TARP Blog

This weekend saw the completion of two critical projects: the installation of replacement shift cables and the fabrication of a new radiator saver bar. Both efforts seem to have been met with success.

Shift cables: At the ECR race, we lost second and fourth gears (along with reverse) somewhere along the way. Because it was never an issue of the gears grinding, attention to solving the problem was focused on the shift mechanism. I located a pair of used shift cables on teh intarwebs for very cheap ($25 versus $400 for a set new from Toyota!) and received them a couple of weeks ago. They were in good condition, although the shift ends that connect to the shift forks on the transmission were somewhat corroded, but nothing that a little work with the Dremel didn’t clear up right away. After that the ABEC rollerblade bearings slipped right in and over the post on the shift forks. (more after the jump)

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Race Prep Author: Pat

At the behest of Herr Doktor Stevenson, I did some further radio testing with the new GP68 radios, just to make certain that they are fully cross-compatible with the HP10’s and SP50’s, as well as with our used Nextel Cup headsets. Fortunately for us, the GP68 uses the same plug style as the headsets and I’ve programmed them to be fully compatible with our legacy radios. Thus we can’t blame our failures at the next race on the radios! Although I do want to clean up the connection for the helmet jack on the radio harness as it was kind of flaky sometimes at the last race. Nothing a little scotch brite pad and some paint thinner can’t cure I think.

Tomorrow I plan to finish repairs to the radiator saver bar that got knocked off in the trailer by a wayward tire, finish connecting the new shift cables to the transmission, and take the car out for a test to make sure that the shift problem is limited to the cables and isn’t a problem with the tranny internals. Keep your fingers crossed.

After that (depending on time) I’m going to move the water temp and water pressure sensors to a better spot, right where the water exits the head. That way we’ll have more accurate water temp readings in the car.

I can’t wait for the race to get here…

Race Prep Author: Pat

I don’t want to give all the secrets of our over-the-top out-clowning away on teh intarwebs, but tonight I rediscovered the value of having legacy machines hanging around. As some of you know, we will be able to amplify and play music from the car while on the track. I had a very old Rio Cali MP3 player to use for this (solid state and most importantly I don’t give a crap if it gets destroyed), but the problem is that there is no support for the 7-year old MP3 player in Windows 7.

But I have this ancient WinXP laptop sitting around and voila! Transfer the calliope music to that machine, load the software over there, and now we have circus favorites ready for playback from the car.

And for the trivia buffs amongst us, the classic “circus song” that you think of is called “Entrance of the Gladiators” and it was composed by Julius Fu?ík in 1904, based on his interest in the Roman Empire. Go figure.

Race Prep Author: Pat

I got our acceptance email late last night from the illustrious Jay Lamm, so we’re in for the race at MSR-Houston in early September. We’ll once again be very, very glad that we have the cool suit system running, as the high temps will likely be in the mid- to upper-80’s and the humidity high enough to put the heat index well into the 90’s. It probably won’t be nearly as hot as it was at the North Dallas Hooptie race (air temps in the low 100’s and heat index into the one-teens), but still not cool by any stretch of the imagination.

I can’t wait! The to-do list is shorter than for last time (thank heavens) but there is still some important stuff to do like re-locating the water temp gauge sensor, re-building the radiator bumper bar (that got knocked off on the trailer drive home from NDH), and a bunch of clown-y theme additions.

Race Prep Author: Pat

The TARP team continues to rack up not-quite-unfavorable press clippings; today a large and not-the-worst-ever photo of the TARP Special and yours truly graces the front page of the Metro section of the Dallas Morning News. Here’s the link to the article; fortunately, the photo isn’t as big online Although I guess you probably can blow it up.

Hopefully, that’s what the car won’t do next weekend. It’s almost ready to roll out of the garage. I need to complete putting roof flashing on the nose of the car (because as you know, aero makes such a huge difference in this race) and finish the radiator fan mount. After that, it’s mostly driveable without stuff falling off. I’ll put on the good set of tires and then drive it a bit to make sure that everything’s not not-working, then roll it back into the garage for a ghetto-alignment using a couple of kite strings and a tin can.

