I had disappeared for awhile, and there’s quite a lot to update on.
I’ve sold Project Anger, and handed it off to a guy who is just barely getting into cars now. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but has a few good mentors.
Darth Z (260z with a 351ci Ford Winsor v8 ready to swap into it) has been sold, along with its donor car. It is destined to receive a build 383ci Chevy v8.
CRX 2.0
CRX2.0 has gained some paint, knuckles, big brakes, and suspension. It is still engineless because the wiring harness is pretty much ruined. I need new ECU connectors off any obd0 Honda. Anybody have spares? I need at least one foot of wire on each ECU pin. Let me know if you have one available, or have a donor car, or anything of the sort that you can ship to me.
I’ve picked up a not-project as well. It’s a 1976 Toyota Celica fastback. It’s bone freakin’ stock, and has a few little quirks to work out before I trust it completely. It was a whole $500, and drove home on its own four wheels. These little quirks will most likely be the subject of discussion this month.
“Rice Racer” or “Rice Burner” is a commonly-used derogatory term for automobiles. I consider RICE to be an anagram for “Race Inspired Cosmetic Enhancements”. If you toss a body kit on your car for purely cosmetic reasons, it’s likely that you suffer from Rice. It’s an epidemic. There are varying degrees of rice, and some aspects are open for interpretation. Clear corner lights and altezza headlight/taillight combos are common disputes on automotive forums.
This car is essentially the epitome of rice racer. It has a massive fart can, is lowered too much, the wheels are too tall and not wide enough for the car, the body kit scrapes the ground on turns, the paint job cost more than the car, and the driver has no idea what he’s doing (throttle control would be a good thing):
I searched around on Craigslist for a bit today and found a few deals that I decided to jump upon. First up is a freshly tuned ZC package for $600, pictured to the right. It came with the following goodies:
front crossmember
DC sport ceramic header
shift linkage
new axles
Si transmission + intermediate shaft
AEM ram air intake
motor mounts (with polyurethane inserts)
virgin pm6 ecu (now I have two, I suppose I could tune one specifically for smogging)
tuned (fuel map and raised redline) pm6 which probably won’t tune worth dirt
If you haven’t already heard of it, the 24 hours of lemons race is a parody of the 24 Hours of Le Mans race. I have decided to participate next year, and will most likely be sporting a 2nd-gen CRX. I need an inexpensive 2nd-gen CRX though (something under $500 total).
The basic rules I have to abide by are:
The cost of the car combined with the cost of parts to get the car running and racing cannot exceed $500 (not including safety gear like seats, roll cage, and safety harnesses). That means getting receipts,
The car that “wins” the “People’s Curse” award gets their car crushed halfway through the race. Congratulations.
The car must survive all 13 hours of racing (it’s over a course of 24 hours). If it doesn’t, you’d better hope that some other kind driver is willing to push you the last few laps.
Now, the search begins for a damaged (salvage, possibly damaged frame) CRX that comes with an engine or two for under $500. Since I can recoup initial costs by selling parts from the car, I’ll probably be selling the fenders and interior. Read the rest of this entry »
The torque wrench is one of the most universally useful hand tools available to the home mechanic. These magical little tools take the guesswork out of the amount of twist you’re putting on bolts, greatly reducing the risk of shearing the heads off of them. You can also rest assured that high-torque bolts and lugs are more likely to be close to specifications. Without a torque wrench, 40ft/lbs feels very similar to 80ft/lbs, but can be the difference between a wheel falling off while you’re on the freeway and having an uneventful cruise.
Mechanical torque wrenches come in two flavors:
Beam Style torque wrenches use a beam of spring steel that is bent by the force you put on it. These are accurate enough for most backyard repair and part replacement jobs, and are inexpensive enough that it won’t break your budget. For a first torque wrench, I highly suggest a Beam-StyleTorque Wrench.
Click Style (pictured) torque wrenches use a clutch-style mechanism. These are generally more accurate than beam torque wrenches, but are more expensive because of their complexity. The SK Micrometer Torque Wrench is one of the best feeling torque wrenches I’ve had the privilege of handling.
As with any project, the first thing you should do is establish your goals. This is going to require a bit of math, but we’re going to determine the ideal target crank hp gain for your vehicle. A good rule of thumb is that every 10hp you make with a gas engine requires a pound of air per minute delievered into the intake manifold. For example, to transform a 100peak horsepower (php) naturally aspirated engine into a 200php turbo engine, you’re going to need a turbocharger capable of flowing 20lbs of air per minute at a realistic boost pressure. You’ll need to compute the basic engine airflow rate in CFM as follows:
The *0.5 is there because a four-stroke engine only breathe every other revolution, while 1728 converts cubic inches to cubic feet per minute
If you were to insert 83 percent for V.E for a typical 2.0L Honda engine’s 122CID * 7000 * 0.5 * .83/1728=247 CFM
At 83 degrees ambient temperature at sea level 247CFM converts to pounds/minute follows: lbs/min=CFM * .07
Therefore 247CFM * .07 = 17.29 lbs of air per minute.
Using this rule of thumb this 2.0l engine should produce approximately 173 NA HP. Now let’s see what we could do with that number using a compressor. Read the rest of this entry »
