Here is Sean Morris' view of the event.
2003 marks the third year of the Ulimate Street Car Challenge held by
Sport Compact Car Magazine. Some people say its the forth year , but the
guys at SCC say "that was something different". The first year I
entered Nick Wongs R32 , and Blackbird. Blackbird was voted in , but
sold to Craig Lieberman prior to the event. Justin Sykes's R33 was ran
at the first event. We did not do as well as we wanted the first year
and got 7th place overall. Even though we were 2nd down the drag strip,
and 0-60. The second year I entered Hiros R32. Hiro had problems with
his car and Daniel Suh's R33 filled in. Finishing 2nd overall , by 5
points was a little disappointing.
This year I entered Nick Wongs R32 again , and RB Motorings R34 GT-R.
The R34 got sold prior to the event , the alternate car was Nicks R32.
Nicks car came out to RB Motoring about 2 months prior to the event. It
was already together and tuned. It had been setup for One Lap of America
. The last time on the dyno the R32 made 608 rwhp and 477 ft/lbs of
torque. This was in Chicago . Eric Hsu from XS Engineering and myself
flew up to tune the car. Then last Septemeber I flew up to Chicago for a
little test. We had a drag strip day at US41 Dragstrip in Indiana with
Mid West F-Body , and Syclone /Typhoon guys. Then the next day was a
test with Speedtrial ,USA at Gingerman Raceway in Michigan.
We were pretty happy with the drag strip results. First pass was a
12.0@124 . By the end of the day I had it down to 11.1@128 , and
11.1@129 mph back to back. Not too bad on Pirelli P-Zero Rossos.
Nicks R32 came out , and we started to work on the car. Doing general
clean up of it. Underneath with Simple Green and scrubbing brushes for
hours and hours. We had our long list of things we wanted to change.
Extra parts to order , and what we were going to do to try and win the
contest.
Some pictures of what we did and were working on can be found in our
gallery.
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http://rbmotoring.com/gallery/view_a...mName=NicksR32
We did a couple of track days in Nicks R32. We had one up at
Buttonwillow , and one test day at the Streets of Willow. We knew how
testing was important to work out the bugs. And there were bugs . We
caught part of the electrical harness on fire up at Buttonwillow.
Luckily it didnt do any real damage . We had lots of electrical tape ,
and ended up spending a bit of time seperating wires and making sure
they wouldnt short together anymore. Something good to consider is
moving the harness that runs up the inside frame rail to the MAF meters
. With the single turbo conversion , out on the track , even with heat
wrapping we managed to catch it on fire
The next track day we had some wastegate issues. It actually turned out
to be a gasket issue with the wastegate. We lost the gasket and that
melted our plastic T to the bottom of the wastegate. With no signal
going to the bottom of the wastegate , we kept hitting boost cut. With
one hours sleep , I was having problems diagnosing it . So to cure that
we ran steel braided lines and a metal T. In addition to that we
replaced the gaskets. Taking the old wastegate on and off we ran into a
problem , we cracked one of the mounting flanges. So we got a new wastegate.
Once we found out what cars were in the contest , we started to do
research on what we were up against. Its funny how much information you
can find out on the internet. We actually started a little file on the
cars we were going to compete with in the contest. Several cars dropped
out , and the list of 10 vehicles seemed to be a little fluid. Changing
often. Even in the last few days several cars dropped out , and were
filled in with last minute replacements. We stopped updating the gallery
on Nicks car - well at least the gallery that everyone could see. Some
of the last minute details , little things we were doing , we didnt want
other people to see.
>
http://rbmotoring.com/gallery/view_a...umName=album02
The final look of the car with the BBS LM's. The tires we were running .
The exhuast setup we had. The final engine look. The heat shields. The
355 front Brembos , the 345 rear Brembos.
In the last few weeks before the contest , we really started working on
the car non stop. Getting the final details done on the car. There were
things we wanted to do , but didnt get done. I really wanted to do a
dragstrip test on the Hoosiers , just to see how they would hook , but
one of those things we ran out of time on. I did get a change to do a
couple 1.6 bar launches out in the alley beside our shop. Setting up and
tweaking the HKS ETC. I ended up with about 25 % of torque to the front.