There’s still a ton to do to get ready for the race — figure out the food that I need to buy, the daily schedule, continue to pray to the weather gods that they will deliver about a 10 or 15-degree drop in ambient temps for next weekend — but I’m just going to keep whittling away at the list. Cheers.

Race Prep Author: Pat

First off, I apologize to you, dear reader, for the paucity of posts for the last 10 days or so. There I was, posting on a daily (or almost daily) frequency for awhile, and then boom, I drop off the face of the map. The last week and a half have been very busy work-wise for me (2 out of town trips) plus I picked up a nasty cold/flu on this past Monday night that’s just finally working its way out of my system just in time for me to make yet another trip to Houston tomorrow morning for work. So, when confronted by the choice between (a) getting un-sick so I can work on the car, (b) working on the car, and (c) blogging, I usually choose either (a) or (b).

Stevo asked me if I’m excited about the race at this point, but I had to confess that I’m more anxious than anything else. I guess it’s just knowing what I have to do to get ready and what’s left to do. Until I’m done with the list of to-do’s, I doubt that I’ll be relaxed. Until we load up the trailer and roll out to the track. Then I’ll be relaxed. Mostly.

In the interim since the last post, I’ve gotten a lot done on the car to get it ready to race. Besides getting it running, I was able to re-build the exhaust system so that it wasn’t hanging perilously close to the ground — really, so close that it was bound to either clang against the ground during the race or collect something that fell off another vehicle. This required a fair amount of cutting, grinding, welding, and even one small burn on the palm of the right hand of yours truly when I stupidly decided not to put on a welding glove for a quick tack weld, which proceeded (of course) to throw a scrap of hot welding wire right onto my hand. Ouch. Yes, I’ll survive, thanks for the tears.

There’s really been so much done on the car that at this point it’s almost easier to list the stuff that still needs to be done:

• Replace the left rear wheel bearing and then check all the bolts on the suspension to make sure they’re all tight;
• Figure out what I’m doing with the nose/air dam/brake ducting issue. Might just narrow the nose and run the wheels wide-open to permit the maximum amount of cool air getting to the brakes, since that’s reported to be an issue at this track. That would sacrifice top-end speed due to the aero disadvantage and probably increase lift on the front wheels, so maybe not. I need to spend some time on this issue over the weekend and get it finished;
• Finish replacing the passenger-side inner CV boot and get that half-shaft installed so I can finish the exhaust installation and start test-driving the car;
• Install new brake pads and rotors for the race (will probably do this the day before the race so I don’t glaze the new pads while test driving the car) and bleed the brakes with new fluid;
• Decorate & theme the car.

Race Prep Author: Pat

It was a nerve-wracking day yesterday, but as the headline reads, the rebuilt motor is alive! After rotating the crankshaft by hand to get the no. 1 cylinder to TDC (or close), I installed the distributor (with new cap and rotor) and wired up all the spark plugs and the coil. Rolled the car out into the driveway because if you burn down the car, you can always rebuild it, unless you burn down the garage, too. Sage advice, Stevo.

On the first try, I flipped the ignition switch and the red light didn’t even light up. WTF! Turns out that I forgot to re-plug in the main power harness to the switch when I was finished working on the switchgear. Problem easily fixed.

Second try, flipped the ignition switch and the red light comes on. Success! Short lived, though. Press the starter button and nothing. Bupkis. Double WTF! Rolled the car back into the garage. Clearly something is not right with my wiring work, right?

Ha! Wrong! Turns out that one of the two main connections between the body harness and the engine had gotten knocked loose sometime during my work on the engine. That connection contains the lead that goes from the starter relay to the starter that tells the starter to go-go-go.

So, plugged that in, rolled the car back outside, sat down, flipped all the flippy switches, pressed the starter button and - whir, whir, whir. Turning over but no start.

In my head, I knew that this is normal. After all, there’s been no fuel in this fuel rail since at least November. But in my heart, I was freaking out a little bit. What if all this work is done and I can’t get the engine to start? Epic fail.

Second try, whir, whir, whir — vroom! Yippee! Even though I hadn’t set the timing on the distributor to anything than basically dead center of its range, it started and purred like a kitten. Oil pressure came right up (yea!) and hung steady at about 75 psi, which isn’t surprising given the thick break-in oil that’s in the car right now. I let the car run at somewhere just above idle for a few minutes, then noticed some wispy smoke from around the exhaust manifold. It’s probably just the new seals on everything getting hot for the first time, but I shut it down anyway. I’ll roll under the car tonight to see if we’re melting anything important

Yesterday was a big hooray day. Looks like we’ll have a car with a running engine for the race!

