Project 7DERE - Clubsprint Time Attack FD3S
04-25-17 | 09:17 AM
#1
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Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
Project 7DERE - Clubsprint Time Attack FD3S
Finally decided to start a build thread for my FD3S street registered time attack car, which is being built to WTAC Clubsprint rules.
I have actually owned this car since May 2016, so I will rewind a bit to the start of this story and give some background. I am a wordy son of a bitch, so apologies for the length of this post.
tl;dr - I'm a nerd who owned some low power, unexciting cars, did lots of track days and imported a modified Series 8 FD.
The Story So Far - Part 1
My background in cars
So I'm an electrical engineer by day and like most of the people on this site, have this hobby of modifying cars and driving them on the track.
Wasn't always the case though. Through high school I was a complete computer geek with absolutely zero interest in cars. All those Fast and Furious stereotypes - just didn't seem like my scene at all. I couldn't tell a Ferrari from a Hyundai, didn't play racing games and was the type to stick my nose up pretentiously and say "They're obviously compensating for something" every time I heard a loud exhaust. Rather than modding cars, I was more into modding computers - overclocking CPUs, case mods, etc. Clock speeds instead of HP, benchmark scores over lap times, same thing but way less cool.
I was (and still am) a complete anime weeb and so naturally, my gateway into the car scene was when I was introduced to this sports anime called Initial D for the first time and realized that cars were freaking awesome and dived head first into this ridiculous, expensive and goddamn awesome hobby.
My first car was a 1994 Honda Prelude BB1 VTi funded by my parents' high school graduation present in 2008. A poor uni student, I didn't have much money to spend on modifying it and was too scared to try to do any work myself - I once tried to install a strut bar, gave up and took it to the mechanic to do. My short ownership of the car ended after 9 months when drove it into a wall on a mountain pass convinced I was Takumi Fujiwara and could try my first FWD handbrake slide on a mountain pass.
My second car was a 1990 Honda Prelude BA4 which I picked up dirt cheap in 2009 to replace the previous one.
This was the car that really introduced me to track days and started this addiction of chasing lap times. It was just a bargain car and I didn't really have inspiration to want to spend money modifying it, but I had come to realize that despite that, I could have heaps and heaps of fun by racing it.
Having a stock, low powered car is a fantastic way to get your skills up. You get heavily punished for slow corner entrance speeds and that keeps your focus on driving technique rather than getting distracted by suspension settings, boost levels, tune, etc. I had gained12 seconds in lap time on improved driving skill alone, and soon found myself beating newbies in GTRs and Porsches around the track.
(The mechanical 4WS system on this car was bizarre on the race track, but also kind of cool once you learned it - one of the few cars to actually have a mechanically interlocked system)
My third car was a 2002 Mitsubishi Evo 6.5 TME (JDM) bought in 2011 and to be honest, it was an absolute disappointment.
I had a bit more money after doing a student engineering internship and had decided to go after one of the cooler Japanese cars I had always admired (a love which, naturally, only developed after seeing the Works-R CP9A in another anime called Wangan Midnight).
But I found that despite being that much faster than the Prelude, the car was an bore on the track. Still fitted with the stock AYC system, the car preferred smooth and gradual inputs and hated any of the quick changes, weight shifting and steering that I had come to love about driving the previous car. If I had spent a bit more money on a rear LSD, adding some power and upgrading suspension it might have been a different story, but I was still a poor uni student and couldn't afford that.
I also missed having a ratty car that I didn't care about absolutely trashing on the track and mountains - having a nicer, more expensive car inevitably led to more fear of damaging it and that made the experience less fun and more stressful.
So I sold it.
The WTAC Dream Gets Born
It was around this time that World Time Attack Challenge had started to become a thing.
A track day that attracted amazing cars from around the world and was turned into a huge spectator event. And I was seeing normal, everyday car enthusiasts I had met at track days who were competing in Clubsprint Class. These weren't big workshops, racing teams or no-expense-barred builds, but cars built in backyards with plywood splitters, cable ties and eBay mods competing in front of tens of thousands of spectators, being plastered on automotive blogs around the world and actually playing cars on the world stage.
I had stars in my eyes. Excitement in my blood. Motivational quotes flashing through my head. I had a dream. This was episode 1 of my shounen sports anime, and I was the protagonist.
I was going to win WTAC Clubsprint Class. And I was going to do it in a RWD car I built myself.
I was still a uni student and most definitely wouldn't be able to afford actually building a competitive WTAC car just yet. However, that didn't mean I couldn't start down this path. Apart from the actual car what did I need?
Skills.
Specifically, driving skills and mechanical skills.
So in 2012, I bought a 2002 Mazda MX-5 NB8B. The engine stayed stock, but apart from that was the first car I really started modifying.
It was reliable, it was fun, it was RWD, it was predictable and a great learning tool. I did ~20 track days in 3 years and saw my benchmark lap times drop by 6 seconds from my fastest Prelude time. I even felt comfortable controlling the car sideways at up to 185km/h with counter steering becoming second nature and always drove the car with a madness prepared to write it off. I treated the car like absolute trash, I convinced myself I did not care one bit about it and that meant I could push the car hard, with the bottom of the vehicle abused from repeatedly smashed on ripple strips, narrowly missing walls and being stuck in the sandpits many times. My friends soon got too terrified to sit in the passenger seat because I drove like a lunatic.
The other thing the car taught me was how to work on the car. For my eventual time attack project, I wanted to do everything myself and the MX-5 was a good, simple car to start learning how to do DIY mechanic work under jack stands with. I went from being too scared to even change my brake pads to being able to confidently do clutch changes, butcher my chassis with drills and angle grinders and deal with the onslaught of broken bolts and studs my car seem to punish me with.
Deciding on a Clubsprint Platform
Finally, in late 2015, after having worked full time as an engineer for 2 years, I was ready to begin my time attack project.
But what car to buy?
My two dream cars were an FD3S and R34 GTR. The latter being prohibitively expensive, needing extensive engine block oil work when seeing lots of track work and the former having a reputation of being notoriously unreliable. FDs were also really rare to see on the track in Australia and lacked the huge second hand parts market which exists here for Nissans.
After playing with estimated budgets and taking a logical, cost-benefit sort of view, I chose to go down the RWD R33 Skyline GTST route. Super cheap, super reliable, huge second hand parts market and has a surprisingly decent amount of potential as a track car, with a lot of cars here getting really good lap times. Could fit 285 tyres under stock fenders (which was important, given Clubsprint Rules stipulate stock fenders). The perfect compromise, a fun car with great value and ridiculously cheap upgrade parts. I looked at quite a few and was this close to buying one.
Then one day, out of the corner of my eye I saw a white Series 8 Type RZ drive past. You don't see many on Australia's streets and this one was probably the only one I had seen in years. And suddenly all that logical cost-benefit analysis went out the window. Good God, was it beautiful. It actually got my heart racing with excitement.
I needed an FD3S. **** compromise.
Searching for the FD
This was going to be an expensive project, so I endeavored to save a bit of money by buying one that already had a single turbo conversion, a few more value adding bolt ons and hopefully a V-mount. The few Series 8s that had been imported to Australia were expensive, show spec or stock. So I looked abroad.
I approached an importing agent service called Iron Chef Imports late 2015 and told the agent what I was after. Car didn't need to be Grade 4.5 with perfect paint or anything, but I did want some value from mods. It absolutely needed to have stock fenders though, since WTAC Clubsprint rules do not allow wide fenders.
Unfortunately, this criteria made it very hard. In Japan it seemed like people put body kits on their cars before they did anything under the bonnet. Over 50 Series 8 were going through auction a month, and they seemed to be either stock or had (mostly hideous) body kits.
I started to give up on getting exactly what I wanted and started bidding on a number of stock examples. Poor timing however saw the AUD/JPY fall at the same time as FDs going up in price, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) all of my bids fell through. I had resigned myself to spending quite a bit more for a stock example than I had ever planned to do for modified one.
Then in early February 2016 I got an email from my agent in the middle of a meeting at work. There was a car was going up for sale in a matter of hours and the car was at a remote auction house in Kyushu, so he wasn't going to be able to even inspect it. But on first glance it seemed to tick a LOT of boxes.
We had no idea about whether it was a rust bucket or in perfect condition. We didn't know whether it even ran. Auction sheet said Grade 4B, but I had soon come to learn that those auction sheets didn't really mean much. All I had to go off was a bunch of blurry, low resolution thumbnails like below, which showed a car with mostly stock body kit, a single turbo and a V-mount. Well didn't that sound perfect.
The most expensive purchase of my life with such limited information and a lot of risk. I didn't even know how hard it'd be to get through compliance, which in Australia technically requires the car to be entirely stock.
I decided to take that risk. I was so sick of "just" missing out on a sale, so basically told him to bid as much as needed to be bid, crossed my fingers and hoped I hadn't made a mistake.
I won the car for 1,447,000jpy, a bargain given the current prices on the market and what was under the bonnet! Being that the auction house was in Kyushu, prices apparently were generally cheaper than what you would see in Tokyo or Yokohama.
Once my agent received the car he went and took a bunch of photos and shared my excitement - the car looked freaking epic. All the sort of mods I was after and not many of the mods I would have wanted to avoid. The car was in great condition with not a hint of rust underneath the car. The engine bay had a few spots which saw surface rust, but nothing structural. Apart from a few dents and replaced panels (I'm assuming car used to run a different bumper and bonnet) the body seemed accident free.
