POSNOVA's NX ChumpCar Story
Hey there,
A couple of you have helped me out during the build of this beast, and now that it's seen 14 hours worth of track time, I can stamp it done and just rail on it.
It started in March when I was scouring for a cheap-as-hell NX2000 on the West Coast. I found a donor vehicle in Rohnert Park, CA. It still ran even.. but the rod knock was horrendous. Since the motor was a disaster anyway, I figured what the hell, I'll drive this bitch. So I did. It made it 22 miles down the 101, and threw a chunk of rod out the side of the block, and took out the starter to boot. Doh!
So, it was towed to a friend's shop over in Pleasanton. It sat there for a few weeks, dead, until I had business down in that area again. I set up a trailer rental and drug it back in April!
That's when I went to town stripping it to nothing. Everything unnecessary to be a race car, was yarded. Whole interior (Security-Torx bits for airbag sensors and steering wheel are a bitch..), air conditioning, front bumper, all lighting, all windows except the windshield, exhaust from the mainifold back -- all sold or junked.
It took a few months, but slowly and surely as I got my ho's to pay their pimp, we got it put together. The donor motor was DanFiveTen's old DE from his ride. Team member Jeff tore off that head and threw it on the flow bench and worked the hell out of it. The block got a full treatment, rebuilt from bottom to top. The connecting rods were solid, so they were reused. The pistons were fine, and they're hanging out as spares, but in with the 10:1 euro flat-top high comp pistons! Valves were done with a radius job, just 1mm over sized. All oil paths and coolant journals in the block were enlarged, with care and an incredibly anal machinist. New every gasket, seal, valve guides, lifters. Rods are all balanced within .2 grams of each other. Yeah, really. This bitch is ready to go. Lightened flywheel. Unorthodox pulleys.
We took it out to Spokane Raceway in July for the 24 hour race, unfortunately the damned thing just died for no reason at about hour 7. So, we started digging into it and replacing stuff. It acted, 100%, like it was the ECU relay (or ECCM Relay, whatever the hell you want to call the green relay on the computer). Replaced it. nothing. Replaced the fuel pump relay. Nothing. We got spark. We got fuel pressure.. but the injectors aren't firing.. Check the wiring diagram again... it's the ECU relay.. replace it again. Nothing. Fuck. Alright, wild-ass-guess time. Crankshaft position sensor. No. New ECU borrowed from a different SR20DE team. No. New fuel pump (which is such a bitch to change when the tank still has fuel in it..). No. Get fucking pissed and honkey-stomp the ECU. YES! Too bad I didn't get that far while we were still at the track... Turned out the power feed that is always hot that goes to the ecu relay.... had a short in it. Thank you factory wiring harness for being a bitch.
Once that was fixed, we did a few more things that are racecar like, such as relocating the battery to the back of the car and adding more gauges like oil pressure, water temp (a real one), and volts. Local here in Portland, the Cascade Sports Car Club (CSCC) hosted the Doernbecher Dash for the local children's hospital. We entered the NX. They couldn't class it easily into an SCCA class. It would've been ITA, but it was missing windows and they were replaced with Makrolon. That basically forced it over into EIP (E Improved Production). Our machinist drove that day, and during qualifying proclaimed that "this intake sucks" so promptly built one out of a couple of funnels and some plastic drainage pipe usually used in landscaping. Fixed that issue! Our brakes were freaking worthless at this point because everything we had on order, simply wasn't here yet. We turned 4 C-tek (centric cheapo) rotors and some "parts master" brake pads into absolute slag. No biggie, they only had to last 30 minutes anyway for a sprint race. It did ok, but the brakes were a real limiting factor. It could easily yard the PRO-3 bmw's (E30's) down the straight, but with ChumpCar rules, the suspension has to be dead-stock. And, it is... sorta.
The suspension setup involved bending things that needed bent, rounding things out that needed round, oval-ing things that needed oval, welding things that needed welded, and cutting things that needed cut. It now has approximately 0 suspension travel whatsoever and is bump-stop tuned with -4.25 degrees camber on both fronts, zeroed out the toe all the way around. It straight hauls ass, it just wanders a tiny bit when going straight, but not bad.. nothing that can't be handled easily.
We took the car out to Oregon Raceway Park in Grass Valley for another 7 hour race. We did really well, until about 40 minutes before the en d of the race, the CV on the driver's side popped out of the transmission. WTF? We slapped that bitch back in there, but it did it again at the end of the race.
So now that's where we're at, but we've got a plan to get it dealt with. Time for a new clutch, a new friction surface on the Fidanza light flywheel, and a new non-chinese pos CV. If we have to, and no one is looking forward to it, we might have to disassemble the transmission down to the final drive assembly, pull that out, and disassemble the VLSD and replace a couple of the gears in there that may have got munched by a shitty CV...
And that is that! Come see us beat the piss out of this thing for 12 hours, at Portland International Raceway (PIR) on October 29th and 30th! 12 hours Saturday, 6 hours Sunday. Post here and I can get your name on the list (possibly) to escape the gate fee.
