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August.

This has been a really great month. Usually we’re caught in the moment and never take a step back to appreciate that we’re doing some good work. This month we finished some really good race cars and also had the opportunity to work on some rare cars as well.

Kihurani’s Rally Evo build

A few weeks ago we completed a three week stint on Kihurani’s Evolution VIII.  Kih had come all the way from PA with the car for us to do the build.  We’ve broken the project into parts with the end result being an SP rally car. the first round was installing a cage that would be legal for Rally America and also SCCA hillclimbing. We also installed seats, a 34mm restrictor on the turbo, Bill built a custom double slip fit exhaust with spring clamps and a 100cell cat. Matt tuned the new Vipec ECU and set it up with Antilag,  and we did some other small maintenance on the car prior to Duryea Hillclimb which was to be the car’s first shakedown event.

Kih Evo Build Gallery

Kevin’s  STI Hillclimber

We have quite a hillclimbing crew now. We just finished Kevin’s STI for hillclimbing. Kevin did a similar process to Kih in stripping and caging the car. We also installed a race bucket and harnesses in Kevin’s car. It had previously been tuned using Methanol injection by Matt here at the shop. Nick managed this project top to bottom and did a fantastic job. We need to take some photos of the panel fit and paint for the website. Bill  also made a muffler delete pipe for Kevin that bolts right on for events with no sound control.

Team Rally-Tire STI

Parked in the pit at the top of Duryea/Pagoda

The car that was originally intended to be an emergency back up is proving her worth as a starting player. The engine is now out after Burak, Bill and I all drove the pants off the car at Duryea Hillclimb. She showed no signs of giving up but we have a big event coming up and simply cannot afford to have the overburdened stock STI block break mid-event. While the motor is out Scot has the suspension off the car. New brake rotors for the AP brakes, new pads and some new body parts will be installed.  One strut is back at AMF for a rebuild. The engine bay and car are being completely cleaned and re-prepped for our friends from Lassa to drive at Rally NY. We’ll be installing a new motor and running it in under the watchful eye of Matt K on the dyno. The car will also take on a new identity as the Lassa Rally Team car, fresh graphics and a whole new look for Rally New York. That’s the big project of the moment. Rally NY is in 3 weeks.

Jim Mac FD3 RX-7

Today we finished a small project on Jim’s RX-7. The car is a former Canadian Touring Car Championship car. Previously Bill fabricated a manifold for the single big T4 turbo, Matt tuned the Power FC. This time we’re reconstructing the boost lines to the wastegate with teflon lined AN-4 Aeroquip hose wrapped with firesleeve. The original lines were aluminum tubing and were leaking at the last event. We’re also doing some light track prep work on it before a time trial with COM this weekend.

Last week we did a clutch on Matt’s R32 GTR. We installed an OS Giken twin plate which feels awesome.  We are OS Giken Direct dealers by the way. Unfortunately the master cylinder appears to be failing so we now have another GTR project in the works and parts on the way from RHD Japan.  Pierre’s new Evo 8 will get some track time this weekend. He was gracious enough to lend yours-truly the car for a time trial on Sunday at NHMS with COM. It will be the car’s first outing. We swapped the motor from his crashed car, swapped the clutch and other drivetrain parts, installed some new intercooler pipework, performed an alignment, installed brake pads, bled the brakes, installed a seat and rails, tuned the car with Methanol injection and repaired many small issues left over from the previous owner. If you were recently at Home Depot in Virginia Beach and noticed that there was no hardware left on the shelf for your broken lawn chair it’s because all of the hardware was purchased for this particular car. There was a creative melange of metric and English course and extra fine threaded hardware adorning this car. Adding to the fastener fiesta, I found the flywheel joined to the pressure plate by helicoils! Hours of tapping and cleaning and a clutch replacement got the car back into top shape. Luckily there was a donor car to supply the project with factory hardware.

I don’t want to forget Tony’s Evo X either. The cage was just finished and finally painted despite Tony’s initial unwillingness to finish it. We wrestled him until he submitted and we painted the cage just in time for Duryea where he placed 4th in the most competitive class of the weekend. His p Photos to follow. This brings us to our event reports.

