Track Day. Fail.

Ok, track season is officially here! 

I loaded up half my garage (tools, fluids, kitchen sink), and realized for probably not the first time... I miss my trunk.  The jack, stands, and camp chair had to go in the frunk, and all the rest of my crap in the passenger seat.  (If anyone wants to give me a trailer... I'll take it)

Jam Packed.  

I was signed up with the same Vancouver shop I ran with last year, The Speed Syndicate.  The days are held at my favorite local track, The Ridge Motorsports Park.  Their days are affordable, safe, well run, and attract some seriously cool cars.  I got into the pits and setup next door to a sharp S2000 and beautiful 1st gen RX-7.  The owners were very friendly and offered me some shade in their tent, very cool of them.  And that's just the overall vibe at these days, people are friendly and helpful.  

Speaking of friendly, another MR2 buddy showed up to help support his friends in their Subarus, and take some photos throughout the day.  He kindly took a bunch of my car as well, thanks a bunch Dalton!  Throughout this post, basically most of the good pics are from him.  Give him a follow on instagram: Dawtun (his SW20 is pretty badass too)

After getting settled in, I went through tech.

My car next to a Radical SR3, gorgeous NSX (more on that later), and V8 swapped AE86.  Want to lap The Ridge in the high 1:4X's?  Just drop 70K on the Radical HERE.

Tech went well, got through with no issues.

After tech, we had the usual driver's meeting and then it was time to suit up and get ready for the first session.

I was in a different run group than my new friends, so as I fired up the car, I told them "see you in a few laps when I blow an intercooler coupler." as a joke, and dropped the car in gear to line up along the hot pits.  Every track day last year I popped an intercooler pipe the first session.  Kind of a honored, shitty tradition.

I got out on track, and started warming up the car, and my mind.  It'd been about 8 months since my last track day, so I needed a few laps to recall the track, braking points, turn ins, apexes, and all the other intricacies.  

After two or three laps I started picking up the pace.  I decided to run my car at low boost at least for the first few sessions, about 14-15 psi.  Things were going fairly well when on the front straight POP! an intercooler coupler had come off.

I came into the pits, thinking the intercooler popping was no big deal.  Usually, I fix it once and enjoy the rest of my day.  

Long story short, my new intercooler setup has three pipes.  The big, long hot pipe going from the turbo to the intercooler, and two cold pipes split up by a silicone 90 coupler.  The longer pipe with a 90 welded on it goes from the intercooler to the 90 silicone coupler.  From there, I have a short reducing pipe, pretty much totally hidden underneath silicone couplers from the 90 coupler to the throttle body.  I'm using a ST205 throttle body which already has a perfect 3" rubber coupler as part of the throttle body.  My intercooler piping is 2.5", so this small 6" pipe is where it expands from 2.5" to 3".  

The only aluminum reducer I could find was concentric.  Long story short, it just wasn't built correctly and no matter what, the connection between the throttle body and the reducing pipe would eventually fail when boost was added.

So, most of my day was spent like this.

I still made it out for the start of every session.  Each time praying the coupler would hold for 20 minutes.

And each session, after about 2-3 laps, it would pop again.  Back in I'd come.

At lunch, I even drove to the local autoparts store praying a different style t-bolt clamp would help. 

It did! 

For about 4 laps.  Frustration was mounting.  The few laps I got each session were fun, but it's tough to focus on your driving when you know every time you hit the go pedal the intercooler piping could pop off.

One of the sessions I thought some "positive vibes" would hold my intercooler pipe on.  To achieve positive vibes in an MR2 is easy, just pull the t-tops.  It did work for a few laps, until the inevitable POP! on the front straight, and I'd limp her around the track to the pit turn off.

This S2000 was a lot of fun to play with.  We were very close in pace, so it was fun to follow him and watch his line versus mine.  This track drives entirely different for different car layouts.  In my car, I can get on the throttle MUCH sooner (sometimes pre-apex) than most FR layouts, especially S2000s.  But, they can brake and turn in later.  

The sessions were still a lot of fun, but not as satisfying when every third lap you have to come back in, and attempt another repair.

Towards the end of the day, I made one final ditch effort to fix my issue and actually wrapped the intercooler pipe in duct tape and then slid it into the throttle body coupler and cranked down the t-bolt clamp to the point where it was about to break on me.  This was it.  

When I got on track, it did last a bit longer! Like 5-6 laps!

A few laps in, I was pointed by from a S2000 and saw something pretty cool merging in behind me on the front straight.

The owner of The Speed Syndicate has a beautiful early gen NSX with independent throttle bodies, TE37s, and a big ol wang.  We started playing a little lead and follow.

Over the next few laps, a bit of cat and mouse enveloped.  Each leading a few laps, and then pointing by to follow the other.  It was a blast.  Both cars were pretty evenly matched, it would've helped if I could've run my usual 17psi.  Eventually, we both overdrove our tires.

He gave me a wave after he got a little loose, and I applauded his efforts.  Shortly after... of course I popped my intercooler pipe, and brought the car in.  After the session I found the NSX, and turns out his dad was driving (who also owns the Radical I believe), lots of fun.  

After that session, I called it a day.  Overall, I was very frustrated.  I had the intercooler setup boost tested at 30+ psi for over 20 minutes before this track day.  Honestly... that night I was researching 2GR swaps.  

