Really Should Stop Modifying my Daily Driver into a Track Car

Its not 10 hours, bet its about half that if you drive fast.

It has enough room for me to get comfortable, but not lay out.
It does NOT tuck tight to any roof or side panel.
The foot plates are too small in my opinion, and land in a very flimsy section of floor. Not the way I would build one from scratch, but I didn't build this from scratch.

Fusionworks: sold the mutant project. For better or worse, I realized I'd never get it finished and on track. Still waiting for the guy to finish the remaining money and pick it up though.

Question: isn't 10 degrees of caster quite a lot? What's the thoughts/purpose there? Coming from rwd, where 4-5 is as much as I ever see, im genuinely curious.

You are coming from a street car perspective. Most non European cars use less than 5 deg of caster. I am still trying to figure out the draw backs beyond stiffer steering, (which is nice at 130mph). From a race car stand point caster is free camber gain, better self stabilization, etc. You will see 12-20deg of caster in most race cars. For a strut car we have no camber gain and our braking and traction is severely limited by the amount of negative camber needed to keep the contact patch flat when you have no camber gain like a dual a-arm car. So you use positive caster so you gain more negative camber in a turn to help cut down on the amount of negative caster you have to run if you have next to no or worse positive camber gain. Running less negative camber means you have a flatter contact patch for braking.

Some pics of the race car parts when I pulled it off today to continue the development.


Yes the brake ducts are ghetto rigged for the moment. Part of the upgrade will be some attachment points for those like I have on my other arms. I am probably going to zinc plate the hardware and powder coat the arms. I kinda want to change the rear attachment point to something aluminum with a bigger bearing but these aren't necessarily a problem as I have them designed. I also want to add a threaded socket for the inner pivot point so camber adjustment is less of a pain in the ass.

I also picked up a rear beam to begin construction of my new up rear suspension. 2026 will be interesting for sure.

What is going on here?

I'm just saying IRS is a massive undertaking.

"We don't need no stinking IRS".

SRZ BZNS. Track records will be set.

Raising the mounting face for the rear axle. This will let me lower the car without the axle going over center. Plus I can dial in 4deg of negative camber, then tailor the rest with shims. I am machining new mounting flanges out of .500in steel plate instead of the OEM plate, which is less than .375. This should get more stiffness and I can really shave a bunch of weight out with the mill.

Almost finished machining the rear hub mounting flanges. Unfortunately they are 100g heavier than stock but they are 49% thicker, so I shouldn't be so mad. Might take some more material off before I weld them in place. I suspect I am over thinking the actual stiffness requirements of the face plate itself. I suspect the more critical components will be the mounting bracketry that holds it to the beam. I am going to have to cut all the OEM brackets off to get a better connection with the new hub mounts. Not to bad of a mill built in 1969. More parts in process now.

Should have the front suspension ready for mock up tomorrow. Have to make new lower ball joint pins and strut housings.

Built the new rear beam. I can get the car low while still maintaining the OEM type measurements while still lowering the the car. I am technically still within the OEM window for ride height measurement in the rear. (not sure if it matters), but the OEM put a dimension here for a reason). This past weekend I ran the car at the track, but I was below the OEM spec. I had the rear to low. Ran out of spring perch height, but I have installed some longer ones today, so I should be able to raise it from now on.
I built the jig with -4.25deg of camber, but when installed on the car, I am between -2.75 and -3.25. So I need to figure out why there is a disparity in my design and reality. Yes I can just (and will) add some camber shims on the rear. Also built it with zero toe instead of toe in. Can change that with shims to correct or adjust as needed.

Currently (and this past weekend), the ride heights as measure to the fender well openings was 23.5in front and 22.5 rear. The car is currently 4-4.5in to the "frame rail" under the driver's feet. In previous "street" trim (mostly stock ride height, cuz struts) I could slide a 6in block under that point easily. She is low now. Could lower it more in the front, but would need to build a new beam to go lower. I didn't touch the fender liners either. I taped the outside edge of the rear liners to make sure it didn't get caught on the tire and rip out. I figure there could be another .500in or more worth of lowering by removing the liners completely on a race car.

Running -4.75 front camber, +12 deg of caster, .125 toe our in the front. -2.75- -3.25 rear camber and zero rear toe. Car felt good, still a bit pushy but I don't have enough spring for the rear. Am Currently running 650lb front springs and 600lb rears. I put 100lbs worth of rubbers in the rear springs and the car went 1 sec faster. Also have a 1in rear sway bar.

Unfortunately the weekend wasn't a great success (even though I was comfortable with the car). Hung a tire off and bent the shit out of a wheel coming back onto the track over the curbing. You can see the difference in the "entry" side of the curbing vs the "exit" side. Huge difference in size of them. It bent the wheel and pushed it into the lower ball joint extension pins. This caused a leak through the wheel. Went out the next session and came back in with 13.5psi hot. Destroyed that tire as well. Bummer, but those tires have 23 date codes so they were done anyways. Gonna get a set up of CRS V2s for the coming Time Trial season. Gonna have to get another wheel also. Probably get another set of wheels all together. The Hexagram doesn't have any clearance without a 4mm spacer. My Rota Recces have all kinds of clearance for my brakes. Kinda want to put some Team Dynamics on it, but need to know if clearance is good enough without spacers.



The murderer.