Duryea Hillclimb

Last weekend we traveled to Reading PA for Duryea Hillclimb. We had a great time and will definitely go back next year for another go.  The organization was phenomenal and everyone was nice to us over in PA.  Ron and I arrived late on Friday night to the venue and Rich Rock was nice enough to stay with Brooke and sign us in at 9pm at the top of the hill!! Thanks! We had a difficult morning mostly because we left all of our equipment in an area that we later had no access to. After loaning, stealing, several trips to Auto Zone and begging we had things worked out. Burak and I double drove the rally car and had a huge bolt puncture our tire early in the day. I only did two runs on Saturday. Bill had some engine trouble that unfortunately ended his weekend early. Tony’s car ran perfectly as usual and Ron’s new engine had the juice to meet his driving skill and propel him to 4th overall and an ITE Class win. I felt like we had a good showing for a bunch of Yankees.

Rally Cross at NJMP!

This weekend Ramana is going to NJMP for the very first true Rallycross on US shores. 5 cars, head to head. Each having in the ballpark of 600ft lbs of torque and plenty of horsepower to match. That’s good news but the great news is that Ramana secured a seat Ford Fiesta ERC car and Bill and Scot will be crewing for him. Wish him luck!!!

I’ll be doing something much less interesting and much less important but fun nonetheless. I signed up for a time trial with COM at NHMS before we knew about the RallyX developments so I’m sticking to that and bringing Pierre’s new Flourescent yellow Evo 8 up there for testing and initial break in.

Rally New York

In three weeks we’ll be going to Rally New York with Burak and Lassa Rally Team. The team is traveling here from Turkey in their first US Event ever. DSG was chosen for technical support. Volkan Isik will be driving with Vedat Bostanci a Subaru STI. Keep an eye out for us!

http://www.rallybuzz.com/volkan-isik-rally-new-york/

More soon including photos to beef this post up.

-Alex

http://rally-america.com/news/press/721/

Team Rally Tire Wins Again At New England Forest Rally! Newry, ME – July 18, 2010 - The 2010 Rally-America National Championship came to a close this weekend with another decisive win for the #74 team of Ramana Lagemann and Christine Beavis.   Piloting their Rally-Tire.com sponsored Super Production class Subaru WRX STi, Lagemann and Beavis drove quickly and consistently, finishing an unprecedented 2^nd place overall, just 42 seconds behind newly crowned series champions Antoine L’Estage and Nathalie Richard.   Lagemann commented, “I am so proud of what we accomplished this season. All of the teams in Super Production are modestly funded, but we were able to run strong with truly minimal resources. In 4 events, we used just 6 sets of new tires! We didn’t have one puncture all year. In fact, we ran with used tires through the first eight stages of this event. That is truly incredible and speaks volumes about the quality of Lassa Rally Tires.”   Despite missing the opening two rounds of the series, the Dent Sport Garage supported team managed to take three class victories out of four events, including two overall podiums, placing the team 4^th overall in the Rally America Championships, and 2^nd in the Super Production class. “It’s more than we expected, but being familiar with Ramana’s skill and experience, I can’t say that I’m surprised.” says Beavis.   Lagemann, who returned to Rallying after nearly three years, showed the speed and skill that landed him a contract with Prodrive to represent Subaru Rally Team USA in 2002. Teamed with seasoned co-driver Beavis, the crew was immediately up to speed, dominating Super Production, and even winning stages outright against more powerful and sophisticated Open class machinery.   Despite not competing in Open class, Lagemann is looking forward to driving a high horsepower rally car when he enters Rally America’s Rallycross Series, set to kick off in late August. “Currently we’re evaluating our options,” explains Lagemann. “I think this will be really exciting for fans watching on event and at home on TV, so we are hopeful that the series will take off!” Round 1 of the Rally Cross series will take place at New Jersey Motorsports Park, August 27-29. Rally Tire is based in Temple Hills, Maryland. The company imports, distributes and on-line retails various racing products suitable for stage rally competition such as, Lassa Racing Tyres, Arcasting Racing Wheels, Sabelt Racing Products.Rally Tire is owned and operated by racers whose goal is to offer top quality racing products at reasonable prices. They hand pick and test all products to make sure only the best are made available for their customers.

