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[April 22 & 24, 2015: Fixed an oil leak from hell!!]

April 22 & 24, 2015: Fixed an oil leak from hell!!

Somewhere after the track event and only one month later my engine developed an oil leak from hell!! It was so bad that any RPM over about 4,000 would cause a TON of white smoke to bellow out from the engine lid.

Loooooooooong story and a lot of head scratching short, I discovered that my oil separator (installed @ reply #310) had mostly clogged up causing higher than normal crank case pressure. Combined with the boost and/or high pressures due to high RPM and oil was BLOWING straight past my Distributor seal.

MAN this was a mess and took me longer than I would have liked to fix. I had oil spray EVERYWHERE and it was so bad that dust was collecting on the top of my engine lid, trunk lid, spoiler, and entire back of the car with a bunch of small oil droplets all over. So gross

So I bought the Distributor Rebuild Kit from Twos R Us (link http://twosrus.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=28) and here is the install:

[April 17, 2015 (continued)]

April 17, 2015 (continued)

I also fixed an issue where my front to rear brake conversion mounted the caliper too high causing the pad to miss the rotor and create a squeaking noise that I've been putting up with since the dawn of man. I finally ground down the spindle bolt hole.

Pic 2: Brake pads missing the outer edge of rotor

Pic 3: Much better!

Pic 4: New (vented front) rotors re-mounted out back

[April 17, 2015: Installed new Brake Rotors]

April 17, 2015: Installed new Brake Rotors

At Thunderhill I COOKED my brakes. I mean I warped all four of em. The rotors I had were from a group buy I'd guess in 2000 or 2001. I do not recall what brand they were and they have no markings on them. They have been resurfaced a few times so not only was the track abusive to them but they were also nearing the end of their lifespan.

The new rotors I got are sourced from Marlin Crawler (see https://www.marlincrawler.com/brake/disk-rotor/brake-rotor-high-performance -- custom made by a vendor of Marlin's). The new rotors are 0.51 mm /  0.020" thicker. I'm not blaming the thickness; I know I got my brakes waaaay hot at the track! (Much more on this coming soon )

[April 9, 2015]

April 9, 2015: Added a resonator, Found an oil leak, Removed hot water supply to TB

At the track I ended up melting the plastic coupler between my Exhaust Throttle and the servo so I ended up just removing the throttle plate all together. On the long trip home I noticed the exhaust was quite louder. Was this from only the removed throttle? Or is my muffler being blown out?

At any rate I decided to install a second resonator. I went with a Vibrant 1141 2.5" Ultra Quiet Resonator and am very happy with the results. It definitely quieted it down.

I also discovered that I did not tighten the high pressure hose to my factory oil cooler and it was squirting onto the top of the oil filter.

I placed it where the stock CAT goes. Fit in there nicely. It is a straight through design and is very heavy. It definitely has a lot of material packed in it.

My ugly welds turned out pretty good

This is the hose clamp that was loose

And finally I removed the hot water supply to the throttle body. I don't live in Alaska.

[April 8, 2015: Installed new plugs]

Ok so I will update this once I post a separate thread about my Thunderhill experience. As for now I've got so many updates I'd like to get this thread moving, so here goes:

April 8, 2015: Installed new plugs

Outgoing plugs were IK22 Iridums installed sometime in 2011 (I can't seem to find where I documented this?). At reply #321 I mentioned them having about 60k miles as of June 2014. According to my Gas Cuddy app, my car was at 296,258 miles June 24, 2014. April 6 of this year it was at 305,139 miles. So my old Iridiums probably had 65 to 70k miles on em. Not bad

Factory gap was 0.030" and I believe I left em this way. The last pic is blurry but you can still see how worn out the ground electrode was

Ok guys, gonna try to get some updates posted finally

The track event was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I should have posted a full trip report afterwards but I became very busy with wheeling events in my Hilux as well as other work on my car which is why I haven't made much time for posting here. So for now I'd like to move this thread along as I have a TON of updates to post.

I will create a separate thread for the Thunderhill track event and update this post with a link to it once I do. I did write a comment about it on a different site so I'll quote it here:

Because I had zero track experience I was supposed to sign-up for a required Driver's School but the school was full. I really wanted to attend since a fellow MR2 friend had invited me & was already registered, plus traveling there with a friend is nice since it's a 9 hour round-trip drive to the track (yes we drove our MR2s!).

So I decided to register as a normal driver and sent them an email about my situation. They thanked me for the email but said the driver's school is mandatory. Unfortunately the next available school wouldn't be for another month and worse yet it is on a Monday. So after a few more emails they offered a full-day on-board Instructor for an extra $100 as the only way they'd let me on the track. I promptly agreed to this and WOW what a GREAT decision that was!

The gentleman in my car is Andrew, the NCRC Driving Instructor assigned to me and he was AMAZING. Great coach, very polite, very calm, very well spoken, easy to listen to and understand. He gave me the option to have him drive my car first which I thought was a great idea and WOW right from the first corner I was AMAZED at how fast we were going!

Having Andrew drive my car for the first gave me the opportunity to jump straight-in with both feet at full speed. After three laps it was my time to drive and after having experienced the expected pace I entered the track at full speed from the very first corner and never looked back.

This was such a great experience and I HIGHLY recommend anyone thinking about tracking their car to have an on-board instructor for your first session. I was on the track with other novice drivers & I could see that very few were taking the proper driving line Andrew was teaching me. Without Andrew I would have just followed any random car & would have started my track experience with bad habits.

SO MUCH FUN, CAN'T WAIT TO DO IT AGAIN!

Hey Bill, check this one out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MVaarnM6yg

I heard there have been a lot of juicy updates! But I don't see any! Come awn! Where are all the updates??

Ha ha yup I've seen this video, it's awesome hahaha I also like the Miami Vice version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21ij4BtHsxw

The driver just gave up on life haha

Oh man, I just realized I haven't updated this thread in so long

Been super busy with work events, wheeling, working on my truck, and also my wife and I have gotten an apartment in Clovis so we've been busy moving all our stuff back from San Jose! Whew it's been one heck of a busy summer to say the least!

I still need to post about my track day at Thunderhill

Thank you for the larger pictures They look really slick

Post up a close-up of these puppies

WOOHOOOO FINALLY

Thank you for joining and for posting. Really cool stuff you've got going on! I will check out your build threads in a bit-

Mid 14-sec at > 13 psi? Need more rear tires?

Regards,
BigMike

"100 pounds boost"

Never know 'til you try though.

Let's give it a go!