
So, fast forward now to this past weekend. After studying the ERA assembly manual, I decided to ditch my early planned approach in pulling the engine/trans out of the car together for just simply removing most of the car’s inside bits and pulling the trans from the interior of the car. Several early mornings were spent prior to work preparing the car for this event, a half day of vacation was scheduled, my good friend did the same, and we made a go at it. What follows is a little pictorial record of the first half of the procedure. When we were all through working on Friday, the ring gear was replaced, a new rear main seal was installed, the trans was buttoned up, and the hydraulic TOB was bled and tested functional. It was a good result for sure! Here are the pics:
This first pic shows the access to the transmission once the transmission tunnel is removed from the car. It can’t be dropped as the manly ERA frame has a X brace between the two frame rails adding torsional stiffness and providing a mount location for the rear of the trans. There are two options for removing the trans, splitting it from the engine and doing as we did, or pulling it out attached to the engine.
Once we removed the 105 lb transmission (TKO600), the next step was to remove the Mcleod bell housing. This pics shows the clutch pack and flywheel:
My flywheel ring gear was originally a 157 tooth unit before being reduced to 147 teeth. I borrowed a nice fat brass drift from a friend at work and proceed to use it to knock the old ring gear off with the aid of my lead 6lb American Hammer – worked like a charm. The new ring gear, an ATP piece, was sourced from Amazon and arrived at my door a full 1.5days after ordering it for a total price of less than $20 shipped! Amazon is amazing. This is what the old ring gear looked like after its battle with the starter:
And this is what was found in the clutch dust and engine oil cocktail at the bottom of the bell housing:
The next step was to fit the new ring gear to the flywheel. Folks tend to use two approaches to this, the heating-with-a-torch approach, and the wife’s oven approach. Since I didn’t have the required acetylene torch, I made nice with my wife and got some time scheduled in the oven, put in the new ring gear, and set the oven on Bake @ 400 degrees.
While that was getting up to temp, I decided to replace my rear main seal that had a bad habit of peeing on my garage floor. Once the flywheel and backing plate was removed, it looked like T&L engines added some crap silicone behind the oil pan gasket in an attempt to use the backing plate to help seal things. So at this early stage, I’m not sure if the new seal was the root cause of the leak, or if I actually have an oil pan sealing issue, but time will tell on that. I was sure to clean the main cap and crank sealing surfaces really well and pack the new main seal with lithium grease before the install. All seemed to go in nicely. Here is a pick of what was behind the backing plate before replacing the main seal. BTW, this engine has less than 12K mi on it.
So, back to the kitchen. Long story short, the oven didn’t work. Even at the max temp of 500 degrees, there just wasn’t enough expansion on the ring gear to get it to easily slip over the flywheel. So without wasting too much time, we loaded the parts up and I found a neighbor nearby that had appeared to be already well into his Friday ration of Pabst Blue Ribbon and agreed to use his torch to help me out. $20 later, I was a happy camper. (said he’d be using the $20 to buy more beer).
So install was the reverse of removal and as the car sits now, I’m two seats and an exhaust system away from a road test. Fingers crossed that all will be well. Now that I have the top and side curtains, I hope to squeeze as much out of the remaining driving season as possible.
Cobra Make, Engine: ERA140, ERA 267, ERA GT2038, ERA FIA 2045, ERAGT2077 ERA2893000EXP
Posts: 1,117
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Have you determined the cause of the starter chewing teeth off of the ring gear? There are several different starter options depending on which ring gear/flywheel you are using.
A look at the wear marks on both the starter gear and flywheel ring gear seemed to show acceptable mesh between the two. From what I was told, there was a lot of cranking when it was found that the engine wouldn't fire after the engine bay cleaning. The Ford Racing mini-starter may have been having some solenoid issues with all the heat being generated or quite possibly the heat treat on the flywheel ring gear could have been less than optimum. I don't know for sure. But I'm going with the assumption that all the parts are spec'd properly when used with the McLeod bellhousing. It started fine for me over the 8kmi of my ownership so far...then this. In any case, the starter and ring gear have both been replaced, so we'll see what happens now. I don't expect any issues under normal starting circumstances...
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In any case, the starter and ring gear have both been replaced, so we'll see what happens now. I don't expect any issues under normal starting circumstances...
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