project Rentedmule

keep it up, love this truck

Ran my first auto-X event of the 2012 season last night.  It was raining so there was a lot of tail-out and 4-wheel drifting action but I still managed to keep within a second of the fastest cars (with the exception of a highly modded civic that always beats everyone by 3-4 seconds).  I usually get my ass handed to me in the rain so just keeping up this time was a major improvement.

The new race seats and 5800 rpm rev limiter are working well  .  The torsen diff is going in next Thursday but I have another event before then so I'll get some good before/after analysis.

Pics from Wednesday's auto-x care of my friend RJ Hodge





The Torsen diff is finally in now. It was rebuilt and installed with a new 3.42 Motive ring and pinion, solid pinion spacer and synthetic fluid.  The test will be next Wednesday's race

Love that first pic. Any vids from the event?

No vids unfortunately.  My home-made camera mount doesn't work with my new race seats, I'm going to have to rig up something else or actually buy a go-pro

Mike lee is selling gopro's at a pretty good discount. I picked mine up from him I think it was like 30$ cheaper then anywhere else.

It's definitely on the wish list but I need to save $$ for tires - I'll probably go through 4 front tires this season

New camera mount made from a modded Dashscan window mount



I'll see how it works at tonight's race

a pic from the last event

Looks like you're getting close to lifting that inside tire, witout a different angle, it's hard to say what would help most, but it's possible that going to a stiffer swaybar(or modifying yours) in the rear will help push that corner back down.

Funny that you mention the rear swaybar - I had it taken it off because I was lifting the inside rear tire and wasn't able to get traction when I was on the gas coming out of corners with the G80 LSD.  Now that I have the Torsen the rear end gets much more traction in the turns and I was planning on reinstalling the bar before Wednesday's race.  It hadn't crossed my mind that it may help to push the inside front tire down - that's why I keep posting here. 

reinstalled it tonight

Battery is now in the bed



I used this as an excuse to practice welding so I made a reinforcement under the bed with threaded rod welded to it and a matching top brace to hold things in place.  I still suck at welding and also really need some proper metal working tools but at least it's strong.

I've now run 2 or 3 auto-X events with the Torsen LSD and the rear sway bar back in place and the verdict is that the bar is still hurting my times.  I'm seeing the same symptoms I was when I had it on with the G80 where it's lifting or nearly lifting the inside rear tire and the Torsen doesn't like that much more than the old G80 did.  It is definitely a huge step up but there are still situations where it won't lock up and I spin the inside wheel - it also happens unpredictably like it did with the G80 as well.  I don't think I would have the same issue with a LSD that would let me turn that outside tire to help rotate the truck. 
I'm going to ditch the rear bar again and play with front and rear shock settings to see if I can get things dialed in a bit better.
 
For my alignment I'm currently running -0.5 camber and it's not quite enough to even out my tire wear. I've had to dismount my tires and have them swapped side-to-side to stop from cording the outside edges. I think I'll have it realigned to add another -.25 to see if I can find the sweet spot.  I tried -1.0 last year and I wore the insides a bit too quickly so hopefully -.75 will do the trick.

have you tried just upping your front bar?

How?  I was under the impression that the 33 mm ZQ8 bar was the biggest available.  I can stiffen up my shock settings to stop it from rolling as much in the front but I don't find that really helps the situation in the rear.  I'm totally open to suggestions!

You can get a bigger aftermarket bar, if hellwig doesn't have one in stock they'll bend one up for you still reasonably priced. The other option would be what I am planning, cut off the ends of the bar, drill and tap for a heim so alignment isn't an issue any more and you can move the mounting point on the control arm out further.

artos has a couple ideas, i would not use the shock settings to bandaid the lack of a stiff bar. that changes way too many other things.

another concept is to "stack" 2 swaybars on top of eachother. there are good and bad ways to do it, but it's a very budget way to up bar stiffness.
quick google image for reference:

Oddly I was just reading about stacking multiple bars on autospeed a few days ago but I wasn't sure if anyone actually did that! 

http://autospeed.com/cms/A_112694/article.html

I may have to contact hellwig and see what they can do.  Didn't the auto-X s10 that the GM engineering team built have a 40 mm hollow bar or something like that?  I wonder if a larger diameter bar would cause clearance issues with the frame or the tires when they're at full lock...

Thanks for the input

I'm thinking about shortening my rear bar so it clamps closer to the axle, should stiffen it up a little bit. By that article, I want a stiffer front bar though. I already have the ZQ8 front and rear but maybe I should look into a stiffer front bar being made...