Continuing the summertime activities, the next event on the docket was a trip down to Mansfield, Ohio to participate in a track day hosted by Midnight Motorsports. Before that I needed to do a little problem solving; I had an annoying rattle noise coming from the front driver's side of the car and the tach had been behaving erratically.
After a bunch of trouble shooting, which included checking the driver's side mount to the engine block, a new wheel bearing, installing a new bearing in the intermediate shaft and swapping out the coilover it turned out to be the anchor camber kit. I originally tightened it when I started the process of tracking down the noise, but apparently I hadn't tightened the bolts enough the first time. Ugh.
Intermediate Shaft Bearing Replacement
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The tach issue led me to believe that the ICM was malfunctioning. I have a spare, but I bought another one and the issue persisted. I decided that maybe the CKP that is inside the distributor may be the issue. I soldered in a sensor from an old distributor and the issue still exists. The engine is unaffected by the tach behaviour which leads me to believe it is either a loose wire in the connection on the cluster swap mini-harness or the PCB for the tach might have a solder joint that needs to be reflowed. I will probably tackle that in the fall/winter when I feel like taking the dash bezel out. Since the tach issue would not be resolved in time for the event, I left it alone since isn't imparing the operation of the car.
Tach Repair
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Tach Repair
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The caravan there was uneventful, dinner in Toledo which allowed one of our group stragglers to catch up to us. I am not much of a camper, so I stayed overnight in a hotel instead of camping at the track with group. The stay in the hotel was ok other than I had sworn many years ago to never come back to the actual town due me previously being arrested in this town...
Mid Ohio @ Nighttime
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Mid Ohio Front Straight 1
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Mid Ohio Front Straight 2
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There had been a couple of rain showers the day prior the track day, but the day of the event was very rainy. Mid Ohio being a track used in a variety of motorsports events means that it has a lot of rubber on the track, there is also some kind of sealant on the surface throughout the track. That combination leads to a very slick track when it rains; there is a wet line but it is very odd. In my first session out, on the first turn, the CB oversteered in a way that I hadn't experienced before, I managed to save it and continue on for an additional lap. The CB decided to oversteer in a different part of the track which caused me to decide to get off track and see if the weather would let up by the time it was my second session.
While I waited for my next session, and listened in to my work meetings lol, I decided to add some toe-in to the rear wheels. In the process of removing the wheels, I discovered that the last oversteer event had snapped 3 of my rear wheel studs, which is kinda odd considering that they are HR wheel studs. Uh oh. I don't carry the tools to replace wheel studs in my track pack, nor do I carry additional wheel studs.
Broken Wheel Studs
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Thinking quickly, I hopped on the internet and ordered a rear wheel hub from Napa. It was available locally and should have been a quick pickup item, of course that wouldn't work out that way. Around noon, 3 hours after I placed the order, I figured I would just drive back into town and check in with Napa because the system may have not nofified me that the part was availble to pickup. The pleasant counter rep told me that it should have been there, but the warehouse had processed, lost and then found the part and it would arrive by 3pm instead of noon. Arrrrgh.
I decided maybe I would just swap the studs out and not waste an entire track day. Since I was at Napa I decided to just install studs for the time being, only then did it occur to me that I did not have my wallet... After haggling with the clerk I managed to leave with the lugs since I had to come back to pick up the wheel hub later anyhow and could pay for them at that time.
Napa didn't have the necessary tools to install the lugs, so I began driving to Advance Auto Parts on the opposite side of town. Along the way, I remembered that I did not have a wallet but I did have the internet! I hurriedly found the tools I needed on the site and placed another pick up order. This worked out. Got the tools and headed back to the track.
And then I remembered, the rear of the car has spacers AND extended wheel studs. The Napa studs would not work (they would work if i decided to run without the spacers however), I then placed another pickup order from Advance for 8mm longer wheel studs. I got 10 studs and made it back to the paddock. With the help of the crew I got all 10 studs swapped in record time. Unfortunately they were still not long enough to allow me to run spacers, no biggee.
By that point the rain had slowed down and the track was transitioning from wet to damp-ish. Feeling better and not having a meeting to be in, I went out for my second run of the day. The track was still very slick, I managed to get a half of a lap in before I decided that I was still not comfortable with the grip level of the track. Someone had also crashed out in the time between my first and second sessions, which gave me pause about also crashing out myself. I decided to just do ridealongs for the rest of the day. I noticed that the Miata, which also runs a 200 TW trackday tire was also really skittish on track where the M5 and Corvette were much better behaved since they were on less track day focused tires. I might have to invest in a back up set of wheels and tires for future rainy day events.
Rainy First Session
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Damp Second Session
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The rest of the day was simple, I went back to town to pick up the wheel hub and give back the studs I didn't end up using. The drive home was also uneventful except for the scavenger hunt we took on to find e85 for the Miata. All good times though.
Paddock 1
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Paddock 2
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Paddock 3 with E39 M5
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Paddock 4 with Miata
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*if you look closely you can see the unfortunate STI in the background
I have ordered ARP extended wheel studs that will replace the Advance studs, but I have some time before I need to do that.
Summertime in the City
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