Rally Tire can be found on the web at http://www.rally-tire.com

Note from Alex-

Dent Sport Garage  has handled all mechanical aspects of this team  including gearbox rebuild/refresh, differential rebuild, suspension rebuild, custom exhaust and on site service.  The Vipec Ecu was tuned in house on our Dyno Dynamics LB450 dyno by Matt Koestner.  The team did the whole season on one completely stock engine, directly from the dealership. Keep a look out for us at upcoming Rally-X events in New Jersey!

What this means for customers is that we can offer the same great tuning capabilities to modern Nissan owners that many other marques enjoy.  The UpRev software allows us to tune 350Z, 370Z, Infiniti G35, G37, Nissan Frontier, Armada, Maxima, etc. Pretty much all modern Nissan and Infiniti vehicles are covered, even some of the odd ones such as the Cube.

The UpRev Osiris and Cipher tuning suite allows comprehensive datalogging capabilities as well as the ability to calibrate MAF scaling, injector size, fuel target table, ignition timing tables, cam angle, and drive by wire tables.  This allows us to tune your Nissan vehicle for almost any modification you can dream up.  With a PMAS MAF (which plugs into the stock location) the stock ECU is good for close to 1000 HP!  In addition, the Osiris software is capable of storing multiple maps on your ECU.  Up to five maps can be stored and they are selected by using the cruise control buttons with the cruise control light flashing to confirm which map slot is active.  This allows a customer to have maps for different fuel qualities, valet map, anti-theft map, etc.  We are proud to be working with UpRev and look forward to doing business with our growing Nissan customer base.

UPRev Tuning prices start at $650 and multiple maps can be produced for the customer for race fuel, valet etc.

***Compare this to the cost of a tune and having to buy a piggyback computer like an Emanage or an Accessport! This is clearly a better value. More reliable, no extra hardware or wires, no install fees and no Check Engine lights. **

Call the shop at 781.551.3399 or email MattK@dentsport.com for pricing and scheduling.

For more information on this great new software you can visit UpRev’s site. We’re listed as dealers, the only dealer and Protuner in Massachusetts.

http://uprev.com/index.php

______________________________________________

6/20

Danne picked me up from the airport and we headed down to Danielsson Motorsport where the Ultima is located. A well known local fabricator, Tokan, was already at work on the car. He worked on the front and I got to work on the rear uprights. They had just arrived from Riley in the US and once fitted, it was apparent that some parts would need to be modifed to achieve decent base camber. I will be mounting Mike Mishler’s Kognition wing tomorrow and will have to modify the chassis to get it where it should be.  While we were working on the Ultima, Danne was installing the SQS sequential shifter in his 9ff 996 Turbo.  Alx was in and out during the day. He was on his 1989 FZR Yamaha and was soon off to commentate for Eurosport Sweden during a formula car race from France.
I’m now hanging out in the Jumbo Stockholm 747 hostel in Arlanda.

TUESDAY- Working on the wing base and mounting the wing, moving out of the hotel 747  for a house.

“I worked on the wing for the majority of the day, very close to completing it. Patrik (who is a friend of Alx’s and owns a motorcycle tuning shop in Uppsala) was there helping. He made some progress on the Gabat front bladed ARB as well as some good progress on the rear Sellholm bladed bar. The rear Riley uprights get back from the machine shop tomorrow. I fell in love with the local hardware store today as well as the car part store. They had seltzer water on draft for customers! As well as Bosch Rallye Lights on the shelf. EVERYONE has 3 driving lights on their bumper, it might be a law, not sure.”

Wing base for Kognition wing.

This was at the hardware store. Bill said everything there was Metric. What a dream!

