White Rascal Update #6

It is alive!! We finished up the wiring last week and the White Rascal was started for the first time. The wiring was a major project for us on this car. We made the decision to dive deep into it and ripped the entire chassis harness out of the car. All non-essential wires and systems were deleted from the harness. The ABS was left alone, for now, but everything else that is not essential for a track car was deleted. We even chose to remove the problematic multi function relay in the front of the car in favor of some simple switches to activate the cooling fans.

Severely Modified Harness

Stock Wiring Harness

Before we started, the wiring harness weighed 20.20 lbs. Once we cut out the non essential items, the fuse box count dropped from 22 to 7, this is not including the 5 fuses under the dash that got deleted as well. That is 20 circuits in all that were removed. This all brought the harness weight down to about 9 lbs. The harness was laid back into the car and we made the decision to delete the stock fuse block in favor of 2 bussed fuse blocks. This allowed us to really simplify the wiring, remove a bit more weight and we have some empty spaces for what ever circuits we would like to add in the future. The two fuse blocks and ignition relay were mounted to a panel that covers where the passenger air bag used to be. We re-used the stock start button simply because it was easy and it is a cool piece, joining the start button on our switch panel is an ignition switch and one switch for each fan. Nice and simple.

After we got the car running, we wrapped up all the wiring and secured it so it wont be flopping around on track. The number one way to decrease the reliability of an electrical or plumbing system is to let it move around and get chafed/pinched. Zipties and edging material are your friend when it comes to securing wiring and plumbing. 

A look under the dash

We mounted a raceBATTERY in the spot where the AC blower assembly used to live. This moves a little bit of weight forward and opposite from the driver. 

We mounted the battery with an Xtender Bracket with no kill switch. We have two other kill switches mounted on this car. One is outside and will poke through the right side access panel at the front of the car and the other is located where the left hand driver side AC vent used to be. This configuration will allow the engine to be shut down from outside or inside the vehicle. We chose to use two of these killswitches from Pegasus Auto Racing. Properly wired, these switches will completely isolate the battery and stop the engine. 

Kill Switch Wiring Diagram

These are essentially 3 switches in one, the main part will isolate the battery. If you do a setup that just isolates the battery with a simple single pole switch, and you throw the switch with the engine running, the alternator will continue to supply power to the system and the car has no reason to shut off. So what you do is run the power to the ignition coils or ECU ignition (like we did) through the switches. Now what happens when you throw the switch is the battery gets isolated AND the engine stops because you also killed the power to the ignition coils at the same time. This creates another problem though, when you isolate the battery from the alternator it causes a large voltage spike that has nowhere to go since you shut off the connection from the alternator to the battery, this can and will damage the alternator components. The third set of contacts on the switch give the alternator voltage somewhere to go by switching the alternator output to ground the moment the connection to the battery is severed. The image above shows roughly how this all works.

A view from the driver seat

The car has been missing a steering wheel since we ripped it off early in the tear down. We finally replaced it with a Sparco Cup Wheel. This saves a few pounds of weight and allows the addition of a quick release. We do not recommend deleting your air bag in a street car, but in a race car, we consider it a necessity. We would normally run a hubQR2  but we had a sweet quick release from old stock that we decided to use. This release flips the wheel up, rather than removing it completely, this makes it easier to get in the car but the wheel stays attached to the column at all times. We can still get these hubs so if you are interested, let us know.  Yes, they are more expensive than the regular quick release kits.  8^)

That is all we are going to share for now. Look for another update next week.

Mod List:

raceUPRIGHTS

ULTRAdisc

BULLETstuds

YELLOfellos

RTD2brace

MONOballs

MRbearings

TRACKmounts2
proRAD
radHOSES
Top-Mounted Fans

ONEcoolerLINES

titanQR 

Larini De-Cat Pipe 

TRACKpipe

raceBATTERY

Xtender Bracket 

Sparco Cup Wheel

Exhaust Development: Lotus, Alfa & Now Drakan

We have been working with an exhaust specialist who designs and manufacturers systems here in CA for many years.  We've had them make the RACEpipe for the Lotus, our new Alfa 4CRpipe and now have handed them our Drakan to develop a track system.  Chuck designs each system and has a keen ear for good sounding systems that don't drone.  He started back in 1983 so has tremendous experience.  Sound is tested on each car and then undesirable frequencies are tuned out.  The Alfa system he developed for us is excellent as it kills the annoying drone that exists with the factory 'race' exhaust.  Each system is built from T304 Stainless that is either MIG or TIG welded.

I dropped off the Drakan this week so they could develop a track oriented system that would delete the catalytic converters and add a more melodic/sporty sounding muffler.  The Drakan is designed to use the eRod LS3 with the factory cats from GM along with a larger off the shelf muffler that is quiet enough to meet sound at Laguna Seca or Lime Rock.  This new track system will be louder but we requested a sound that would also be a bit more exotic.  The stock LS3 exhaust manifolds will be used to maintain reliability.

I snapped a bunch of random pictures.  I was asked not to shoot everything as they produce exhausts for many tuners including some popular German-focused tuners.

Naturally, I can hardly wait to get our Drakan back to hear it roar!

Dry Sump Track Testing & More

We conducted track testing this past Sat. at Spring Mtn with the Lotus Cup racers.  We tested a few products:

1. S111-Dailey Dry Sump
2. ETHOS 16x8 & 17x9 wheels
3. DSbrace - affordable toe link brace
4. TRACKpipe - track muffler

We made a quick video to share some info:

Overall we had great results with the Dry Sump and are ready to release it to other race teams and shops.  Amazingly we ran the car with no oil coolers.  Oil temps slowly climbed over the course of the day to about 280degF.  Clearly a small cooler will be a good idea when the ambient temps are hot.  I think a laminova oil cooler will be perfect and should allow us to delete the front coolers.  We think the complexity of a Dry Sump does not lend itself to the average shade tree mechanic.  If you are interested in a solution, give us a call so we can discuss your needs.

The TRACKpipe is our new track muffler.  We've been running it for a few weeks and have shown sneak peeks of it and sound clips in recent videos like this and this.  The sound is not loud and has a great tone to it.  We think track guys are going to be pleased with the price and quality.  

The DSbrace is our new affordable toe link brace.  It uses the same components as our tried and true RTD & RTVbraces.  We eliminated the central brace and added lower cost, but still effective, brackets to place the toe link joint into double shear.  This product also bolts on with absolutely no modifications to the chassis. This kit delivers the highest joint strength of any solution we are aware of.  

The ETHOS wheels ended up coming off the car as we experienced some rubbing at the rear.  We ran 245 Hoosier A6s at race ride heights and experienced some rubbing on the outside fenders.  We took them off and installed our back up wheels/tires.  We think these will work with Lotus that are running flares.  They are perfect for their primary application: the Ariel Atom.

We recruited our good friend Dave T. to push the car hard.  He turned some of the fastest times of the day with only 211s beating his times.  This allowed us to push the car hard and see how it would perform. He turned 2min56s times on the 3.5mile config.  Overall it was a long but productive test day for our team.