Ultimate Street Car Challenge Report by Sean Morris.

[Merli]

Ultimate Street Car Challenge Report by Sean Morris.

2003 marks the third year of the Ulimate Street Car Challenge held by Sport Compact Car Magazine. Some people say its the forth year , but the guys at SCC say "that was something different". The first year I entered Nick Wongs R32 , and Blackbird. Blackbird was voted in , but sold to Craig Lieberman prior to the event. Justin Sykes's R33 was ran at the first event. We did not do as well as we wanted the first year and got 7th place overall. Even though we were 2nd down the drag strip, and 0-60. The second year I entered Hiros R32. Hiro had problems with his car and Daniel Suh's R33 filled in. Finishing 2nd overall, by 5 points was a little disappointing.

This year I entered Nick Wongs R32 again, and RB Motorings R34 GT-R. The R34 got sold prior to the event, the alternate car was Nicks R32. Nicks car came out to RB Motoring about 2 months prior to the event. It was already together and tuned. It had been setup for One Lap of America . The last time on the dyno the R32 made 608 rwhp and 477 ft/lbs of torque. This was in Chicago . Eric Hsu from XS Engineering and myself flew up to tune the car. Then last Septemeber I flew up to Chicago for a little test. We had a drag strip day at US41 Dragstrip in Indiana with Mid West F-Body , and Syclone /Typhoon guys. Then the next day was a test with Speedtrial ,USA at Gingerman Raceway in Michigan.

We were pretty happy with the drag strip results. First pass was a 12.0@124 . By the end of the day I had it down to 11.1@128 , and 11.1@129 mph back to back. Not too bad on Pirelli P-Zero Rossos.

Nicks R32 came out, and we started to work on the car. Doing general clean up of it. Underneath with Simple Green and scrubbing brushes for hours and hours. We had our long list of things we wanted to change. Extra parts to order, and what we were going to do to try and win the contest.

Some pictures of what we did and were working on can be found in our gallery.

http://rbmotoring.com/gallery/view_album.p...umName=NicksR32

We did a couple of track days in Nicks R32. We had one up at Buttonwillow, and one test day at the Streets of Willow. We knew how testing was important to work out the bugs. And there were bugs. We caught part of the electrical harness on fire up at Buttonwillow. Luckily it didnt do any real damage . We had lots of electrical tape , and ended up spending a bit of time seperating wires and making sure they wouldnt short together anymore. Something good to consider is moving the harness that runs up the inside frame rail to the MAF meters. With the single turbo conversion, out on the track, even with heat wrapping we managed to catch it on fire.

The next track day we had some wastegate issues. It actually turned out to be a gasket issue with the wastegate. We lost the gasket and that melted our plastic T to the bottom of the wastegate. With no signal going to the bottom of the wastegate, we kept hitting boost cut. With one hours sleep, I was having problems diagnosing it. So to cure that we ran steel braided lines and a metal T. In addition to that we replaced the gaskets. Taking the old wastegate on and off we ran into a problem, we cracked one of the mounting flanges. So we got a new wastegate.

Once we found out what cars were in the contest, we started to do research on what we were up against. Its funny how much information you can find out on the internet. We actually started a little file on the cars we were going to compete with in the contest. Several cars dropped out, and the list of 10 vehicles seemed to be a little fluid. Changing often. Even in the last few days several cars dropped out, and were filled in with last minute replacements. We stopped updating the gallery on Nicks car - well at least the gallery that everyone could see. Some of the last minute details , little things we were doing, we didnt want other people to see.

http://rbmotoring.com/gallery/view_album.p...bumName=album02

The final look of the car with the BBS LM's. The tires we were running. The exhuast setup we had. The final engine look. The heat shields. The 355mm front Brembos, the 345mm rear Brembos.

In the last few weeks before the contest, we really started working on the car non stop. Getting the final details done on the car. There were things we wanted to do , but didnt get done. I really wanted to do a dragstrip test on the Hoosiers, just to see how they would hook, but one of those things we ran out of time on. I did get a change to do a couple 1.6 bar launches out in the alley beside our shop. Setting up and tweaking the HKS ETC. I ended up with about 25 % of torque to the front. Still getting a lot of wheel spin at the top of first on the BFGoodrich KD's.

