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I’ve resolved to install the oil cooler before my August 2/3 event at VIR-Full, mainly because I needed to for some time now but additionally because it’s going to be hot as Hell. For now, the post will be a procedure for doing so, both for my own edification and for you guys to see as well. When I finish the work, I’ll upload pictures and amend the process to reflect the actual order.

1. Locate oil cooler underneath where the battery tray once lived. I think I can use angle aluminum since it’s reasonably pliable and strong, and I have some sitting in the garage. Plus, it’s lightweight!
2. Remove intake manifold (IM)
   1. Remove large and small intake piping (to TB and IACV, respectively)
   2. Remove injector plugs
   3. Remove vacuum hose from fuel rail to valve cover
   4. Release fuel pressure, unhook lines to fuel rail
   5. Unhook throttle cable
   6. Disconnect wiring to IACV, MAF, and CAS
   7. Disconnect coolant lines to IACV and TB
3. Remove VC filler cap
4. Drain oil from pan, catch sample for analysis; look for any material on magnetic drain plug
5. Unscrew oil filter
6. Disconnect oil pressure sender line from oil block
7. Remove oil block
8. Clean mating surface
9. Install new oil block
10. Reinstall drain plug and VC filler cap
11. Install check valve and fittings on upstream side of filter canister
12. Take measurements for oil lines; check eBay for ones that will work or take trip to BMRS
13. Install oil lines; make note of I.D. and length for oil system volume
14. Reinstall oil pressure sender line
15. Prime filter canister and cooler with fresh oil; make note of volume used
16. Loop coolant lines that were going to the TB, cap inlet/outlet on TB
17. Explore possibility of locating aftermarket coolant temperature sender in stock “to cluster” location
18. Reinstall IM
19. Install IM support
20. Anchor oil lines where appropriate

Friday

I had an absolute blast this past weekend. I left Charlotte about 3:15 on Friday and arrived at the track about 4:45. Going was slow because I was finding my way around after not being there for almost 2 years, and the inability of SC drivers to go the speed limit. Next time I’m taking the bypass and circumventing as much stupidity and through-town towing as possible. One or two of the towns are particularly hilly, which doesn’t help at all. Once I arrived, I unloaded everything and my friend VK helped me install the SFI padding. I also met Stephen, another guy from the board and the current THSCC President.

Friday night VK, Stephen and I ate at a Greek pizza place in Camden with some other guys from the club. It was a lot of fun listening to stories, observing the local wild life, and eating. After that we headed back to the hotel and hung out in the room for a little while before retiring.

Saturday

We ate breakfast Saturday morning at the place behind the Colony Inn. Food was OK for the price, and the highlight was VK sticking his foot in his mouth after starting a lesbian joke. Once at the track, we started getting everything ready then attended the driver’s and instructor’s meetings. The club safety guy (Mark Cooper) rolled up shortly beforehand and I made arrangements for him to do the safety part of the tech inspection after we finished up the meeting.

I met my instructor, Bill Gratton, during the “meet & greet.” Bill seems like a nice guy, and ended up being a good instructor. I felt bad that the car was so loud as he was unable to talk to me even under partial throttle, despite trying throughout a lot of the first session. Most of the feedback I received was after the session, and was along the lines of braking, turn-in, line, and those types of things although I did get some feedback on keeping a little bit of distance and waving after I was by someone versus while I was passing them. There were only a few occasions (that I remember) of being too close to someone, and he said that people will give me a wave if they see me back there. Most did not however, including myself, I suppose because we were concentrating on driving. I did run into a few people who were bad about giving the signal, but most were very courteous and track-conscious.

Mark came to look at the cage in the morning and I told him the whole thing was done in 1.75 x 0.095, which was a problem because the rules call for the main hoop to be 0.120″. I drilled an inspection hole in the main hoop and found out that my fear came true: the hoop was 0.095″ wall. Mark talked to my instructor and decided to let me run the weekend, but told me I would need to get it fixed. Later that weekend he showed me the rules, but I cannot seem to find anything in the 2008 SCCA GCR other than the overall tubing diameter (section 9.4.F). There is nothing specific about the main hoop being a different thickness in 9.4.B. Upon further investigation, it seems like I might be OK, but I need to ask around more.