MR2, Race Prep Author: Pat

Got a few various and sundry things done last night. I got the airflow meter and air filter bracket finished up and hung on the car, so I was able to attach the AFM wire. Other than getting the timing going and the distributor mounted, I think we now have all the electrics hooked up on the engine. If not, we’ll know quickly.

Most notably, I welded up the new exhaust system and test-fitted it. I need to figure out a couple of hanger locations. Also need to test-fit with the tailpipe turn-down and trim that to fit as necessary, then weld that on also. I need to test fit the passenger-side half shaft to make sure that there’s not any interference there (keep fingers crossed), otherwise I’ll need to come up with a couple inches of extension from between the flange at the end of the header to the flange at the start of the b-pipe.

I also ran some new wire for the fan on the oil cooler and cleaned up the switch panel wiring and got the swichgear mostly worked out. May need to add one more switch for the radiator fan but that all depends on if it’s still automatically cycling or not. Still lots to do, hopefully I can crank out some more tonight.

Race Prep Author: Pat

So the title of the post probably isn’t a “real” word in the English language, but it pretty well describes my weekend past: not a lot got done. The in-laws were in town for the baby’s baptism, so while there was a lot of hanging out and eating good food (and a baptism), there was a decided lack of hard-core car working. I did manage to steal out into the garage for a couple of hours on Saturday and got the danged clutch activation cylinder and the bracket that holds it and the two shifter cables bolted onto the car. I’ve connected most of the engine harness to the engine, but am needing to fabricate a bracket for the air flow meter before I hook that part up. Also need to splice together the positive battery cable from the kill switch to the positive side of the engine wire harness.

Then I need to fabricate the new exhaust system, and then get the engine to TDC and get the distributor lined up right. Then I can fire the engine. Maybe — maybe — by next weekend if all goes well this week?

I need a clone.

Race Prep Author: Pat

I am beat-ass tired today. Or as my brother says that they say it in North Carolina, tar’d. Why? Dave and I got the engine mounted in the car yesterday. And while this might be an easy job if you had a lift that would maneuver the car up and down, we don’t have one of those at my house, which meant a lot of lifting the car up with the cherry picker, then rolling the engine under the car, and then lots of other up and down movements and to and fro movements, and then finally — finally! — the engine was mounted.

Unfortunately, Dave had to leave after we had the engine under the car but before it was actually in its mounts, so he didn’t get to see that part (yet). At one point when I was trying to get the driver’s side/transmission mount into its saddle on the frame, the missus came out into the garage with infant in hand and operated the cherry picker jack handle while I pushed the transmission so that it would get lined up properly.

The rest of you who think/claim that you have kick-ass wives had better get those ladies to start bringing the heat because not only did I just take two consecutive weekdays off from work to work on the car without her even blinking an eye, but she operated a cherry picker jack, having never done so before, while holding a screaming baby. Huzzah!

After that I wrangled with the passenger-side mount for a few minutes and finally got it bolted in. Put the upper timing belt cover back on, and started wiring up everything that needs to be wired up topside. Not much later the missus needed some help with dinner and the three screaming/crying children inside the house, so that pretty much wrapped things up for the day. Which was fine, because I was already beat-ass tar’d at that point. I went back out later to finish cleaning up and straightening things, but that was the end of the work for the day.

Since I finally got all the radiator hoses in front worked out the other day, the only hose left to fit is the output hose from the engine to the tube that takes it up to the radiator. I have a hose temporarily in place but it needs to be cut down and then I think we’re all set. After that I will complete the re-connection of all the stuff in the engine bay, re-mount the clutch/shift cable quadrant, and then complete the re-wire of the dash area and switch gear. If I can pull it together tonight and tomorrow night, we might even have a first attempt at starting this jalopy by the weekend. That’s probably optimistic given the baby’s baptism this weekend and the resulting hoarde of relatives, but a man can dream, can’t he?

Race Prep Author: Pat