The Saturday before the event we went to XS Engineering to retune the car. We were hoping, with more boost, the exhaust cutout, and the methanol/water injection we would be around 650 hp to the wheels. We had to reset the fuel pressure, as the last time we tuned the car we didn't have a fuel pressure gage. We had a lot of issues with the methanol injection on the dyno. Lots of breaking up .We ended up tuning it, and then going back and trying to tune the methanol. 1.6 bar of boost - 570 hp to the wheels. 1.6 bar of boost, +4 degrees of timing, methanol on , we made 555 hp. Tuned the methanol off, timing back to normal, and we made 570 hp again. The 1.6 was our tune for the road course. Methanol was out.

Next we went for the dyno/dragstrip tune. Cranked the boost up and did a pass. Boost was dropping a lot at the top. Peaking at 1.96 bar of boost, and then dropping down to about 1.45 bar by 8200 rpm. We tweaked the wastegate until we were almost all the way down. It just did not want to hold boost. We speculated that the exhaust housing was too small. We were meeting our original goals of good response , and 600 horsepower to the wheels. We ended up at 594 rwhp and 498 ft/lbs of torque . Not really where we wanted to be. We were looking for something more like 650 - 670 rwhp. The torque was up from the last dyno , but the power was not where we wanted it. That was what the car made , and it was really too late to change anything major. Nick wanted to put nitrous on it. Normally I am all for nitrous , but in order to finish first , first you must finish. We debated a single fogger for another 50-75 horsepower . We debated the direct port. I was worried about how much fuel pump we had , and if we could support 750 -800 rwhp if we used a direct port setup. And I was worried about fuel and nitrous distribution on the stock intake manifold. Number 6 gets the most air and fuel.

I told Nick, after the USCC, we can throw as much nitrous like it as you like. Before the contest changing anything dramatic could mean teething issues. Every year before, with nitrous, the cars lost power. The 300ZX, and the Supra in the first and second year respectfully. Unless it was done right, and tested, its not worth it.

We knew the Supercharged Viper had made a corrected 887 rwhp and 870 ft/lbs of torque. We really hated losing nearly 300 hp on the dyno.

The Tuesday before the event we did the photo shoot for Sport Compact Car in beautiful downtown Los Angeles. Not the nicest place on earth. Only a few crack whores , and drug dealers hanging around the photo shoot. Interesting to say the least.

The before contest dinner was Wednesday night at a diner out in Riverside, CA . We showed up first and parked the GT-R. Did our interview for the video, and just hung out and waited for the other cars to show up. They were all out doing their photo shoots. Ours was done the previous day because we were located in LA. We also got the final 10 cars that were in. Fuzion Supra, Audi S4, Axis Wheels Supercharged 350Z, Supercharged Viper, 1st gen Eclipse, 2nd gen Eclipse, BPU Supra, MR-2, Ultima GT-R, and our Skyline GT-R. The dinner / DVD shoot finally got done about 11pm. The Viper still had not shown up, as it supposedly ran out of gas.

After the diner we went back to the warehouse to finish off a few things. We replaced the test cat we were using with a newer fresher cat. We finished up on the installation of the halon fire extinguishing system. Couple other little detail things. By the time we were done it was about 3:45 am. Just enough time to get home, lay down for about an hour, and get back to the shop. The next day / same day started at 8am at K & N in Riverside, CA. A little over 1 hour drive from our shop in City of Industry.

[Merli]

The first days events are: Car Show, Grandma Test, Driveability, Emissions, Base Price, Horsepower, Power Delivery, Guru Panel (Engineering). We were standing around waiting for something to happen. They had dynoed the first Eclipse and it had made around 400 whp on K & N's AWD Dynojet. We decided that we wanted to go on the dyno and get it over and done with. We started packing the engine with ice, and spraying the IC and inlets down with water. Pulled the fuse for the AWD and went over and got it strapped down. Told everyone we were expecting 600 hp to the wheels. Started the car up to warm up the driveline a little. We had already started the car to get the oil temps and water temps up prior to the dyno. I ran the car up though first gear, cruised a little in 2nd gear . Give the Redline Shockproof Heavy some time to get more viscous. 3rd gear....... Then put it in 4th gear. 3000 rpms I go wide open throttle. Car starts to come up slowly and then screams up to redline. Bang , bang , bang on the rev limiter at 8700 rpm. Clutch in, in netural. Make sure it doesnt stall, bliping the throttle on the way down.

I hear "650 horsepower". What? Did he say 550 horsepower?. Then I hear "661 horsepower". By then I was a little confused. We had just dynoed 594 rhwp. I looked at the Apex Power FC Commander - 1.96 bar of boost. Hmm.... they ask if we want another pull . At first I say sure. Then Nick sticks his head in the car, Steve speaks up. Think about it again. Why push it? We are really where we want to be. So I say no. Pull it off the dyno.