Still getting a lot of wheel spin at the top of first on the BFGoodrich
KD's.
The Saturday before the event we went to XS Engineering to retune the
car. We were hoping , with more boost ,the exhaust cutout , and the
methanol/water injection we would be around 650 hp to the wheels. We had
to reset the fuel pressure , as the last time we tuned the car we didn't
have a fuel pressure gage. We had a lot of issues with the methanol
injection on the dyno . Lots of breaking up .We ended up tuning it , and
then going back and trying to tune the methanol. 1.6 bar of boost - 570
hp to the wheels. 1.6 bar of boost , +4 degrees of timing , methanol on
, we made 555 hp. Tuned the methanol off , timing back to normal , and
we made 570 hp again. The 1.6 was our tune for the road course.
Methanol was out.
Next we went for the dyno/dragstrip tune. Cranked the boost up and did a
pass. Boost was dropping a lot at the top. Peaking at 1.96 bar of boost
, and then dropping down to about 1.45 bar by 8200 rpm. We tweaked the
wastegate until we were almost all the way down. It just did not want to
hold boost. We speculated that the exhaust housing was too small. We
were meeting our original goals of good response , and 600 horsepower to
the wheels. We ended up at 594 rwhp and 498 ft/lbs of torque . Not
really where we wanted to be. We were looking for something more like
650 - 670 rwhp. The torque was up from the last dyno , but the power was
not where we wanted it. That was what the car made , and it was really
too late to change anything major. Nick wanted to put nitrous on it.
Normally I am all for nitrous , but in order to finish first , first you
must finish. We debated a single fogger for another 50-75 horsepower .
We debated the direct port. I was worried about how much fuel pump we
had , and if we could support 750 -800 rwhp if we used a direct port
setup. And I was worried about fuel and nitrous distribution on the
stock intake manifold. Number 6 gets the most air and fuel.
I told Nick , after the USCC , we can throw as much nitrous like it as
you like. Before the contest changing anything dramatic could mean
teething issues. Every year before , with nitrous , the cars lost power.
The 300ZX , and the Supra in the first and second year respectfully.
Unless it was done right , and tested , its not worth it.
We knew the Supercharged Viper had made a corrected 887 rwhp and 870
ft/lbs of torque. We really hated losing nearly 300 hp on the dyno.
The Tuesday before the event we did the photo shoot for Sport Compact
Car in beautiful downtown Los Angeles. Not the nicest place on earth.
Only a few crack whores , and drug dealers hanging around the photo
shoot. Interesting to say the least.
The before contest dinner was Wednesday night at a diner out in
Riverside ,CA . We showed up first and parked the GT-R. Did our
interview for the video , and just hung out and waited for the other
cars to show up. They were all out doing their photo shoots. Ours was
done the previous day because we were located in LA. We also got the
final 10 cars that were in. Fuzion Supra , Audi S4 , Axis Wheels
Supercharged 350Z , Supercharged Viper , 1st gen Eclipse , 2nd gen
Eclipse , BPU Supra , MR-2 , Ultima GT-R , and our Skyline GT-R. The
dinner / DVD shoot finally got done about 11pm. The Viper still had not
shown up , as it supposedly ran out of gas.
After the diner we went back to the warehouse to finish off a few
things. We replaced the test cat we were using with a newer fresher cat.
We finished up on the installation of the halon fire extinguishing
system. Couple other little detail things. By the time we were done it
was about 3:45 am. Just enough time to get home , lay down for about an
hour , and get back to the shop. The next day / same day started at 8am
at K & N in Riverside ,CA . A little over 1 hour drive from our shop in
City of Industry.
The first days events are , Car Show , Grandma Test , Driveability ,
Emissions , Base Price , Horsepower , Power Delivery , Guru Panel
(Engineering) . We were standing around waiting for something to
happen.
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