This was the mods it landed in Australia with.
2000 Mazda RX-7 (Series 8 FD3S) Types RS
95,000km
Grade 4B
Engine
HKS T04S 0.82 single turbo kit
RE Amemiya Level MAN Intercooler kit (or copy) - with retained A/C!
Autostaff Fuel Pressure Regulator
RE Amemiya Titanium Catback
SARD Sports Metal Cat
Electronics
HKS F-Con iS Piggyback ECU
Defi Oil and Water Temperature Gauges
Defi Boost Gauge
Auto Shift Light
HKS EVC6 Boost Controller
Varley Red Top 40 Battery, relocated to boot
Interior
Recaro SR3 Passenger Seat
Nardi 330mm Steering Wheel with Works Bell quick release boss
Suspension/Chassis
AutoEXE Member Underbraces
Advan RSII 17x9.5" +35 wheels
HKS Hipermax III coilovers (12/10)
Exterior
RE Amemiya carbon diffuser
Side skirts (not sure brand)
Front tow hook mount (but missing tow hook)
I picked up the car from the compliance shop in May 2016. Somehow they had not only gotten the car through compliance but roadworthy too. It was late at night and they basically handed me the keys, shut up store and went home.
I was left holding a key in this empty industrial street at night, staring at this car. The same sort of car I used drool over at meets and treat their owners with a sort of awe. The sort of car which had featured in desktop wallpapers for 9 years. The slew of "Likes" I gave to photos of these on Facebook. It didn't feel real.
I was shaking as I put the key in the ignition a ridiculous grin on my face, and started laughing like a maniac when the car started. Hoooooollllly ****.
The road to WTAC had begun...
To be continued!
I have actually owned this car since May 2016, so I will rewind a bit to the start of this story and give some background. I am a wordy son of a bitch, so apologies for the length of this post.
tl;dr - I'm a nerd who owned some low power, unexciting cars, did lots of track days and imported a modified Series 8 FD.
The Story So Far - Part 1
My background in cars
So I'm an electrical engineer by day and like most of the people on this site, have this hobby of modifying cars and driving them on the track.
Wasn't always the case though. Through high school I was a complete computer geek with absolutely zero interest in cars. All those Fast and Furious stereotypes - just didn't seem like my scene at all. I couldn't tell a Ferrari from a Hyundai, didn't play racing games and was the type to stick my nose up pretentiously and say "They're obviously compensating for something" every time I heard a loud exhaust. Rather than modding cars, I was more into modding computers - overclocking CPUs, case mods, etc. Clock speeds instead of HP, benchmark scores over lap times, same thing but way less cool.
I was (and still am) a complete anime weeb and so naturally, my gateway into the car scene was when I was introduced to this sports anime called Initial D for the first time and realized that cars were freaking awesome and dived head first into this ridiculous, expensive and goddamn awesome hobby.
My first car was a 1994 Honda Prelude BB1 VTi funded by my parents' high school graduation present in 2008. A poor uni student, I didn't have much money to spend on modifying it and was too scared to try to do any work myself - I once tried to install a strut bar, gave up and took it to the mechanic to do. My short ownership of the car ended after 9 months when drove it into a wall on a mountain pass convinced I was Takumi Fujiwara and could try my first FWD handbrake slide on a mountain pass.
My second car was a 1990 Honda Prelude BA4 which I picked up dirt cheap in 2009 to replace the previous one.
This was the car that really introduced me to track days and started this addiction of chasing lap times. It was just a bargain car and I didn't really have inspiration to want to spend money modifying it, but I had come to realize that despite that, I could have heaps and heaps of fun by racing it.
Having a stock, low powered car is a fantastic way to get your skills up. You get heavily punished for slow corner entrance speeds and that keeps your focus on driving technique rather than getting distracted by suspension settings, boost levels, tune, etc. I had gained12 seconds in lap time on improved driving skill alone, and soon found myself beating newbies in GTRs and Porsches around the track.
(The mechanical 4WS system on this car was bizarre on the race track, but also kind of cool once you learned it - one of the few cars to actually have a mechanically interlocked system)
My third car was a 2002 Mitsubishi Evo 6.5 TME (JDM) bought in 2011 and to be honest, it was an absolute disappointment.
I had a bit more money after doing a student engineering internship and had decided to go after one of the cooler Japanese cars I had always admired (a love which, naturally, only developed after seeing the Works-R CP9A in another anime called Wangan Midnight).
But I found that despite being that much faster than the Prelude, the car was an bore on the track. Still fitted with the stock AYC system, the car preferred smooth and gradual inputs and hated any of the quick changes, weight shifting and steering that I had come to love about driving the previous car. If I had spent a bit more money on a rear LSD, adding some power and upgrading suspension it might have been a different story, but I was still a poor uni student and couldn't afford that.
I also missed having a ratty car that I didn't care about absolutely trashing on the track and mountains - having a nicer, more expensive car inevitably led to more fear of damaging it and that made the experience less fun and more stressful.
So I sold it.
The WTAC Dream Gets Born
It was around this time that World Time Attack Challenge had started to become a thing.
A track day that attracted amazing cars from around the world and was turned into a huge spectator event. And I was seeing normal, everyday car enthusiasts I had met at track days who were competing in Clubsprint Class. These weren't big workshops, racing teams or no-expense-barred builds, but cars built in backyards with plywood splitters, cable ties and eBay mods competing in front of tens of thousands of spectators, being plastered on automotive blogs around the world and actually playing cars on the world stage.
I had stars in my eyes. Excitement in my blood. Motivational quotes flashing through my head. I had a dream. This was episode 1 of my shounen sports anime, and I was the protagonist.
I was going to win WTAC Clubsprint Class. And I was going to do it in a RWD car I built myself.
I was still a uni student and most definitely wouldn't be able to afford actually building a competitive WTAC car just yet. However, that didn't mean I couldn't start down this path. Apart from the actual car what did I need?
Skills.
Specifically, driving skills and mechanical skills.
So in 2012, I bought a 2002 Mazda MX-5 NB8B. The engine stayed stock, but apart from that was the first car I really started modifying.
It was reliable, it was fun, it was RWD, it was predictable and a great learning tool. I did ~20 track days in 3 years and saw my benchmark lap times drop by 6 seconds from my fastest Prelude time. I even felt comfortable controlling the car sideways at up to 185km/h with counter steering becoming second nature and always drove the car with a madness prepared to write it off. I treated the car like absolute trash, I convinced myself I did not care one bit about it and that meant I could push the car hard, with the bottom of the vehicle abused from repeatedly smashed on ripple strips, narrowly missing walls and being stuck in the sandpits many times. My friends soon got too terrified to sit in the passenger seat because I drove like a lunatic.
The other thing the car taught me was how to work on the car. For my eventual time attack project, I wanted to do everything myself and the MX-5 was a good, simple car to start learning how to do DIY mechanic work under jack stands with. I went from being too scared to even change my brake pads to being able to confidently do clutch changes, butcher my chassis with drills and angle grinders and deal with the onslaught of broken bolts and studs my car seem to punish me with.
Deciding on a Clubsprint Platform
Finally, in late 2015, after having worked full time as an engineer for 2 years, I was ready to begin my time attack project.
But what car to buy?
My two dream cars were an FD3S and R34 GTR. The latter being prohibitively expensive, needing extensive engine block oil work when seeing lots of track work and the former having a reputation of being notoriously unreliable. FDs were also really rare to see on the track in Australia and lacked the huge second hand parts market which exists here for Nissans.
After playing with estimated budgets and taking a logical, cost-benefit sort of view, I chose to go down the RWD R33 Skyline GTST route. Super cheap, super reliable, huge second hand parts market and has a surprisingly decent amount of potential as a track car, with a lot of cars here getting really good lap times. Could fit 285 tyres under stock fenders (which was important, given Clubsprint Rules stipulate stock fenders). The perfect compromise, a fun car with great value and ridiculously cheap upgrade parts. I looked at quite a few and was this close to buying one.
Then one day, out of the corner of my eye I saw a white Series 8 Type RZ drive past. You don't see many on Australia's streets and this one was probably the only one I had seen in years. And suddenly all that logical cost-benefit analysis went out the window. Good God, was it beautiful. It actually got my heart racing with excitement.
I needed an FD3S. **** compromise.
Searching for the FD
This was going to be an expensive project, so I endeavored to save a bit of money by buying one that already had a single turbo conversion, a few more value adding bolt ons and hopefully a V-mount. The few Series 8s that had been imported to Australia were expensive, show spec or stock. So I looked abroad.
I approached an importing agent service called Iron Chef Imports late 2015 and told the agent what I was after. Car didn't need to be Grade 4.5 with perfect paint or anything, but I did want some value from mods. It absolutely needed to have stock fenders though, since WTAC Clubsprint rules do not allow wide fenders.
Unfortunately, this criteria made it very hard. In Japan it seemed like people put body kits on their cars before they did anything under the bonnet. Over 50 Series 8 were going through auction a month, and they seemed to be either stock or had (mostly hideous) body kits.
I started to give up on getting exactly what I wanted and started bidding on a number of stock examples. Poor timing however saw the AUD/JPY fall at the same time as FDs going up in price, and unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) all of my bids fell through. I had resigned myself to spending quite a bit more for a stock example than I had ever planned to do for modified one.