We still are in a little shock over how much power we made. 661.9 hp and 586 ft/lbs of torque. Different dynos, different days. We were still happy. We ended up in 3rd place on the dyno. A T78 Supra, on nitrous made 671 rhwp. The Supercharged Viper made 820 rhwp. We did get 2nd in Power Delivery . Taking it out to 8700 rpms helps. 74 points in peak power, 74 points in power delivery.

Car Show we didnt do so well. Well Nicks car is not a car show car. 47 points. Grandma 96 points, including the +1 bonus point for bringing Paul Walkers cousin. Driveability we did fairly well - about 4th. Emissions we end up 3rd. Guru Panel we end up 3rd also.

The MR-2 blew up on the dyno, and they went home.

Then after all the events are over it was a 72 mile drive up and down a 5000 foot grade for fuel economy. Everyone else was still filling up, and we left first with our support truck in front with Nick driving. I was in the Skyline, and behind us was Matt in his BPU Supra. Even with 1000cc injectors, 2 Nismo fuel pumps, and a close ratio 5 speed trans I managed to get 26.9 mpg. The Supra that was following me got 38.8 mpg. Thats like Geo Metro territory. And we even made a wrong turn and went about 2-3 miles wrong.

We took the Skyline and the Supra back to my storage lot and dropped them off for the night. Next morning we were meeting up at California Speedway at 8am. After the first day they said the Red Supra was in 1st. We were 6 points behind in 2nd place. The next morning we met up at the track , and a bit of a suprise. They had miscalculated some of the scores and the engineering and fuel economy had been figured. We were in first place by about 50 points. Then we were ahead by about 60 points.

Gave us a bit more confidence.The 2nd day was going to be our strong day. The first event was the skidpad, then the road course, the 0-60, the 1/4 mile, braking, then the gross display of horsepower. Out to the skidpad first. The Viper, the Ultima, the Skyline, the 350Z, and the 1st gen Eclipse. We pulled the fuse on the GT-R to make it RWD. Generally RWD cars are better on the skidpad than a RWD car. We were last around the circle and ended up with a 1.063 which put us in 4th place on the skidpad. Better than the 1.04 with Daniels car the year before. We think it may have had a little more in it, but we had a 100% full tank of gas. When we corner weighed the car we had about 6 gallons of gas in it.

Then out to the road course. We were out first on the road course with the 350Z. Steve was driving the GT-R, John Hotchkis was driving the 350Z. They were out for 2 laps of lead and follow behind a 911. By the end of the first lap - the 350Z went past the 911.... a little early. The GT-R stayed behind. The end of the 2nd lap the GT-R pulled out and started chasing the 350Z down. The end of the next lap, Steve was up beside the 350Z. Then he did something we werent expecting. Into the 1st turn he out broke the 350Z and passed him on the inside....

I was thinking. Doesnt Steve know this is practice? Here he is dicing with John Hotchkis in a 350Z. I think Steve came to this realization and he backed off. By stopwatch Steve ended up with around a 1:19 lap. Something else happened and they had to cut the practice short. They ended up offering a extra few laps a little later. Steve had said that when he was dicing with the 350Z that he had noticed the oil temp at 133 degrees C (271 degrees F). Checked knock, checked boost. Peak boost was 1.7 bar. Peak knock was low enough. Water temp got up to 105 C which isnt bad.

Steve did a few more laps and we came in to get ready to do the timed laps. The Audi goes out runs a 1:19. The 350Z goes out and turns a 1:22 but an intercooler pipe had come off. The Red Fuzion Supra goes out and runs a 1:24. Steve goes out in the GT-R. Takes off to go and warm the car up. Comes by flying on the first lap. GT-R though open exhaust, sounds so good. Screaming.... We wait in anticipation. The GT-R comes around, not sounding good, you can see it not under power. Then some clunking, a puddle . And drifting past the finish line. Steve takes a left turn into the pits. I can see oil and coolant pouring out from underneath the car.

Its done. I pull the hood pins, and pop the hood. Oil everywhere. Its tossed a rod. We push the car out of the way. Have another quick look around. Its really done. Push it up into the garage. We put the jack under it. Still oil and coolant pouring out. Get a light and I can see a large chunk of the oil pan missing. The dipstick got left on the track. I see part of the rod on the under tray. Steve plucks another part of the rod out of the oil pan. We can see that it spun a bearing. I hold onto part of the rod cap. I still have it. Been carrying it around.

