Winter projects 2014 thread

Alec Moody · **Joined:** Fri Feb 15, 2013 9:02 am **Posts:** 299

We had a thread like this last year and It was fun to see what everyone is doing with their extra free time.

For my winter I am finishing up tooling for my composite air intake system. Over the weekend I started on a rolling work bench + low temp curing oven:

It will be running an AC heating element with air circulation fans off of a controller that does ramp and soak. The oven part is insulated by foil faced rockwool board with an inner layer of sheet metal and it will all be sealed up with silicone.

I am also planning to redo seals and belts on my vvt engine and get that installed.

How are you all spending your free sunday mornings?

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Sun Dec 14, 2014 9:42 pm

I picked up a California Special front bumper for the mustang, so I think I'm going to try that one myself. Have to paint it since they never made these in the DHG paint. Once the holidays are over, going to set up an area to start sanding and prepping. Other than that I have no major plans set aside for car work, I think the mustang is where I want it.

Now, that said, I may be picking up my old '96 328 BMW...again... This will be the 3rd time I've "owned" it. Really not sure what I want to do w/ this car, but I'm buying it at a decent price so it's hard to refuse. I sure as heck don't need a 4th car, but I don't want to sell the mustang either. Sure would be nice to have that detached garage I want to build already up, but that's a few years off...

Steven Carter · **Posted:** Sun Dec 14, 2014 10:00 pm

Have S2000 shocks serviced
Watch everyone argue about which tire is best, buy ZII* anyway
Get the Z running
Coach my son's basketball team
Get my swing speed to 105 mph, eliminate my tendency for early extension
Get my 5k time down to 25:00 (currently in low 27s)

Deadline is March 1, I think it is doable...fingers crossed!

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

Bought this yesterday. Needs a lot of work.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:51 am

What's the BMW bike you have in the pic. I sooo "need" one of those. Would love to have another bike to just to kick around on...

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

RodneyWright wrote:

What's the BMW bike you have in the pic. I sooo "need" one of those. Would love to have another bike to just to kick around on...

It's a 2004 BMW R1100S. It's a big bike which is happiest cruising about 85 MPH. The CB-1 is for kicking around on

Les Davis · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:04 pm **Posts:** 2059

MikeWhitney wrote:

RodneyWright wrote:

What's the BMW bike you have in the pic. I sooo "need" one of those. Would love to have another bike to just to kick around on...

It's a 2004 BMW R1100S. It's a big bike which is happiest cruising about 85 MPH. The CB-1 is for kicking around on

Nice! I've put 7500 miles on the Ninja 1000 I picked up in January and its great fun but it is more of a sports tourer and is a bit cumbersome for riding to grocery store and such. Thinking I want to pick up something small and super light that gets awesome gas mileage to kick around on. Thinking Ninja 300.

Chad Culbertson · **Posted:** Mon Dec 15, 2014 11:33 pm

Speaking of bikes, I bought this left over 2012 FZ1 in April, over 3k miles on it so far.

As far as winter projects not much, ill be needing some rear tires soon so shopping around for some good all around tire for track/autocross and daily driving.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:14 am

@ Mike.... When you get bored w/ the BMW bike, let me know. Maybe I can hide this from the wife =)

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:39 am

Got a bit of work on the Miata that I'll hopefully start soon now that I'm on vacation.

Got a new Megasquirt to put on the car, this one plug and play so I can actually troubleshoot if something goes awry
Get the car inspected one last time while it's still street legal
Remove emissions, put my old intake back on and get it dyno'd
Finish welding up a center console to mount the kill switch/gauges and switches
Remove the rear end and have a 4.77 R&P installed
Get some "new" SM7s ordered to get me through comp school
Get another set of 15x9s for said SM7s
Get a cool suit cooler built and mounted
Possibly play around with spring rates, I do a lot of inside tire spinning on T1 at VIR even with a LSD. I'd imagine that going to a 4.77 (from 4.3) isn't going to help this. I'm at 600/375 now, I think I'll need to go to around 1000/400. I'll need new shocks before that though.
Ballast & corner balance
Get a logbook

Jason Mauldin · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:09 am

JamesMilko wrote:

Possibly play around with spring rates, I do a lot of inside tire spinning on T1 at VIR even with a LSD. I'd imagine that going to a 4.77 (from 4.3) isn't going to help this. I'm at 600/375 now, I think I'll need to go to around 1000/400. I'll need new shocks before that though.

Look into a set of tender springs. They solved this problem on my 240sx

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 9:42 am

The car is way undersprung now. 600/375 is a somewhat compromise rate for when still I drove the car to events with a super stiff front bar and no rear bar. Now I'm back on stock sway bars and running much stickier tires. The new setup will have tender springs though.

The debate in my head now is to get the stiffest springs my current shocks can handle now, or wait till I get the new shocks and save some money in the long term.

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Gen 2 Xidas are basically magic. DO ITTTTT

My winter projects include:
- Prepping a SC300 with Youssef, Carlton, and Chris Barefoot for RACE CAR duty
- Come up with a proposed ruleset for a new autocross class for THSCC
- Finally fix the idle on the Miata
- New brake pads and tires for the Miata in March
- Play Super Metroid
- Set up a screen printer

I'm not going to mess with the Miata until it breaks catastrophically. Tires, brakes, and maintenance until then.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 12:50 pm

My winter project is to work with my team on building our new Lemons car. The current state is it runs and drives, but still no cage or anything else. Still TONS left to do before the start of the 2015 season.

RodneyWright · **Posted:** Tue Dec 16, 2014 1:28 pm

Andrew Jonell wrote:

Gen 2 Xidas are basically magic. DO ITTTTT

My winter projects include:
....
- Come up with a proposed ruleset for a new autocross class for THSCC
....

Wanna 'splain this Batman?

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