Monday Feb 23, 2009

I have not written a report for the 4th weekend yet but thought I better get this 5th BARC hosted weekend report out before the memories fade and/or become distorted by their time spent in the bowels of my brain.

 

Finally, finally , finally, the MR2 is back!!! And I mean back in fine running form thanks to the huge efforts of one determined mechanical maestro and electrical guru Gianni Biral, owner of Biral Automotive (www.biral.ca) and his staff. If it weren't for their commitment and expertise the weekend would not have been so pleasurable and trouble free.

Last week I purchased a used 20 valve "Silvertop" 1.6 litre replacement motor for the MR2 from Toronto JDM. They did not have a "Blacktop" in stock but the Silvertop has only 5 HP less than the Blacktop and has heavier connecting rods and internals. This motor is rated at 165 HP whereas the original puts out 112 HP.

The 20 valve came complete with all wiring harness, ECU, transmission, intake, throttle bodies, exhaust headers  etc etc etc. Everything bolts right up no problem the only snags were rerouting the plumbing for the coolant lines in the engine bay, welding the old exhaust to the new exhaust and finally and most difficult was connecting the new wring harness to the old body harness for the car.

This is the moment that everything came down to - the last and most difficult thing is the wiring and all else is for not if you don't get that right. Gianni and I spent a few days gathering data - wiring diagrams (some in Japanese), charts, tables and pin connector details, descriptions that others had written on similar swaps off the internet. We consulted frequently with Graham Lobban (thanks Graham for your patience, help and encouragement) as he has done the 20 valve swap. Meanwhile the transmission from the old motor was mated to the new motor, all was installed into the car.

Gianni studied the wiring info for both old and new motors for 2 days. I did the plumbing rerouting utilizing bits of the old hoses and about 2 feet of 1.25" copper pipe and one 90 deg. elbow, a 1.25" plastic hose coupler and 7 hose screw clamps - a work of art if I must say. I fabricated a new accelerator cable mount bracket at the motor.

Friday morning I packed all my gear to go ice racing and headed from Whitby to Gianni's shop in Rexdale. I got about 10 minutes from home and just onto the 401 when checking my rearview mirror remembered I forgot the tow dolly and so had to exit and go back for it. That added a 1/2 hour to the usual 30 minute drive but then there was an accident at Morningside and in all the trip took 1.5 hours.

By ten o'clock I got to the shop and Gianni still hadn't started the wiring work on the car! I was getting nervous. I worked on the heat shield for the exhaust and put oil and coolant fluids in, the clutch was bled.

Shortly after noon Gianni actually physically started doing the wiring swap. One seldom gets to observe such level of skill, sheer determination and nose-to-the-grindstone willpower that Mr. Biral displayed Friday afternoon and into the late evening taking only a 15 minute break to eat a tuna sub. At around 10:30 PM we were ready to fire it up. I turned on the fuel pump and pressed the starter, the car turned over fine and wanted to run but would not catch. Earlier on we had wondered about a fitting for a hose that appeared to run from one end through the four throttle bodies and out the other end to another hose fitting but after consulting a 3rd party we concluded that it was not needed. Now we plugged each end up with our thumbs and tried the motor again - it roared to life immediately making a most rewarding smooth growling exhaust note. It is a vacuum line and so we plugged one end and hooked the other up to the brake boost. Once the temp came up we topped up the coolant and checked the oil. All was good.

I had promised Gianni that if he came up for the weekend he would run the car Saturday so I made up a number sign for him. After that we loaded the car on the dolly and went over to his house where he packed his gear. We headed up the 400 at Finch around 12:15AM Saturday morning for the drive to Mindenhammer. With a stop about 15 minutes at Tim Horton's we arrived at the track at 2 AM, offloaded the car, dropped the dolly and headed to cottage 3 at the Minden House B&B where Steff was still awake watching TV around 2:45 AM. After some talk I think I fell asleep around 3:30 and then the alarm went off at 7.

