R32 Sedan - Grip and Drift (have my cake and eat it too build)

[robbo_rb180]

Are you able to get alloy spacer/adapter with orings for where injectors sit so it seals better like when doing top feed upgrade on non Neo's?

Edited April 27, 2022 by robbo_rb180

[CRSKmD]

On 4/27/2022 at 4:34 PM, robbo_rb180 said:

Are you able to get alloy spacer/adapter with orings for where injectors sit so it seals better like when doing top feed upgrade on non Neo's?

Considering the stock neo injector uses ORings top and bottom and the injector is the same length as my current ones it should not be an issue as is. Just feels off. 

[CRSKmD]

Bit of a gap between updates but I can confirm the injector seals worked.

I entered Winterfest2022 with the hope of getting bulk track time as it was a 9am-9pm day with multiple sessions per group. However, my fuel system had other plans after. Almost immediately after driving out on track I could hear cavitation and watching the fuel pressure live reading it was jumping between 40-60psi with quick succession on cruise.
I gave it a quick go and sure enough the LINK said no drifting for you and cut power to protect the motor.

With no spare fuel tank o-ring seal on hand i was hesitant to remove the lift pump and look inside the tank due to the known swelling issue they have once removed. So with a few friends we checked over the whole rest of the system jiggling hoses and checking voltages. With nothing found there we were thinking perhaps a blocked fuel filter was the culprit. So we went off to Murray Bridge to grab one. After installing it the fuel pressure looked stable around 60psi on idle...for about 10 minutes when it was fluctuating again. I decided to go back on on track but after the first corner it was pretty obvious that there was no significant improvements.

Anyway enjoy the surprising amount of pictures i have from the day

[CRSKmD]

Shakey cam video of the fuel pressure woes

Edited August 23, 2022 by CRSKmD

[CRSKmD]

Back at home I got stuck into the investigation for the cause of my fuel system woes. Opening the tank up expecting to see debris or a blocked filter sock but it was clean inside. I decided that the Denso Lift pump and the Bosch 044 could simply be too old and had started to fail after years of running in E85 considering neither were technically compatible with Bosch themselves only saying the 044 was good for 500hrs in E85. The 044 at least was more than 5 years old running on E85 the whole time.

I purchased a Raceworks EFP-501 low pressure high volume E85 compatible pump for the lift pump and the new Bosch 200 E85 compatible Main pump to replace the 044.

Interestingly the terminal sizes are swapped from:
small OD (-) and big OD (+) on the 044 nicely colour labeled
to
Big OD (-) and Small OD (+) on the new 200 with no colour coding


During the install I found that the hose from the in-tank lift pump to the surge was prone to kinking which may ahve been the real source of my problem


I replaced the effect hoses and in order to help prevent this I added some conduit to avoid future kinking (yes i am kink shaming my hoses)


All installed and hoses routed. The positive battery cable needs to be rerouted with a new isolation switch


all running well with nice stable fuel pressure I booked it in for a dyno health check in case the new pumps were dramatically different to the old ones.

[CRSKmD]

the AAC/IACV had issues on the dyno resutling in a 3000-4000rpm idle hunt which i had previously experienced and resoled with a big stab of the throttle.

We gave it an ultrasonic bath which revealed that the vax pellet in the cooland controlled side had vanished. 

found and cleaned up another one and now for the first time ever my car has a stable 750rpm idle which is kinda of weird.

 

A mate of mine was fed up with my flogged radiator upper mount bushings, which had been an issue for many years, and got me a set from JL Design and Fab / Fitmint auto.

Before.

After.

 

Edited August 26, 2022 by CRSKmD

[CRSKmD]

Next event was a drift day out at Mallala. After some struggles early in the day I was told to try and wind in some more toe out. Good improvement at turn in and mid corner for the higher speed bigger corners.

All was going well until about lunch time when after looping it out (again). The car stalled and wouldn't start. Bump start got me going and home where I tore down the starter motor down to find...

I sourced a new RD30(?) start motor which was much larger than the old unit was and definitely started up much easier. Despite the larger size it dropped straight in.

While under the car replacing the starter motor I noticed a few problems in the form of a missing steering rack bushing alloy spacer and some more than usual oil leaks which I traced to the rubber section of the oil drain hose.

 

[CRSKmD]

after talking to some other drivers i tried to down size my front tyre but up-rate the compound grip
So i went from a 235/45R17 street tyre to a tiny 215/50R17 semi.

certainly was an obvious visual change 

 

But thankfully also an improvement as can be seen in the mash of clips filmed by me and some friends during the day. Enjoy!

also safe to say the rear end alignment and arm setup is working well

[CRSKmD]

After ~6month break from Motorsport events I signed up for a grip day at Mallala.

