|
(Continued from page 15)
The springs arrived today so got busy fitting them, unfortunately I found their load take up length was only 135 mm. This gave me only 140mm front chassis clearance with no further adjustment on the shock. I was hoping to have 190mm. The spring is a bit soft but I can control this with the adjustable shock so it looks OK though. I checked my car front weight figures, spoke to Thomas Springs who ran some new numbers for me and I finally agreed on the following.
Coil Specification:
Free length 260 mm
Compressed length 120mm
Load length 200 mm
Coil inside diameter 50mm
Coil wire diameter 10mm
My spring rate has now altered and am happy that they are a bit heavier after having looked at the existing ones. I expect I may have to buy one more set before I have the springs the way I want them but for the time being the set I have on the way will do.
The car is now ready for it second test. I will take it out to an unused piece or road and put it through its paces. My good mate Mark is leaving this Saturday so will set up a drive for that morning. My exhaust system has arrived all except for the tapered adapter that fits on to the Turbo flange. Rang Northern Exhaust systems about it and it was being air freighted to me on Friday.
March 2000
The car is now ready for it second test. I will take it out to an unused piece or road and put it through its paces. My good mate Mark is leaving this Saturday so will set up a drive for that morning. My new exhaust system has arrived all except for the tapered adapter that fits on to the Turbo flange. I rang Northern Exhaust systems about it and it was being air freighted to me on Friday.
I have taped up the few pieces of loose wiring, checked all the front-end bolts and fittings ran the car up and down the patio a few times the check that every thing felt tight and packed it up for tomorrow's test run.
I towed the car to my test track, fired it up to get thing up to temperature and waited for Mark and Stuart, a mate who races a Monza at the local speedway and who has given me some great advice over the time.
I first took my son Ben for a drive and ran some speed runs, 0 - 140 km/h. It feels very tight and nimble and certainly doesn't feel like it take long to leave a lot of bitumen behind us. I turned around and ran two 0 - 100 km/h runs to see what its legs were like compared to the original Nissan Silvia that ran 0 - 100 km/h in 7.5 sec.
I did four runs, the first was a rolling start and the other three were standing starts.
Rolling start: 0 - 100km/h with a quick change into 3rd at 90 km/h. Time 5.35 sec
Standing start 1 : 0 - 100km/h with a quick change into 3rd at 90 km/h. Time 4.85 sec
Standing start 2 : 0 - 100km/h holding 2nd to 100km/h. Time 4.68 sec
Standing start 3 : 0 - 100km/h holding 2nd to 100km/h but giving it a bit more on the start and cranking on the gas a bit more at the change to 2nd . Time 4.54 sec.
The last run got the rear wheels to squeal in both first and second and I feel if I pushed it further, kept her in the turbo power band it's time could be in the low 4s. I will wait until the new springs arrive and then give it some hard cornering to contend with and run these tests again as well as a 1/4 ml run.
For the time being I think I'm happy with these figures....
I pulled out the existing temporary exhaust and stared welding up the new one. I spent most of Sunday afternoon wrestling with the position of all the bits just to make sure I have everything in place before I start cutting the pipe. The pipe work at the rear which connects up the catalytic converter to the muffler was the most time consuming but I now have it tacked up ready for the catalytic converter connection pipe. I have decided to use the existing flanges and simply machine them out to suit the new pipe size. I can't do much more until this is done and until the turbo flange connection piece arrives.
The flange connector arrived so I started cutting and tacking up my new exhaust system. The muffler went first so that I could control the tailpipe angle and the exact position of the muffler. It is a ver tight space considering I need to allow room for movement. I then connected up the catalytic converter by bolting on the newly machined flanges and tacking them to the muffler connection pipe. From here I started to work from the back by cutting the original pipe that attached to the Turbo outlet flange and tacking the tapered piece I've been waiting for. I then cut an elbow to the correct angle and tacked it to the taper, which was then attached to the pipe running to the catalytic converter. The catalytic converter has been moved rearward to enable me to raise it up out of harms way and in doing so had to construct a double set in the exhaust pipe feeding into it. See photo. The whole lot then went off the Goodline Fabrication to be SS mig welded. I got it back a couple of days later and fitted it all that evening.
The new springs were now 10 days over due so I rang to chase them up. It would appear they miss placed them and are making up another set. I spoke about what they ended up making to make sure they still had the new updated information and they did and promised to have them to me in 2 days.
While I was waiting for the new springs to arrive I did a bit more on the paneling. I finished the reinforcing of the rear quarter sections where the step is inserted to allow for the side intrusion thickness. In hindsight it would have been much better to have incorporated them into the thickness of the side of the chassis and welded them in around the structure of the chassis. This
(Continued on page 17)
|
|