Then in early February 2016 I got an email from my agent in the middle of a meeting at work. There was a car was going up for sale in a matter of hours and the car was at a remote auction house in Kyushu, so he wasn't going to be able to even inspect it. But on first glance it seemed to tick a LOT of boxes.
We had no idea about whether it was a rust bucket or in perfect condition. We didn't know whether it even ran. Auction sheet said Grade 4B, but I had soon come to learn that those auction sheets didn't really mean much. All I had to go off was a bunch of blurry, low resolution thumbnails like below, which showed a car with mostly stock body kit, a single turbo and a V-mount. Well didn't that sound perfect.
The most expensive purchase of my life with such limited information and a lot of risk. I didn't even know how hard it'd be to get through compliance, which in Australia technically requires the car to be entirely stock.
I decided to take that risk. I was so sick of "just" missing out on a sale, so basically told him to bid as much as needed to be bid, crossed my fingers and hoped I hadn't made a mistake.
I won the car for 1,447,000jpy, a bargain given the current prices on the market and what was under the bonnet! Being that the auction house was in Kyushu, prices apparently were generally cheaper than what you would see in Tokyo or Yokohama.
Once my agent received the car he went and took a bunch of photos and shared my excitement - the car looked freaking epic. All the sort of mods I was after and not many of the mods I would have wanted to avoid. The car was in great condition with not a hint of rust underneath the car. The engine bay had a few spots which saw surface rust, but nothing structural. Apart from a few dents and replaced panels (I'm assuming car used to run a different bumper and bonnet) the body seemed accident free.
This was the mods it landed in Australia with.
2000 Mazda RX-7 (Series 8 FD3S) Types RS
95,000km
Grade 4B
Engine
HKS T04S 0.82 single turbo kit
RE Amemiya Level MAN Intercooler kit (or copy) - with retained A/C!
Autostaff Fuel Pressure Regulator
RE Amemiya Titanium Catback
SARD Sports Metal Cat
Electronics
HKS F-Con iS Piggyback ECU
Defi Oil and Water Temperature Gauges
Defi Boost Gauge
Auto Shift Light
HKS EVC6 Boost Controller
Varley Red Top 40 Battery, relocated to boot
Interior
Recaro SR3 Passenger Seat
Nardi 330mm Steering Wheel with Works Bell quick release boss
Suspension/Chassis
AutoEXE Member Underbraces
Advan RSII 17x9.5" +35 wheels
HKS Hipermax III coilovers (12/10)
Exterior
RE Amemiya carbon diffuser
Side skirts (not sure brand)
Front tow hook mount (but missing tow hook)
I picked up the car from the compliance shop in May 2016. Somehow they had not only gotten the car through compliance but roadworthy too. It was late at night and they basically handed me the keys, shut up store and went home.
I was left holding a key in this empty industrial street at night, staring at this car. The same sort of car I used drool over at meets and treat their owners with a sort of awe. The sort of car which had featured in desktop wallpapers for 9 years. The slew of "Likes" I gave to photos of these on Facebook. It didn't feel real.
I was shaking as I put the key in the ignition a ridiculous grin on my face, and started laughing like a maniac when the car started. Hoooooollllly ****.
The road to WTAC had begun...
To be continued!
Last edited by Jarik; 04-25-17 at 09:22 AM.
The following users liked this post:
sledgie (10-31-20)
05-03-17 | 09:57 PM
#5
Joined: Mar 2001
Posts: 30,580
Likes: 567
From: FL-->NJ/NYC again!
Car looks killer in that first pic. I sense some Zoom Zoom jealousy headed your way 
Edit: read your initial post all the way through, and loved this bit:
You, my friend, get it. You were an FD owner before you even owned one 
Edit: read your initial post all the way through, and loved this bit:
Originally Posted by jarik
Then one day, out of the corner of my eye I saw a white Series 8 Type RZ drive past. You don't see many on Australia's streets and this one was probably the only one I had seen in years. And suddenly all that logical cost-benefit analysis went out the window. Good God, was it beautiful. It actually got my heart racing with excitement.
I needed an FD3S. **** compromise.
I needed an FD3S. **** compromise.
Last edited by GoodfellaFD3S; 05-03-17 at 10:06 PM.
05-13-17 | 07:18 AM
#6
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
Anyway, sorry about the delay - been a busy week. But here's part 2.
The Story So Far - Part 2
Fuel leaks and Limp Mode Headaches
So after picking up my new car, I put the car in gear and can't keep the grin off my face. Give it a blip, it purrs. Put it in gear, gently release the clutch and delicately add some throttle and we're off.
I giggle like a five year old and start clapping my hands together.
Then I give it a tiny bit more throttle and-CUT
Huh.
Try again, boost gauge hits 0kPa and a sudden power cut. Huh. Okay. That's not definitely right.
Anyway, I'm not that far away from home so I limp back there, with the power completely cutting at 0kPa. It's not even like a rev limiter - once it cuts, I need to completely release the throttle before getting power back. I'm in this fast, modified looking car, holding traffic up as I barely manage to maintain 40km/h up hills.
Pull into the garage and notice a very strong fuel smell. Get out a torch and have a look.
Uh oh.
Primary injectors leaking fuel everywhere and a big puddle collecting on the lower intake manifold. Well that's terrifying. I could have literally had my brand new rotary go up in smoke within minutes of owning it.
Pretty sure I'd have quit cars entirely if that had happened.
Sourced some second hand primary injectors and rail from one of the rotary shops here. Ended up being a great first way to start working on the car - diving head first into exploring the engine bay.
...and still stuck in limp mode
Took the car for a test drive with the fuel leak fixed, but it was still cutting power at 0kPa. A bit of research made me realize the car was stuck in limp mode. But the only codes the car was throwing were codes 42, 43 and 45 - all related to the twin turbo solenoids which had been removed for the single turbo conversion. Surely couldn't be the issue.
Unfortunately the HKS F-Con iS piggyback do not provide their software free of charge (unlike just about every other decent ECU). You need to be a HKS acccredited tuner (a license which costs something like $8k) and so I wasn't able to debug the issue that way. Removing the piggyback didn't solve the issue either. I spent a lot of time jiggling wires around, measuring continuity with my multi-meter, checking sensor connections.
No luck.
I was planning to get a new ECU anyway, so figured rather than wasting any more of my time trying to debug the issue with the F-Con and stock ECU, might as well just go straight to the new ECU.
Learning to Tune
Tuning has this reputation as this mystical black art that could only be learned through trial and error after blowing 20 engines and traveling to the top of Mt Fuji to be trained by Amemiya-sensei himself.
My view changed when I came across HPAcademy's six part free video series on how to tune (which was an advertisement for their full tuning course). Their slogan is "Tuning is not an art, it is a science" - by understanding the fundamental concepts and physics of how an engine worked, configuring software and then using sensors as feedback to test and adjust to some well understood metrics, you could tune a car - this wasn't some art, this was engineering!
(My day job is an electrical engineer, and at the time I literally spent my days designing electrical substation automation/protection schemes, so this really left me with a sense of familiarity).
So I ended up buying the full course package for around $520AUD. A reasonable investment, but one I never regretted.
There's obviously a lot of knowledge available online - in forums, videos and particularly amongst the MegaSquirt community. But I've found most lack the structure that a proper course provides, and gives you a logical way of going from someone with absolutely no knowledge of tuning to have enough of an understanding to know where to look for any specific info.
The package included the EFI Fundamentals, Understanding AFR, Practical Road Tuning, Practical Dyno Tuning Courses and Launch Control courses. Each course has roughly 1+ hour of content. But the real value in HPAcademy actually comes from the webinars. Roughly two released per month, 130 or so already out and each 45-60 minutes long. There's a HELLOVA lot of content in there, and usually delves deep into various tuning functions on a wide variety of different ECUs.
Highly recommend people check them out (no, I'm not being sponsored by them). Learning to tune is like learning to do any other bit of your own work on the car. It opens a whole new aspect of fun in your car hobby, helps you do other car stuff (trouble shooting, choosing modifications, etc) better, let's you play with features that most tuners wouldn't bother with and probably saves you tuning money in the long run. May not be as efficient or quick as going to a professional tuner, but if you're happy to treat it as a continuous development process, it's a lotta fun.
Anyway, I found myself spending most of my tram rides home from work watching the videos, then would spend time playing around in a bunch of ECU software - Haltech ESP, Link PCLink+, Megasquirt TunerStudio. While the MegaSquirt seemed to have the most features and by far the best value, I had gotten myself emotionally attached to the Haltech software too much at that point and went that route.
Haltech were in the process of developing an Elite 1500 patch loom for the FD3S, but were a few months off, so while my car sat idle I decided to continue with some other parts.
PWR Air Seperator Tank
Car was still running the stock one, and I've heard about their reputation to fail. Mine was quite discoloured, went looking for an aluminium one.
The PWR was cheaper than Knightsports, RE Amemiya, etc. Not really listed on their website, but if you contact them, they have a part number for it.
Wideband O2 Install
Intalled a PLX SM-AFR and DM-6 wideband to see if I could identify what was happening.
The car was running really lean on idle for some reason - around 16:1. Still not sure if that was simply the air pump leaning out the exhaust air or whether it was genuinely running lean, especially since the idle was pretty stable despite that. What I do know is that after letting it idle for 5 minutes to burp out coolant bubbles while doing a coolant change, I noticed the turbo red hot.
