Progress on the bmw1602.com car ...** UPDATED 05/05/20 *

[bmw1602.com]

More small stuff in road to becoming a real race car.....

Got this mesh window net on ebay and fabricated the mounting system.

bought a generic seat belt at pep boys and sliced it so I could weld it on the bar...

also...

Installed Lonagre 17" racing mirror....lets see how good I can see all the guys passing me at big willow on thursday....

looks pretty good tho...

also installed some SFI rated self adhesive rollbar padding

[bmw1602.com]

the window net buckle...

[bmw1602.com]

mirror....

[boxy02]

Pedro, It looks great! see you out there on Thursday.

Mike

[bmw1602.com]

FINNALLY the day has come........

wow where do I start. What a day.

Last thursday I took my car to it's first day in the spotlight. Went to a track day at Willow springs international raceway. For me it was to be my shakedown run to get my car ready for my racing school in 2 weeks.

it all started the night before as I finished fabricating a mount for my laptimer and installed my new 38mm chokes for my webers. In addition to lots of small things!

Then I had to lear how to load the car onto my new(to me) trailer. When all was said and done it was 4am!! We decided to not sleep and beat traffic to the track. We ended up not sleeping at all!

unloaded the car, got it started and idling then decided to drive around the pits to warm it up at bit.

SURPRISE!!! The car would not rev above 3k !! Crap, what happend? Fast forward to 4 hours later......I AM A DUMB ASS. In my late light scramble I had installed one of the aux. venturies upside down!!!!! flipped it reinstalled everything got my gear on and the track marshall said the session is over and were breaking for lunch! I told him if I could go out just to see if I fixed it.....

did 1 lap! sure thing that was it. who hoo!

cleaned things up during lunch, calmed down and plugged in the Innovate lm-1 into the tailpipe.

1st session - SWEETTTTTTNNESSSS!!! car runnign a bit rich, but it handles awsome! Stumbling a bit here and there...maybe too rich

2nd session - leaned it out a bit - 160 mains and 180 airr corr. water temps higher....take more tape off....

3rd session - Lm-1 confirmed jetting is almost perfect....about 11.9 air/fuel down the straight in 4th gear.

now during the last lap of the 3rd session the water temp climbed to 230! so I pulled in......right as I'm pulling in the tach starts bouncing like crazy then stumbling then the engine quits........

I quitly coast into the pits....

????????what the F*&^k?????

the car starts, idles the tach start jumping then the engine quits....

the plugs look great, the water was low in the radiator so that explained the higher temps..................

something must be up with the pertonix or distributor????

it was late and I was tired from not sleeping....so we packed it in. The car ran long enough to run up the trailer....

I had a few issues,

1-the drivers side underbody was covered in tranny fluid??

2-noise in left corner from rear?

3-obvious electical failure of some sort?

Well once I got some sleep and reviewed my cap and rotor, the rotor and a small crack in it on the black plastic area and the cap looked dirty and in need of replacement.

my tranny oil looks like it was coming from a vent I didn't know about.

my noise in the rear turned out to be dry poly bushings.....not sure how to lube them yet......

Got lots of question answered once I talked to Jeff Ireland on monday.

1-There is a tranny vent on the top left front of the transmission. Aparently in racing conditions you need to remove the pressed in breather and replace with a barb connect a hose and run it to a can. Or do what the sklidmark guys did and use AN fitting and tap the hole.

either way problem answered and soon solved.

3- Jeff quickly told me what my problem was! I wish I would have known sooner!

Aparently the stock bosh rotor has a resistor buried in that black epoxy that connects the center to the edge electrode. If you are running a big coil and a race ignition like me (crane hi-6,ps-92coil) you have to modifiy the rotor by taking a dremel and diggin out the black epoxy to reveal the resistor. Cut and remove the resistor and replace with a short peice of 14ga. wire. If you dont do this eventually at high rpm's the power from the upgraded coil will overload the resistor and burst it. Creating a small crack in the epoxy like mine did!

Jeff says this will make the engine shut down in short order!

this seams to be exactly what happend to me!

So if you are running upgraded iginition system please make this modification ASAP. Jeff said they might get 1 day out of a stock rotor before it fails.

So I should be getting a couple of caps and rotor tommorow and will test and confirm that this was the source of all my issues.

SO all in all was a trying day BUT I learned a bunch and I CANNOT express how amazing it felt after all these years to blip the throttle turn into turn 1 get on the gas, hear the DCOE's gasp for air then being replaced by the sound of the rising exhaust note......as I crept up on the rear of a porsche rs replica.......only to pass him on the exit of turn 2!!

wow.....what a feeling. Makes it all worth it.....really does.