Sessions 1 and 2 were mainly learning the track and feeling out where I needed to pick up more speed. I was signed off after the second and thought I did well on the third. I didn’t mind soloing because I think I can still learn from a lot, and actually saw Bill trailing me for a couple of laps to observe outside the car. He mentioned having trouble keeping up because of his brakes, but he might’ve just said that to be nice because he felt fast around the course from when I rode with him earlier that day. He has a mostly-stock black FD with bronze FN01RC’s and it’s a nice-looking car (and FAST for stock!). Apparently it was campaigned in One Lap by a friend of his who was having multiples and needed to clean out the stable.

I went to the skidpad later in the day, and Stephen was nice enough to take some footage outside of the fence. I really enjoyed it, and got some good practice opening the wheel to correct understeer which I was causing a lot of in the new parts of the course. The fun part was counter-steering to pull the car out of an oversteer situation though, but I wasn’t good enough to do it repeatedly. I will link some video when I manage to get it uploaded. We ate at The Armory in Camden that night with the same crew from Friday night plus some guys at the other end of the table I never got a chance to talk to. The food was flippin awesome for the price and we probably had a better time than even at the Greek place. On the way, Stephen and I stopped at the AutoZone for pads, which was comical considering the “small town” employee and trying to find pads for an early 90’s import. It was back to the hotel and (relatively) promptly to bed afterwards.

Sunday

First session was for Instructors, and I let VK take me out in my car which is always fun. It seems that I am a “show me” guy as I learned more go-fast tidbits from riding with VK than I did the prior instruction in both car and classroom. At least it felt like it. I picked up a TON of speed in the Kink, 8, and 4/5. I became much better at 4/5/6/7 by the end of the weekend, but still stuggled with 12/13 because of understeer and lack of grip. Bill rode with me for the first half of Session 1, I soloed  for Session 2, then VK rode with me on Session 3. I think VK, me, and the car have developed a “good enough” communication style because of the noise, and his hand signals were helping a lot in the third session.  I packed up between the second and third sessions, and was able to leave the track around 4:15. I tried to buy a track t-shirt, but they were out of my size and I was promptly on my way. The drive home was uneventful despite running into more people unable to drive the speed limit, but passing people with a car & trailer can be fun if done safely.

Overall

I learned a ton and had a great time. I enjoyed spending time on track with Stephen and having VK instruct another Intermediate student as it was two more sets of eyes and experiences that I could use toward becoming a better driver. I found myself wanting to stay out there as long as I could with the exception of one session where I was starting to get some gear noise (see #6 below). I did get a few chances to pass off-line coming into a turn, which was great practice considering it’s done all the time in higher run groups. In fact, I may try to work on more of this at the next event.
The car continues to perform as expected with no major issues. I didn’t get any leaking transmission fluid this time, which black-flagged me twice at VIR last October, and think I have that problem licked. That being said, there’s still room for mechanical improvement:

1. Oil temp is at 230-250°F with 90°F off-track ambient temps. The only thing I lack is the lines to hook everything up, and getting it all on the car. I will be working toward this before my next event, as it will be even hotter in August.

2. Brakes, brakes, brakes. I think I’ll finish out the season with what I have (assuming it looks OK), but definitely need some work here next season. I’m thinking 30mm aluminum 300ZX, the rears to complete the set, and 17/16 master cylinder. Right now I’m leaning toward a relatively tame pad since I don’t have r-comps, but will probably go ahead and add brake ducting to be safe.

3. Figure out a way to remove the excessive toe-in in the rear. The Firestone people were unable to get it out, and I think this is one of the main reasons the car is pushing (at least as far as I understand vehicle dynamics).

4. The rollbar issue, if I can find the part in the 2008 GCR. If the main hoop has to be redone, I may try getting the harness bar moved backward to give me a little more room in that direction. For now it seems I am OK, but I need to gather a little more input before deciding whether or not I need to call Zuffenhaus.

