Slugworks Racing

New Paint

2012-01-18T14:09:00.000-06:00

Got the engine bay painted. It looks a lot nicer now. It will be easier to work on and find potential issues now that it is all clean.

Wiring Woes

2011-11-12T09:51:00.001-06:00

We decided that it would be a great idea to simplify the wiring harness by removing all unneeded wires. Sounds good in theory, but once you get into it there is an amazing amount of wiring in a car. The stuff in the bag is what was removed. This is the second go around of wire removal. Last year I removed a good portion of it, but it was the more easily accessible wire. There is no wiring left in the car. Everything has been removed. So here is to hoping that it still work when I am done!

The work begins...again

2011-11-02T22:23:00.001-05:00

This past weekend marked the start of the car rebuild for 2012 season. Planned projects include, refresh motor, find trans that doesn't grind, replace clutch, cosmetic improvements to the interior, increase safety of cage, re-wire car for ease of troubleshooting and appearance, replace brakes and wheel bearings.

The interior was stripped down to bare essentials and Rob went to work removing the sound deadening. It had been bugging all of us that we never removed it during the initial build, but it was really bugging Rob. 20lbs/ of dry ice, a hammer, and a couple hours later... it was all out. It probably weighs 5 pounds at most so not a huge weight savings, but it really makes the car look clean with that out of there. It collected dirt real fast and made for an unappealing look to the interior.

The wiring was functional, but very difficult to troubleshoot or work on. Lots of junctions, distribution blocks going to distribution blocks, wire nuts, all made for a rats nest of wiring. This winter it will all be removed, shortened or lengthened as needed and then re-loomed. The gauge panel is also going to see some improvements. Only the top row of gauges were easily visible, so we will be re-locating them around the stock instrument cluster for easier viewing. A couple gauges will be upgraded to digital readouts as well. Have you ever tried to get readings of your oil pressure, oil temp, and coolant temp, going 115mph surrounded by cars? Oh yeah, you only have 2 seconds to do it because the next turn is fast approaching :)

Once the motor is removed, the remaining wiring will be taken out. A couple new bars will be added to the cage and a fresh coat of paint will make things look new again.

Chumpionship Summary

2011-10-26T22:03:00.004-05:00

The chumpionship was a great time. Unfortunately some mechanical failures prevented us from being competitive. Axles, wheel bearings, ball joints... We overheated the front brakes during practice on friday before the race and most likely caused excess wear on some of the other components that failed on saturday. After 25 1/2 hours of racing, we're happy to have taken the checkered flag sunday night in 21st place. Thanks to everyone who has supported us and helped out this year. DB Performance, Stellar Autoworks, The Alignment Guy, Primo Performance. Expect bigger and better things from slugworks next season.

10:41 to change out an axle

2011-10-26T22:00:00.001-05:00

Mid race fix at Iowa Speedway. In a straight line the car drove OK, but not so much in the turns. 10:41 to change an axle from pit in to pit out. Pretty impressive. Thanks to John, Shane, and Alex.

Well, racing season is over.

2011-10-10T20:52:00.002-05:00

Well, racing season is over. This just means we are getting started on tweaking, upgrading, and fixing things that gave us issues over the past 6 months. More updates and picture will be coming soon!

Like us on Facebook!

2011-09-08T20:11:00.002-05:00

FYI, we do pretty much all of the updates via facebook now, so head on over and like us!

SlugWorks Racing on Facebook

Ready for Road America

2011-03-21T23:01:00.000-05:00

The first race of the year is upon us. In only 4 days Team SlugWorks will be heading east to Elkhart Lake WI for the "Greater Sheboygan Festival of Loons" dual 7-hour endurance races.

Beginings of a new engine

2011-01-06T21:48:00.000-06:00

1. Freshly cleaned block ready for assembly

2. Block side of main bearings installed

3. Assembly lube before installing crank

4. Cleaning the main bearing surfaces on the girdle

5. Plastigage the main journals to double check our measurements

6. Pistons ready to be installed

7. Tapping in the pistons

8. Plastigage the rob journals to double check our measurements

9. Rotating assembly complete

Still working...