I decided to try out some new tyres in the form of the Nankang CR-S in a 255/40R17 which I fitted up to my street wheels (the Gram lights) as they were the roundest lol



before there was time for an alignment it was All Japan Day 2023

even found this at one of the stalls

After the day was done and dusted a mate that was also doing the same grip day came over for us to install some parts and adjust anything that was required. The RA65 ended up with a fully adjustable front end

and for the R32 its was raising the height back up to where it was when the shockworks coilovers were first installed as they had settled ~5-10mm over the years and replacing the eccentric bolts that were left with some lock out ones to reduce the chance of the alignment shifting on any off-track adventures. Unfortunately, this meant that my trusty subframe brace/low jack point had to go as the eccentric lockout bolts were not long enough to accommodate both the brace and the washers.


Then it was off to the alignment and I went with the below fairly conventional specs

Front
Toe: -1.5mm toe out each side
Camber: - 3.8° degrees
Caster +7.4°

Rear
Toe: 1.75mm in each side
Camber: -1.4 °

fun note the last grip day I did on my ad-hoc drift alignment was done with -12.5mm toe out each side for a whopping 25mm total toe out!

[mr_rbman]

be interested to hear your feedback on the Nankang CRS...

Had a good squiz at your car at AJD 👌

[robbo_rb180]

You'll like the CR-S. They are great but are really a 1 lap wonder at full noise depending how you drive. Faster than my old A050 over 1 Lap but not over a 5 Lap session. Depending how hot it is on the grip day I've found starting pressure 26-27psi was good.

[CRSKmD]

16 hours ago, mr_rbman said:

be interested to hear your feedback on the Nankang CRS...

Had a good squiz at your car at AJD 👌

Oh nice did you have your car there too?
 

11 minutes ago, robbo_rb180 said:

You'll like the CR-S. They are great but are really a 1 lap wonder at full noise depending how you drive. Faster than my old A050 over 1 Lap but not over a 5 Lap session. Depending how hot it is on the grip day I've found starting pressure 26-27psi was good.

my only good comparison will be against the AR1's in the same size. I found on a 2.6Km track it would take 1-3 laps to get them up to temp, then I would get 1.5-2 laps before they got too hot, followed by 1 cool down lap. went out at 21psi cold and if I came back in directly after I overheated them it would be 36-46psi. or coming in after a good lap ~29-31psi

[robbo_rb180]

29 minutes ago, CRSKmD said:

my only good comparison will be against the AR1's in the same size. I found on a 2.6Km track it would take 1-3 laps to get them up to temp, then I would get 1.5-2 laps before they got too hot, followed by 1 cool down lap. went out at 21psi cold and if I came back in directly after I overheated them it would be 36-46psi. or coming in after a good lap ~29-31psi

Try this and see how you go as its what we found when doing the tyre testing. They will not do back to back laps. Tested at QR sprint and clubman layouts and Lakeside.

1 warm up lap
1 fast lap
2 cool down laps
1 fast lap
1 In lap

This worked very well and were within 1.5 tenths on the 2nd fast lap. They are very sensitive to sudden heat changes and do not come back in a session. Require cool down and go the next session. You will be faster than on the ar1 guaranteed.

[CRSKmD]

32 minutes ago, robbo_rb180 said:

Try this and see how you go as its what we found when doing the tyre testing. They will not do back to back laps. Tested at QR sprint and clubman layouts and Lakeside.

1 warm up lap
1 fast lap
2 cool down laps
1 fast lap
1 In lap

This worked very well and were within 1.5 tenths on the 2nd fast lap. They are very sensitive to sudden heat changes and do not come back in a session. Require cool down and go the next session. You will be faster than on the ar1 guaranteed.

extremely good info thank you.

As for being faster we'll see what 2 years of basically only drifting and associated car changes does to my PB from when I did 6 track days at the same track in a row

 

[mr_rbman]

6 hours ago, CRSKmD said:

Oh nice did you have your car there too?
 

my only good comparison will be against the AR1's in the same size. I found on a 2.6Km track it would take 1-3 laps to get them up to temp, then I would get 1.5-2 laps before they got too hot, followed by 1 cool down lap. went out at 21psi cold and if I came back in directly after I overheated them it would be 36-46psi. or coming in after a good lap ~29-31psi

ye i took the GTR and the missus the Evo

[CRSKmD]

On 3/8/2023 at 3:25 PM, mr_rbman said:

be interested to hear your feedback on the Nankang CRS...

