Exhausting Coronet Work

While at our testing day at the track in May, we discovered we had an exhaust leak.  To make things even worse, one of the studs on the engine broke, making sure we couldn't fully tighten the exhaust manifolds onto the engine.

The engine comes out again.

This weekends we decided to tackle the issue and pull the engine from the car. Once out, we could more easily address all the issues.

Burnt gasket.

With the exhaust gaskets off, the burned areas were clear signs of the exhaust leaks. What we discovered was that the cheap headers were actually not ground down flat where they were welded.  John spent some quality time with a metal file and got everything all sorted out so they'll sit flush with the engine and properly seal.

Cleaning up some really cheap headers to hopefully finally seal the leaks.

Another issue was that some oil had mixed with the coolant when we quickly re-sealed the intake manifold before the May test weekend. Time to fully flush the block and radiator with water.

Flushing the engine.

What came out was in no way related to water or coolant, but rather seemed to be the hydraulic android fluid from Bishop in the Alien movies.

Almost fully flushed now.

Plug all the holes to drain maximum old gunky fluid.

Having fun flushing the radiator.

And don't forget to clear out the radiator fully.

Old mufflers on the left, one of the new ones on the right.

With all that back into shape, we loaded the motor back in the car and got onto some exhaust upgrades. We started by replacing the cheap mufflers that came with the car with lighter weight and free flowing ones to pick up a little more power.

Much more direct air flow through the new one.

With the exhaust now flowing more freely, we added an H pipe to the system. By connecting the left and right side exhaust together, it helps balance out the flow and helps pick up a little extra torque down low in the rev range of the motor.  Hopefully this will help pull us out of corners quicker during the race.

Fresh piece of pipe to make the H in the system just behind the transmission.

Our final project this weekend was fabricating and installing tow hooks for the car. Having an easily accessible metal loop on the back and front end of a race car is required for all racing series so the car can quickly be towed if it gets into trouble on track.

One of the new tow hooks bolted right below the rear bumper.

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GOOD MORNING HUNGARYYYYYYYY!!!

If you are a Formula 1 fan, I know you're pumped up for Sunday's race in Hungary. If you are a Ferrari fan, you are doubly pumped up because the red team from Italy will start first and second on the grid, after Vettel set a new track record to take pole position, with Kimi 2nd.

On row 2, using the Noah's Ark "Two-by-Two" method, we have both Mercedes cars, led by Bottas and then Hamilton. The long run down to the first corner (since F1 starts from a standstill, unlike NASCAR and Indy) should be VERY interesting, and whoever survives or gets there first "should" be able to win the race.

As an added attraction to the Possible Mayhem Menu, we now have the two drivers from Finland starting close to each other, so watch for any possible Scandinavian Connection (get it, connection, like if they hit each other?) between Bottas and Raikkonen.

Row three, both Red Bull drivers, led by Verstappen, then Ricciardo. This was a bit of a surprise after Ricciardo was fastest of all in both Friday practices, but then before qualifying RIC had a break down on track, so maybe they haven't tweaked his car back to 100% yet. Look for him to be driving hard to take advantage of all mistakes ahead of him in the race. Young Max Verstappen has out qualified his team mate, so look for him to also be aggressive attacking Mercedes and possibly Ferrari from the start.

Row four ends up being both McLaren drivers, thanks to a penalty that drops Hulkenberg out of their way, so congrats to McLaren-Honda for finally getting some good performance out of the car. Here's hoping the have a great race, both score points, and avoid the issues that have plagued them the last few years.

Our American team Haas drivers start 14-15, pretty unexciting so far this week, so I'm afraid they will need some cars ahead to DNF if they are going to get up in the top ten and score some points.

One final driver note, Williams driver Felipe Massa drove in the three practice sessions, but then had to pull out for qualifying and the race due to illness, so best wishes to him. The same wishes for his replacement, Williams back up driver Paul Di Resta, who even though had never been in this year's car on track, should be able to do a good job since he's got several years of F1 racing in his past.

The race starts just past 8am Eastern, with an hour long pre-race show at 7am, all on NBC Sports Network.

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What To Watch TONIGHT: The Tesla 3!

The Tesla electric cars have been growing in popularity, despite their high price. By high price I mean north of $50,000. Uh, north of $85,000 actually. Well, the wait for a cheaper Tesla ends TONIGHT, when Tesla unveils/delivers the first Tesla 3 live on line. The 3 has a range of over 200 miles on a charge, and starts at just a  hair above the average selling price of new vehicles in the US, at $35,000. The Tesla video states that 35K is before any tax credits, so depending on where you live and what the current laws are, you might end up paying less.

Now for the bad news. From what I've read, there are something like 400,000 people ahead of me in line to buy one. Production is predicted to be up to 20,000 cars per month, so by doing some math with those two numbers, it looks like if you want one you're going to wait something like 20 months for one. Maybe a few of those 400,000 folks won't actually get one, so let's just say you'll be waiting a bit for a Tesla 3.

One article about the reveal tonight also includes a cool video with more info on the car, you can go to this link: Business Insider

And I'll bet you can find a LOT of Tesla information at the official Tesla website: TESLA

So far there are two countries that have decided to phase out gas engines by 2040, and the popularity and technology of electric cars continues to increase. The NMS team have test driven some electric cars like the BMW i3, and we're willing to test drive a Tesla if you want to pull one up to the garage!