On the highway.

“I made some progress on the rear wing mounting, explored the area and went for a drive after work. Danne was taking their two hired race mechanics and heading to the track for testing in their two Seat JTCC cars. The drivers are two 15 yr olds and the cars are essentially stock drivetrain with WTCC dampers, setup by Rickard Rydell’s engineer. Watching them load/unload the truck reminded me a lot of working with Mazda in World Challenge:)”

Daniel in the center. He is ripped and was in the Swedish Military. He is a very nice guy and has the 9ff 996. There is a 1000hp R34 next door with an HKS 6 speed. Its done 400 km. He needs to sell the 911 and get that for cheap. He wants a diesel dodge ram though.

Scot and Bill went with Ramana Lagemann and Burak Tuglu of Team Rally-Tire (TRT) to STPR Rally and brought home a victory in Super Production as well as a place on the podium, placing third overall.  Ramana and codriver Chrissie managed to win two stages of the rally outright, the longest and the shortest.

photo STPR_Rally on Flickr.

Lagemann Beavis In Car STPR

The car is at the shop now if anyone wants to come see it. It’s getting better and better now that the team has been over it a few times. Matt tuned the Vipec and refined the anti-lag to Ramana’s liking, recently, Bill rebuilt the 6 speed and we fixed a few leaks and before Maine (New England Forest Rally)  we’ll be sending the Ohlins out for service and building a new exhaust for the car. The great finishes have created some interest for Lassa tires and the Arcasting wheels. We are sourcing some wheelsets for customers now and can get more if anyone’s interested.

This brings me to the next topic, our newest customer service liason Ben Rickard. Ben has worked in the industry for a while now and brings a lot of parts knowledge and professionalism to the table. He will likely be the one taking your order, scheduling your appointment and helping you get those parts on the way. He started this week and is most definitely a welcome addition to the team.

Recent Projects-

Summer means a bunch of broken stuff. We’ve been working on a clutch job that turned into a leak fix on a 5 speed subaru input shaft. When the transmission was apart we found a broken third gear! Terrible. Bill’s fixing that one. I’ve been working on some motors, one for Vlad’s track STI and another for BigHEAD Tony who had the misfourtune of running through a small lake during a thunderstorm. Nick did a clutch on an Evo IX today and a slew of other work, swaybar install, gauges, brake work, suspension installs.. he’s been the man lately. We installed a Tomei ExPreme manifold on an Evo IX yesterday to replace a junky Ebay one. The quality of the Tomei kit is really incredible. It comes with about $100 of OEM Mitsubishi Gaskets and high quality exhaust wrap for those interested in wrapping their manifolds. The stock heatshield also bolts to the Tomei Manifold.  Nick is also working on Ryan’s Civic track car, converting it from OBD-Zero to OBD-1 so Matt can then Tune it on the dyno.  Matt’s been tuning a lot of Subarus, soon a Turbo Miata with AEM once the injectors come, then a BMW running VEMS with a turbo the size of a big melon. The car might break 600whp. Matt also tuned another E30 M3 race car the other day in a collaborative effort with the car’s project manager, Mark from German Performance of Brighton.

Bill fabricated pipework today for a huge tube-fin intercooler setup, welded breathers for a Honda B series valve cover and worked on wiring Nick D’s VEMS equipped, big turbo’d, built M20 powered BMW.

Racing News-
Nick is racing this coming weekend at Burke Mountain with the New England Hillclimb contingent. He’ll be bringing the Accord out of retirement for this event. Next race after that for DSG is going to be COM at NHMS 7/2-7/3 where I’ll try to get my lap time back from Bill who totally sniped me by 1/10th of a second. Then Okemo Hillclimb where we will try for FTD with the Pleasure Evo. After the party ends we get down to business in Maine at the New England Forest Rally in July to try to make wrenches turn with the same precision that Ramana makes the steering wheel turn. 

