Centerdrive 818 on Track Pics

[Sgt.Gator]

A friend at the The Ridge Enduro this weekend sent me these pics. I wasn't there myself. I don't know yet how well the car ran, lap times should be available soon.

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[Flamshackle]

awesome! that is all :D

[Mechie3]

Nice! I see he's using the AAIC without ducting (it appears).

[tmoretta]

Yes, how is that working? Everyone says the original design is a recipe for engine disaster.

[Sgt.Gator]

I agree, I hope we can get a report on how well the TMIC worked for them.

I note an interesting mod, they have a Dry Sump AND a Perrin AOS. I'm not sure why that would be done, normally a Dry Sump negates the need for an AOS. I can't wait to get up close at the next race.

[RetroRacing]

We were there with our RX3, broke a housing in half.....never been done before in mazda history, but that's another story. Got to meet the guys, great build, great bunch of guys. THe car was super competitive and seemed to be working well. Hope to see them at the 25 along side us!

[Sgt.Gator]

A shot from a Facebook post from another fan:
https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/12993343_982000018574437_6161147753436449939_n.jpg ?oh=12a1ac1491666d7d54ca6b45a7b30113&oe=57AC5F56

https://scontent-sea1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/13012618_982000095241096_5535121690972650030_n.jpg ?oh=82c5324817d186bf18077594c026deaf&oe=57A7D58A

[Sgt.Gator]

We were there with our RX3, broke a housing in half.....never been done before in mazda history, but that's another story. Got to meet the guys, great build, great bunch of guys. THe car was super competitive and seemed to be working well. Hope to see them at the 25 along side us!

Retro will you be at the Rose City Opener April 29-May 1 with your 818? I'll be there for sure.


Survive the 25!


https://youtu.be/thmLXovB6r8

[RetroRacing]

Unfortunatly, no. We are only halfway trough the wrap, just started wiring the dash and installing the foam in the doors. We figure Spokane for the test day and 3 days of racing including the 1 hour.

[Mitch Wright]

Great to see another R on track and using a TMIC.

[Sgt.Gator]

Thanks Tony. For those not familiar with The Ridge, 1:49 is faster than 95% of the cars on the track, but not as fast as GT1, GT2, SPO, and half the SPM cars. Of course this was their first race, so there's a ton of development to do. If they can get it down in the 1:43 - 1:44 range they will be one of the very fastest cars on the track.

[RetroRacing]

We did talk to them about rear spring rate, I think they may be waiting for us to try out our 600's out back. With no air going to the intercooler, things will only get better once they address that....and an oil cooler.

There is WAY more than 5 seconds left in that car. They are on DOT tires, running allot of angle in the wing, probably as a result of disturbed air flow to the wing and the forward mounting location, they still are working closing up the body, and they effectively short shifted the whole time. What I found really encouraging (on top of the build quality of the car) was the fuel burn rate. Looks like they did 1.5 hours on a tank! What is the stock tank, 15 gallons?

[RetroRacing]

WE have 30.....not sure I can go 3 hours, 2.5 in a caterham was hell and I was 7 years less experienced.

[Sgt.Gator]

As far as I know here's the fastest official lap ever at The Ridge, a 132.9.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QImTZYnv-wI

"Jackson Dean Racing - JFC Racing
Stohr-JFC CSR Race Car. Last lap of regional race. 1:32.962. New CSR and TRACK record for The Ridge Motorsports Park. Miles Jackson Driver.
JFC Racing in Auburn, WA (Brian Roberts & Mike Lutz) built this incredible car."

It actually freaks me out to think of going this fast into turn 1-2! Trust the DownForce Luke!

Retro I'm thinking you can beat it!

[RetroRacing]

maybe 42.....that is crazy fast!

[Sgt.Gator]

WE have 30.....not sure I can go 3 hours, 2.5 in a caterham was hell and I was 7 years less experienced.

That's good mileage. My LGT wagon averages around 14 gals/hour, but that depends on how many and how long the straights are, because that's where you're WOT.

[Leodelc]

We did finish the 6 hour race, of which I am proud of the build, my crew, and my co-drivers. Its hard to imagine, but we actually only had three on-track test days prior to our first race weekend, and we spent much of that time figuring out how to get the oil system and crankcase breathing to work, but I believe we figured it out. This weekend I will be doing some inspection and see how effective my system was in keeping the oil out of the intake system. I'll share what I learned later next week.

As for car development, we definitely still have a lot to do. We really did not get a chance to optimize wing settings, nor have I had a chance to properly route air to the intercooler, however, this is a detuned EJ207 twin scroll engine as we are targeting NASA ST3 class so we can run the 25 hours of Thunderhill in E0 class. I am therefore not making nearly as much heat as even a stock STi engine. That said, the car is fast and is capable of astounding cornering forces. I am accustomed to the 1.4-1.5g turns you can do in a Spec Racer Ford, but this car exceeded that significantly.

[Sgt.Gator]

Leodelc it's great to have you in this thread and on this forum!
Thanks for your input, all of us R racers and S tracksters are watching how the racing 818s are dealing with these issues, your input is valued and appreciated.