Had a good squiz at your car at AJD 👌

The Nanknag CR-S is a very different tyre than the AR-1. they were pretty much as robbo_rb180 said. but here are my thoughts and comparisons to the AR-1 in the same Size
 

The Good

• Road noise greatly reduce (at least while tyre is new)
• Faster to heat up. just the outlap and basically up to temp by the time you came back around. vs 2-3 laps to warm up the AR-1
• Faster to cool down if you don't completely cook them could realistically get them to go 1 warm up, 1 hot, 1 cool, 1 hot, 1 cool etc
  • by comparison the AR-1 needed 2-3 warm up, 2-3 hot, 2 cool down
• despite the 200TW rating (Tread Wear =/= tyre compound softness i guess) they were gripper than the AR-1.
  • On AR-1 my brakes could easily over come the tyre when at ideal temps where as now its better matched.
  • My suspension almost felt too soft and there was noticeably more roll leading me to believe that the tyres were sticking more leading to more suspension lean where as the AR-1 in the same spots would slide

The not so good

• Only good for ~1-1.5 laps at a 2.6km circuit before they need to cool off
• The 255/40R17 CRS seems to be taller and slightly wider sidewall to sidewall than the 255/40R17 AR-1
• Could just be my car but they didn't seem to "talk" as much as the AR-1 when approaching the edge and would appear to suddenly "let go"

Post to follow with track day wrap up thoughts, video and pics

Edited March 14, 2023 by CRSKmD
typo

[CRSKmD]

CR-S Update

While they are allegedly better in wet conditions than the AR-1 my experience was not great.

But i guess 1 better than 0/100 is still only 1/100.

I will go through the footage i have, but aquaplaning appeared to me much more of an issue than with the AR1's i suspect this was due to the lack of full thread width grooves for the water to escape/be displaced through.

[CRSKmD]

Update time. After cracking the shits at the oil temps in my car i decided to relocate the  Oil cooler from behind the grill to inside the drivers side front bar duct.

Hoping the increased airflow would help with the performance of the cooler.

Previously it would take almost a full lap of the track or multiple car park loops to bring the temps down but after relocating the cooler it takes.... about the the time to cool down.
I had it ducted the core when behind the grill but have yet to add ducting for the bumper mount so this gives me hope that there is more cooling to be gained.

While faffing it was also time to pull out the Shockworks coilovers and send them off for a refurbishment and updated valving along with new spring rates. I had been speaking with Chris and Brett about some of the handling quirks my car had and what i wanted from it considering it had been 3 years since them going in.

They even sent me a new revised design coilover C-spanner as park of the service which was very neat.

I put the coilovers back in completely re setting up the bump/droop and strut lengths while doing so. Covered previously for anyone interested.

[CRSKmD]

Couple of drift and grip days to try out the new setup.

Overall an improvement but the front does seem to suffer a little due to reduced travel caused by the stiff bump stops along with the Stanceparts air cups. Next time I hope to get some 20mm longer front struts to compensate. The current setup allows from 35/35mm bump/droop travel up front + additional bump stop compression. Rear wise its at 45/45mm bump/droop travel. The ride heights are set relatively high in order to ensure full travel usage without scrubbing and maintaining good suspension geometry.

Please enjoy this POV clip of me in the RB25DET NEO R32 sedan chasing Justin Miller in the Golden Sloth Racing - Time Attack SA80 3SGTE Supra at SA Supra’s Mallala Motorsport Park track day.

 

 

[CRSKmD]

Unfortunately the follow event I found an extra two neutrals where 3rd and 4th were when heading down the main straight at The Bend. So for only the 2nd time in 10 years I was unable to drive home from a track day.

A full pull down of the bad box has yet to happen but I did fish these out of the oil. Which I can only assume are off the 3rd/4th gear selector fork.

Luckily I had a spare box with crunchy syncros I'd left neglected in the corner after changing it it for the now broken box. So it went off to 1110 Engineering for a refresh, New syncros, bearings and seals as required as well as upgrading the selector fork to a fancy steel version to prevent any issues with finding extra neutrals in the future.

When compared to the stock selector which only contacts on the brass tabs the steel ones gives a much more direct shift with less chance of snapping. This design also includes provisions for oil to collect/cool/lubricate. I was told by Richie that the stock selector forks tend to wear in three stages; Brass pads worn, ribbing worn, snapped

The initial drives of the refurbished/upgraded box went okay. It was a little stiff to get in and out of gear for the first 10kms or so but loosened up to be nice while still being very crisp.

The broken box will be off for an inspection and hopefully refurbish soon where it can sit in the shed for when I inevitably need another box haha