Night out

Spring 2010 updates

- The same pattern is repeated every year. In the autumn when the season ends I promise myself that no great modifications will take place next spring. But somehow it always happens that during long winter months some odd parts are piled up in the garage. At the moment I have five projects waiting to get started: oil cooler, Autometer 5" tach (10k scale), fire extinguisher mount, front strut brace and wheel alignment reset.

- All of this is made in the name of better handling, increased durability and safety. I would like to squeeze another one or two seconds from my ordinary "hot" lap at Ahvenisto racing circuit.

Motivation and blue skies for the winter

- Here is a nice blog for those who think small japanese fourbangers are smart pieces of engineering and cool to play with. Yes, its about Toyotas and souping up 4A-GEs. The basics of naturally aspirating engine tuning is the same and all the good advice written here apply to our B6- and BP- motors.
http://www.hachiroku.com.au/blog/?tag=ae86-tuning-guide
- And this is how all track races should look like! Tight matches, close (almost) contact and high pitching engine growl! Yes please:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3dTkMDQmC0

Hot and cold

- Now when the Finnish nature shows its best and there is plenty of snow even in the south most parts of Finland, it’s a bit hard to recall all last summer's overheating issues. But that's the way it was only three months ago.
- I was leafing my old notes from previous driving seasons and to my surprise there was one or two bullets about high engine temperatures already in 2007 and 2008. Back then the only instrument to monitor coolant temp was the car's original temp gauge. Most of time needle stands straight up and too high temp can be observed as a slight tilt towards northeast.
- As I found myself spending more and more time on track I thought it would be a good idea to install a set of real instruments on top of dash. So I went to get two A'PEXi EL-series gauges: water temp and oil pressure.
- I can confirm that NA's (at least in my car) original water temp gauge is there just for show. Original's "normal temperature" = needle straight up means anything from 60-110 deg C. Well, actually that is just fine, but the scale is too rough for my purposes. On the other hand the oil pressure gauge in my 1991 MX-5 is decent. The only problem is that it hides behind the steering wheel, because mine is a bit smaller than the original.
- Now I know that on track, if the day is warm – say +20-25 deg C, coolant temp rises to 100-110 deg C after five to eight hard laps. Even on very cool autumn afternoon, outside air temp showing little less than +10 deg C, the engine heats immediately to 95 deg C. And that's not all, oil temp rose to 110 deg C plus plus. How much above 110? I can't tell any better because the scale ended there.

First of January 2010 in Finland

Subarctic sun at 2 pm. Some -15 deg. celcius by the Finnish Gulf.

Camera: Nokia 3210 classic mobile phone cam.