Before all that happens Bill will be going to Sweden of all places. Through a recommendation by Mike Mishler @ Kognition Design (who deigned and created the awesome wing for the car), Bill was hired by Swedish race driver Alx Danielsson (Formula Renault V6 Champion and owner of Danielsson Motorsports) to represent DSG in their effort to break the Nurburgring lap record with a twin turbo Ultima GTR.  Bill will be fabricating parts as well as finishing up wiring and suspension installation.  The car is powered by a 970hp Lexus/Yamaha 4 Liter LMP motor.  He is leaving this Saturday!!

I’ll ammend this post with more photos tomorrow. For the very latest stuff check out our facebook page. We have a Business page and a Group page. The business page is way better.  Don’t stray from our site though. Facebook is sort of lame.

Sorry Sorry! This last month has been nothing short of madness. I would like to really encourage all of our customers and friends to plan big projects for the winter. I have a few reasons for this and I know that there are plenty of valid reasons for not doing it on your end.

On a selfish note, during the winter don’t have a lot going on so the benefit to our business is that we would be spreading the work out in a way that keeps the bills paid. For the car’s owner it’s a great time for a big project because we have plenty of time to obsess about the details. Summer is a time for “get it done, I have an event.” Winter is the time for optimization and planning.

So that’s why it’s been too busy to post. We’ve been working seven days a week to get cars back on the track, back to meets and making the commute to work for some just a little bit quicker.

Bill will augment this post with some of his own thoughts and hopefully some photos of cool things he’s built in the last few weeks.  We’ve been working on several race cars. Today, an FD RX-7 that belongs to Jim M. It’s a former Canadian touring car with a big turbo and a nice layout that we’re optimizing now with a tune to bring the power out of the turbo, big injectors, a fuel rail, regulator and Denso fuel pump. In the control center we’ll be installing an AIM dash to simplify the instrumentation and finally an RE-Amemiya spoiler and new Enkei RPF01s with Grand-AM takeoff tires.

The Red E30 M3 is back for final touches. Charbel is going to be doing his first track day with COM in a few weeks. We’re going to put the car on the dyno for logging and some small changes first. We’re also working on details that we didn’t finish before, new gauge from SPA; a dual gauge for oil pressure and water temp, also fixing the headlights, horn, windows, installing a fuel level sender in the ATL fuel cell and making it work with the factory gauge cluster (a big project!)

In Rally news we did some work on Wazoo Racing’s SP Impreza, enabling the dash for datalogging and also on another Subaru GC8 Rally car that was in for a re-tune before Team O’Neil Rally last weekend.

Photo Wazoo Racing, Tim Penasack driving. Photo Joel Sanford

We traveled to Washington state for Olympus rally a couple of weeks ago as technical support for Team Rally-Tire. TRT has tapped the skills of Ramana Lagemann, our friend to finish the season in their Subaru STI SP class car. We crewed for him as he brought home a first-place finish (by several minutes) and 5th overall, not a small feat for a car that is technically well behind an open class car. This week we travel again to the west coast, this time to Oregon for Oregon Trail rally. Burak Tuglu, TRT owner will also be driving his Ford Focus at this event.  We have high expectations for this event after Washington. This morning an article was posted on Rally-America’s website about the upcoming Oregon Trail Rally.

Rally America-Lagemann, Rally Tire, Dent Sport Garage

Photo Andrew Snucins. Ramana Lagemann in Team Rally Tire's STI

And a recap video from Olympus just posted on You-Tube.

2010 Olympus Rally Recap Video

Other interesting things from the shop-

Longtime customer Kenny Nguyen came to visit Matt for another tune on his homebuilt STI. Kenny, a machinist’s apprentice machined his own compressor housing to an HX-40/HE1 hybrid turbo using a manual Bridgeport and clay to control compressor-to-wall clearances.  He fitted this to a motor he built himself.  He wanted an aggressive tune to see what his truly custom setup could do.  He was using  pump gas and 50/50 methanol/water and made an incredible 503whp on our dyno. This is the second most powerful Subaru to ever hit the rollie.

