Transmission Transitions wrap up

Thought I'd finish this one up because I think people would be interested in how one could weld a diff, and how it affected the car!



warning... welding a diff at all, or doing it this way, may not be the best solution.  But it was fun, and effective in sno-drift.

About a year ago I had taken the trans apart to get to the differential, in order to weld it (turn it into a cheap and very heavy spool type).  Unfortunately, most transverse engine transmissions require a complete disassembly to get to the differential.  In this case, the differential is pretty much the LAST component to remove if you were to make the list.

This was a 'rally' build.  Importantly (to me), if you just take it apart, and put the same parts back in, there's no need to worry about shimming anything to get the preload correct, it should all go back together 'rally' functional if that's how it came apart...  and it did.


First: disassembly.  Matt of Bentmettle helped (and supplied the odd torx I didn't have)  Ripped it apart in 30minutes, and I'm thinking 'ooooh no slow down' pretty much the whole time.

Then it sat for...maybe 2 months.  But then!  Welding time - - the one thing I didn't want was for the welding job to fail, and take out the transmission with it.  Of course, as long as the differential is stronger than the halfshafts it should be good.  But I really didn't want the diff to fail.

After cleaning as well as I could (pretty poorly) I preheated it...on my old grill.

Got it up towards 450degrees and then went at it with a Hobart Handler 120 on max and flux core wire.  I welded the spider gears together, and then used small squares of .25" steel to fill in the gaps, and welded the spider gears to those too.  I had plenty of penetration. (hehe...)

Notice that I even left the bearings on...  certainly not best practice, but it was effective.  I took care to keep the gear but especially the bearing surfaces covered while I was welding to keep them clean.  They certainly picked up some heat discoloration though.  I really didn't want to have to set bearing preload in this thing...

Finally, I put the trans back together.  Used all the old synchros and even most of the old seals.  I think I only replaced the output shaft seals, case gaskets, and some of the shift lever seals, but I forget the details.  I think it took... two 3hr sessions.  It was my first ever trans reassembly, and I learned a lot about how a manual transmission works while doing it.  I thought I already knew, but some details, like what really engages the synchros (spring tension working on a ramp, not shift lever effort...) I had no idea.

Thinking back it was interesting to note that the reverse gear was chewed up on the edge from previous owner not adjusting the shift linkage and then not correcting it, but more interesting was that the pinion has somehow lost a small chunk of one of its teeth!  Maybe a piece of metal from the chipping reverse gear got in it.  But judged both minor, and it did turn out that the trans was fine.


So how'd a FWD with a spool drive?
A little different than I expected.  In that, at normal speeds, it does NOT feel like a limited slip.  Going around corners of any kind, even with power steering, takes serious steering effort.  Much more pronounced than anybody could ever complain about even with a tight and chattery clutch-type diff.  The tire traction and scrub just wants to pull the wheel straight, and you can feel the tires grinding.  Corner radius depends on inside-vs-outside tire traction, and which one 'wins' the battle it's in with the other one.

And then when you're heading straight, under power, and with variable traction, the car is all over the place!  When one wheel has more traction than the other it kicks back through the wheel.  But even if you hold the wheel straight, it'll still drive the car to the other direction.

First we rallycrossed the car, and it was pretty terrible.  All tight corners, the front end would grind and scrub and push...  definitely made the car a much worse rallycross car.

And in sno-drift, it was difficult to turn and pick line the same...until going sideways at speed, then you could really pull the car through with the throttle.

But maybe most importantly for this event, we never got stuck!  Which is a lame problem to have, but most 2WD cars had it.  Between siped altimax arctics, and the welded diff, I didn't even know that the rest of the field had some serious hill climbing touble.  For us, it wasn't a problem.


So I guess the welded diff was a success.  Through other means however (tree), it seems we've toasted the trans.  I'm not heartbroken, I'll put the spare, open diff 020 back in for now, then later maybe a limited slip in the 02J.

Mind the gap

Excuse us for the lack of communication, we have much to update!  We ran quickly at Sno*Drift, but were frustrated early on by a tree.  So we're repairing, we can build it stronger, better, faster... We'll be back with the full story, and we'll be back in a stage rally soon.

And we've also been recreating.  This summer for both of us has involved a lot of full weekends, not often in direct rally preparation, but often amateur motorsports related.  Or biking, camping, motorcycling, rusty truck fixing, wedding attending, grand prix spectating...you get the idea.

