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So I am apparently going to be competing in a 14-hour ChampCar endurance race at Daytona at the end of March, part of a 3-man team driving this: Which is light and simple enough to start at 250 points, so much can be done to beef it up without going over the 500-point limit where you start incurring penalties (as most of the other cars will, as I understand it). Construction has been going on for a few weeks now. Lots of custom-cut parts — brake hats, airfoils, struts, cooling plates. The coilovers get here allegedly Wednesday, the (12) wheels tomorrow, and I'll be on the phone all day trying to harangue them into shipping the wing which is the last big component. Rollcage and vinyl wrapping is happening this week. Safety gear is all here and fits. We don't expect to win anything, just to shake down the team and the car so we can do it all over again a month or two later at Sebring. If Top Gear has taught me anything, this should be both fun and agonizing
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Feb 26, 2023 16:19
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And the car is pretty rough exterior-wise, though the photo might not show it. We rescued it from an old/retiring couple who had apparently had it sitting in their garage for years after their kid tinkered with stereos and stuff or something. The trim and lenses and paint and things are all pretty banged up. But once we had it all torn out, there's not a spot of rust in the whole car. Arrow-straight and clean as a whistle. It's like it's straight off the assembly line. Especially once we dry-iced all the sound deadening out of it  This thing will be no joke. We aren't planning on it getting a viking funeral but it wouldn't be the worst fate a MkII can attain, even a well preserved one.
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Feb 26, 2023 20:22
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Wrap done 
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Mar 5, 2023 00:03
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Dead tires walkin
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Mar 10, 2023 04:31
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Cage mostly assembled -- just a bit more welding to be done We have about 1 more bending fuckup worth of chromoly left Data Graham fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Mar 11, 2023 |
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Mar 11, 2023 04:24
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We missed the entry deadline for the Daytona race (it was a real stretch, and some stuff didn't get delivered in time, which sucked after 3 all-nighters that week), but that means we have time to get ready properly for Sebring. And now seeing how much has had to get worked on, it's a drat good thing we didn't go out when we did. Wàng welded up and mounted, and the curve I drew even clears the trunklid opening! I totally planned that (The guy building it insists the #45 he requested is because it's God's perfect caliber. I'll believe him for now with a healthy dose of side-eye, at this point I'm just happy it's not 88 or some poo poo)  Front suspension and brakes all set up. There are now speed holes in the rotor hats  Final wheel fitment Sebring is on July 1st. Just have to get this thing put back in now 
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May 13, 2023 19:36
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So there's been delays and two missed races, but the MkII Supra is ready for the next nearby ChampCar race, at Atlanta Motorsports Park next weekend:    https://i.imgur.com/1PXtY73.mp4 https://i.imgur.com/JZkiUzB.mp4 The splitter and wing are the last things that get attached after trailer transport (i.e. for dyno tuning) but it can still somehow survive on the brick streets of Ybor. The exhaust may be too low though, I'll be surprised if it survives the track honestly Data Graham fucked around with this message at 22:30 on Oct 21, 2023 |
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Oct 21, 2023 01:10
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Sebring: https://i.imgur.com/07u7Fhf.mp4 itshappening.gif
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Dec 30, 2023 11:46
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https://i.imgur.com/OpqKqq5.mp4 Day One of the NYE Sebring ChampCar endurance race successfully(-ish) completed. This car doesn't have a lot of power because we kept the stock 5M engine and put all our points into braking/suspension/aero. But the result is that this thing is a braking monster. I can be arm-deep in a corner like the hairpin (turn 7) and be out again and moving while everyone else is having a raccoon fight on the outside edge. We can't pass many people but it does happen, some day-long rivalries being very satisfying to shoot them down finally. The exhaust keeps falling off so we need to re-rig it early in the morning, but other than that it's tight as a drum. Best looking car on the grid by far too lol, people kept coming by to gawk at it It took a lot of work and several false starts to get here (the previous ChampCar race at Atlanta Motorsports Park was cut short because the boom-tube-style exhaust we did for max airflow also caused max sound, and AMP has a decibel limit, hence the hasty and inadequate rerouting of the exhaust for this; and the summer's earlier Sebring race we just weren't ready in time for); but our team is well and truly invested now and we want more
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Dec 31, 2023 01:54
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BTW I didn't get video of this in time but just play along Midway through the Saturday race, I saw there was a USPS truck heading through the infield parallel to the front straight, I guess there are delivery addresses out there at various onsite businesses. Turned to my teammate and was like "Wow, he's hauling the mail" e: also one of the teams had dickbutt as their logo Data Graham fucked around with this message at 14:43 on Jan 2, 2024 |
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Jan 2, 2024 14:18
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MkII updateData Graham posted:Sebring is on July 1st. Just have to get this thing put back in now We're officially shaken down at this point. Daytona in a couple weeks. And gently caress being "competitive" 
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Mar 20, 2024 14:36
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 This is p cool
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Apr 5, 2024 17:57
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no lube so what posted:Saint Louis? Daytona!   God drat that is a fun track. Especially now that we have an engine that can hang (and actually pass pretty much anybody at will, that thing is a beast now)
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Apr 7, 2024 01:59
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On the less good side, Hard hit on the rear quarter coming out of the first infield horseshoe, followed quickly by front passenger corner rotating into the wall and knocking the wheel off the ball joint. This'll take some buffing
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Apr 7, 2024 15:30
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Happier times (the first 20 minutes) Forensic teardown shows that the front passenger ball joint popped loose. From the footage and the driver's play-by-play it seems that a couple of laps earlier he came down off the banking because of an ECU glitch that made him slow down to try to figure it out, and the transition onto the flat probably jostled the 40-year-old joint apart; and then later in the first infield horseshoe he got the rear end loose (just overcooked it on corner exit) and the rear swung left, and then as he corrected it and it swung right, the wheel hub popped free of the ball joint and sent it into a spin from which there was no recovering. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In1AJXmfIEw Pulling the suspension apart shows that something shattered the ball joint prior to the incident. It's hard to tell for sure but there are no witness marks on the control arm and nothing else can hit it there. Seems like we should have rebuilt that suspension beforehand and just taken the points hit. Data Graham fucked around with this message at 14:00 on Apr 10, 2024 |
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Apr 10, 2024 13:55
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| # ¿ May 3, 2024 12:20 |
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BlackMK4 posted:gently caress, that could have gone worse. Hopefully you all are able to get it up running easily and there wasn't any subframe damage or anything. Looks minimal fortunately. The cage is a motherfucker and not a broken weld or bend to be seen, including around the fuel cell. Nothing inside it moved a millimeter. The driver was pretty concussed (the gopro said the impact was 43g) for a day or so and is still very sore but no other ill effects.  The most annoying part is the MkII taillights are unobtainium now. We should have taken those off and replaced them with something sacrificial but they were so coool IOwnCalculus posted:Rebuilding the suspension with new parts in an otherwise stock configuration incurs a points penalty? That seems really stupid from a safety perspective. Probably not if we used new old stock and rebuilt it to factory condition, but we would have been swapping it out for all new components and heim joints and overbuilt it beyond factory, and that does get you points.
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Apr 10, 2024 17:25
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