I can't imagine what it will feel like to grid up on a grid full of other 2002's, alfa's mini's and datsuns......ohhhh.

here some pics from that amazing day, for all the pics from that day check out this link on my page....

http://bmw1602.lostbrazilian.com/v1/viewer.php?album=albums/Gallery/Events/All%20Time%20Trackday-Shakedown&pn=1

[bmw1602.com]

(nt)

[bmw1602.com]

to my surprise, I did pass this beautiful rs replica....

[bmw1602.com]

in the end of 3 sessions....

I got a string of 1:46 laptimes.

a few months ago in the VARA race held there the winner in CS class was lapping at 1:43. So ind the end 3 secs off is not bad considering I only got a few laps and I was running a heavy 15" wheel and Falken azenis street tire. Plus I was not running past 7k rpms.

I left alot of time out there, I'm sure I can run in the 1:43 or faster on race tires and after some sorting out.

not a bad start at all........

[bmw1602.com]

In case you were curious, here is my Innovate LM-1 log file.

It contains 3 sessions.

first session was 160 mains and 170 air corr.

last session was 150 mains and 180 air corrector

(please note: higher the main number the richer it gets, the lower the A/C number the richer it gets. Because the Main flow fuel and A/C flows air)

you will notice when the car is on the straight when you see 5-8secs of steady readings. During shifts and on decel the trottle plate is closed and the car will go lean. This is normal it is also like this in fuel injection engines.

in the first session you will note around 10-10.9 a/f on the straight at full throttle in 4th gear.

then by the 3rd session it went up to 11.9-12ish at full throttle in 4th gear.

TO VIEW LOG FILES,

DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL LOGWORKS,

bottom of the page under legacy software... logworks 1.1

http://www.innovatemotorsports.com/support.php

download my log file

- open logworks

-open file - browse to my file

I'm only using input 1, I do not have the rev counter feature.

make sure the software is set to view in AFR not lambda.

Under "session" choose what session you want to view.

use playback control to splay, pause, stop etc....

have fun!

LM1Log_wsir_01_25_07.zip

[TMK-001]

Nice work... pics looks great. I dont know if you have seen it, but Top Gear did a special on American cars vs Euro cars around that track just recently. It was really quite amusing.

Good to hear your shake down has gone well.

[peteinjp]

I use logworks on my Pc but if I remember correctly you can export as a jpeg to make it easier for others to check it out. Esp- mac users. Also did you catch my post at skidmark about the compufire ignition? No need to worry about the cap and rotor (the weak part of the system.) The rotor for the unit needs to be secured with silicone as it is designed for VW's. May not be worth it at this point but just thought I'd point it out.

Rock on Pedro!!!!!

[visionaut]

Way to go Pedro!! Sounds like you had a BALL! (except for the no-sleep, and Doh! moment with the aux venturi. ;-) But passing that RS likely easily made up for both those things.).

Looks like all your work setting up your racecar (!) has paid off. Pretty cool you were so close with your carb settings to start with, and you got it dialed in so quickly. The things you learned sound pretty easy to address for the next time.

BTW, re: the distributor rotor, I beleive there's a version Bosch made without the resistor (it's not a black rotor, it's a rust-colored one, looks beefier too.) - so you may want to look out for that. I have one, I'll see if I can look up the part #.

It's awesome it's all coming together. The consistent lap times are also a good sign. Looking forward to your next report.

Tom

[boxy02]

Glad you were able to get some good info on solving your problems out there. I was great to meet you, Pedro, and can't wait to hear about your VARA results and experiences!

Cheers!

[bmw1602.com]

I use logworks on my Pc but if I remember correctly you can export as a jpeg to make it easier for others to check it out. Esp- mac users. Also did you catch my post at skidmark about the compufire ignition? No need to worry about the cap and rotor (the weak part of the system.) The rotor for the unit needs to be secured with silicone as it is designed for VW's. May not be worth it at this point but just thought I'd point it out.

Rock on Pedro!!!!!

unfortunately there the rules in VARA are clear. No crankfire ignitions.

It was great to meet you too boxy02, you car is awsome! Can't wait to check out you 2002 soon.

[peteinjp]

Thats the thing- its not crank fire- its still using the distributor as a trigger and for advance with a reluctor. Eliminates points, cap and rotor. The makers of the system recommend something like a .045 gap at the plugs.