Eagles Canyon Raceway Feb 28, March 1&2.

[Coldhand]

It's time for another 24 Hours of Lemons. Back in September we raced for the full 24 hours consecutively in Houston. The major failures were: the clutch cable end piece broke, (so we scurried around looking for a replacement), the rear axel bent in a little causing us to be toe-out on one side (we used a bar and bottle jack to push it back mostly straight) and the master cylinder died towards the end of the race. We were shooting oil out of a couple seals as well at a rate of a quart every four hours.
Repairs and upgrades before this weekend:
The motor was pulled and replaced the rear main seal.
While the motor was out we used AdvancedDynamix suspension mods. Take note of Charlie's write up on the front lower support beam. It is mounted to added plates on the frame and below the radiator. As well as a perpendicular bar from that new bar to the transmission support bar. This is in replace of the original bar. The idea is to keep the car solid at the origination point. For example on the previous race the front end flexed more than two inches.
Rear shocks exactly to AdvanceDynamix suspension mods. KYB grp2 modified with #175 springs on a collar.
Front struts modified Raceland Coilovers from EBay. With 10" #200 springs.
Removed weight from the rear, including moving the battery up to the front.
We now have 2.25" exhaust pipe.
Best purchase for racing, GoPRO!! I will post pictures and videos starting Friday morning. That is safety tech and track test day.
Go Festiva!

[Advancedynamix]

Awesome stuff! Wish I could be there to help again. Looking forward to hearing about how the improvements worked out. Did you get the master cylinder to work correctly?

[Coldhand]

As always, we ran out of time. We put on a festiva Master Cylinder instead of swapping the booster. We will swap the booster and master cylinder to the miata after we come back. So the breaks are the spongy feeling festiva brakes.
Since we have only 1 degree of camber in the rear should we back off some of the 2.5 degree in the front?

[Advancedynamix]

No, absolutely not. The front camber is very important. I made special adjustable plates to dial in the rear of tweak. The negative camber on both ends will improve stability at speed and mid corner traction. The more the better in the back, but I've found -2.5 to be the sweet spot on the front. This was verified on several different tracks with 3 different tire choices by analyzing tire temps and wear patterns. I ran stock caster settings for this test.

[Coldhand]

When AdvanceDynamix makes a suggestion we follow. It's dialed in at -2.5. It's not too late to join us Charlie, or if any Festiva Folks are gonna be in the Dallas area we welcome you to our pit.

[WTFestiva]

Too late for me to make arrangements to get down there right now. I'd love to check this stuff out, if you can shoot me a message next year I'll try to make some plans on it and crew for you guys.

[Coldhand]

We are for sure doing a race in Houston in November but we are thinking of where else we might travel to race. Going in as crew is a great way to get you into the fracus of LeMons. Russian from FF.com races regularly, his team did more laps than us, and won a trophy at Houston last time. The Festivas racing the better! -that means more parts to borrow WHEN we break down.
Ok, back to packing the trailer...

[likeJIF]

I will be seeing you guys on Saturday, wont be able to make it up there on Friday for the test and tune, I have to work on some issues I am having on my current car. So I have your # and I will let you know when I am headed your way and when I should be arriving. Hope you guys were able to workout the issues you describe in the message you sent me, excited to watch the racing. Oh and I believe you got your wish of cooler weather cause it was in the low 40's here this morning and Im sure that it is similar in Dallas.

Tom

[likeJIF]

Well I spoke to soon, I just looked at the weather for Dallas and it shows that the low tonight is 40' but the high for this wknd is 78' both Fri and Sat, good spectator weather though. Then of course the bi-polar Texas weather it turns cold again on Monday with a temp of 38', wouldn't ya know.

[Coldhand]

Ugh! The weather is awful for road racing. Fog with mist. Keeps the track slick all the time with the combination of low visibility. Challenging.

[Coldhand]

Our setup is fantastic on dry pavement, we were pulling G's that would throw out of the car if we weren't strapped in tight on the 5-point harness. No one could out corner the Festiva. We only used up a half a quart oil and had good hot pit driver change and gas fill-ups.

Our biggest problem was if the track is wet we have no grip in the rear. We can not even corner at low to medium speeds in a mist or rain.
Items to address:
We are going to have a set of "rain" tires to swap out if we get any precipitation.
We want to go from the F-series transmission to the Kia G-series. (Motor mounts and driveshaft changes)
Dual core radiator, probably a civic or something small.

-once we have these worked out, we will have a solid repeatable platform that corners like a beast, then we will consider forcing in some compression. We were typically losing ground on the straightaways to the fast cars.

[Coldhand]

Here is a picture for ya. image.jpg

[likeJIF]

Oh man cool pic, its upside down, man I wish I would've went now. Can't wait until November now, give me a call sometime Michael when you guys decide to wrench on it and I will make time to come up & get my hands dirty.

Tom

[skeeters_keeper]

Here is a picture for ya.

The exhaust looks good!

[Coldhand]

I had to test the safety gear! I was hung updated down for ten minutes before letting myself out.
We got it all back together before tech. Our team hustled!!
Tom, it will be a couple weeks before wrenching again.
Endurance road racing is great. Huge seat time!!