We got a time of 1:20.75 which is still in front of several of the cars, most noteably the 820 whp Viper which ran a 1:24. By then we were about 60 points in front of the 2nd place car. 4 events left. 110 points for each event - 25 points for the gross display of power. We wanted to push the car down the 1/4 mile to at least get the 10 points, but they wouldnt let us. We would have screwed up the curve.

The quarter mile, 0-60 was a little more than disappointing. They were running out of time, mostly because the film crew takes too long to get setup each time. The Eclipses were already hurt by then. The 820 whp, Viper ran a 12.4 and a 12.5. The BPU Supra very nearly tagged the wall, got extremely loose. The Sliver Eclipse was dropping oil on the track. The engine cover was off the Ultima and it ran 12.2, 12.1 making it the fastest thing down the 1/4. The 671 rwhp Supra ran a 13.6 and a 13.4 .

Every year with the GT-R we have been about 100 hp down on the power and 2nd quick 0-60 and 1/4 mile. This year we brought a GT-R that was at least 100 horsepower more than the car we brought the year before.

In October, even on a crappy track, on crappy tires I had gone 12.0 @124 on low boost. On high boost first pass with wheel spin in 1st, and 2nd it went 11.7@126....... oh well. The car was already broken, and I was a little tweaked. I didnt get a chance to drive the car at high boost. Oh well, thats racing.

Thats about it...... we blew it up. We were in the lead, and we blew it up.

[predator]

Not quite sure about all this.. But some interesting things in there. Americans are funny.

They're all talking about all these 600bhp 12sec cars and things like they're "supercars" when anytime you go to Calder Park on a Friday night you can maybe see 20 or more crack a 12 and its like "yawn"

Even a 13 sec car is pretty much considered a "slow" car, compared with what else is out there these days in australia.

Wonder what they'd make of a fairly funny looking, but otherwise quite normal aussie VL that does 10's or 11's all day long.

Bet you its about $50k less than they'd spend on any of their cars too..

pft..americans

[Duncan]

predator666 I remember seeing a thread somewhere about dyno readings that US dynos tend to read a fair but higher than our dyno dynamics ones.

That was a good read, I'd love to know what the "Grandma" contest was though :confused:

[predator]

true, but a 1/4 mile time is a 1/4 mile time no matter which side of the globe you come from.

[pentae]

When I was in LA & Miami a lot of American guys I would talk to who where into cars would go teary eyed when I would tell them about the jap hi-po cars we can get into the country and how much it costs us in USD..

[pentae]

predator: So in America, a skyline of any sort is usually pretty funny looking because they don't see them very often either

[hippy]

yeah .. a 600hp supra doing 13.4 ... too heavy ... hehehe americans ...

[Merli]

Forget the horsepower figures.

a 661rwhp GTR only running 11.7@126mph?

That's 492rwkw, and they can't even crack a 10??? There's something seriously wrong there

As I said, forget the horsepower figures. Americans like to inflate their dyno figures to make them sound good, but as you said, 1/4 mile times are universal, which is why they are used to compare cars abilities.

Regardless, it is also just as futile to compare these cars to your $5,000 VL crapboxes. It's akin to comparing your GTS-t to a Ferrari 360 Modena. Your GTS-t might do the 1/4 mile faster and cost a hell of a lot less doing it, but they're simply in different leagues and you only sound stupid trying to compare them.

[Sonic]

These cars are also designed to corner hard but be street friendly. But i agree with Predator, Yanks can't get it right. Lets see them take on Robert Frith's 600kW R33 GT-R

[sigsputnik]

I don't see how you can argue that:

Regardless, it is also just as futile to compare these cars to your $5,000 VL crapboxes. It's akin to comparing your GTS-t to a Ferrari 360 Modena. Your GTS-t might do the 1/4 mile faster and cost a hell of a lot less doing it, but they're simply in different leagues and you only sound stupid trying to compare them.

When you've just said that:

1/4 mile times are universal, which is why they are used to compare cars abilities.

If the GTST is faster than the Modena, the Modena owner is just going to have to accept that fact. They'll have to find some other vector along which to compare their cars. If a VL crapbox can be sent down the quarter mile with greater success than a hi-po Supra, then so be it (to my mind you'd be mad not to do so, if winning is your aim). Trying to subsequently claim that the Supra is out of the VL's league because of some unobservable quality measure just doesn't wash.

[kabab]

Your not buying a ferrari because its fast your buying it because its a ferrari.

Stop making crap comparisons.

