CHGP Monday Morning Race Report
06-20-16 | 09:40 AM
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Rotary Freak
Joined: Jul 2003
Posts: 2,199
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From: Oakville, Ontario
CHGP Monday Morning Race Report
So, this past weekend we decided to try something different. My RX7 is a 1988 FC Chassis, so we asked and were accepted into the G90 + class at the Canadian Historic Grand Prix. First, it was an awesome event. Over 300 entries and 62 (track maximum) in the race group we were in. In my race group there were a ton of Porsche 911's, 944's, some ex-IMSA Camaro's, a large chunk of BMW's right up to E46 M3's, a large number of Honda's some crazy well prepped Boss Mustangs, and lots of wild and woolly one offs. It was going to be huge, fast and really really hot. I got there Friday morning at 7 and all paved areas at CTMP were full and I had to squeeze in on the side of one are on a driveway. Crazy. Oh yes, it was already hot, mid 80's (around 26 C) and going to get hotter. We unloaded the car and got it ready to go. I decided that seeing as this was a non points basically fun event, I was going to skip Qualifying and just start the race from the back and have fun passing cars for the weekend. Good plan...
Anyways, our race was set for about 3:00 pm and everything was set and ready to rock. I got dressed, started to sweat, got bolted in to the car, sweated harder, drove up to the mock grid, sweated even harder, got put on hold as they dragged in 4 billion cars from the previous race, sweated even more and started to feel woozy (air temps were in the low 30's C) and finally got the move off sign before I passed out. Once rolling, there was enough airflow and adrenaline to make me forget about the heat and sun. I rolled off in 54th position with 2 cars behind me. An eventful pace lap as everyone got all strung out and I was still on the back straight when the Pole Car came out of 10 and the starter waved of the start. Next lap we all behaved better and I was in mid Turn 8 when the green flag flew. tried to pass this M3 down the front straight and out powered him into 1. The pig was flying and the the tune was great! hammered up on a 911 in 1, could have breaked, but I was carrying a ton of momentum and decided to trust the NA Carrera slicks and drove around the 911 in Turn 1. FREAKIN" awesome. Huge levels of grip, especially as we were going commando for this weekend and no rear wing or front splitter. Just the body the way Mazda designed it. Anyways, carried a ton of speed up into 2 and passed 2 more cars crested the hill and a waved yellow as the David Strachan 1962 Ford Galaxie NASCAR Stockcar clone had spun and was sliding to the outside. Everyone slowed down some more, I looked and no yellows in 3, so I split the clump of cars (3 I think), carried the momentum and passed this gorgeous DTM BMW M3 around the outside of 3 and then we went to full course yellow. We followed the pace car for about 5 laps and I was watching the gauges and the pig was bouncing around the 200 to 210 water temp area, oil temps were in the 180 range and the tires were magical. This was a timed race and I was calculating how much time was going to be left if and when we got the green. I saw the pace car pull off and I figured 2 more laps in the race, so time to get on it! The green was thrown as we came up the backstraight, so I passed 2 cars around the outside of 8, tried another going up the inside in 10, but got him coming out chased another car going down through 1 and got him going into 2 (by this time I can't honestly remember the cars) carried a ton of speed in 4th gear out of 2 and I saw a gaggle of cars ahead of me in 3. Carried way too much speed into 3 and the car slewed a bit under light braking, but easily gathered up without to much of a loss in time chased them down going into 4 carried the speed through the corner, dived inside going into 5 passed one car in 5a, another was right there aswe exited 5b and then I heard/felt this heavy bang under the car (CRAP, I must have run over something) then my throttle went to the floor and the car went to idle... Must have broken the throttle cable when I hit whatever I hit. Idled back to the pits, got passed by everyone behind me, just made it back to the pits as the leaders got the checker. Super sucky result.
Rolled the car back to the pits and took a look as to what had happened. I saw that the cable had jumped off the throttle wheel, saw it was an easy fix and I adjusted it, tore off the goofy air cleaner setup that I had constructed the night before and decided that we needed to lean out the start enrichment tomorrow morning and I headed home for a swim.
