I tried to get the sr20gem to my mates workshop this week in order to get a few things done. Believe it or not I managed to get bogged on the back lawn trying to get it out!!!

I noticed I had a single spinner from the rut I created, and suspected that maybe I'd found a way to break kingslys unbreakable locker.

With a push I got the turning wheel on to the concrete and got the car loaded. At my mates place I had more of the same trouble, this time on bitumen and concrete. I started to join the dots... no traction last track day, no traction on grass, no traction on bitumen and concrete, no more locked diff....

So we dug in to it to see what was wrong. Kinglsey, at least I can report your unbreakable diff still lives!

There's your problem! Haha!

_________________

TX Coupe - SR20DET

Yesterday was another Mallala test day. It was also the first chance to seriously test the axels, the feel of the car now the rear end is sitting straight with the adjustable pan-hard in, and a new set of nitto nt-01 track rubber!

So I drove the car all of 3m in the driveway from where it stood to the trailer. Mates arrived and while loading the last few thing in to my tow car Simon asks.. whats that sound? from the front of my car. He takes a look and ive picked up a chunk of snapped drill bit from the drive and air is leaking from an nt-01. Doh! So for the money all of 3m out of that tyre. Sucks! But the bright side is, we had not left yet and I was able to get 2 commodore rims with the old track rubber and load them up.

We read the track without event and I put nt-01s on the front and old rubber on the rears. We measured tyre pressures and Ross noticed that the guage on my 12v air pump was reading 10psi under the tyre pressure his hand held guage was! Eeek! Good thing to know. Wont be trusting that meter any more. So we experimented with pressure and got it dead on.

The car felt better than it ever has before! I was in the non-cams group and spent my day working on trying to get my corner speeds right. The first session of the day I reckon I nailed it because I needed 5th on the banana straight and rear straight. That is not a gear Ive needed at mallala before! Unfortunately my gopro overheated and I didnt have time to start it manually so no footage of that session.

Next session I did get some footage and times with track chrono on my phone (nice dash mount for that, hey?) But a new problem was developing. It seem the 41 year old stock gemini in tank lift pump is running poorly and Im now running out of the fuel from half to 3/4 down the banana straight and could not stick my boot in down the back straight without it missing. The times I got with track chrono are telling me im now doing 1:30s which is a good 6 seconds of my PB. Oh well.

The day ended with the flaggies kicking me off the track for a newly developing oil leak. All in all a fun day and I know the next steps will be to sus out and sort out the leak, and replace the fuel tank with an allow after market and new pump.

Heres some footage from the second session of the day:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbebg5RwE_M

Nice work man!

Ive been slowing working on this car, and have made up a frame and physically installed the new fuel tank. Ive also picked up a battery tray from a starwagon as it was a good size, and mocked up the fit of that as shown in the pic here. I need to check "regs" for things I may do in the future to see if there is a limit to how close it can be to the tank. If its good I'll weld the bars in and finish it off.

The AN-8 fitting I have in the tank turned out not to be a 1/2" barb and also 1/2" efi hose is hard to find. The existing pump has a 1/2" inlet so I need to match up to that. This would be the low pressure side of the pump so non-efi fuel hose could be substituted at a push. I'd also like to get a fuel filter in between the tank and the pump.

As for the oil leak, ive re-plumbed the breathers but am yet to know if that will help. I did have the bottom of the engine plumbed in to a T which vented back to the intake, so now the sump vents back to the rocker cover as I understand there is an oil separator in the rocker cover which should collect hopefully enough oil before venting out the PCV valve. The question remains of the oil has been building up, or if a more major problem has developoed. If the engine has failed it might be time to put blackcoupes rebuilt G200W turbo in instead which will make it almost valid for IPRA racing. Anyway if all works out wit the fuel and battery I plan to be at Mallala on the 16th of July.

I took this car out to the track on the weekend, with quite good results.

The new fuel system worked much better than the old, with nearly no problems. In the last session of the day I noticed that it was a bit short of fuel under the highest Gs (around 1/3rd of tank remaining), so it looks like the surge tank will need to go back all. All in all, much more power and more consistent than last time.

The last session of the day, open track, and pushing a bit too hard to verify the limits I had set for myself earlier. Best time 1:24.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vepSQ1iyU0U

An earlier session, more traffic, slower times but more interesting to watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZ__Sd4hjeA

The re-plumbing of the breather pipes seems to have worked well, BUT the initial issue is now diagnosed. Im getting some head lift and the oil is coming out the front of the engine between the head and the block. Its not been touched for 10 years, so Ive bought a torque wrench and valve cover gasket, so first check will be if its still torqued down enough. If thats not it the head will be coming off to take a look. Its am MLS gasket so Im hoping its a simple fix.

Nice work mate! Looking good!!