[fatz]

1.9 bar and they throw a rod

work that out hey

lol

dickheads people like that dont deserve cars

fagot!!!!!!!!!! seppos

[Merli]

Originally posted by sigsputnik

I don't see how you can argue that:

Regardless, it is also just as futile to compare these cars to your $5,000 VL crapboxes. It's akin to comparing your GTS-t to a Ferrari 360 Modena. Your GTS-t might do the 1/4 mile faster and cost a hell of a lot less doing it, but they're simply in different leagues and you only sound stupid trying to compare them.

When you've just said that:

1/4 mile times are universal, which is why they are used to compare cars abilities.

If the GTST is faster than the Modena, the Modena owner is just going to have to accept that fact. They'll have to find some other vector along which to compare their cars. If a VL crapbox can be sent down the quarter mile with greater success than a hi-po Supra, then so be it (to my mind you'd be mad not to do so, if winning is your aim). Trying to subsequently claim that the Supra is out of the VL's league because of some unobservable quality measure just doesn't wash.

I guess I have to spell it out.

They were two completely different points. But here is is broken down into baby steps.

1. You can't use power figures to compare different cars, especially ones dyno'ed in different countries. Amercians like to inflate their dyno figures so they have a more impressive figure to spout at the pub.

The 1/4 Mile, however, is a more reliable PERFORMANCE indicator that could be used to compare two different cars' PERFORMANCE

Next, completely unrelated point:

2. You are seriously misguided if you want to compare a $5,000 12 second VL crapper to a $350,000 12 second Ferrari 360 Modena, because quite simply, there is a LOT more to cars than just straight line speed, or even overall performance figures.

"unobservable quality measure"

Are you serious? Do you think that besides 1/4 mile times, all other differences between a VL/GTS-t and a Ferrari are "unobservable"????

If you do, then I shall raise the white flag and humbly give up.

[Nismodified]

Originally posted by fatz

1.9 bar and they throw a rod

work that out hey

lol

dickheads people like that dont deserve cars

fagot!!!!!!!!!! seppos

They are trying to push the skyline GTR envelope in america. They mite not do things the best of ways but at least they are learning from it. Just one more thing that they know wont work.

Pretty soon Sean and his mates will take the Uscc title, with 'domination', and good on them for their efforts up to this point.

[ausgtr]

Originally posted by predator666

Not quite sure about all this.. But some interesting things in there. Americans are funny.  

They're all talking about all these 600bhp 12sec cars and things like they're "supercars" when anytime you go to Calder Park on a Friday night you can maybe see 20 or more crack a 12 and its like "yawn"

Even a 13 sec car is pretty much considered a "slow" car, compared with what else is out there these days in australia.  

Wonder what they'd make of a fairly funny looking, but otherwise quite normal aussie VL that does 10's or 11's all day long.  

Bet you its about $50k less than they'd spend on any of their cars too..

pft..americans

Remember that in the US they never got the Skyline range, they are only learning it's capabilities atm. The Supra was sold in the STATES and they have a huge aftermarket range for them. To be even noticed over there a Supra would have to run a low 9 sec 1/4mile. They have many more supras running 9's and 8's (most still street driven) then we have GT-Rs running 12's or less.

They also have many stock cars that run 12's, Corvette ZO6, Cobra Mustang, Dodge Viper, how many of our local cars can do that?

I'd say they would be laughing at us.

Did you even read what the event was about? What it involved? It wasen't just 1/4 mile times, so none of the cars were setup for drag racing, there was also track events, braking, skidpan etc etc. Let's see how many 10 sec VL's would compete in that

[ausgtr]

bah:)

[ben wilson]

Originally posted by Duncan

That was a good read, I'd love to know what the "Grandma" contest was though

As I understand it, the grandma contest is to see if they are a genuine street car, ie can any grandma drive them on the street. Button clutches and violent boost delivery loose big points in this test.

[fatz]

nothing wrong with seppos

"everyone should have one as a pet"

[Squizz]

Originally posted by Merli

I guess I have to spell it out.

They were two completely different points. But here is is broken down into baby steps.

1. You can't use power figures to compare different cars, especially ones dyno'ed in different countries. Amercians like to inflate their dyno figures so they have a more impressive figure to spout at the pub.  

The 1/4 Mile, however, is a more reliable PERFORMANCE indicator that could be used to compare two different cars' PERFORMANCE

Next, completely unrelated point:

2. You are seriously misguided if you want to compare a $5,000 12 second VL crapper to a $350,000 12 second Ferrari 360 Modena, because quite simply, there is a LOT more to cars than just straight line speed, or even overall performance figures.  

Are you serious? Do you think that besides 1/4 mile times, all other differences between a VL/GTS-t and a Ferrari are "unobservable"????

If you do, then I shall raise the white flag and humbly give up.

I hate it when I agree with Merli