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F1 Takes a Vacation

Over in Europe, the Formula 1 racers have this little tradition where they take some time off in the middle of the racing season. No, it's not like Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, or the National Hockey League, where they take a handful of days off to have an All Star game in the middle of the season. The F1 teams take about four weeks and have no racing, with I think two weeks of the time where they are not allowed to have people working on the cars. Considering that the mechanics and engineers have probably been working 20 hours days for months, that's probably a good reason to take time off, but man, for the fans that's a month of no racing!

Hey, but the good news is that August is also chock full of NASCAR, IndyCar, drag racing, and about a bazillion other kinds of racing too, so there is always something going on somewhere in the wide wide world of racing. 

Here at NMS, our August schedule looks like this so far, not counting stuff like "work" or "looking for work":

5      Cars and Coffee Virginia Beach, VA
5      Ladies Day Autocross "Women at the Wheel", Myrtle Beach, SC
6      ODR Autocross 5, Pungo, VA  
6      SCR Autocross #6, Myrtle Beach, SC  
13    SCR Rallycross, Midway Motorsports Park 
17    SCCA Track Night in America, Carolina Motorsports Park
18    Richmond International Raceway Charity Laps, 5 laps for a donation 
18    "Wear Your Helmet To Work Day"
20    TSCC Autocross 6, Pungo 


That looks like a pretty good month, with a variety of car shows, autocross, rallycross, and maybe a charity event driving on the Richmond NASCAR track just for fun! Maybe we should get out the NMS team stationary and invite all the F1 drivers to attend these events since they don't have any racing going on for a while! Being such nice friendly guys, we'd even let Fernando Alonso co-drive an NMS car too!

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July Virginia Report

Porsche 914

On a HOT (how hot was it?....it was July-In-Virginia-Beach-HOT!) HOT day, the TSCC returned to the Pungo Autocross Center of Excellence (PACE), with 62 drivers competing. When the dust settled, it was still really HOT! Along with the heat, NMS grabbed another first in HS class (ok, so there weren't any other HS drivers, I can't help that!) and fastest Italian of the day, along with 21st out of all 62 on PAX. This moves the FIAT up to 14th in the club championship for the year, so the NMS team remains right on schedule for their targeted finish in the top 15.

With the field split into two run groups, we headed out to work on course for the first run group. Drinking plenty of water, there weren't too many cones being hit, so it was great to be able to observe how the first half of the field attacked the Pungo layout. One of the challenges of Pungo in a fairly small area is to set up a course that has some unexpected or new elements, which makes autocross so challenging. The other way to do it I suppose would be to run all your club events at the same location and set the course up the same all year...boy does that sound boring! So, with a new challenge at each different event, it's important to arrive early and walk the course to learn the path, and then figure out how best to attack, where to brake, where to get back on the gas, etc.

Driver's Meeting

Once the first group finished their five runs, it was time to swap places, get the motors running, and line up to drive. Over five runs of the same course, my day started bad, for some reason I hit a cone on the first run when I normally am going at less than 100%, just to make sure I've got the course in my head and not going too fast. Oh well, with five runs, losing the first one is no big deal, since only the one fastest run counts.

Run two, I knew where I'd hit that one cone the first time, so this should be easy to get a clean run! That's what I was thinking to myself, but sure enough, in the middle of a slalom section my brain disengaged and I went on the wrong side of a cone. This gave me a big fat DNF (did not finish) to go with my 1 cone two second penalty on the first run. After two runs, I'd normally be focused on my time, and thinking of where on course to go faster and gain a few tenths of a second, but with the cone and DNF, I didn't even know what my times had been...and it didn't matter! The only thing that matters is getting a clean run as fast as you can, so I just tried to not think of the first two runs, and concentrated on the next one.

Finally on run three, no penalties, no cones, no thunder and locusts, just a clean run at 37.764 seconds. After watching the first run group and hearing some of the times from the announcer, I was pretty happy to be under 40 seconds at least, but of course the fastest drivers are several seconds ahead of me, so the odds of me being in IndyCars next year are still being calculated. In between runs, time to check tire pressures, walk around and shoot a few photos of all the cars on grid, and then sit down in the shady car for a few minutes. Put the helmet back on, fire up the GoPro camera, and get ready for two more runs.

Fourth run, and nothing good to report. I dropped about a tenth of a second from the previous run, and hit another cone for a two second penalty, so this run was officially a 39.898. Only one good run so far, so it was time to drop some more time. My plan was to go faster on the long stretches before the sweepers, and also to try and go faster in the slalom section. I'm not sure about everyone else, but I try to find at least one spot on the course where I know I can drive faster for each run, so when this strategy works it feels good to see every run get faster. Hopefully, you're thinking to yourself, "Well hey Mr. Brainiac, why don't you just skip all that and start faster?" That's a great question, and I'm still trying to figure out how good drivers do that!

Final run, so before hopping in the car I was chatting with David Smallridge. He asked me my plan, and I told him that I thought I would try and go faster. To quote Dave's reply "I agree", so we both got ready for the final run. Honest, David said I could quote him on it!

David Smallridge

At the end of my fifth drive, the timing system said 37.354, so at least I ended the day on a good note by dropping 0.41 of a second from my previous best. Maybe five more runs and I could have kept gaining faster times, but five runs was the limit for today. Given the heat, that was fine with me...did I mention it was HOT?  Let's go to the video of that last run, so you can see how the course was set up this month.