2011-01-04T21:15:00.001-06:00

No, we haven't given up on this thing yet. We have been busy working on the car rather than posting up our progress. Here are some pics of where the car is at right now. You can see the cluster and the new gauge mounting panel. Paul fabricated a frame that has an easily removable plastic panel for the gauges to mount in. Wiring will be much easier outside of the car. As you might have noticed, there is no more dash. One of the tasks was weight savings. We took out an additional 100lbs. out of the car over what we already took out last season. Estimates put the car right around 2000lbs. Pretty light and we should be making decent power too. The other pic is the rear tow hook. It just needs to get painted a bright color and will be completed. The front tow hook is very similar. Not bad for $6 u-bolts from fleet farm.

Some video from BIR

2010-09-28T22:18:00.004-05:00

We have some video from the race at BIR. Here is a clip from the middle of day 2 with Rob in the car after a pit stop. I will post up some more when it get edited and converted for youtube

Back at it again

2010-09-19T00:42:00.000-05:00

Well, its been awhile since any of us really worked on the car, and we didn't work on it again today either. Instead, the garage was worked on. Paul and Rob came over and helped in stall a new garage door. My garage has a 16'x7' door and a 9'x6.5' door. The larger one is insulated, but the smaller one is really old fiberglass/plastic material. It is paper thin and is really difficult to open since the opener broke. I don't really know when it broke since it didn't work ever since I moved in. I picked up a new white, steel, insulated door. The old one came down without much fuss. The new one went up with a little bit of difficulty. I blame the instructions. I have done some technical writing for my job and know it can be difficult to explain a process, but there were pretty terrible. The manuals from harbor freight are much better than this one. Had the instructions explained things a little better it would have been a lot easier to install the door. Bottom line is, we got it installed. Now the walls and garage doors are insulated. The only part left is the window. It seems to be a very odd size and will most likely need to be custom made. Might just put some insulation up around it to keep the drafts out and look at getting one made next fall. Now its time to get the electrical done. My brother is going to help put in a sub-panel in the garage so we can run the welder in the garage instead of running a long cord into the house down to the laundry room and plug it in the dryer outlet.

Iowa Race Report

2010-09-19T00:31:00.002-05:00

Saved for the Iowa Race report

Brainerd Race Report 6/5-6/6

2010-09-19T00:31:00.000-05:00

Saved for the brainerd race report.

Off to Iowa

2010-06-25T13:47:00.000-05:00

Sorry again for the lack of posts. It is difficult to keep a full time job, and work on teh car everynight. We have basically been out in the garage for hours each night since the Brainerd Race. We will post up a write-up of that soon.

For now we are packed and headed to the Iowa Speedway for our first 24 hour endurance race. A truck and van are loaded with tools and spare parts. We should be able to continue no matter what the problem is.

Here is a link to the live track cams at Iowa Speedway. http://www.iowaspeedway.com/aspx/FanZone/WebCams.aspx

Race Car done!

2010-06-02T23:55:00.000-05:00

Well, it is late on Wednesday night and we are calling it done. Technically it will never be done, but it is as close to done as we are going to get before the race this weekend. There are still a couple minor things, but they are just to satisfy the rules. Mechanically the car is completed. Hoping things go well the first event and that the rain stays away (or at least stays away during my stints)

We are hoping for some updates during this weekend double 7 hour enduros. We have a large pit crew working with us so hopefully we will get some time to relax during the race.

Another Weekend of Work

2010-05-17T06:34:00.003-05:00

Hello race fans!

We’ve gotta apologize, our updates as of late have been very few and far between, and lacking pictures. Our most recent post was an attempt to get some form of information out on the status of the car.

Well, we have exciting news! The car is almost done. John, Rob, and myself (Paul) have been eating, sleeping, drinking, and pooping this car for the past couple months or so.

Key Points:

-We have a cage! Almost. Moral of the story, bolt-in cages aren’t the convenient things that you’d think. They’re a huge pain. Do it right and have a professional weld in a cage and save yourself massive headaches.