Volk Wheels
I wanted to fit the widest tyres I could under stock guards (per Clubsprint rules), and that meant 285s on 10.5" wide wheels. Problem was, FDs need high offset and most wide wheels are aimed at Nissans with low offsets.
I am such a Volk fanboy and almost the entire Volk range in that size was +15 or +25. There was one exception - the discontinued SE37K forged wheel.
Most of the wheels I have bought in the past have been off Yahoo Auctions Japan via ImportMonster or Jesse Streeter (two importing services in Australia). And just my luck, there were 2 pairs of SE37Ks in that size up for sale! Made bids on both, but to my dismay only won one of the pairs and lost the other. So was stuck with two wheels in a rare size and scratching my head over what to do. Luckily, another pair popped up a few months later (for a decent amount more though) and I completed the set.
For tyres, I decided to go 265/35R18 Federal 595RS-RR. These are absolutely dirty cheap tyres. AD08Rs in the same size were around $425AUD while these were $188AUD a corner. Unfortunately didn't come in a 285/30 size, but good enough for now.
With a guard roll from and rear, the tyres fit great. There was slight contact at full lock against the front of the fender liner, but after a bit of use, the tyres wore down a bit and it was no longer a problem.
Wheel nuts are MCA RealNuts - some pretty affordable open, long steel nuts with aluminium floating tapers, which have a really strong finish designed for regular impact wrench use.
Seats
I had actually picked up a Recaro SP-G years ago, which had been sitting in my garage collecting dust for years (since it didn't fit in the MX5). This is the seat that made me want a bucket seat - the foam bulges feel really nice around the torso. It's certainly a lot nicer than the Sparco Sprint or Sparco Rev I had in the MX5. Not as comfortable as the Recaro SR3 recliner I have in the passenger seat (hard to beat that for comfort), but obviously holds you in a lot better - and safer to run with a half cage.
Ordered a set of new BRIDE FG rails and in it went.
Hits against the door somewhat, leaving an indent in the trim, but otherwise fits fine. The seat adjusters on the rails are a bit annoying to use - requiring two adjusters on each side to be simultaneously operated. But I don't often need to adjust the seat anyway, so it's not that big of a deal.
In goes the ECU
Haltech finally got their off the shelf patch loom finished around September.
Installing the ECU was a piece of cake and within minutes of powering it up for the first time, realized what the limp mode issue had been - the MAP sensor was reading about 40kPa below what it actually was. That'd certainly make it run lean enough to trip the stock ECU protection functions! Ran a silicon cable to the cabin and used the onboard Haltech sensor instead.
Since my fuel pressure regulator didn't have an inbuilt gauge, I decided to by a Honeywell MLH150 pressure transducer and send that pressure info directly to the Haltech, so it could be used for logging and engine protection functions.
I was paranoid so actually manually buzzed out all connections with a multi-meter for the critical functions (ignition, injectors, etc). Turned the key and VOILA! It's ALIVE!
(and yes, as you can hear in the video, my car waifu speaks Japanese)
Road Tuning - Setting up the fuel tables
Set the TDC offset using a timing light (7 deg as expected). Got my car idling roughly, but reasonably alright for the moment. Time to take it out tuning!
Drove it out to a country road with minimal traffic and basically went through the rpm/MAP cells by getting one of my mates to take it to a certain rpm and throttle position, then hold it there using left footed braking, gearing and hills.
We were slowly populating the table, but something didn't seem right. The VE table seemed to have an abrupt change at 2500rpm as below. The numbers were also wildly higher <2500rpm than the base map.
Spent ages scratching my head over it until I finally realized - that's the region where the air pump activated! So I disabled the air pump in the Haltech and redid all those cells, getting something that looked a lot cleaner.
The higher boost runs were done by doing a 2nd gear redline run, then going through the logs, making adjustments and doing it again.
Car the was running. Car was boosting. Car was gripping. And it felt awesome.
To be continued!
Last edited by Jarik; 05-13-17 at 09:50 AM.
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sledgie (10-31-20)
05-13-17 | 09:58 AM
#7
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
The Story So Far - Part 3
The Story So Far - Part 3
The Project Gets a Name!
(or how I reveal how much of a weeb I still am)
The standard VicRoads number plate is wider than the Japanese shape, and this led to a rather ugly number plate fitment with the ends on the rear bent to fit and the front plate just sitting too wide on the stock holder.
VicRoads do have custom number plates you can buy, with various shapes and style available - including a Japanese number plate shape and style designed to fit imports. But what registration number should I run?
Clearly an important decision, that needed much thought! I am a geeky, nerdy otaku weeb who would deep down prefer to just watch anime all day than play with cars. So clearly, I needed to make homage to that. So after agonizing over ideas, I finally went with 7DERE, which would become the project name.
What does it mean?
Well, for all you normal human beings who aren't anime obsessed weirdos out there, there's this Japanese term "tsundere". For all us sad, worthless freaks of nature, anime often panders to our sex-starved selves by producing shows with an equally sad main male character surrounding by a harem of shallow, poorly developed character which can often fall into several cliche archetypes.
Tsundere is one of most common. The girl who acts like she hates the main character and spends most of the time beating him up or insulting him, but secretly likes him deep down. There's other -deres too - the very shy dandere, the cool and collected kuudere and of course the batshit psychopath murderous terrifying willkilleveryoneyouloveincludingyou yandere.
ANYWAY.
The point is. Sevendere. The car. It is unreliable, expensive, time intensive, never runs and yet....secretly deep down, you love it and she loves you too. (You can also go the yandere interpretation and assume she's probably going to kill me on the track someday).
Get it?
Eheheh.
Heh.
...
Moving on.
(I feel like every single time I'm judged by society a little harder each time I make that explanation).
(Pssst, top secret spoiler: Itasha IS on the cards in the future, so this post is good practice at throwing away all of my dignity)
First Sponsor - Welcoming Garage460 to Project 7dere
A friend of a friend - that's usually how it goes - owns an Australia performance parts distributor, Garage460.
He had heard about my Time Attack plans and was interesting in supporting the car. I was pretty stoked - I hadn't even set a lap time and I was already potentially looking at taking a big step up in terms of being a serious competitor. Biggest difference between the FD and any of my previous cars - you get attention without needing to prove yourself with lap times.
Not gonna lie, I scrutinized the aesthetics of the logo before deciding it would look absolutely awesome on the car and accepting. I reckon it looks mad on the car!
Project Mu Brake Upgrade
What are the basics of track prep? Fluid and pads.
Not sure what the car was running previously. Think they may have actually been Project Mu pads, given the colour. But couldn't tell whether they were NS400 or something more track ready. Either way, fluid was probably YEARS old and no good.
So approached Garage460 - the new sponsors and organised for a full Project Mu upgrade - HC800s pads, CRD 314mm rotors and G-Four 335 fluid!
Wheel Alignment
Got a wheel alignment at a shop called Raceline. Went with the settings below as a starting point, which is in line with what I'd expect for a FR car.
Front:
Camber: -2 deg
Toe: 0mm per side
Castor: 6 deg
Rear:
Camber: -1.5 deg
Toe: 1.5mm IN per side (3mm total)
By the way, can someone explain what is up with the Pettit recommended alignment settings that seem to be quoted on the forums here and there? They seem wildly different to what I (and most suspension shops I've talked to) would recommend. -0.8 deg camber on the front and -0.2 deg camber on the rear seems really, really low...
(is it just me or do you guys also find yourself admiring your own car when it 's up on a hoist like some narcissistic idiot?)
Voltex Type 1 Wing
I had actually bought this Voltex Type 1 wing secondhand from Yahoo Auctions Japan before I had even received the car and it had sat in my garage for ages. It has a width of only 1500mm and a chord length of 270mm (which was a bit disappointing actually - I was hoping it was the larger 1600mm one and the longer chord length version).
It's not really a motorsport grade wing, but I figured it'd be good enough until I developed the front aero enough to match a more serious Topstage V3 wing.
I had actually held off on the install because the stock Series 8 wing looks so damn good. The FD is probably the only 90s sports car that looks prettiest stock, and most exterior mods detract from that slim and sleek form. That rear end with the stock wing is probably the best looking thing on the car.
But well, no point delaying it. So in it went. Piece of cake really - just 4 new holes drilled and done.
And there goes that perfect *** too... :-(
AGI Half Cage
You don't see half cages on many street driven cars at track days, but in the MX5 world the complete lack of rollover protection meant it was considered the most basic track day preparation mod. That attitude carried over to the FD and so it became another prerequisite for the first track outing.
This car was going to be way quicker than anything I had previously driven and I'd be potentially taking Turn 1 at Phillip Island at over 200km/h, so safety was really something I needed to start thinking about seriously. (Also, it looks freaking cool - don't you know they add +50 coolness points?)
The AGI Half Cage is an off the shelf, bolt-in Australian made (though interstate) cage for pretty good value! Though bolt-in isn't really that accurate, as I was surprised to find that there are platforms/feet that need to be welded in (which I got done by Brown Davis - a local roll cage fabricator), which the cage bolts to.
Interlude - Mt Donna Buang Photoshoot
Finally, a chance to actually drive the car. I had owned it for 7 months at this stage, of which it had spent most of its time perpetually pulled apart and only really driven to tune, test something or take it to a shop. I hadn't really had a chance to actually enjoy the thing yet.