Regarding the amateur motorsports - Kenneth is busy preparing his STX RX-8 and practicing for his second visit to Autocross Nationals, and I am learning how to be competitive in my 125cc shifter kart. See below for my current karting condition, video from yesterday at a small kart track in Lansing, MI. I still have a long way to go, specifically, I need to get around that track 2 seconds quicker. I have some ideas.

Coming up soon: rally storytelling, fabrication and repair explanation and pictures, and future plans. Also some noncompetition project car updates. Please mind the gap, but stick with us, we're still here.

Transmission transitions (oof, sorry)

Side pre-note: Today we're registered for Sno*Drift, though we've known we've been going for a while. I'm looking forward to the event weekend for both our ICEngineering autonomy and teamwork: autonomy in how we'll finally be support self-sustained with my new favorite truck, and teamwork in our lodging, where we'll be lucky enough to be renting a cabin and garage with both G2 teams Billy Elliot/Mary Warren and Dmitriy Martynov/Jon Tinsey. It'll be a full house, hopefully an idle garage.

As for the GTI
I've got a spare transmission, so I've got it in my head to weld the diff. I figured: a) It can't hurt, and more importantly b) I've always wanted to try it. So I've turned my working (if tired) 2nd trans into a useless pile of gears (that's called progress, right?). I haven't done anything in the past week to weld it and put it back together...


But for a long-term solution I've found that the original 020 transmission for the mk2, while decently durable under 140hp, lightweight, and decently geared...is too old. Final drives, differentials, and especially gearsets are either too expensive or simply not available. Luckily, VW's are made like legos, and literally any 4-cyl transmission is likely to fit. I'll be bolting up an 02J (as opposed to 02A only because that's what I found available) once I get the internals sorted. Thanks to the VW community in Michigan here, I've been able to round up nearly all the stock parts I need, and for a really decent price. Side benefits include supporting all the torque I could ever make, eliminating the shift linkage mechanism, and an elevated shift box placement option thanks to the same. Below picture shows my 2(!) 02j boxes, both uniquely broken, a bucket of gears which is likely junk but maybe has some spares or little pieces I can use, and the cable shift box with cables. I'm only missing a cable-clutch adapter setup and starter.

Regarding the standard repairs after Black River Stages, everything's together except for the exhaust. See the shots below for the boxed transmission brace, new PU trans mount, and PU inserts on the new rear mount. That engine doesn't wiggle a bit. Also, see if you can spot all the engine-as-pinball damage still present from BRS, including some light inadvertent machining work on both halfshafts. Nothing past cosmetic though. And yes, there's a lot of oil all over the place, both the engine and trans have ...significant weeps.














As for the exhaust, we could just replace the cat with a spun, metal core one, but we'll do a little better. The exhaust was too loud. Apparently, I could have figured this out before trial by some basic research, and found naturally aspirated motors of all types require more than a useless resonator and a cat to pass sound requirements. Not to mention it was a bit difficult inside the car to hear each other. I've ordered a short hushpower 2 to replace the stock resonator; we should be more reasonably-toned, and also a couple pounds lighter.

Current exhaust v.1 setup on left. The 4-2 section of the 4-2-1 headers are on the engine. Exhaust v.2 will replace the resonator with the hushpower, replace the busted stock cat with a spun metal-core one, have another v-band instead of the slip fit, and welded-on hangers throughout. Hopefully v2 lasts a couple events without necessary revision. We can only hope...

Sno-Drift Upcoming

Our next stage rally event is Sno-Drift 2012, in Lewiston MI. The event promises to be fairly epic - the rumor I've heard is 24 special stages in 2 days. Last year there were 18, and we didn't feel short-changed then... We'll be looking to put together some of last years first day (2nd in G2) with a little bit of Black River's full-weekend smooth execution, and hope to finish top 5 G2, at the end of the whole weekend. Top 5 all 2wd would be even sweeter.

Quick car update - it's torn down to reveal all damage, and the broken parts tally is a kill switch (odd), 2 engine mounts, 3 engine mount stays, and only a loose lower ball joint to cause the wandering steering (!). It'll be back together in time for the next local rallycross, December 10.