-The cage is white, and it looks extremely nice. Even with the dirty fingerprints we’ve already put in it.

-The car runs and drive, and it does it well! I drove it almost 100 miles and the gas gauge said I had a 90% full tank. I’m sure that’s a bit off, but our gas mileage seems to be spot on! And with the light, responsive chassis, it accelerates surprisingly quickly.

-The car has been aligned by the one and only Jeff the Alignment Guy! He did a great job. The car tracks and handles *very* well. I might be bragging, but I think we might have one of the best handling cars out there. Which we really need, because we might just have some of the least experienced drivers.

-We’re banging out little projects and details very quickly. Anything from non-clicking axles, to rear wheel bearings, to fixing a high cold idle, to diagnosing bad sensors and disconnected accessories, you name it! We have our hands on a factory service manual, and we know how to use it! And boy, have we needed it.

I swear, just about every little sensor, every little thing that can leak or break, has done it, and we have fixed it! Ok, I am exaggerating, but it has been a lot of stuff.

Our biggest concerns now:

-Making the car look like a race car! To date, we have opted to concentrate on the running state of the car, but now we are starting to think about graphics, a theme, decorations, and sponsor decals we want to put on the car. We will be working on this from here on out.

-We need another driver for Brainerd, and perhaps a few for Iowa. We have some possibilities, but no one has signed on the dotted line. We REALLY need some cool guys to drive with us, or we may be in trouble. Let us know if you can help! We promise to deliver a great time.

*Keep tuned into this web site. We promise to do a better job with updates. We have the driving school this coming weekend, which should be great, and we hope to get some fun pictures. And Race updates aren’t too far in the future. Wish us luck in preparing and racing!

-Greasemonkey Paul

Closer to race-ready

2010-05-02T21:59:00.002-05:00

We have been making some progress towards the finish of the car and hope to have it in race-able condition next weekend. Some little frustrating things were fixed this weekend. We got the light on the volt meter to work. Why the ground connection for the light and the ground for the meter are not the same I don't know. after grounding the case it lights up nice and green looking.

Another lighting issue was the dash lights. They did not work at all. The reason for this is because someone decided that the dash light brightness controller looked like the door ajar buzzer and we didn't need it anymore... newbie mistake I guess. For now, the harness is jumpered to ground. The lights are full bright, but at least they work. I probably have an extra controller in the wiring tub. Its low on the priorities right now, but hopefully will be fixed by the Iowa event.

Rubbing brake pad backing material on the rotor hat was taken care of too. The bleeder screw on the front passenger side caliper is leaking a bit, so we got some new screws. Turns out the set I got were not the right size. They were for the rear calipers. The next set we got were for the fronts but the wrong thread pitch. The guy at the store said "these are a universal part, they will fit anything" which is not quite accurate. We new it was an M10 screw, but not sure of it was M10x1.25 or M10 x1.5 and forgot to check before running out to the store. They only had M10x1.5 and that is not it. At least we know what to get now.

After taking the car out on Saturday night and getting it to heat up we found out the fans don't kick on. Troubleshooting using the factory service manual is so much easier than guessing what to do next. Turns out the radiator fan switch is defective. Those seem to be special order at all the parts places. Good thing we have a spare motor sitting around. Grabbed the switch from the spare and got it working. We also added a relay to control the secondary fan manually.

Things are looking good and we are on track to have a car done before the deadline. We have a driving event at BIR on May 24th, so that is the day it needs to be done. We should have it ready minus the graphics.

Car has been driven

2010-04-18T23:47:00.000-05:00

Well, the lack of posts has something to do with the amount of work on the car, moving to a new house, and promoting the Chump Car events when I am able to.

We finally took the car out for a short drive tonight. Nothing major was broken, broke, or didn't work. Still a lot of bugs to work out, but at least we were on the road for awhile.