I went to Monticello for a track day with COM. I instructed two great drivers and had a great time. A couple of our friends didn’t have such a great day. Vlad has a broken piston in his poor Subaru and Dan has yet another broken MFactory equipped gearbox. This will end our short relationship with MFactory and also underscore our honest and open testing policy. Dan broke 4th gear again. This was after only 4 track days. Next week we will be doing really the last and most fruitful upgrade to Dan’s wagon; a JDM 6 speed swap with the big hubs and bearings, R180 rear differential, new wheels, fresh tires and yes, the newest Cusco Zero 3R three-way adjustable struts from Japan. We are now direct with Cusco and will be getting what will probably be the first set in the USA.

Dan C at Monticellon in his WRX/STI before the transmission failure

Tony P at Monticello.

Testing and development-

I’ve written a few times on our website that we are committed to racing. Everyone knows that. You probably won’t see us at too many meets. Sure it’s good for business and it’s a way to pretend that we’re not promoting our business while shaking hands and casually drinking coffee like “oh yeah what a coincidence you’re here” but we don’t learn anything at meets. We won’t be better mechanics by doing that. We won’t be better at choosing what parts fit your car, or choosing what parts last longer by doing that. It’s not that we’re trying to be “too cool.” There’s just not time to do both during the summer. Here’s a quick list of products we’ve tested lately.

Garrett bolt-on Evo X turbo-

Installed on Tony P’s car. Tested at NJMP and Monticello race track, 4 days total even double driven by Tony and myself for two days. 1 month now at 364whp and it hasn’t missed a beat. Quicker spool up and more torque than the FP Red. It’s on our “strong buy” list. The only downside, and this might be true for the red also is that the turbo has to be removed to swap the clutch, or service the transmission because the compressor housing prohibits the t-case from coming off to remove the transmission. A small price to pay for reliable power.  Evo X also need surge tanks for the fuel system. Another finding.

Project MU Club Racer brake pads-

Tested at NJMP and Monticello again in Tony’s car. Very strong initial bite. Great resolution even with a heavy ABS equipped car. I’d recommend them more for a lighter car than an AWD turbo with big power but for time attack or time trial format they’re perfect. Some fade after 5+ laps with an experienced driver that likes to push deep into the braking zone and brakes hard in short intervals. Might fade sooner if the driver prefers trail braking and has long braking habits.

Subaru EJ25 Pistons-

When will this company get it right? I went to the dealership and they had literally 5 LGT and Impreza apart for broken engine replacements. This seems to be pandemic among 2009 and 2010 cars. A shame because the cars are otherwise really nice. Vlad’s piston broke at the track in his 2007 STI. Another customer had a piston break on the dyno in his LGT. The car was unmodified. Very lame.

Bilstein PSS9 struts for STI-

A great solution for someone who has a little more to spend and wants a quality, revalvable coilover package. We installed these and tested them at the track. The handling with dampers set haphazardly in the middle and no other alignment changes provide with mild understeer which would be correctable with tire pressure changes if it weren’t for a test-session cut short by Subaru pistons (see above). Bilstein are quality product and we can service and repair them through our partners in the USA. The compression isn’t harsh like some other China- built units that try to give a sport-like illusion by having slow compression damping.

Tomei ARMS turbocharger for EJ25 powered Impreza-

What was another decent bolt-on turbocharger for Subaru ended up to be a really, really good turbo once we ditched the restrictive Greddy exhaust for a true 3″ exhaust. Our test WRX with STI block made 360+ whp with this turbo with a high boost setting. It was quite surprising and puts this turbo at the top of our list for bolt-on turbos for Subaru. AVO turbo gets the temporary “fail” for shipping us a turbo with a compressor wheel that was in full contact with the housing, wasting our time and our customer’s money.

That’s about it for now. We’ve probably serviced 60 cars since our last post.  I hope everyone’s happy with the work we’ve been doing. We”re always open for suggestions if a customer would like to see changes.

Next big event is Oregon Trail Rally; Ramana Lagemann, George G, Burak Tuglu

Ascutney Hillclimb- Pierre, Alex, Niall, Kevin R.