In an attempt to even out the wrenching+expense vs seat time (plus a load of fun), I've managed to pick up a 125cc shifter kart for a great price, and even got it out on track before the season changed too much. So here it is. It's proven to me about 10x more clearly than even rally that being fit, strong and healthy is a huge competitive advantage - and when I can drive this for 20minutes without fatigue I'll be able to drive the rallycar all weekend without straining.

BRS Recap

Heading out!

Been a couple weeks since BRS now, and since Kenneth and I decided it wasn't in our schedules to get more time for LSPR, I've taken the opportunity to see the fall colors from my mountain bike and generally get away from the garage for a week or two. And get a truck, more on that later...

Kenneth said it correctly when we didn't really believe all the NASA schedule rumors (as in, lay out the picnic blanket a couple times a day) - but sitting at what would be the start of the second special stage, with the sun going down and no lights on the car, we began to believe it. The rally was scheduled to start at 3:30, with ~30 miles of stage and transit before the first service...maybe that was part of what I was looking for. It was most important to me to run a smooth weekend, and the breaks certainly made it easy for us in the car, keeping us more rested. If I do another NASA rally I'd bring a camera to prove it.

Thanks to our small but awesome crew, Kyle Steinkamp and Matt Bushore (of Bent Mettle racing, certainly not where he likes to be instead of competing for podium as driver, but a huge asset to us that weekend), the weekend was smooth outside the car as well.

Having finished with no offs, and only 1 close call (those jumps in that video is the wildest it got, tame compared to the number of close calls at sno-drift), it's easy to say we should have driven faster. I've found that we actually did manage to destroy 2 of 3 engine mounts, but hey, the skid plate held it up in there!

So, to recap for now:
BRS Goals: All achieved
1) Find way to both rally AND eat and sleep (= have fun, all weekend)
2) Finish with no driver-error damage
3) Run the car with engine swap and custom electric

Next rally goals: As above, + actually drive fast
Also, with no MAJOR changes planned for the car, I look forward to all the finishing and sorting work which has been put off so far.

Some pictures:



Also I have a truck. It's not pretty, I've promised to keep it's name (Tank), and look forward first to wheel to wheel ice racing this winter enabled by it, not to mention actually being able to go to rally when my previous tows are themselves racing.

STX RX-8: STX Legal Intake

SCCA's Street Touring classes were originally formed to draw in the "street tuner" crowd, so that new guys with just a bunch of bolt-ons that don't really add a whole lot of performance don't get pushed into Street Prepared where they run against a bunch of full-on race cars. Now it's just a bunch of full-on race cars with street tires.

Anyway, one of the most ubiquitous bolt-ons is the intake. It usually makes the engine a little bit noisier, the engine bay a little bit cooler-looking and on most modern engines, adds very little power. That's pretty much why I didn't put one on for my first year of running STX. Instead, I put together an exhaust that makes the car MUCH noisier, and adds a tiny bit of power. Good choice, right?

From a little bit of research, it looks like AEM's intake system nets the greatest power gains of any intake on the market. I have no idea why, because they're all basically a tube with a filter at the end. The AEM (also sold as a Mazdaspeed intake) snakes behind the front bumper support to put the filter right in the RX-8's huge grille opening. This is actually not STX legal because it requires the removal of a piece of plastic that is technically part of the cooling system, so a lot of STX RX-8 (and STR MX-5) owners have re-routed their AEM intakes to place the filter just above the bumper support, hidden by the bumper cover. This requires buying more stuff on top of the $325 purchase price of the AEM system.

Here's an example of a modified AEM intake on an MX-5

I figured I could build my own a little cheaper, so I ordered the following things:

1. 2' Mandrel Bent Aluminum 45° Bend, 3.5"
2. 2' Mandrel Bent Aluminum 90° Bend, 3.5"
3. 3.5" Silicone Hump Hose, Black
4. Silicone Reducer, 3.5" to 3.0"
5. AEM DryFlow Air Filter 21-2047DK
6. A bunch of hose clamps

I actually ordered more stuff but ended up not needing it.

First, I pulled the MAF off of the existing intake and measured it so I could reproduce its mount in aluminum.

Then, I realized that people just sell these things for $13!

I stripped the old intake off the car, and started shoving stuff into place:

Step 1: Remove everything. And yes, I know it's really dirty in there.