So (queue the Eurobeat) I decided to take it up to some of the local mountain roads to give it a bit of a bit of a mountain run. It may not have come close to the MX5 in terms of agility and driver confidence, but it sure came a lot closer than I was expecting for something heavier, with wider tyres and more power. Took a bit of time to get used to driving turbo, as I found myself instinctively shifting as soon as the turbo spooled up (at around 4500rpm) instead of taking it to redline.
I also brought my DSLR along and took some photos in some rather aesthetic conditions.
To be continued...
The Project Gets a Name!
(or how I reveal how much of a weeb I still am)
The standard VicRoads number plate is wider than the Japanese shape, and this led to a rather ugly number plate fitment with the ends on the rear bent to fit and the front plate just sitting too wide on the stock holder.
VicRoads do have custom number plates you can buy, with various shapes and style available - including a Japanese number plate shape and style designed to fit imports. But what registration number should I run?
Clearly an important decision, that needed much thought! I am a geeky, nerdy otaku weeb who would deep down prefer to just watch anime all day than play with cars. So clearly, I needed to make homage to that. So after agonizing over ideas, I finally went with 7DERE, which would become the project name.
What does it mean?
Well, for all you normal human beings who aren't anime obsessed weirdos out there, there's this Japanese term "tsundere". For all us sad, worthless freaks of nature, anime often panders to our sex-starved selves by producing shows with an equally sad main male character surrounding by a harem of shallow, poorly developed character which can often fall into several cliche archetypes.
Tsundere is one of most common. The girl who acts like she hates the main character and spends most of the time beating him up or insulting him, but secretly likes him deep down. There's other -deres too - the very shy dandere, the cool and collected kuudere and of course the batshit psychopath murderous terrifying willkilleveryoneyouloveincludingyou yandere.
ANYWAY.
The point is. Sevendere. The car. It is unreliable, expensive, time intensive, never runs and yet....secretly deep down, you love it and she loves you too. (You can also go the yandere interpretation and assume she's probably going to kill me on the track someday).
Get it?
Eheheh.
Heh.
...
Moving on.
(I feel like every single time I'm judged by society a little harder each time I make that explanation).
(Pssst, top secret spoiler: Itasha IS on the cards in the future, so this post is good practice at throwing away all of my dignity)
First Sponsor - Welcoming Garage460 to Project 7dere
A friend of a friend - that's usually how it goes - owns an Australia performance parts distributor, Garage460.
He had heard about my Time Attack plans and was interesting in supporting the car. I was pretty stoked - I hadn't even set a lap time and I was already potentially looking at taking a big step up in terms of being a serious competitor. Biggest difference between the FD and any of my previous cars - you get attention without needing to prove yourself with lap times.
Not gonna lie, I scrutinized the aesthetics of the logo before deciding it would look absolutely awesome on the car and accepting. I reckon it looks mad on the car!
Project Mu Brake Upgrade
What are the basics of track prep? Fluid and pads.
Not sure what the car was running previously. Think they may have actually been Project Mu pads, given the colour. But couldn't tell whether they were NS400 or something more track ready. Either way, fluid was probably YEARS old and no good.
So approached Garage460 - the new sponsors and organised for a full Project Mu upgrade - HC800s pads, CRD 314mm rotors and G-Four 335 fluid!
Wheel Alignment
Got a wheel alignment at a shop called Raceline. Went with the settings below as a starting point, which is in line with what I'd expect for a FR car.
Front:
Camber: -2 deg
Toe: 0mm per side
Castor: 6 deg
Rear:
Camber: -1.5 deg
Toe: 1.5mm IN per side (3mm total)
By the way, can someone explain what is up with the Pettit recommended alignment settings that seem to be quoted on the forums here and there? They seem wildly different to what I (and most suspension shops I've talked to) would recommend. -0.8 deg camber on the front and -0.2 deg camber on the rear seems really, really low...
(is it just me or do you guys also find yourself admiring your own car when it 's up on a hoist like some narcissistic idiot?)
Voltex Type 1 Wing
I had actually bought this Voltex Type 1 wing secondhand from Yahoo Auctions Japan before I had even received the car and it had sat in my garage for ages. It has a width of only 1500mm and a chord length of 270mm (which was a bit disappointing actually - I was hoping it was the larger 1600mm one and the longer chord length version).
It's not really a motorsport grade wing, but I figured it'd be good enough until I developed the front aero enough to match a more serious Topstage V3 wing.
I had actually held off on the install because the stock Series 8 wing looks so damn good. The FD is probably the only 90s sports car that looks prettiest stock, and most exterior mods detract from that slim and sleek form. That rear end with the stock wing is probably the best looking thing on the car.
But well, no point delaying it. So in it went. Piece of cake really - just 4 new holes drilled and done.
And there goes that perfect *** too... :-(
AGI Half Cage
You don't see half cages on many street driven cars at track days, but in the MX5 world the complete lack of rollover protection meant it was considered the most basic track day preparation mod. That attitude carried over to the FD and so it became another prerequisite for the first track outing.
This car was going to be way quicker than anything I had previously driven and I'd be potentially taking Turn 1 at Phillip Island at over 200km/h, so safety was really something I needed to start thinking about seriously. (Also, it looks freaking cool - don't you know they add +50 coolness points?)
The AGI Half Cage is an off the shelf, bolt-in Australian made (though interstate) cage for pretty good value! Though bolt-in isn't really that accurate, as I was surprised to find that there are platforms/feet that need to be welded in (which I got done by Brown Davis - a local roll cage fabricator), which the cage bolts to.
Interlude - Mt Donna Buang Photoshoot
Finally, a chance to actually drive the car. I had owned it for 7 months at this stage, of which it had spent most of its time perpetually pulled apart and only really driven to tune, test something or take it to a shop. I hadn't really had a chance to actually enjoy the thing yet.
So (queue the Eurobeat) I decided to take it up to some of the local mountain roads to give it a bit of a bit of a mountain run. It may not have come close to the MX5 in terms of agility and driver confidence, but it sure came a lot closer than I was expecting for something heavier, with wider tyres and more power. Took a bit of time to get used to driving turbo, as I found myself instinctively shifting as soon as the turbo spooled up (at around 4500rpm) instead of taking it to redline.
I also brought my DSLR along and took some photos in some rather aesthetic conditions.
To be continued...
Last edited by Jarik; 05-13-17 at 10:00 AM.
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05-14-17 | 03:05 AM
#9
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
The Story So Far - Part 4
The Story So Far - Part 4
Air Pump Delete
The air pump wasn't really doing anything. I had disabled it while tuning so it wouldn't muck up my wideband readings and never bothered to turn it back on again. It adds a lot of clutter in the engine bay and well, it's not like the car was going to be passing emissions anyway. So time for removal!
After much reading, I opted to go for an idler pulley setup to maximize surface area contact on the water pump pulley. Bought the FFE billet kit, which looks beautiful and fits together perfectly (albeit a bit expensive). Blocked the air pump feed from the intake with a rubber chair leg cap.
Removing the air pump also meant I could get rid of the ACV, ACV piping and the solenoid box, leading to a lot more space above the turbo and intake manifold and a weight saving. Photo below shows all the things that could be pulled out of the car. Only downside is now I have about 15 connectors just zip tied and taped together bouncing around under the UIM doing nothing.
Topstage Bonnet Vents
Bonnet vents. An important mod on a time attack car like this. Not only does it assist in engine bay cooling and V-mount intercooler effectiveness, but it also acts as a major aerodynamic component that increases downforce by encouraging air to exit out the bonnet instead of being sucked under the car (increasing the pressure under the car).
I was originally planned to go for an RE Amemiya AD9 bonnet (like everyone else I guess) and was tossing up whether to go for a secondhand genuine one from Japan or buy a locally made replica.
But after going to WTAC 2016, I decided to go for another option - OEM bonnet with Topstage Composites V3 universal bonnet vents. Half the field in Clubsprint and Open Class were running these, with a lot of the top runners running complete Topstage V3 aero packages.
Bought the pair for $460AUD, bought a spare bonnet and started hacking away!
Freddy Carbon's recommendation was to install them as far to the sides as possible. This is where the air pressure is lowest which encourages more air to be sucked out through the bonnets (remember that it is fighting against the lower pressure under the car too, and if it's too far inward, the air will tend to go to the lowest pressure path). The other benefit of installing them to the sides is it means you don't get turbulent air flowing over the top of the car.
It's a bit scary cutting into a perfectly nice piece of body work - especially given it was my first time using an angle grinder. I should have probably been worried when I recruited a mate with a bit more experience in using one (he's the one in the photo below), especially when he got a particularly mad gleam in his eye over the prospect of butchering my car, but with his help we managed to do a reasonable job.
The vents are stuck down with a generous amount of Sikaflex 11F. One of the corners stick up a tiny bit due to the curve of the bonnet, so I might rivet it on in the future to hold it down.
Overall, couldn't be happier with the result. Retains the pretty curves of the stock bonnet while giving it a track spec look. It went from being a "budget alternative to RE Amemiya" to being something I actually prefer the aesthetics of.
KTS 6 Point Strut Bar
The amount the roll cage stiffened the chassis got me addicted to chassis stiffening and it made me want to replace the stock strut bar with something a bit more heavy duty.
Ended up going for the KTS 6 point strut bar. A lot cheaper than the AutoEXE version, though made out of steel (where I believe the former is made out of aluminium).
To be honest, it's an absolute pain to live with. Removing the strut bar now involves 10 bolts and more annoyingly, it also won't come out unless I jack the car up and drop the struts. Guh. Stick with a normal 3 point next time. Looks good though.