Enjoy pictures! (adding as I can)
A couple of you have helped me out during the build of this beast, and now that it's seen 14 hours worth of track time, I can stamp it done and just rail on it.
It started in March when I was scouring for a cheap-as-hell NX2000 on the West Coast. I found a donor vehicle in Rohnert Park, CA. It still ran even.. but the rod knock was horrendous. Since the motor was a disaster anyway, I figured what the hell, I'll drive this bitch. So I did. It made it 22 miles down the 101, and threw a chunk of rod out the side of the block, and took out the starter to boot. Doh!
So, it was towed to a friend's shop over in Pleasanton. It sat there for a few weeks, dead, until I had business down in that area again. I set up a trailer rental and drug it back in April!
That's when I went to town stripping it to nothing. Everything unnecessary to be a race car, was yarded. Whole interior (Security-Torx bits for airbag sensors and steering wheel are a bitch..), air conditioning, front bumper, all lighting, all windows except the windshield, exhaust from the mainifold back -- all sold or junked.
It took a few months, but slowly and surely as I got my ho's to pay their pimp, we got it put together. The donor motor was DanFiveTen's old DE from his ride. Team member Jeff tore off that head and threw it on the flow bench and worked the hell out of it. The block got a full treatment, rebuilt from bottom to top. The connecting rods were solid, so they were reused. The pistons were fine, and they're hanging out as spares, but in with the 10:1 euro flat-top high comp pistons! Valves were done with a radius job, just 1mm over sized. All oil paths and coolant journals in the block were enlarged, with care and an incredibly anal machinist. New every gasket, seal, valve guides, lifters. Rods are all balanced within .2 grams of each other. Yeah, really. This bitch is ready to go. Lightened flywheel. Unorthodox pulleys.
We took it out to Spokane Raceway in July for the 24 hour race, unfortunately the damned thing just died for no reason at about hour 7. So, we started digging into it and replacing stuff. It acted, 100%, like it was the ECU relay (or ECCM Relay, whatever the hell you want to call the green relay on the computer). Replaced it. nothing. Replaced the fuel pump relay. Nothing. We got spark. We got fuel pressure.. but the injectors aren't firing.. Check the wiring diagram again... it's the ECU relay.. replace it again. Nothing. Fuck. Alright, wild-ass-guess time. Crankshaft position sensor. No. New ECU borrowed from a different SR20DE team. No. New fuel pump (which is such a bitch to change when the tank still has fuel in it..). No. Get fucking pissed and honkey-stomp the ECU. YES! Too bad I didn't get that far while we were still at the track... Turned out the power feed that is always hot that goes to the ecu relay.... had a short in it. Thank you factory wiring harness for being a bitch.
Once that was fixed, we did a few more things that are racecar like, such as relocating the battery to the back of the car and adding more gauges like oil pressure, water temp (a real one), and volts. Local here in Portland, the Cascade Sports Car Club (CSCC) hosted the Doernbecher Dash for the local children's hospital. We entered the NX. They couldn't class it easily into an SCCA class. It would've been ITA, but it was missing windows and they were replaced with Makrolon. That basically forced it over into EIP (E Improved Production). Our machinist drove that day, and during qualifying proclaimed that "this intake sucks" so promptly built one out of a couple of funnels and some plastic drainage pipe usually used in landscaping. Fixed that issue! Our brakes were freaking worthless at this point because everything we had on order, simply wasn't here yet. We turned 4 C-tek (centric cheapo) rotors and some "parts master" brake pads into absolute slag. No biggie, they only had to last 30 minutes anyway for a sprint race. It did ok, but the brakes were a real limiting factor. It could easily yard the PRO-3 bmw's (E30's) down the straight, but with ChumpCar rules, the suspension has to be dead-stock. And, it is... sorta.
The suspension setup involved bending things that needed bent, rounding things out that needed round, oval-ing things that needed oval, welding things that needed welded, and cutting things that needed cut. It now has approximately 0 suspension travel whatsoever and is bump-stop tuned with -4.25 degrees camber on both fronts, zeroed out the toe all the way around. It straight hauls ass, it just wanders a tiny bit when going straight, but not bad.. nothing that can't be handled easily.
We took the car out to Oregon Raceway Park in Grass Valley for another 7 hour race. We did really well, until about 40 minutes before the en d of the race, the CV on the driver's side popped out of the transmission. WTF? We slapped that bitch back in there, but it did it again at the end of the race.
So now that's where we're at, but we've got a plan to get it dealt with. Time for a new clutch, a new friction surface on the Fidanza light flywheel, and a new non-chinese pos CV. If we have to, and no one is looking forward to it, we might have to disassemble the transmission down to the final drive assembly, pull that out, and disassemble the VLSD and replace a couple of the gears in there that may have got munched by a shitty CV...
And that is that! Come see us beat the piss out of this thing for 12 hours, at Portland International Raceway (PIR) on October 29th and 30th! 12 hours Saturday, 6 hours Sunday. Post here and I can get your name on the list (possibly) to escape the gate fee.
Enjoy pictures! (adding as I can)
Last edited by posnova
on 2012-09-26
at 04-21-13.
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Originally Posted by BurtonNX2000 
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