With funds running low this year, I’ve been pretty selective about what events to attend. Thus far I’d only done one HPDE back in April, but when I found out a bunch of friends were going to the July trackcross I couldn’t say no.

With the splitter now sitting several inches lower, the old Longacre struts were barely holding on to a couple threads. New ones are expensive at like $35 a piece, so I took a inspiration from my friend Adam’s CRV track ‘car’ and spent less than $20 on some hardware from Lowes to make my own.

I’ve known for a while that the design of the original splitter I made for the car had some problems. The Dibond sign material is just not strong enough to provide meaningful downforce, and the bracketry attaching it to the car was weak as well. It definitely did not pass the “stand on it” test. It was also a little…

The alarm went off at 5:30am, far too early for any reasonable person to wake up on a weekend. Fumbling around in the dark, I throw on the clothes I had set out the night before, trying not to wake my wife or the dogs sleeping peacefully. Picking up the GoPro case and water bottle, I head out to the car which was…

I totally forgot to post the last update from January! Here you go!

It’s been six months since the last time I posted an update and some pretty cool stuff has happened in that time.

In my ongoing search for a tow-capable daily driver replacement for my Matrix this spring, I think it’s coming down to these two.

Last one for 2018. There’s a few little things to do over the winter and then start hitting 2019 as hard as I can. I was hoping to be able to have a roll bar put in this winter but with the pup needing knee surgery those funds will likely not be available :(

Since I’m still on the wait list for the wait list for the last HPDE in October, I decided to go ahead and do the trackcross this weekend. It was raining all day, with the paddock basically covered in 1" of rushing water at times. The track, while wet, didn’t seem to have too much deep standing water on it so the…

With a nice clean workspace, getting the car prepped for HPDE was a much more pleasant experience.

Man was that fun. Four 30-minute track sessions and though the temperature did creep up to the 3/4 mark, the car never had a problem, and made the hour drive home just fine. I’m so happy with how well this car drives on the track. The staff at Dominion has got it figured out, the event went so seamlessly between…

As though I wasn’t already stressing out over it enough already. 

Since the last update I finished going around the interior and stitch welding the seams.

It’s been a little while since I’ve posted an update on the FX, and a few little fun things have happened in the intervening couple of months. The first thing of note was that I acquired a rivnut tool.

Is there better way to spend a hot, humid weekend than in the garage with your friends, wrenching on a racecar project? I submit that there is not. This time the project at hand is an S13 track car that is in need of more room for race rubber, and revised low-speed aero for autocross.

In anticipation for my first HPDE day in August, I got a oil pan baffle kit for the 4AGE in the Corolla. If you’re unfamiliar, basically these little trap doors only allow oil to flow towards the pickup, preventing the oil from sloshing away under hard cornering (like what you’d see with sticky tires at the track) and…