Custom Intercooler Piping and Ducting
Shorter piping
With the extra space above the turbo after the air pump cancel, it meant I had the option to simplify my intercooler piping.
The main driver here was the fact that my Greddy Type R blow off valve didn't seem to be working at all. Was getting mad flutters shifting at full boost, with not even the tiniest Pssshhhh from the BOV. I had figured (incorrectly) it might have been because the blow off valve may have been fitted with the stiffer spring and wouldn't open for the mere 0.7 bar I was running. New blow off valve meant new mount and if I was going to get someone to weld on a bung, might as well upgrade the whole system.
(The other thing was I thought I was in this delusional reality where a nice policeman would let me off without a defect if I had a plumb back system, conveniently ignoring every other mod on the car.)
Ordered a Greddy throttle elbow and then made a visit to the local motorsport parts shop let me measure up and buy a bunch of aluminium and silicon bends to suit.
A mate of mine had this ingenious idea of making his own beading tool by modifying some vice grips, avoiding having to pay someone else to do the beading.
It did a decent job! Except it took 3 hours to do 2 aluminium tubes (4 ends) and absolutely destroyed my hands afterward. Oww.
Turbosmart blow off valve
Went with a Turbosmart Vee-Port for the blow off valve, a hellova lot smaller than the Greddy Type R and as far as I can tell (and you can probably tell that my plans of a plumb back system sort of disappeared at this point). Got a fabricator to weld on the bung and installed it.
Except it still didn't work.
Ended up debugging the problem to find it was a problem with the vacuum hose at the tee joint, which was held on by a loose zip tie that was clearly allowing some air to escape at high vacuum, preventing the BOV from operating properly. Putting a proper clamp on this fixed the problem and no more flutters under boost. So probably could have stayed with the Type R in the end but meh.
Now it goes "psssshhhh" instead of "suuuuutututututututu".
Intercooler Ducting
The next step was to force more air through the intercooler, as there were currently two large gaps that would allow a significant amount of air to bypass it. I have never understood why these V-mount intercooler kits don't come with these ducting systems stock.
Used some really cheap brackets from Bunnings (our local hardware store chain) and a thin aluminium sheet. Uses mostly stock bolts that were already on the car - only needed to add two rivnuts to mount the right side.
...and a splash of red to finish it off!
Replaced the HKS mushroom filter with a bright red BMC air filter. The result makes for a pretty colourful engine bay!
To be continued...
Air Pump Delete
The air pump wasn't really doing anything. I had disabled it while tuning so it wouldn't muck up my wideband readings and never bothered to turn it back on again. It adds a lot of clutter in the engine bay and well, it's not like the car was going to be passing emissions anyway. So time for removal!
After much reading, I opted to go for an idler pulley setup to maximize surface area contact on the water pump pulley. Bought the FFE billet kit, which looks beautiful and fits together perfectly (albeit a bit expensive). Blocked the air pump feed from the intake with a rubber chair leg cap.
Removing the air pump also meant I could get rid of the ACV, ACV piping and the solenoid box, leading to a lot more space above the turbo and intake manifold and a weight saving. Photo below shows all the things that could be pulled out of the car. Only downside is now I have about 15 connectors just zip tied and taped together bouncing around under the UIM doing nothing.
Topstage Bonnet Vents
Bonnet vents. An important mod on a time attack car like this. Not only does it assist in engine bay cooling and V-mount intercooler effectiveness, but it also acts as a major aerodynamic component that increases downforce by encouraging air to exit out the bonnet instead of being sucked under the car (increasing the pressure under the car).
I was originally planned to go for an RE Amemiya AD9 bonnet (like everyone else I guess) and was tossing up whether to go for a secondhand genuine one from Japan or buy a locally made replica.
But after going to WTAC 2016, I decided to go for another option - OEM bonnet with Topstage Composites V3 universal bonnet vents. Half the field in Clubsprint and Open Class were running these, with a lot of the top runners running complete Topstage V3 aero packages.
Bought the pair for $460AUD, bought a spare bonnet and started hacking away!
Freddy Carbon's recommendation was to install them as far to the sides as possible. This is where the air pressure is lowest which encourages more air to be sucked out through the bonnets (remember that it is fighting against the lower pressure under the car too, and if it's too far inward, the air will tend to go to the lowest pressure path). The other benefit of installing them to the sides is it means you don't get turbulent air flowing over the top of the car.
It's a bit scary cutting into a perfectly nice piece of body work - especially given it was my first time using an angle grinder. I should have probably been worried when I recruited a mate with a bit more experience in using one (he's the one in the photo below), especially when he got a particularly mad gleam in his eye over the prospect of butchering my car, but with his help we managed to do a reasonable job.
The vents are stuck down with a generous amount of Sikaflex 11F. One of the corners stick up a tiny bit due to the curve of the bonnet, so I might rivet it on in the future to hold it down.
Overall, couldn't be happier with the result. Retains the pretty curves of the stock bonnet while giving it a track spec look. It went from being a "budget alternative to RE Amemiya" to being something I actually prefer the aesthetics of.
KTS 6 Point Strut Bar
The amount the roll cage stiffened the chassis got me addicted to chassis stiffening and it made me want to replace the stock strut bar with something a bit more heavy duty.
Ended up going for the KTS 6 point strut bar. A lot cheaper than the AutoEXE version, though made out of steel (where I believe the former is made out of aluminium).
To be honest, it's an absolute pain to live with. Removing the strut bar now involves 10 bolts and more annoyingly, it also won't come out unless I jack the car up and drop the struts. Guh. Stick with a normal 3 point next time. Looks good though.
Custom Intercooler Piping and Ducting
Shorter piping
With the extra space above the turbo after the air pump cancel, it meant I had the option to simplify my intercooler piping.
The main driver here was the fact that my Greddy Type R blow off valve didn't seem to be working at all. Was getting mad flutters shifting at full boost, with not even the tiniest Pssshhhh from the BOV. I had figured (incorrectly) it might have been because the blow off valve may have been fitted with the stiffer spring and wouldn't open for the mere 0.7 bar I was running. New blow off valve meant new mount and if I was going to get someone to weld on a bung, might as well upgrade the whole system.
(The other thing was I thought I was in this delusional reality where a nice policeman would let me off without a defect if I had a plumb back system, conveniently ignoring every other mod on the car.)
Ordered a Greddy throttle elbow and then made a visit to the local motorsport parts shop let me measure up and buy a bunch of aluminium and silicon bends to suit.
A mate of mine had this ingenious idea of making his own beading tool by modifying some vice grips, avoiding having to pay someone else to do the beading.
It did a decent job! Except it took 3 hours to do 2 aluminium tubes (4 ends) and absolutely destroyed my hands afterward. Oww.
Turbosmart blow off valve
Went with a Turbosmart Vee-Port for the blow off valve, a hellova lot smaller than the Greddy Type R and as far as I can tell (and you can probably tell that my plans of a plumb back system sort of disappeared at this point). Got a fabricator to weld on the bung and installed it.
Except it still didn't work.
Ended up debugging the problem to find it was a problem with the vacuum hose at the tee joint, which was held on by a loose zip tie that was clearly allowing some air to escape at high vacuum, preventing the BOV from operating properly. Putting a proper clamp on this fixed the problem and no more flutters under boost. So probably could have stayed with the Type R in the end but meh.
Now it goes "psssshhhh" instead of "suuuuutututututututu".
Intercooler Ducting
The next step was to force more air through the intercooler, as there were currently two large gaps that would allow a significant amount of air to bypass it. I have never understood why these V-mount intercooler kits don't come with these ducting systems stock.
Used some really cheap brackets from Bunnings (our local hardware store chain) and a thin aluminium sheet. Uses mostly stock bolts that were already on the car - only needed to add two rivnuts to mount the right side.
...and a splash of red to finish it off!
Replaced the HKS mushroom filter with a bright red BMC air filter. The result makes for a pretty colourful engine bay!
To be continued...
08-09-17 | 08:37 AM
#11
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
Thanks mate! Looking forward to see what it looks like with 285s soon!
The car is being built for World Time Attack Challenge, Clubsprint Class and so far has competed in Vic Time Attack.
This write up is still way back in January. There has been a LOT that has happened since then. I've just beentoo busy doing stuff on the car to do the write up too lazy.
Here's some teasers though - 1barMCARedsSurgetankPierbergSchrothFastestrotaryin streetclass850ccprimaries
I keep the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/project7dere/ - a bit more up to date so far. Also on instagram at @project7dere.
Will endeavor to update this build soon though!
The car is being built for World Time Attack Challenge, Clubsprint Class and so far has competed in Vic Time Attack.
This write up is still way back in January. There has been a LOT that has happened since then. I've just been
Here's some teasers though - 1barMCARedsSurgetankPierbergSchrothFastestrotaryin streetclass850ccprimaries
I keep the Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/project7dere/ - a bit more up to date so far. Also on instagram at @project7dere.
Will endeavor to update this build soon though!
Last edited by Jarik; 08-15-17 at 03:54 AM.
08-15-17 | 04:47 AM
#12
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
The Story So Far - Part 5
At the rate I'm going, we're going to be perpetually in the "The Story So Far" mode as I will never actually get up to date...
Tow Hooks
As anyone who has frequented track days know, tow hooks are often encouraged or even required by many of the racing bodies. It's so that when you break down or get bogged in the sand traps, the tow vehicles have a safe point to clip onto that doesn't completely destroy your body work.