5. Seating position / steering wheel placement. I am currently sitting fairly close to the pedals and wheel, the latter of which can be adjusted with a low-profile hub adapter, non-dished wheel, or both. Despite sitting closer than I might like, it helps me crank on it harder, which is particularly nice since I eliminated power steering. While it’s slightly painful to the side of my foot, I have no trouble heel-toeing.

6. Gear noise when the car is smokin hot. I had this for both events last year and this one. Coming off track, I get a lot of gear noise until I’m able to drive the car around a little and cool it off. I think it may be the transmission fluid thinning out and the transmission making more noise, but I’m not sure. It could also be coming from the differential.

7. R-comps, maybe. Depending on tire wear with the Hankooks after this weekend, I may start hunting around for some used ones. I’m concerned that I’m not skilled enough to warrant them, but could be swayed. As a data point, I didn’t feel like the lack of grip hindered me either time last year at VIR-F nearly as much as it did this past weekend at CMP.

8. More power. This has been at the bottom of my list for longer than I can remember, as I have a TON of things to work out first. That being said, it would be nice to have more power for passing, or to catch the types of cars that are leaving me in the straights after being tailed through the curves while I wait for a passing zone.

The “cheaper is better” method didn’t work for me in this case. I purchased a used Momo MOD 75 wheel, suede, 330mm, on eBay for $69 plus $13 for shipping. In hindsight, this was a huge mistake. I was looking at new wheels from Momo, Sparco, Nardi, Personal, OMP, et al., and was discouraged by the high price. This is particularly the case since I was worrying about paying for a rollbar, seats, harnesses, and a quick release.

What I should have done at the time, and finally did last week, was to purchase a much lower cost wheel from the NRG line. I bought the ST-006S-Y, roughly 1/4 of the way down the page. The “-Y” at the end is for the yellow leather centering stripe in case you’re curious. I didn’t need this necessarily, but it was the one in stock and I think it will be a nice feature. I also think it finishes off the appearance nicely. Contrary to the picture linked above, I will not be running the cosmetic ring or horn button as they simply aren’t necessary.

I vacillated on this wheel for some time now, even when I was about to pull the trigger on the eBay one. My main point of contention is that NRG is not known for their steering wheels, but more for their quick release products. This is not to say the wheel isn’t quality, but it IS a good bit less expensive than the aforementioned alternatives. My stance is this however: if I can get two of the NRG wheels for one Momo/Sparco, it only has to last me half as long to make financial sense. If you consider the wear on suede, it may make even more sense to swap them out twice as often (if you HAVE to).

This is the second and hopefully final planning post about oil cooler placement. Speaking of which, I am starting to get back into planning posts recently after talking with my good friend and fellow anal-retentive track car builder, Rich (of V8Mongrel infamy). He was goading me into creating more web content, and the conversation progressed to cover the benefits of planning posts. In general, they’re a great way to capture your perspective at the time of posting which is good for sake of posterity, but also for showing others your “thought path” and how you arrived at some key decisions. In the specific case of the oil cooler placement, others are able to use the same inputs I did as they are chassis/engine independent. Onto the fun part…

After attaching the CF duct to the oil cooler, it appears that the oil cooler will not fit behind the passenger headlight. I thought this would be the case in the last installment and have now confirmed it. The only alternative at this point is tucked in the bumper cover just forward of the front passenger wheel, mirrored placement to the OE Side-Mount Intercooler (SMIC). There are a few concerns with this approach:

1. Vulnerability to foreign object damage (FOD) as it’s much closer to the racing surface than with my previous idea, and not protected at all. This can be solved by utilizing a full underpanel that extends from the front fascia to just forward of the front wheels. Another option that requires much less work is to simply do a smaller underpanel for the specific purpose of protecting the cooler/duct.
2. Placement below the engine block outlet puts it at the lowest point in the oiling system. This is mainly an issue for draining, but doesn’t concern me as long as I don’t have a lot of debris buildup. A good friend and former Enjuku employee, Estevan, mentioned that this is mainly a concern if you shred the motor and have an expensive oil cooler. Seeing as how the cooler was $30 used from another friend Rich and can be purchased new for somewhere around $50, I’m not altogether worried about this one.
3. Oil lines will need to be a little longer to accommodate this placement. I will be using BMRS line with a low coefficient of friction because of its PTFE inner liner, and a good portion of the cost is in the fitting. Meaning that a few extra feet won’t hurt the wallet much either.