COM at NHMS- Alex, Bill, Tony P, Charbel K

Now for my post input! (Bill W.)

I’ve been working on a few different fabrication projects for customers and trying to get as much done as possible while still working on the daily projects. 

The SR2002 has been getting some love as of late.  Since we installed the Garrett Bolt-On GT3076 on Tony’s Evo X, I decided to use the factory turbo on the 2002!  It’s fitment is much better suited to a RWD platform than the Evo 4-9 turbos (most importantly it spins in the right direction).  I purchased a tubular Evo X manifold and modified it to fit a stainless SR20 Flange.

Evo X Manifold modified to fit SR20

Backpurged Stainless Welding

Evo X Turbo Installed!

I finished the Radiator and Intercooler as well.  I ordered a properly sized Garrett intercooler core from Nick @ P1 as well as a radiator core from our secret supplier of awesome US made radiators.  Fabrication took a while but the 2002 now has a very efficient radiator and intercooler for 350whp!

Endtank for Garrett Intercooler Core

Intercooler Rad Pack

Intercooler Rad Pack installed with new radiator support

 I finally finished the 997 GT3 RS straight pipe for our friend Dave in LA.  Hopefully it fits!

Firewall Complete!

Just a sweet photo of the Maxi @ NJMP by Joe Dantone

Daniels was born in Detroit and identifies with laborers, writing often about the working class and the  hands-on type of work that we as mechanics, welders and builders are too familiar with. The poem on the roof of the Evolution is from his 1985 book Places/Everyone.

Alex on why he chose to do this:

“I chose to pursue this concept because it demonstrates exactly how I feel. Graphics and art are all suggestive of an emotion, or a situation that makes us feel a certain way. Stripes or photos or even the arrangement of sponsor stickers give hints to how we perceive our cars and place racing into our lives. For me, words on the car were the perfect answer to my queries on how it should look.  This statement is made by the black text on white background.   Of the thousands of poems I’ve read in my life this is probably the one I remember most and even better, it describes my relationship with these 2500 lbs of metal. It had nothing to do with marketing, or cluttering the car with stickers, or making money. I had no idea who Jim was at the time. I just knew that I understood what he was writing and empathized with his character.”

This is the link to the article: Poetry In Motion

The Pleasure Evo donned it’s new graphics package, simply a poem from poet Jim Daniels across the roof. We made a lot of big changes to the cars over the winter. We installed a new roll cage and revised the suspension of the Evo, new tires and some smaller changes to the brakes, mostly fine tuning. I felt that the car would be great in Modified with the new tires. I purposely sought no sponsorship this year, not to say that I would get any if I tried but it reduces any extra performance pressure and also allows fluid testing procedures of new parts and somehow makes the experience only mine. My press release would be short. “Thanks to my friends, thanks to my wife.”

Bill had done much more to the Maxi over the winter, as usual. He installed electrically assisted power steering with a custom electronic control box which allows for no belt and also for complete control over the level of assist provided to the driver. He also changed his rear subframe, rebuilt his cylinder head and degreed his new Tomei cams. He also installed new fuel injectors after learning two were faulty. Matt retuned the car and it made more power than ever, 464whp on our dyno. I really felt that this was the time for Bill’s car to shine.

We left Norwood on Friday at about noon and promptly got stuck in NYC traffic, arriving at about 6pm to the hotel. Saturday’s setup and practice went smoothly. Redline is working hard to increase it’s professionalism in tech inspection, instruction for new drivers and also by creating schedules for driver movement and sticking to it. I also liked the new transponder system, much better than before!