(Real Reason: They look cool)
Most of the JDM options are a complete rip off. Both FEED and RE Amemiya sell a rear tow hook, which is like those eBay style universal ones that just clips onto your existing factory hook for what comes to around $150-200 shipped!
But while browsing eBay, I came across an American eBay store called Griffith Performance that sold this cool, chassis mounted rear tow hook that replaced the stock one for a lot less.
The front was a bit harder.
The car had already come with a mount for a swivel type tow hook, but the actual tow hook was stolen (probably stolen in transit).
It was tapped to M20x1.25, which wasn't a size any other car seemed to use.
In the end what I did was buy a LAILE tow hook to suit a NC MX-5/Miata which was M20x1.5, cut the existing tow hook mount shorter and re-tap it to the right size.
Result looks great and is again, a portion of the price of the overpriced RE Amemiya swivel tow hook kits.
Should also add the addition of Liquid R, a Melbourne based company that has this unique hand applied clear-coat paint restoration and protection service, as a sponsor.
Harness and Driver Safety
My previous cars were nothing special and not all that quick. As such, a cheap $100 helmet and Sparco 4 point harness was always good enough.
But given the prospect that the FD3S would be going a lot quicker and hence any crashes would be a lot worse, I decided to invest in upgrading my driver safety kit.
The first was buying a Schroth Profi-II 6H HANS harness. The anti-submarining belts would avoid the issues of having your ribs caved in by a 4 point harness at high speed.
Schroth are obviously the top of the line harness, but I don't regret it at all. The adjustments and hardware are so smooth to use and the fact they can be reconfigured as either pull up or pull down also makes them quite versatile. Much prefer adjusting these to my old Sparco Race-4 harness.
The next thing was buying a HANS device and a proper, HANS compliant helmet.
Battery Fuse
The electrical protection engineer in me was super anxious over the the fact that I had long power cables from the battery (with minimal mechanical protection with the trim removed) and no fuse at the battery end. It presented a major arcing and fire risk, particularly as I would be driving the car up to my first track day filled with tools and spare parts.
Had a spare fuse holder and 120A fuse on hand, so added that into the little battery box.
First Track Day - Phillip Island
It was finally time to see how the car actually drove in anger!
Phillip Island wasn't necessarily the best track to start off with in an unfamiliar car. It is a high speed, terrifying circuit that has fantastic surface and wide road, but with Vic Time Attack approaching quickly, I needed some practice there.
I still hadn't sorted out buying a tow car or organising a trailer, so decided to drive the car 2.5 hours to the track and cross my fingers that I would be driving home again at the end of the day.
The MX5 had honed in my tetris skills in terms of fitting as many tools and spare parts into the car as possible. The FD is so much easier in comparison.
The target I had set myself was 1:53, 7 seconds faster than my previous PB set in the MX5. If I could hit that, I would be entering Vic Time Attack, otherwise I would wait another year.
I won't bore you with my rather boring lap video, which isn't something I was particularly proud of, but one thing everyone DID note was that my car was surprisingly the quietest thing on the field.
The RE Amemiya titanium dolphin tail exhaust certainly droned loudly inside the cabin, but from outside the car was barely noticeable. What WAS loud were the 595RS-RR tyres which whined insanely. You can hear the fly by videos here:
It was amazing how much more stable the car felt on the high speed track when compared to the MX5.
The MX5 was fantastic on slower tracks like Winton, where it's agility, driver feedback and response made it so easy to push hard, but it never felt planted at high speeds (even known to get lift on the rear at high speeds!) and Phillip Island was always terrifying in it. Video below was probably one of my highest adrenaline filled moments on the track from the MX5 from Turn 1.
Being a new car, I was very slowly working my way back up to the 185km/h entry speed I had managed in the MX5. I was probably only doing about 160-170km/h in the FD at this stage, but it felt very stable and comfortable at this speed. However when looking over the data, I realized that my speedo was reading 10% below the GPS speed, so I was actually already matching my MX5 speed and it felt so slow and easy in comparison!
In my last session I managed it - a 1:53.00 flat! I was still taking it very easily and knew the car had plenty more once I got used to it, but looks like I was heading to Vic Time Attack in a month!
Exhaust Wrap
One thing I had realized at the track day was just how ridiculously hot the exhaust can get. After each session the bonnet above the turbo was too hot to touch and everything in the engine bay could have melted plastic.
Wrapped the dump pipe in DEI titanium wrap for now, but will follow up with some heat shielding projects in the future.
Moar Powa!
The next thing I decided to do was make use of my HKS EVC5.
At that stage it was entirely off, with boost running off wastegate spring pressure. This meant 0.7 bar at 4500rpm, tapering to 0.65bar at redline.
Unfortunately, the HKS EVC was not connected to a tachometer input, so I wasn't able to make corrections against rpm.
The result was tuning the car for a 1bar peak at 4500rpm, which quickly fell away to 0.85bar at redline.
This was the maximum the fuel system could supply, with all injectors basically wide open at 100% at 8000rpm.
Ready for Vic Time Attack
Waited until the last day it was open until pulling the trigger and putting in my Street Class entry into VTA.
Bring it on!
At the rate I'm going, we're going to be perpetually in the "The Story So Far" mode as I will never actually get up to date...
Tow Hooks
As anyone who has frequented track days know, tow hooks are often encouraged or even required by many of the racing bodies. It's so that when you break down or get bogged in the sand traps, the tow vehicles have a safe point to clip onto that doesn't completely destroy your body work.
(Real Reason: They look cool)
Most of the JDM options are a complete rip off. Both FEED and RE Amemiya sell a rear tow hook, which is like those eBay style universal ones that just clips onto your existing factory hook for what comes to around $150-200 shipped!
But while browsing eBay, I came across an American eBay store called Griffith Performance that sold this cool, chassis mounted rear tow hook that replaced the stock one for a lot less.
The front was a bit harder.
The car had already come with a mount for a swivel type tow hook, but the actual tow hook was stolen (probably stolen in transit).
It was tapped to M20x1.25, which wasn't a size any other car seemed to use.
In the end what I did was buy a LAILE tow hook to suit a NC MX-5/Miata which was M20x1.5, cut the existing tow hook mount shorter and re-tap it to the right size.
Result looks great and is again, a portion of the price of the overpriced RE Amemiya swivel tow hook kits.
Should also add the addition of Liquid R, a Melbourne based company that has this unique hand applied clear-coat paint restoration and protection service, as a sponsor.
Harness and Driver Safety
My previous cars were nothing special and not all that quick. As such, a cheap $100 helmet and Sparco 4 point harness was always good enough.
But given the prospect that the FD3S would be going a lot quicker and hence any crashes would be a lot worse, I decided to invest in upgrading my driver safety kit.
The first was buying a Schroth Profi-II 6H HANS harness. The anti-submarining belts would avoid the issues of having your ribs caved in by a 4 point harness at high speed.
Schroth are obviously the top of the line harness, but I don't regret it at all. The adjustments and hardware are so smooth to use and the fact they can be reconfigured as either pull up or pull down also makes them quite versatile. Much prefer adjusting these to my old Sparco Race-4 harness.
The next thing was buying a HANS device and a proper, HANS compliant helmet.
Battery Fuse
The electrical protection engineer in me was super anxious over the the fact that I had long power cables from the battery (with minimal mechanical protection with the trim removed) and no fuse at the battery end. It presented a major arcing and fire risk, particularly as I would be driving the car up to my first track day filled with tools and spare parts.
Had a spare fuse holder and 120A fuse on hand, so added that into the little battery box.
First Track Day - Phillip Island
It was finally time to see how the car actually drove in anger!
Phillip Island wasn't necessarily the best track to start off with in an unfamiliar car. It is a high speed, terrifying circuit that has fantastic surface and wide road, but with Vic Time Attack approaching quickly, I needed some practice there.
I still hadn't sorted out buying a tow car or organising a trailer, so decided to drive the car 2.5 hours to the track and cross my fingers that I would be driving home again at the end of the day.
The MX5 had honed in my tetris skills in terms of fitting as many tools and spare parts into the car as possible. The FD is so much easier in comparison.
The target I had set myself was 1:53, 7 seconds faster than my previous PB set in the MX5. If I could hit that, I would be entering Vic Time Attack, otherwise I would wait another year.
I won't bore you with my rather boring lap video, which isn't something I was particularly proud of, but one thing everyone DID note was that my car was surprisingly the quietest thing on the field.
The RE Amemiya titanium dolphin tail exhaust certainly droned loudly inside the cabin, but from outside the car was barely noticeable. What WAS loud were the 595RS-RR tyres which whined insanely. You can hear the fly by videos here:
It was amazing how much more stable the car felt on the high speed track when compared to the MX5.
The MX5 was fantastic on slower tracks like Winton, where it's agility, driver feedback and response made it so easy to push hard, but it never felt planted at high speeds (even known to get lift on the rear at high speeds!) and Phillip Island was always terrifying in it. Video below was probably one of my highest adrenaline filled moments on the track from the MX5 from Turn 1.
Being a new car, I was very slowly working my way back up to the 185km/h entry speed I had managed in the MX5. I was probably only doing about 160-170km/h in the FD at this stage, but it felt very stable and comfortable at this speed. However when looking over the data, I realized that my speedo was reading 10% below the GPS speed, so I was actually already matching my MX5 speed and it felt so slow and easy in comparison!