There are a couple little things that can be taken car of as time permits. The dash lights dont work, the angle of the oil temp, oil pressure gauges could be change to make then easier to read, there is rattling from somewhere in the trunk, but the big thing to work out now is why the water temp was up at a normal operating temp, and suddenly dropped to about 110. It isn't the gauges, the stock gauge, and the new auto meter gauge we installed did the same thing. The coolant reservoir and radiator are full. Not really sure of the issue yet, but we need to figure it out quick. The MAC autocross school is now only a week away and that is when all the drivers are going to get to push the car a bit to see how it handles.

Video Links

2010-04-06T00:05:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to the first start up: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_iTPlMVmSM

Here is the one after the wiring fix: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlR7Muiiuzo

It's alive

2010-04-05T23:43:00.001-05:00

Well, after a few hours...ok...way too many hours of tinkering and working too slow, we have a running car. It took a couple tries. First time we realized the ECU was not plugged in, then the next couple times it fired up but ran really crappy. Got it running and found it was throwing a code 4. Crank sensor. Since it was a used distributor and we had no idea how to test the sensor we decided it would be best to double check the wiring. I understand electrical theory and know how to read schematics, but for some reason get confused actually work on electrical stuff. I must have grabbed the wrong white wire. We found out there were 2 white wires that got crossed. The crank sensor and O2 sensor were swapped. Quick fix of those, and she fired up real quick, idled a lot smoother, and sounded a lot quieter too.

I went out again tonight and mocked up the cage tubes to see where they will be. We got a bolt in kit form Autopower. It looks ok, but sits a little too low. There are a couple inches between the roof and the top tubes. We are looking for ways to safely lift the cage up a couple inches. I think we will work on that this weekend. The weekdays will be spent mounting the battery, wiring the kill switch, wiring/installing all the gauges, and trouble shooting the cluster. I pulled the cluster from a working '89 civic. Since ours is a '90 the cluster wiring is different. I swapped all the pins and thought I did it right, but must not have.

Nifty little gauge pod

2010-04-05T23:25:00.000-05:00

Rob had some time and whipped together a nice little bracket for some gauges. Not too bad looking. Had some little pieces of lexan around so might as well use it up as it was too small for any windows.

The Engine is in!

2010-03-18T23:49:00.000-05:00

Well, we spent a few hours at the garage tonight getting the motor installed. It went in easier than expected. Not bad considering not one of the 3 of us had ever installed an engine before. We were able to get the 4 mounts bolted up, installed power steering system, wired up the 2 injectors that needed wires straight from the ECU, connected all of the coolant lines minus the radiator connections. Shift linkage was connected and adjusted the clutch, Custom made a bracket for the throttle cable. The new intake was missing the throttle cable mounting bracket. We were able to find an extra one in the parts bins from another car and cut/bent it to fit. For wiring, all that remains is the distributor. We have an OBD0 dizzy with a 7 pin plug, but the harness in the car is a 5 pin plug. We got another plug, but it turns out it was for an OBD1 dizzy and is useless to us. Hoping the junkyard has one this weekend, but those seem to be gone quick. If we can't find one, I may be able get some parts from work to make our own plug. After the dizzy we will need to run the new battery cables, and finally power to all the gauges. The mess of hoses will be cleaned up this weekend. Some will be routed to a catch can we need to build, one is for teh oil pressure gauge, and the rest are oil cooler lines. Who knows, maybe this weekend it will be ready to fire up for the first time in 4 months.

Closer to getting a running car

2010-03-15T18:14:00.001-05:00

Well, after a good night on friday we got the engine closer to being ready ot go back in. A few items took longer than we would have liked, but thats how things go on crappy old cars. We got a hole drilled in the oil pan for our oil temp gauge probe. I saved some money and bought closeout gauges from summit racing as well as ebay. They are all various sizes, but the probe for the oil temp is huge. No chance it was going to fit onto the sandwhich adapter we installed for teh cooler and pressure gauge. We also installed a "freeze-plug-breather" to the block, and had to JB weld the brass fitting to the steel plug. We decided it would be safer to let it cure overnight than to rush getting the engine in and not have it cured and develop a leak. Saturday Rob and I went over and put the flywheel, clutch and transmission back on the engine. Other commitments didn't allow us to get it back in the car, but we are ready to finish it up later this week. Things are looking pretty good for now.

