Race Results

MTU Autocross - Houghton, MI - April 25th, 2010: 2nd fastest car, 3rd (raw time), 5th (class adjusted time)

http://www.nmucc.com/LSR/Results/season10.html

Gay Sands Rallycross - Gay, MI - April 10th, 2010: 3rd overall, 3rd in class (M4)

Tax Brake Rallycross - Raceway Park, Shakapee, MN - April 3rd, 2010: 3rd in class (M4)

MTU Autocross - Houghton, MI - October 4th, 2009: 1st (class adjusted time), 3rd (raw time)

Dog Daze Rallycross - Corcoran MN - August 2nd, 2009: 1st in class (PA), 4th overall

http://www.scca-lol.org/rally/rallyx/results/2009/2009_Dog_Daze_Overall.pdf

June Bug Rallycross - Cannon Falls, MN - June 28th, 2009: (in ylime's '02 wrx wagon) 2nd in class (PA), 9th overall

http://www.scca-lol.org/rally/rallyx/results/2009/june_bug_results.pdf

Spring Fever Rallycross - Cannon Falls, MN - May 25th, 2009: 1st in class (PA), 10th overall

http://www.scca-lol.org/rally/rallyx/results/2009/springfeverresults09.pdf

Rally Tires!

I've wanted rally tires for a while, but there are a couple things that have prevented me from getting them. First is the cost. Rally specific gravel tires run for about a $200 each, just for the tires and they only make them in a few sizes, mainly only for 15" wheels. The brakes on the WRX are not ridiculous, but not all 16" wheels fit on them, so finding 15" wheels that fit is even harder. They sell rally specific wheels that fit with no modification to the brakes for about $200 each. So you're looking at about $1600 for a set of new rally wheels and tires, ouch.

Luckily I know a couple people who stage rally and have slightly used sets of tires just lying around. Heath Nunnemacher set me up with a set of barely used Hankook gravel tires he had. They have plenty of tread left on them and they were even cut for use in looser terrain. But they are for 15" wheels. So a trip to the local junk yard turned up some 15" alloy wheels off an outback. I took them home and of course they didn't fit, I was prepared for that, but they really didn't fit. I was willing the grind a little bit off my brake calipers, but I didn't know how much I could grind off, so I didn't want to go very deep. Luckily one of my friends had some 15" steel wheels on her Legacy that fit a little better, so I traded her the alloys for her steelies straight up with me covering the remounting and balancing. After grinding a little bit of unnecessary metal off the calipers and making custom spacers, they finally fit and spun over my brakes! By now it's 11:30 at night before the rallycross that I wanted them for, just in time. The clearance between the brakes and the rim was next to nothing, we'll see what happens in the stamp sand.

Then I rattle canned them bright green for good measure.

Costs:

Tires: Free!

Alloy wheels: $120

Mounting gravel tires: $60

Mounting tires from steelies to alloy's: $60

Spay paint: $4

Total: $244

Total to get a new set of snow tires instead: $380 (not including wheels)

Tax Brake RallyX - April 3rd, 2010

Drove down to the cities from school to attend a rallyx and niece's birthday party. This is the first rallyX of the season for me and the first in modified 4 wheel drive (M4) class due to a modified bumper that I didn't want to pay $200 for a new one. So I took out my back seats and ran M4. The rally was at Raceway Park, which is a new venue for the LOL region. The surface was grass with a sandy dirt mix underneath. It ended up getting really rutted out right away, the start was around a corner and two deep ruts developed where once you fell in them, your car would bottom out on the chassis and you're stuck following them. It was a ton of fun regardless of the timing issues and multiple course changes that delayed things. I ran on Blizzak WS-60's since my old lm-22's where shot from being studded. They seemed to work pretty good in the sandy dirt. I ended up getting 3rd in M4, which I was really happy about since the two cars that beat me where prepped ice racing/ rallyx dedicated cars. The course changed too much in between run groups to compare across classes.

Tim kicking up a bunch of dirt.

Dan lifting the wheel up over some rollers that were developing

Custom Center Bezel

There's still a lot of work to be done with this but this is what I have so far.

12 push buttons, 6 rocker switches, 6 toggle switches, and 15 LED's all connected to a network of TI MSP430 microcontrolles that are fully programmable to have any button/switch control anything I have connected to the network, which will be all after market electrical devices and some others (interior and exterior lights, radio, computer, windows, etc).

Left Fender Hammertime

Before:

After some alone time with the fender and hammer, I persuaded it to come close to back to shape, but it was stubborn and I didn't want to spend too much time on it. Looks better than before and that's what counts.

Fixing the Right Fender

The damage:

First I needed to pull some of the inner body parts out, so I hooked up the tow strap and a come along to my car and a tech van, easily pulled it out.

Then I needed to pull it up.

Then it was hammer time, I spent some quality time getting to know my car's inner body and fender as I beat on it with my 7 piece fender and body hammer set from harbor freight. Not too bad for having next to no experience in body work.

Well, it's a lot better than it was before, still not in pre-accident condition, but as a rally car driver once told me, it just needs to look good fifty feet away going fifty mph, called the 50/50 rule. If I use some touch up paint, I think it'll be there.

Light Bars

Version 1:

Using 1" square aluminum tubing, I bent a simple hoop that attached to the radiator support. This design was very simple to make but had some major issues. First being that if it was hit by something decently hard to break the bolts used to mount it, it would go right through my A/C condenser and radiator. The second issue was that since it was only mounted with two bolts and didn't have much surface area on the radiator support, it bounced a fair amount. It worked for the couple weeks I needed it for, but I took it off and came up with a new design. Pictures to come if I can find them.

Version 2:

I was looking to make a strong light bar/brush guard to protect my bumper from bottoming out. Steel was chosen for its strength and capabilities to be easily welded. My friend and I made a hoop that would mount underneath the car to the sub frame and was bent up in the front to get some height for the lights.

Plates were welded to the ends of the tubes for a flat surface to mount onto the sub frame and little extensions where added to reach up to the frame rail right under the bumper beam. It was painted with truck bed lining to resist rock chips.

This was a solid design, you could easily stand on it and it did protect my bumper several times from being totally destroyed. One time I put my tire into a sunken man hole cover right where a hill started and slammed the light bar into the ground hard enough to break the lights I had on it just from the shock. The tubing bent a little bit and the bar bent up, but it had saved my bumper cover and possibly my radiator support from any damage, very solid design.

I took it off after I hit the deer since I got a new bumper cover and the bent light bar rubbed on the bumper. The only issue was that it hung down lower so it ended up hitting driveways and such where the bumper usually wouldn't hit at all.

Version 3:

I was looking for something to get the lights a little higher and didn't have access to a welder so I decided go back to aluminum and mount it to the top of the radiator support and the licences plate screw holes (those holes can support a lot if loaded correctly) I wanted to make it wider for more lights, but I used part of that aluminum piece for something else and I only had one set of hella 500's. The bar is pretty ridged up and down and side to side, but the lights rotate up and down a bit.