Step 2: Jam filter between core support and bumper beam

And Step 3: Connect the dots. That was the time-consuming part. I actually got away with just cutting up the 45 degree bent tube into two pieces and welding it back together in a different orientation.

Step 4: Stick these things togetherI'm still figuring out this aluminum welding thing

Step 5: Bolt it all together and now I have a sweet looking intake!

It's sweet looking if you ignore that one rusty hose clamp

I weighed all the crap I took off at 12.124 lbs (it was a needlessly precise scale), and all the new stuff weighed in at 4.848 lbs, for a total weight savings of about 7.25 lbs. I can't tell a difference in power, and I really don't notice any difference in noise due to my ridiculously loud exhaust. All in all, I'm not sure that it was worth the $150, but it looks pretty nice and it was fun to build.

Next installment will be the battery. You can see in the photos that I already got a little one, but it's mounted really poorly. That should be taken care of within the next week.

STX RX-8: Introduction

This is my 2005 Mazda RX-8:

I bought it new in July of 2005 and since then, it's been through a lot:

And by that, I mean a lot of dirt

I started autocrossing the car back in 2008 with the Detroit Region of the SCCA. I started out driving it completely stock in our local Street Tire B Stock class. In 2009, I graduated to R compound tires to run in the nationally recognized B Stock class. I also began to travel a little bit more for events, hitting the large sites in Peru, Indiana, Toledo, Ohio and Oscoda, Michigan.

In 2010, I decided that I didn't want to have to buy more R compounds (they're super expensive and last less than 100 runs) and I wanted to tinker with stuff, so I made the leap to the Street Touring eXtreme (STX) class. I used the Koni Sport dampers that I had been running in Stock, added some coilover sleeves, machined some spring perch adapters to take 2.5" ID race springs, bought some wheels and tires, welded together a catted midpipe, and I was in STX for only about $1500.

Pictured: Really cheap suspension

The car handled pretty well from the get-go, netting me better indexed results than I had ever achieved in Stock class. Of course much of this could be attributed to experience, but it was also more fun than ever without the massive body roll brought on by the soft-spring/high-grip setup Stock setup. With just some alignment tweaking and driver adjustment, the car got better and better through the year. In fact, my co-driver at the Toledo Pro Solo took second place just behind the eventual STX national champion, while I coned away fourth place and ended up way back in tenth.

In 2011, I netted myself a co-drive in a friend's STU Mitsubishi Evolution IX (to continue my trend of jumping classes every year). The car is extremely well-built, featuring AST dampers and TONS of horsepower.

It's real pretty too

I ended up making my first trip to Solo Nationals in that car and having terrible results on one day and pretty good results the next.

For now, the plan is to go back to Nationals, with pretty good odds of driving my RX-8. This means that it needs to be close to the level of prep that the Evo is at so that it actually has some shot at being competitive. Unfortunately, I'm super cheap so I try to do everything the hard way rather than spending a few extra bucks to get bits and pieces that already exist. But, that affords me the opportunity to make stuff and get some fabrication experience. So, I'll be documenting some of the stuff I make/buy/modify for my RX-8 here on the blog.

Things on the list:
1. Intake
2. Little battery with custom billet tray/tie-down
3. New rear dampers
4. Custom full 3" exhaust, possibly including header
5. Cobb AccessPort and tune (well, this one is just paying somebody else)

Let's see how much of this actually gets done!

Black River Stages - Actually Rallying

I'm lazy so I didn't update yesterday after our first day of rallying in New York. We had heard a lot of stories about waiting around at stage starts during NASA events, but we didn't realize how totally un-exaggerated those stories actually were. At the very first special stage, everybody just sat and waited for nearly an hour because the emergency crews weren't in place yet to be able to run the stage. We waited around a lot more than that at other stages, though one time was because two Evo X's went off badly enough on SS4 that the stage was canceled. In the end, we only ran 4 of the 9 planned stages. So...that was disappointing, but a good way to get familiar with rally again.

Here we are leaving Parc Exposé

Day 2 was more interesting, though we still ended up with a stage cancellation due to delays. The stages were really exciting though, with some big air on the first two stages and some fast but fairly technical elements on the other three. There was a lot more waiting around too, which can be fun when used to socialize with our fellow rallyists, but not as cool when it causes a stage cancellation.