My question is why AOS and Dry Sump? I'm running a dry sump and it completely eliminates the need for an AOS. If you run a straight dry sump there is no need to have any venting into the intake. Chad Plavan and I have a long thread on the experimentation we did last year in the 818R forum and I'd be glad to talk with you anytime you want to discuss the two different ways we did it. But we both eliminated any need for an AOS.

If you'll be at the ICSCC Rose City Opener at PIR next weekend let's get together. I'll be racing my LGT in SPM and the Mini-Enduro, and an Integra in ITA.

Again, great to have your input here!

[Leodelc]

Thanks, glad to be here. I had been so heads-down with the build that I did not have time to post my progress or findings, but now that the first race is passed I should have a bit more time.

OK, lets talk dry sump and crankcase ventilation.

I am using the Element Tuning dry sump system, which consists of a 2-stage scavenge pump pumping from the bottom of the oil pan. The sump tank feeds oil directly to the stock engine oil pump. As described by Element Tuning, I had all four head breather tubes tied together and connected to the second inlet of the sump tank. Lastly, the breather outlet of the dry sump tank had a simple filter on it so the tank could breathe to the atmosphere. The PCV valve remained connected to the crankcase, as did the crankcase breather tube to the vacuum inlet on the intake tube, near the inlet to the turbo.

I should also note that since we are targeting to run the 25 hours of Thunderhill in the E0 class, we are building the car to NASA ST3 class rules, so we need to hit a 10:1 weight/whp ratio. The engine is a stock EJ207 version 8 (twin scroll turbo) so in order to cap the HP we are running a restrictor plate after the MAF with the OEM ECU tuned to run with the restrictor.

In testing, we were finding that the sump tank would pressurize at low RPM and oil would eventually collect on the filter and spit out. At higher RPM and load, there appeared to be vacuum in the sump tank. We found that the car was gulping oil through the crankcase breather so badly that at the end of a straight when we got off throttle to brake, the car would bellow an enormous amount of smoke. We also found a prodigious amount of oil in the intercooler, turbo outlet, and throttle body. I was thinking that since the turbo was sucking through the restrictor plate, the vacuum was probably a higher in the intake than it would be in the OEM configuration, so likely it was grabbing more oil through the crankcase breather.

For subsequent test days, we added the Perrin AOS and tried a few different configurations of plumbing, with and without the AOS connected to the sump tank. The best configuration appeared to be this:

* Sump tank connected to scavenge pump only, breathing through a filter
* AOS vent ports connected to the two forward vents on the heads and the crankcase port
* AOS vacuum port connected to the PCV valve and intake (before turbo) teed together
* Aft vents on the heads connected to the balance tube and crankcase (OEM configuration)
* The AOS drain connected such that oil recovered can drain back into crankcase

In this configuration, we found we were still getting oil spitting out the sump tank, so we added a catch can to the breather port on the tank. This worked great, but we were catching about 8oz of oil in an hour of track time, probably because I could not find a good location to mount the breather so it was above the sump tank, so the breather hose had to run slightly downhill, which means any oil that coalesces in the hose drains into the catch can. To solve this, I replaced the pep **** on the breather with a hose fitting and plumbed it to drain into the crankcase.

For the race, I also temporarily installed a catch can on the boost control solenoid as a telltale, as we had seen this port spitting out oil that was getting into the intake.

This weekend I pulled the intercooler off the engine and there was hardly a film of oil in it. The outlet of the turbo was bone dry, and my telltale catch can had maybe 1oz of oil after having run about 7 hours of track time (saturday test day plus 6 hour enduro). The vacuum lines were dry, no oil in them at all. What oil did end up in the telltale I attribute to the fact that I was unable to completely clean the intercooler of oil after installing the AOS. Running the enduro did a good job of clearing out the remaining oil.

Over the course of the race we seemed to have used a fair bit of oil. There was oil on the diffuser, and there seems to be a small leak coming from the left-hand cam seal, so this may have been a factor in the oil usage. There was no smoke apparent in running the car, so I doubt any oil was being consumed via the intake tract.

Those are my findings so far, more post-race inspection to come.

[Sgt.Gator]

Chad and I both have the Element Tuning setup. If you're at PIR next Friday- Saturday-Sunday let's get together and I'll show you how I setup mine and how he did his. With our setups there is no PCV and no connection to the Intake system, so it's impossible to get oil in the intake or intercooler. If you're not going to be there I can type up how we did it in a summary that's shorter than reading the entire Dry Sump thread in the R section.

[Leodelc]

I have family visiting this weekend so won't make it down, but I will be in Portland running my SRF in the SCCA race on the 21st/22nd. Maybe we can get together Saturday evening, if so, PM me and I'll give you my contact info.

[Sgt.Gator]

I'll be at Pacific Raceways May 14-15. Hopefully you'll have the 818 there?

[Leodelc]

No, in NYC for my son's graduation. May is a busy month this year...