Airflow is almost a non-issue with this placement and the CF duct. After the cooler is mounted, I simply have to run hose from each of the two 3″ duct inlets to the bumper cover. The preliminary (and rather crude) method will be simply squeezing the hose to fit the factory holes. A later, much cleaner, and more efficient setup will happen when I have the resources and time to create fiberglass pieces. Unfortunately I have not found any aftermarket parts that fit, including some plastic NACA ducts purchased from RacerPartsWholesale. I will add pictures to illustrate this point when I get around to mounting the cooler and worrying about hose addition.

The plan for now is to find some stainless mesh to cover the oil cooler duct inlets, to be held in place with the hose and some form of fastening like wormgear clamps or zipties.

The only problem with using the two openings on the bumper cover is that I will not have an easy place to pull air from when doing brake ducting down the road. The simple solution is to cut a duct into the bumper cover and possibly use one of the NACA ducts I purchased. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.

I had a great time at this event. Jimmy, a fraternity brother and close friend, came down for the weekend to hang out and take video. So instead of the usual in-car footage, I have external video of a few of my runs. I’ve found that I enjoy it much more, as in-car autocross footage isn’t nearly as cool as the same from track events. Maybe because it’s easier to see the course in track footage, plus there are people passing and getting passed. In autocross, you have neither of these things. And in watching footage from other people’s autocross runs, I rarely get a good feel for course was layout. At any rate, I hope to have the footage posted soon on Google Video.

I managed to get 12-15 runs in, but wasn’t keeping count so it may have been as few as 10. Either way, it was good experience despite the fact that I couldn’t seem to get past the 55-second mark. I convinced one of the good local guys to ride with me and he said that aside from going a bit wider to take some sharp turns (also called “attacking the back”), I couldn’t do much more on street tires. While this was comforting, I almost felt cheated. I was hoping he would point out a few things I could change, so I would have something to strive for in the remainder of my runs. It also sucked because it made me feel like I have to use r-comps to be more successful. Not that I care about winning any autocrosses mind you, but I don’t like getting pwned on raw time by everyone save the bottom 10%. And while r-comps would be nice for track use too, I have plenty of life in the Hankooks and no spare set of wheels to mount r-comps on. So for now, I’m sticking with what I have.

The car did pretty well, despite oversteering a lot. In most cases, this was good because it allowed me to point the car in the right direction. This was especially helpful considering I deleted PS and how have a smaller wheel that makes tight autocross turns hard on the forearms. This “problem” also makes for a funnerar driving experience when you come out of a turn counter-steering.

All in all I had a great time driving and hanging out with Yims. The event would have been cooler though if anyone from CarolinaNissans actually shown up. Not that I’m surprised, but it continues to frustrate me that I spend so much time and have so many friends on a board where very few people actually care about motorsports other than drifting. A few of the guys, probably my closer friends, have either roadraced, are building cars for it, or want to try it. Everyone else, it seems, is content to never try autocross. I would cite money as the issue, but entry fees aren’t that much. If anything, I think it’s the safety requirements that scare people away, especially since 240 owners are notorious for not securing the battery properly. But any person whose car is safe for street use should be OK for autocross, right?I think the main reason behind poor attendance in general is that there’s usually a drift event happening. While I would likely have lots of fun at said events, they’re not as close as CCR autocrosses. More importantly, they eat the hell outta your tires. And seeing as how my budget isn’t unlimited, I would like to keep as much meat as I can. I’ve considered putting the stock wheels back on, but the tires are mismatched and at least one of them doesn’t hold air, so either option would require an outlay of money that I’m unwilling to make. Speaking of which, that must be why driftkidz are always poor.