Progress update

2010-03-07T21:57:00.002-06:00

Alright, we finally have some content for you. Again, we apologize. If we want followers, we gotta give you some eye candy! You’ve missed a lot. Here it goes…

Ah yes… So the last time we gave you any real content, we had stripped the ‘parts car’ to the bone and had it hauled away. Right. Lots of extra junk, figuring maybe some would come in useful, and some we’d garner a few dollars from, to add to the budget. After that, things get a bit fuzzy for a while, we had around a month of hiatus, but with a renewed resolve we went back at it.

Our goal at that point was to have the white car be ‘rolling’. Meaning, it had suspension, brakes, and steering. That has been accomplished. We got most of the suspension installed; trailing arms, control arms, and knuckles. Paul worked his magic on pressing in some new ball joints. We also partially cannibalized another car in Paul’s fleet to polish off the rear brakes with Integra stuff. Shiney. We also opted to just install the whole steering rack and all the power steering equipment from the parts car, as we knew it worked well. The rack that came with the white car had a ghetto fabulous power steering elimination job done, so we wanted to avoid dealing with that.

Onto the front. We struggled for a bit with rebuilding the calipers we had acquired from a junkyard for pennies. It is not that easy to get those boots seated properly while pushing in the piston! John’s work in this area could be described as nothing less than a feat of magic. Regardless, we got those done, and after a little snafu with getting the wrong front rotors, we got our Acura Legend calipers installed overtop Civic EX brake rotors – a massive (heh) 10.3” with a little help from Lucking Machine in St. Anthony who machined the caliper brackets and no charge for us. A little bleeding action, and we’re good to go. For now, we’ve installed just cheap rotors and pads. We plan on doing some street driving, autox’ing, and track daying on these just to try things out, but will be upgraded before the real races hit us.

With the gained confidence of that accomplished, we started on some other things.

John tackled the task of getting the cluster from the parts car fitted to the dash; getting wires repaired and making sure pinouts check out.

Rob (our newest crew member! John’s cousin) braved the inglorious task of smashing up the windshield and yanking it out – it was all cracked up and needed replacing. He did a great job, and with some vacuuming and various clean up work, we have a good surface to install a new windshield.

John tackled the difficult task of making sense of the rat’s nest of wires where the ECU is supposed to be. He was able to trace, verify and re-connect wires to the correct places. We got that soldered up and the new ECU found its new home. There will be some more rewiring that is needed for the MPFI swap, but for now we just wanted to get the wires connected back to a valid DPFI state.

All along the way, we did numerous hours of head scratching, fiddling around with stuff, and brainstorming.

Finally, we got to do some fun work with the engine on the stand. This is the engine from the parts car that we plan on running in the chumpcar. Hope our faith in it isn’t misplaced! John had put it through its paces in the rallycross season last year, and it’s still alive, so what could go wrong?!

The list of tasks we accomplished on the engine went like this:

-Removed, cleaned, new gasketerized the oil pan and reinstalled.

-As John said in the previous post, the Honda gods smiled on us and we got the rear main seal replaced with little hassle. That was installed.

-Removed, cleaned, painted and reinstalled the valve cover.

-Installed the d16z6 intake manifold with injectors, fuel rail, throttle body, etc all still attached.

-Did some eyeballing, planning, wire extending, and plugging in of the engine harness.

-Installed the OBD0 distributor that will allow us to complete the MPFI swap.

Pending issues that need to be finalized before we can install the engine:

-Working on getting our oil sandwich adapter plumbed up so we can run an oil cooler and plumb in some sensors for gauges.

- We’re trying to track down a plug to wire up to be able to plug in the new distributor. There may be a U-Pull adventure involved with t his.

-Reinstall flywheel, clutch, and transmission to engine.

Alright, this is getting long.

Cliff’s notes – Getting crap done! Woot!

Stay tuned for updates on a cage, wheels and tires, windshield, and engine installation!

Paul