Saturday, my team mate Mark was going to race the car, so all I had to do was hook up the computer, change the start enrichment, double check the throttle adjustment and oil levels and we should be good to go. First tried to hook up the computer and nope the cable was the wrong one... again grrrr. Okay, lets adjust the cable to make sure it doesn't jump off again and I leaned on the motor and it moved. What the He.... this motor is supposed to solidly mounted. Looked down and the bang I had heard the previous day, just before the throttle cable jumped off was actually the solid aluminum motor mount breaking the through bolt and falling out of the car. Okay McGyver, think... I rushed down to the Home Depot, bought a couple of thick body washers, a giant steel coupling nut and some threaded rod and some nuts. Came back, reset everything, car was tight and mint. By this time our morning race had already started, but Mark jumped in one lap down and got to the pit lane just as they red flagged the race. Everybody sat there idling for about 20 minutes in 34 degree heat. while they cleaned up this huge mess and I guess the pig didn't like this. They race then restarted and Mark drove around trying to learn the car during race conditions. He did well and didn't finish dead last. When he came in I was concerned about the idle time took a look under the hood. There was dried coolant everywhere. We started to refill the car (me with this dread feeling) and after we had added about 2 litres water started to run out the drain hole in the water pump. I guess when I had changed to the Mishimoto 1.3 bar rad cap, it did the job it was supposed to do but the added pressure had blown out the waterpump seal. I asked Mark to put everything away then I rushed from the track and tried to find a waterpump for a 1988 RX7 on a Saturday afternoon. Most places don't even list them anymore and as I drove home I remembered that in my jumble of spares I had a new one. Got home, had to find it and the new housing as it was for an S5, also found a used S4 one, cleaned everything up, went for a swim again and decided to go back on Sunday morning.
Sunday. At 7:00 am it was already 26. Going to be hot for sure. I got to the track, we quickly installed the used S4 pump as my race was coming up. Added the coolant and and and it started running out the tailpipe. The excessive heat from the day before either had blown a coolant seal or maybe cracked a housing/ plate or 2. She was dead. The pig is no more. We grumbled a bit, loaded everything up and I headed back home contemplating building an LS version of the pig.
So, this is where we stand. The car is hurt, but fixable. The weekend event was awesome to attend with Can-Am cars, F3000 cars, tons of great sounding iron being flung around the track and an event to remember. I need to pull the motor, get it back to Joe Ferguson and in the 10 minutes of free time he has each week I hope he can put it back together without to much issue or cost.
Until next time.
Eric
Anyways, our race was set for about 3:00 pm and everything was set and ready to rock. I got dressed, started to sweat, got bolted in to the car, sweated harder, drove up to the mock grid, sweated even harder, got put on hold as they dragged in 4 billion cars from the previous race, sweated even more and started to feel woozy (air temps were in the low 30's C) and finally got the move off sign before I passed out. Once rolling, there was enough airflow and adrenaline to make me forget about the heat and sun. I rolled off in 54th position with 2 cars behind me. An eventful pace lap as everyone got all strung out and I was still on the back straight when the Pole Car came out of 10 and the starter waved of the start. Next lap we all behaved better and I was in mid Turn 8 when the green flag flew. tried to pass this M3 down the front straight and out powered him into 1. The pig was flying and the the tune was great! hammered up on a 911 in 1, could have breaked, but I was carrying a ton of momentum and decided to trust the NA Carrera slicks and drove around the 911 in Turn 1. FREAKIN" awesome. Huge levels of grip, especially as we were going commando for this weekend and no rear wing or front splitter. Just the body the way Mazda designed it. Anyways, carried a ton of speed up into 2 and passed 2 more cars crested the hill and a waved yellow as the David Strachan 1962 Ford Galaxie NASCAR Stockcar clone had spun and was sliding to the outside. Everyone slowed down some more, I looked and no yellows in 3, so I split the clump of cars (3 I think), carried the momentum and passed this gorgeous DTM BMW M3 around the outside of 3 and then we went to full course yellow. We followed the pace car for about 5 