One of the most exciting stages was Goose Pond which is known for being pretty heavy on the jumps. It did not disappoint. At one point, we ended up so detached from the ground that we had no chance of correcting our trajectory and ended up shooting off toward the side of the road. Sean had the wherewithal to correct it though, and I didn't really understand the severity of the situation until I watched this video. Excuse the terrible camera placement that heavily overemphasizes the importance of the rear view mirror...

Crazy jumps at about 0:30

As much as I'm complaining about missing a stage though, we ended up being very lucky that the stage was canceled because our fuel gauge lied to us and we ran out of gas while on the transit back to service. If we had tried to run the final stage, we would have ended up with a DNF. Which would have sucked. Thanks to Michael Hall and Carl Lynn in the super badass Mitsu Mighty Max for flat towing us back to the finish of the rally.


The adventure wasn't over though, as when scores were posted, we were showing up as last place by a MASSIVE margin due to a one hour (!) penalty. The penalty notice said "At TC14B was due at 16:39:00 but arrived at 15:39:00." This was ridiculous because it meant that we traveled at least 30 minutes back in time during service, so I filled out an inquiry form to get that changed. I didn't really know how to state it, so I did it bluntly.

This actually worked

So we got our hour back and ended up finishing in 3rd place in Open 2WD Light, just a single second out of second place. I'm happy with it though.


The other thing is that this was Dmitriy's first rally in his new car and on the suspension that I built, so I was being paranoid and asking him about it after every stage. It seems to be holding together just great and Dmitriy has been saying that it's performing well, so that was a huge relief.

Gorgeous car!

They ended up third in Open 2WD Heavy, so overall this rally was a great success! Huge thanks to our crew chief, Kyle Steinkamp, and our transporter/random advice giver Matt Bushore for getting us through this weekend.

Black River Stages - Day 0

After a long-ish tow through Canada, we've arrived safely in some part of New York. I'll go look for it on a map now.

I suppose it looks something like this

Thanks to Matt Bushore for towing us out in his pretty scary ambulance over such hazardous terrain as narrow-ish bridges and Toronto traffic. Some nice scenery though, especially over these "Thousand Islands."

There's a thousand of them! All apparently inhabited by rich people

Upon reaching our destination, we put some stickers on the car and got it through tech with minimal hassle. Then, we sat through a 3 hour long novice orientation which was surprisingly helpful and entertaining.

Tomorrow, we don't have to get to Parc Expose until 2 PM, so we have some time to sleep in and work on the car. Unfortunately, we discovered that our skidplate doesn't quite clear the new motor's oil pan and we have some loose relay connections that make our lights stop working. So luckily we have some time to fix these things and hopefully shop for some snacks. Yum.

Sean has mandated that everyone have fun, so...wheeee!!!

Busy gap, Black River Stages in 1wk

It lives! Tonight I drove the GTI, with the new-to-me 9A 2.0l and new-to-the-world body harness with way awesome switchpanel (and hopefully, improving from garbled stock wiring, way awesome reliability for all projects to come). This is cutting it very close considering that we need to pack up next Wednesday night, something which has been both a source of stress and motivation. (what if the new trans was bad or engine has fundamental damage which I didn't know about? etc - - but it is OK so far!)



See also the glimpse at the new gauges and switchpanel, and shove your face into the cat on that video...um, catalytic converter...displacing the muffler because the header displaced it! That thing REALLY trumpets under load, pretty smooth sounding at speed.

I think Kenneth and I have been putting ~20 hours a week into that car for the past three weeks, heh, or that's what it feels like. Because now it's go time: we're going to Black River Stages next week in Watertown NY. Matt Bushore will be towing us out with his terrifying ambulance rig, we're all signed up and paid, and the hotel doesn't know what's about to hit it (a lot of really tired people, that's what...)

Dmitriy, who's been our fearless crew chief, is returning to his permanent role - which is driver for his own car. We've been lucky to have him, but we're really excited to run with him on stage, especially with his sweeet new suspension, I don't know how we're going to keep up! (of course, see below post for Dmitriy's new suspension). But - we're very excited to have the intrepid Kyle Steinkamp with us again, he'll be our crew chief, and between him and Matt we'll be in good hands. My goal is to finish with no major damage to the car (or at least, due to driver error). I've gone through a rear suspension each rally so far, so at least, I want to finish with intact rear wheels...

Stay tuned, we'll have many updates, pictures and video in the next two weeks!