In my last session I managed it - a 1:53.00 flat! I was still taking it very easily and knew the car had plenty more once I got used to it, but looks like I was heading to Vic Time Attack in a month!
Exhaust Wrap
One thing I had realized at the track day was just how ridiculously hot the exhaust can get. After each session the bonnet above the turbo was too hot to touch and everything in the engine bay could have melted plastic.
Wrapped the dump pipe in DEI titanium wrap for now, but will follow up with some heat shielding projects in the future.
Moar Powa!
The next thing I decided to do was make use of my HKS EVC5.
At that stage it was entirely off, with boost running off wastegate spring pressure. This meant 0.7 bar at 4500rpm, tapering to 0.65bar at redline.
Unfortunately, the HKS EVC was not connected to a tachometer input, so I wasn't able to make corrections against rpm.
The result was tuning the car for a 1bar peak at 4500rpm, which quickly fell away to 0.85bar at redline.
This was the maximum the fuel system could supply, with all injectors basically wide open at 100% at 8000rpm.
Ready for Vic Time Attack
Waited until the last day it was open until pulling the trigger and putting in my Street Class entry into VTA.
Bring it on!
Last edited by Jarik; 08-15-17 at 04:56 AM.
08-15-17 | 05:51 AM
#13
Thread Starter
Full Member
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 54
Likes: 6
From: Melbourne, Australia
The Story So Far - Part 6
Vic Time Attack 2017
It was time.
My first competitive motorsport event.
****.
I wasn't ready at all.
Only one track day in the car so far. Heaps of things with my DIY tune that I wasn't comfortable with yet. Long list of items that I hadn't gotten around to doing yet. Didn't even have a tow car or trailer yet, so I had to stress about losing my ride home.
We were up until 12am the night before just getting the car together, with some stupid last minute "We've still got some time left, how about we do this project?" comments. Didn't exactly get much sleep afterward, with the anxiety, anticipation and excitement running through my head that night.
The alarm went off at 4am and I jumped in the car with my mind racing through a mental checklist over and over again. Did I have my license? Did I have all the tools I needed? Did I remember to torque up my bolts? ****, did I plug that sensor back in? Why are my AFRs reading weird?
Picked up my mate and we started the drive up to Phillip Island.
Drive you say? In a Street Class competitor car? How novel!
The gun was cocked and the game of rotary roulette had started - were we going to drive back at the end of the day, or would the spinning cylinder land on bits and pieces of apex seals? Nothing like a bit of reliability anxiety to spice up the day!
Vic Time Attack is a relatively new competition, being born of the success of World Time Attack and almost seen as a preparation to the main event in October.
I felt a bit out of place, driving the car through the gates (which had a strict no competitor engines started before 8am - whoops) surrounded by race cars on trailers all over the place.
It was nice actually having a garage for once. It usually costs extra to have one, so I've always just left all my tools in the middle of a spot in the trailer car park and parked the car there. It doesn't always end well, and I've had someone run over my tools before, which is not fun.
We added some sponsor flags, and it really made the us seem a whole lot more serious than I felt.
Unlike WTAC (which tends to pull in 30,000+ spectators per year), VTA wasn't a big spectator event, but I did see lots of people carrying around DSLRs that made the photographer in my envious.
Having always had uninteresting, budget builds in the past, it was such a weird experience in the following days to see photos of my car pop up all over my Facebook feed from car blogs and photography pages I followed. Actually having a car that other people take notice of.
Felt surreal driving on track among many of the cars which I had followed on Facebook, drooled over at WTAC and had a whole stack of photos on my HDDs (somehow that sounds a bit creepy....)
But once I got over my awe of the event, it was time to start chasing lap times HARD!
Being my second track day in the car, I was still in the process of getting used to the car. As such, I made the decision to focus entirely on driving and ignore playing around with the car settings apart from monitoring the tyre pressures as the track heated up through the day. I also started the day at wastegate spring pressure and only went to the 1bar-tapering-to-0.85bar setting in the last session.
I saw my lap times tumble from the previous 1:53.00 PB very quickly. I had gone over videos from my previous track day and knew where I could make time.
It was just about aggressively trying stuff. Increasing the entrance speed to Turn 1 with each session. Lifting off less and less into Turn 11. Hitting Turn 3 without lifting. Etc.
Results
In the end I wiped off almost 5 seconds and ended up with a 1:48.20 in the final session!
14 seconds faster than my MX5 PB - holy ****!
In VTA 2016, a 1:48.20 would have put me in third place, but the entry list had grown significantly, with many Street Class competitors being veteran WTAC competitors coming from interstate due to the fantastic success of the event. The result was that I only managed 11th place (out of around 23), with a 7 seconds gap from first place.
Still, to my shock I actually won an award for Fastest Rotary in Street Class!
It was a bit of a participation award given that there were only 3 rotaries in Street Class, but I still couldn't keep a stupid grin from my face for the whole drive back.
Fastest Lap Video
The following video has my two fastest laps, put down in the last session. In the first lap I pulled a 1:48.60 and that's while taking half of Turn 2 sideways at 120km/h. There must be at least a second in fixing up that corner alone!
Wrap Up
Overall a super successful event that greatly exceeded my expectations. More than that, it filled me confidence for 2018.
This was only the second track day in the car, and there was a lot of time to be made by better driving. I was in the very early stages of the project and hadn't even started any of the major improvements yet.
I could do this!
Vic Time Attack 2017
It was time.
My first competitive motorsport event.
****.
I wasn't ready at all.
Only one track day in the car so far. Heaps of things with my DIY tune that I wasn't comfortable with yet. Long list of items that I hadn't gotten around to doing yet. Didn't even have a tow car or trailer yet, so I had to stress about losing my ride home.
We were up until 12am the night before just getting the car together, with some stupid last minute "We've still got some time left, how about we do this project?" comments. Didn't exactly get much sleep afterward, with the anxiety, anticipation and excitement running through my head that night.
The alarm went off at 4am and I jumped in the car with my mind racing through a mental checklist over and over again. Did I have my license? Did I have all the tools I needed? Did I remember to torque up my bolts? ****, did I plug that sensor back in? Why are my AFRs reading weird?
Picked up my mate and we started the drive up to Phillip Island.
Drive you say? In a Street Class competitor car? How novel!
The gun was cocked and the game of rotary roulette had started - were we going to drive back at the end of the day, or would the spinning cylinder land on bits and pieces of apex seals? Nothing like a bit of reliability anxiety to spice up the day!
Vic Time Attack is a relatively new competition, being born of the success of World Time Attack and almost seen as a preparation to the main event in October.
I felt a bit out of place, driving the car through the gates (which had a strict no competitor engines started before 8am - whoops) surrounded by race cars on trailers all over the place.
It was nice actually having a garage for once. It usually costs extra to have one, so I've always just left all my tools in the middle of a spot in the trailer car park and parked the car there. It doesn't always end well, and I've had someone run over my tools before, which is not fun.
We added some sponsor flags, and it really made the us seem a whole lot more serious than I felt.
Unlike WTAC (which tends to pull in 30,000+ spectators per year), VTA wasn't a big spectator event, but I did see lots of people carrying around DSLRs that made the photographer in my envious.
Having always had uninteresting, budget builds in the past, it was such a weird experience in the following days to see photos of my car pop up all over my Facebook feed from car blogs and photography pages I followed. Actually having a car that other people take notice of.
Felt surreal driving on track among many of the cars which I had followed on Facebook, drooled over at WTAC and had a whole stack of photos on my HDDs (somehow that sounds a bit creepy....)
But once I got over my awe of the event, it was time to start chasing lap times HARD!
Being my second track day in the car, I was still in the process of getting used to the car. As such, I made the decision to focus entirely on driving and ignore playing around with the car settings apart from monitoring the tyre pressures as the track heated up through the day. I also started the day at wastegate spring pressure and only went to the 1bar-tapering-to-0.85bar setting in the last session.
I saw my lap times tumble from the previous 1:53.00 PB very quickly. I had gone over videos from my previous track day and knew where I could make time.
It was just about aggressively trying stuff. Increasing the entrance speed to Turn 1 with each session. Lifting off less and less into Turn 11. Hitting Turn 3 without lifting. Etc.
Results
In the end I wiped off almost 5 seconds and ended up with a 1:48.20 in the final session!
14 seconds faster than my MX5 PB - holy ****!
In VTA 2016, a 1:48.20 would have put me in third place, but the entry list had grown significantly, with many Street Class competitors being veteran WTAC competitors coming from interstate due to the fantastic success of the event. The result was that I only managed 11th place (out of around 23), with a 7 seconds gap from first place.
Still, to my shock I actually won an award for Fastest Rotary in Street Class!
It was a bit of a participation award given that there were only 3 rotaries in Street Class, but I still couldn't keep a stupid grin from my face for the whole drive back.
Fastest Lap Video
The following video has my two fastest laps, put down in the last session. In the first lap I pulled a 1:48.60 and that's while taking half of Turn 2 sideways at 120km/h. There must be at least a second in fixing up that corner alone!
Wrap Up
Overall a super successful event that greatly exceeded my expectations. More than that, it filled me confidence for 2018.
This was only the second track day in the car, and there was a lot of time to be made by better driving. I was in the very early stages of the project and hadn't even started any of the major improvements yet.
I could do this!
Last edited by Jarik; 08-15-17 at 05:53 AM.