Photo by RAVDesigns/Flickr

The Evo had more grip than ever with the Nittos. I was really surprised. After all the winter homework and interviews of COM guys who used everything I chose to buy Nitto NT-01 and I wasn’t disappointed. I think that with these tires I can do a 1:10.X at NHMS in chicane-chicane this year. Anyway.. the Evo honeymoon soon turned into a nightmare of twisted ribbed v-belts and overheating. My store-bought alternator relocation kit was again causing the same problems that it had in 2008, fixed in 2009 until this day. The belt would derail and I would lose power steering which wasn’t the end of the problem. The P-S belt also runs the water pump so the car would promptly overheat. The second practice session I had a boost pipe pop off, fixed that and continued to eat belts and overheat the car into the evening. My best time of the day was a 1:14 or something. I felt happy with the power of the car and with the handling I was hitting the rev limiter too early on the straight away because of my short gearing, a hillclimb compromise. The car had never been so good, if only the belt would stay on.

Bill’s car ran very well on Sat in practice. He had some first-outing problems also. His steering assist would be inconsistent. Scot and Bill worked hard on dialing the suspension. Bill switched from last year’s R1 BFGs to used Grand Am Cup tires and picked up over 3 seconds. I wish he had real new tires.

Photo by RAVDesigns/Flickr

Sunday my car was throwing belts in AM practice. A certain car was trying to pass me on the warm up lap, which compounded my frustration. Nick had bought me a couple belts on Saturday so I had 4 spares in total. Ramana and Burak kept me calm and we came up with a strategy of going slow on the outlap to not disrupt the pump so the belt might stay on. During Time Attack session 1 I got on the gas hard onto the straight for the first timed lap and the belt popped off within 2 seconds. I pitted in. Pit row is halfway down the straight.This combined with my rally-geared top speed of 140 was really putting me in a fowl mood. I would hit the rev limiter in 5th on the first 1/3 of the straight.

I put on a new belt, checked the car over and let it sit with my fingers crossed for the time Trial, skipping a practice session.

Meanwhile Dan C. and Anthony P. were competing in Street class with Dan’s Subaru WRX wagon, 2.5 liter/Tomei power and Tony was testing his 4b11 with Matt’s tuning and Garrett’s bolt-on turbo. Both drove very well, to their credit. The other cars in their class were built much closer to the Redline rulebook and not to our local club’s which dealt them a significant handicap. Cars in Redline’s street class cannot be driven by professionals although Cobb had a driver with quite a resume. Tony was probably the only guy in the class that actually drove his “street” car there, and 6 hours away! It was difficult mentally for both drivers to drive on good tires Saturday and then swap to the legal, narrow street tires for Sunday. They both deserve a lot of praise for their 5th and 6th place finishes in Street AWD.

Photo by RAVDesigns/Flickr

For Bill, Sunday was a day to focus on pushing hard off the straight onto turn 1. He found the limit in practice and put 2, or possibly 4 wheels off over the right hand crest. I didn’t see where the car went, just the dust. It was good though, because he had knocked off 6 or so seconds from Saturday’s practice. I don’t remember Bill’s first time attack run because I was working on my car in the pits. His second was fast. He was nipping on Jeff Ricca’s heels which made things exciting. Their friendly rivalry was talked about a lot over the megaphone as they lapped.

On the final lap of the Time Attack Bill surprisingly pitted in instead of continuing down the straight. He motioned wildly as he drove up to Scot. I was watching from a small hill above pit row, unable to go in since I was wearing shorts. I leaned against the fence in anticipation. Scot understood Bill’s flailing and grabbed the fire extinguisher as he approached. Was Bill’s car on fire? Luckily no. The exhaust had broken in his earlier off-course excursion but the break wasn’t visible underneath the heat shielding. The 3’ long exhaust was now 1.5 feet long and dumping on the bodywork, melting it and Bill’s feet, which operated the pedals above it. The car was fine but I chuckled as I imagined Bill trying to maintain his concentration and at the same time fight the burning sensation at his feet. It must have helped because he turned a 1:11 lap.

I wasn’t sure how I did after my session but I was happy. The car once again threw the belt only I decided to just keep driving after the first lap with the temp needle pegged in the red. It remained there for the duration. I got into the pits and the car wouldn’t start again. The head was severely damaged but I didn’t want to let everyone down. It was too long of a trip, too much work over the winter and too much fighting with the Pleasure Evo to allow it to ruin my day.
-alex

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