The more I think about it, the more I want to put the IC in front of the radiator as my friend Casey and so many others have. For track use, it would make me feel a lot better to have an expensive IC core further from the ground. The implication though is that the “cold pipe” section would interfere with the placement of the oil cooler, making it virtually impossible to mount it where I decided last, which is behind the passenger headlight where the battery is from the factory.

One benefit here is that I no longer have to worry about putting a check valve on the oil filter canister inlet as mentioned in the previous post. Aside from the fact that ducting will be different, there’s no real change in difficulty. I plan on using, and have purchased, a carbon fiber duct to mate with the cooler. It’s a used NASCAR part that perfectly fits the cooler, and has two 3″ inlets…like I said: PERFECT! Not too shabby at $60 either.

The plan for now is to locate the cooler once I get the inlet duct, based on sheer size and hose routing. The only downside I can see at this point is increased difficulty in getting brake ducting in place.

After switching formats over the WordPress, the page with this information was dropped. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the time or diligence to take care of it, largely because I didn’t know until today that I could upload files. D-oh!

In case you haven’t seen the earlier HTML version of this, it is essentially a record of the things that I’ve stripped out of the car and weighed. Recently, I decided to add back for parts where something was removed and something else added back in its place. For example: although I weighed the stock seats w/sliders when I was gutting the car several years ago, I didn’t include them on the list because it’s not really a savings. I purchased some Sparco seats, will weigh them (and the stockers again), then include each as a line item so you can see how much was saved.

Enjoy!

S13 Weight Savings Guide 

I had a friend on CarolinaNissans mention that I need to add a check valve on the inlet to make sure oil doesn’t drain back into the block and leave the filter “unfilled.” I somewhat understood this, but dismissed it because I wasn’t sure about how valid it was, if it was even applicable in my case, and frankly hadn’t gotten that far in the process.

After some digging and asking around, I found the following quote from the Wix site:

Anti-drain back valve in the spin-on filter
Generally, the anti-drain back valve have the form of a rubber membrane adjoining the inner side of the can type filter cover. The membrane covers the holes where the contaminated oil gets through to the filter and protects from the back flow after the engine stops. The anti-drain back valve reduces the dry friction or mitigated solid friction time between working parts of the engine as protecting from the oil flow towards the pump and accelerates the oil flow into the working elements during the engine start, especially after a long break. The position the filter is screwed into the engine, conditions the valve application. If the filter works in the “cover up” position as shown in the picture below, the function of the valve is taken successfully by the gravitation. A valve is required when the filter is screwed in from the side or from the top of the engine body.

My filter is not a spin-on type, but I think the concept is still applicable since my filter will be mounted higher than the take-off from the block. I spoke with one of the great guys at BAT (British American Transfer) Inc., and he told me the best option is a mil-spec, flapper-type check valve. Not bad, except it adds leak points and costs ~$90. On the the plus side, they come with integrated -AN fittings which makes things a TON easier.

I finally made a decision about the filter and went with the 6″ tall CM remote canister, P/N 1281 from Pegasus Auto Racing Supplies. I ordered a set of two -12 o-ring to -10 male adapters and an extra clamp to make sure it stays in place. It’s scheduled to arrive next week, and I’ll post some pictures when it does.

 Next up: mounting everything!

I came across a Canton/Mecca (CM) oil filter housing earlier in my search, when looking for a similar setup to the M3 filter canister. I dismissed it at the time in favor of the billet filter mount (P/N 22-625), which I later came to realize was overkill when I could use a forged one (Mocal RFH1B). Most people use cast, but I’m not a huge fan of cast aluminum when other options are available for a little bit more money.

I posted a question on SR20Forum about the inline filter as mentioned earlier, and had a friend mention the CM unit. I started to look deeper into it, and it can filter down to 8-micron particles and i supposed to maintain flow every well even after capturing matter. They recommend changing the element every 10,000 street miles, which is probably about a season of autocross and a few HPDE’s. I would have to play with it some to figure out the change frequency.