I awoke the next morning, and on my way to work, realized no matter what, I needed to make this engine setup work at least through this summer.  I wasn't going to tear it out in the middle of car season here, I still want to enjoy the car.  So, some changes needed to be made.

Later that week after cooling down a bit, I got to work.  First, the obvious intercooler pipe.  When I built this setup, I didn't have a welder.  Now, I do.  So I realized building that reducing pipe section out of steel would make it much easier to source, and run a bead around each end.  To my surprise, the perfect part came from O-Reillys auto part store.  A simple (and very cheap) exhaust reducer fit very snugly... pretty much perfect. 

I used a 2.75"-2.5" reducer.  I ran a bead around each end so the clamp has better grip, and installed it.  MUCH better fit.  

After getting it installed, I ran another high pressure boost leak test.  Good news!  The new intercooler cold pipe was holding great.  

Bad news!  I had a crazy bad leak around the compressor housing of the turbo.  Like... really?  Disheartened, the next day I pulled the turbo to see what the heck was going on.  

Like I've said, I have way too much practice with this... it came out in under 2 hours.

Yup, leaking especially through this little alignment hole.  I've never heard of this happening through Toyota turbos, and a quick internet search confirmed that.  It also confirmed that lots of other brands have this issue, and it's easily resolved by using some hi-temp RTV around the compressor housing.  

I added a little glob in the alignment hole just for safe measure.

While the turbo was out, I decided to try running my Kinugawa actuator again.  The OEM starts closing under high revs and high boost pressures (boost falling off even at 15psi past 6k rpm).  I swapped actuators because I had been fighting a nagging boost creep before... when I realized I had my actuator preload WAYYYY too tight.  With that resolved, I opened up the actuator to make sure things were still good.

To be honest, my diaphragm has been sizzled like that since I got it, and it worked and sealed fine.  But, since I had a spare, I swapped it in.  I kept the 1 bar spring (14.7psi).

To check the wastegate arm movement, I setup a crude tester for it using a leakdown tester.  The gate opens at around 13psi, kinda cool to see it work.  

I also bench tested the turbo itself for boost leaks.  I just blocked off the compressor side completely.  Held great at 30+ psi!  Hopefully an easy, but time consuming fix.

With the turbo back in a dirty engine bay.  Again, I boost tested.  Again, it held.  Hopefully this is all behind us.

After that, I realized my intercooler setup was not the best it could be.  While working on the "cold" side of the intercooler during the track day it was noticeably hot to the touch after coming off the track.  It just wasn't getting the proper airflow it needed, turning it into a heat sink.  I had an eventual plan for this, and decided it needed to be done now.  

Basically, I wanted to build a shroud for the intercooler, and pipe in fresh air from the side vents directly to it to help with air to air heat transfer.  So, we start with cardboard!

Once I liked what I had built, I bought some sheet metal and took it over to my buddies place with a legit sheet metal brake.  

Now we slice and dice, bend and break.

Then a hole saw appeared in my hand and I started drilling for the hoses to attach.

First test fit went great!  I texted my buddy a pic showing him how it all went together and we both texted each other saying we needed to re-do the entire shroud with a better design.  Basically, the 1" clearance I gave myself just wouldn't be efficient enough when we had room to make a better design work. 

That's part of fabricating your own parts, it almost never goes perfectly the first time.  It's the challenge, and the fun of it.  We both had the same idea on how to build a better mousetrap.  The next day I was back at his house with another 6 pack of beer, and a new sheet of aluminum (lightness counts).

Intercooler shroud 2.0!  I know, it doesn't make sense yet.  Keep scrolling.

Top panel cut.  

Rivet it together, drill some holes, add hose mount plates, TA-DA!  I know it's not a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, but it works, and that's what counts on the inside of the car.

I picked up 10' of overpriced brake duct hose from your favorite internet race shop, and started routing each side to the chassis void.  On the driver side, I still had to remove the rubber gasket between the side vent and engine bay.  Which includes removing and re-installing the side skirts.  Basically a lot of work to get a 2 pound rubber gasket out.  I didn't block the driver side vent, as that also feeds my RacerX air intake.  The passenger side vent is totally blocked off to the engine bay, routing all the air through the intercooler.  

Here's the passenger side completed.  The hose is attached with just tie wire.  I wanted something simple in case it needed to come out in a hurry.  Since the hose isn't under any real air pressure, this works great.

The finished product.  It's not air tight, it's not designed to be.  It basically is just to direct as much air as possible through the intercooler.  I have a design and the pieces cut to build an exhaust duct as well... but don;t really see the need.  Theoretically it wouldn't help with air flow... but I guess it would help keep the rest of my trunk dry when I spray the rear of the car down with a hose.  Time will tell if I add that.

Now, we needed to test this.  The best way possible, a touge run!

My favorite road had finally melted out around Memorial day.  And it was just as glorious as I remember.  After a few hard runs I pulled over and checked, the hot pipe was hot enough to burn if you touched it.  The cold side, about 80-90 degrees!  Definitely a huge improvement!  

So, with this success, I signed up for a quick SCCA Track Night In America.  We're gonna get this stupid thing through a full track day eventually!