Antilag

Recently I purchased and installed a Koyo dual core aluminum radiator for my 240SX because hey, I do race it and overheating is scary and dangerous. I was on the original single core radiator that probably came with the car. This was on Thursday. I gave it a good but mostly legal thrashing for 15 minutes, mainly by keeping it in second gear and near 50. It didn’t go over half, everything seemed to be going well. I popped the hood and found that the larger of the two fans in the assembly I got from a junked Sentra was not spinning. Uninspired, I simply moved the ground wire to another bolt, turned the ignition back on and watched it spin to life. Cool.

Saturday rolled around and I got up early to nab 4 Altima steelies for $30 bucks. Thanks Bob’s U-Pullit! The truck tire place down the street mounted my rally tires for another 30, and I was good to head to Ft. Meade for the night rallycross. Ft. Meade is south of Orlando by about an hour, and it ends up being a 4 hour drive since I live south of downtown Miami by 30 or 40 minutes.

Little floppy green glowsticks taped to about a hundred cones in a grassy field looks amazing.

I ended up in the 2nd running group because I didn’t rush to the booth and I prefered to wait and see what the other drivers did. I’m not super-experinced and sometimes you pick up problem areas and things to watch out for.

After the first group’s runs were over, I dashed out to my car and lined up. The car seemed to be liking the cooler central FL air, I think some of my sensors aren’t what they used to be. I consistently dropped time in my first three runs, which is important.I did think about my fan issue, but they were fine.

More of a MR-2, a Volvo 240s with straight pipes, a prepped Impreza, a 2006 STi owner testing the car out some, a pair of 80s VWs, and a maniac in a modded WRX finished, I lined up again.

I launched, and after bouncing up and down a good bit, I noticed that the cluster lights and radio face was flickering occasionally. The temp gage wasn’t flickering at all. It was heading for the top. Halfway through, I backed off since this car was my ticket home. Back at the staging, I popped the hood and after 10 minutes of futility with fuses and my ghetto wiring, my race was over. Damn. Doubly dissapointing because last time a blown strut forced retirement. Upon review in the morning, the larger fan was physically damaged. It wouldn’t even spin anymore.

Special and most apreciated-ness to Mr. and Mrs. Black, who graciously let us run on the property helped me get the 80 amp fuse I needed to make it home safely. Thanks to everyone who came out, maybe I’ll finish an event at Ft. Meade soon!

Rallycrosses and a track day have brought some important weaknesses in the stock bits:

I need new, stiffer springs. The stockers simply aren’t stiff enough. Any suggestions?

Different struts are required. Again, stiffer. I have an Aussie friend who thinks some rebuildable adjustable Bilsteins would be the answer for a student on a budget (me). His brother runs them on an RX-2 with little fuss.
Even though this sounds like a good idea, I’m open to other ones.

But really, what I need most is a daily driver.