Saturday morning I signed up for Street Stud and Rubber class 1 in the Silver Bullet while Gianni signed up for Stud class 1 in the MR2. I think Gianni looped almost every lap of stud practice and upon returning to the pits stated "the f***ing car is a piece of sh** - it's undrivable" . After some calming talk and a few pointers he went out in qualifying and did somewhat better, only banking it a couple of times. His first race was better yet but he did not heed my warning to stay away from the black Volvo station wagon of Ian Lok's and there was some contact and spinning etc but no major damage and then Ian spun into the bank as well.

Gianni made frontal contact with the bank on one corner which resulted in the front air dam getting a buckle in it and turns out a piece of ice from the bank poked a couple small pinholes in the rad  that didn't show a leak until my first race Sunday.

They subsequently were sealed by using some Stop Leak. By the last race he was pitching it at full gallop into the 1st turn (clockwise track) and won in class and I think passed a front wheel drive not sure but went from last to 1st place finish and had a smile on his face when he came in.

Sunday was my turn in the MR2 while Gianni drove the Ovlov in Rubber-to-ice class 1. I was very anxious and nervous before we got to the track Sunday morning (maybe too much coffee) but after a couple laps of practice I managed to remember to turn off the thinking and revert to autopilot, everything then came back "just like riding a bike". In the first race I was gridded last of course but finished first in class and 4th overall behind Lee Watterworth's Honda Civic. In the second race I  bolted

into 3rd overall (watch video at left) off the start beating Lee into turn one (counter clockwise track) and leaving my class well behind. Lee could not overtake, the only place he could catch me back was in the kink and then I would pull away from him no problem down the straight. Behind Lee was Andrew Majik who was having a heck of a time dealing with my rear wheel driving line and style while at the same time trying to pass Lee (in the video watch the rearview mirror for that action). After 6 or 7 laps of this I decided I better let Lee go by so I slowed and waved him by on the straight. I then tried to pass him for the rest of the race but could only keep up. Near the end of the race you can see Richard Walker go off at the kink raising a large cloud of snow when he buries himself in the snowbank. I would have finished 2nd overall behind Steff Haas if I had not let Lee by as there was a last turn wreck involving first place Tony Silvaggi in an AWD Mazda 323 and the last place black Mustang. As it was I finished 1st in RWD class and 3rd overall  behind Lee Watterworth.

I ran Street Stud all weekend in the Silver Bullet but I think I placed 3rd most of the 4 races behind Jerry in the grey Volvo. Fairly uneventful racing (read boring) and due primarily to hard ice, colder temps (-5 C)  and resulting less grip.

I ran the Silver Bullet in Rubber to ice class 1 on Saturday only and had a great time overall although I fell asleep on the mock grid after the late night/morning.

Gianni ran the Silver Bullet Sunday in class 1 rubber-to-ice and put on quite a show. I haven't seen that many loops since Major Lew MacKenzie drove our old Ovlov wagoon a few years ago. The first race Sunday Gianni had Steff Haas as passenger - bad idea. Steff likes to play with the fuel pump switch in that car when he's passenger and some times he will pull on the emergency brake just when you have the car sideways in a full opposite lock drift. As a result Gianni experienced just about every type of screw up scenario possible although he did say he likened the fuel pump off position to traction control as it stopped the rear wheels from spinning and allowed them to get a grip. The steward even came down to find out what was going on.

Thanks to all who helped out this weekend as well, Jimmy McGlade for loaning me a flash card for the camera so I could record the video of the last stud race Sunday.

In Other News:
Tom Prentice was missing this weekend with the flu. I talked to him Sunday evening and he said that he was over the worst of it and looking forward to return next weekend.

 

Rodney Schmelter provided a break in the action as his yellow Chevette spit out a couple rods on track which required a delay to mop up, I could hear that one coming ! His crew put in a late night and had the swap pretty much done Saturday. Rodney is leading In Class 1 Rubber-to-ice. 

Unfortunately the AllGlass team twisted up another axle in their stud car this weekend and are packing it in I believe for the season ... oh just a minute somebody is at the front door ... they just came to borrow my tow dolly to go get the car so I guess they're gonna fix it !

SACEWE!