laps and I was watching the gauges and the pig was bouncing around the 200 to 210 water temp area, oil temps were in the 180 range and the tires were magical. This was a timed race and I was calculating how much time was going to be left if and when we got the green. I saw the pace car pull off and I figured 2 more laps in the race, so time to get on it! The green was thrown as we came up the backstraight, so I passed 2 cars around the outside of 8, tried another going up the inside in 10, but got him coming out chased another car going down through 1 and got him going into 2 (by this time I can't honestly remember the cars) carried a ton of speed in 4th gear out of 2 and I saw a gaggle of cars ahead of me in 3. Carried way too much speed into 3 and the car slewed a bit under light braking, but easily gathered up without to much of a loss in time chased them down going into 4 carried the speed through the corner, dived inside going into 5 passed one car in 5a, another was right there aswe exited 5b and then I heard/felt this heavy bang under the car (CRAP, I must have run over something) then my throttle went to the floor and the car went to idle... Must have broken the throttle cable when I hit whatever I hit. Idled back to the pits, got passed by everyone behind me, just made it back to the pits as the leaders got the checker. Super sucky result.
Rolled the car back to the pits and took a look as to what had happened. I saw that the cable had jumped off the throttle wheel, saw it was an easy fix and I adjusted it, tore off the goofy air cleaner setup that I had constructed the night before and decided that we needed to lean out the start enrichment tomorrow morning and I headed home for a swim.
Saturday, my team mate Mark was going to race the car, so all I had to do was hook up the computer, change the start enrichment, double check the throttle adjustment and oil levels and we should be good to go. First tried to hook up the computer and nope the cable was the wrong one... again grrrr. Okay, lets adjust the cable to make sure it doesn't jump off again and I leaned on the motor and it moved. What the He.... this motor is supposed to solidly mounted. Looked down and the bang I had heard the previous day, just before the throttle cable jumped off was actually the solid aluminum motor mount breaking the through bolt and falling out of the car. Okay McGyver, think... I rushed down to the Home Depot, bought a couple of thick body washers, a giant steel coupling nut and some threaded rod and some nuts. Came back, reset everything, car was tight and mint. By this time our morning race had already started, but Mark jumped in one lap down and got to the pit lane just as they red flagged the race. Everybody sat there idling for about 20 minutes in 34 degree heat. while they cleaned up this huge mess and I guess the pig didn't like this. They race then restarted and Mark drove around trying to learn the car during race conditions. He did well and didn't finish dead last. When he came in I was concerned about the idle time took a look under the hood. There was dried coolant everywhere. We started to refill the car (me with this dread feeling) and after we had added about 2 litres water started to run out the drain hole in the water pump. I guess when I had changed to the Mishimoto 1.3 bar rad cap, it did the job it was supposed to do but the added pressure had blown out the waterpump seal. I asked Mark to put everything away then I rushed from the track and tried to find a waterpump for a 1988 RX7 on a Saturday afternoon. Most places don't even list them anymore and as I drove home I remembered that in my jumble of spares I had a new one. Got home, had to find it and the new housing as it was for an S5, also found a used S4 one, cleaned everything up, went for a swim again and decided to go back on Sunday morning.
Sunday. At 7:00 am it was already 26. Going to be hot for sure. I got to the track, we quickly installed the used S4 pump as my race was coming up. Added the coolant and and and it started running out the tailpipe. The excessive heat from the day before either had blown a coolant seal or maybe cracked a housing/ plate or 2. She was dead. The pig is no more. We grumbled a bit, loaded everything up and I headed back home contemplating building an LS version of the pig.
So, this is where we stand. The car is hurt, but fixable. The weekend event was awesome to attend with Can-Am cars, F3000 cars, tons of great sounding iron being flung around the track and an event to remember. I need to pull the motor, get it back to Joe Ferguson and in the 10 minutes of free time he has each week I hope he can put it back together without to much issue or cost.
Until next time.
Eric