In our previous post, we determined that the troll hitting the inside of the motor with a hammer lived in cylinder #6. So we pulled the oil pan, got to the bearings, and boy did that troll do a number on the bearings:
For those of you who are not wise to the ways of rod bearings, the grey bearing on the left is an OK take off bearing. The 2 bearings to the right (cylinder #6) have worn through the grey metal to the tasty copper center. This is bad. Real bad. All the bits of metal that were worn away were found scattered in the oil pan or smeared across the other bearings.
New bearings are in. We threw some zinc rich oil into the motor, fired it up, and the troll from cylinder #6 is no longer angry. The BMW recommendations for rod bearing break in are something to the tune of "for 1000 miles do not go over 5500 rpm, do not exceed 100mph". Either we're going to put down lap times comparable to a Corvair, or we'll give the rod bearings a proper "racing break in".
If you look closely at the last post, where we listed what was left to do on the car, you'll see at the top of the list it says "motor clunk".
Well, that piece of tape is there to address the minor issue that Astrid broke the car at the last track day. Her aggressive driving and constant accelerator abuse was just too much for poor Ling Ling. She's taken all the abuse a panda can, and is now making decidedly not good sounds from the engine compartment.
(ok ok. it's probably not Astrid's fault, but don't tell her that)
What's it sound like? I'm glad you asked. Here's a video:
With the race rapidly approaching, we checked the valves. They looked fine. Hell, after an adjustment, they're the quietest E30 valves on the planet. Unfortunately, quieter valves just made the bad noise sound louder.
So we recorded the noise and appealed to the internets. On the internet everyone has an opinion. 3 main causes were proposed:
To address the first, off the valve cover came (again). Maybe there was a tiny tiny crack that was missed before? Many minutes of scrutiny on the valve train yielded nothing.
The cylinder compression was tested, and it was fine. Further lending credibility to the theory that it was not a valve issue.
To differentiate piston slap vs rod knock, we were informed of the "pull a plug" method. The procedure is to pull the wire from a spark plug, and if the tone of the sound changes, that's your bad rod bearing. The theory goes that by removing combustion from the cylinder, the piston will still slap since it's moving, but the rod will knock less since it's under much less pressure.
Before trying the plug trick, the car was taken by the shop of an experienced mechanic. After 30 seconds of revving and listening in the lot, said mechanic diagnosed the noise as rod knock and promptly prescribed a new motor. Sad panda.
After the car was back home with a diagnosis, we tried the plug pulling for a 2nd opinion. While the motor was running we pulled the wires from the cylinders, one by one. Cylinder 1 is fine. So is 2. Boy this is boring. 3, 4, 5: all fine. Maybe it's actually piston slap after all? Oh oh ... cylinder 6 it is!
Woohoo, just like we thought, bad rod bearing in cylinder 6!
Oh crap.
bad. rod. bearing.
This is the last weekend of work. We were planning to do some minor tweaks on the car, throw it on the trailer, and knock back a coupla cases of celebratory beer. Instead we're going to pull the oil pan off the motor and hope that it isn't too screwed up.
If all goes well, celebratory beer will be shared with grease under our finger nails and the ever so faint tapping of an E30 valve train in the background. If not, we'll hit something with a hammer and start scheming for a whole new motor.
Procrastination set in right after the race at ThunderHill in December, and we're just now digging out. There's lots to do, twice as many cars, and not much time.
To keep organized, I picked up a tip from TC Design to put blue tape on the windshield when something needs to be done. We got the car back from caging with "fix fuel leak" on the windshield. There was no way to forget about it.
We've adapted that technique, and the todo list is stored on the windshield of our car in blue tape. When you think of something to do, you add some tape. When you get something done, you pull it off. When all the tape is gone, the car is ready to go out on track. If it's not all gone, you're sure going to feel like a jackass, suited up, ready to go, pulling into the hot pits, with tape on your windshield that says "torque lugs" or "fix fuel leak".
This system is so stupid simple that it actually works pretty well.
Now that we're gearing up for Reno, it seems like a good time to recap T-Hill. Vital stats:
Finished: 78th place (of 114 teams) Total laps: 168 (winner total: 335) Best lap: 1:37.456 (best in race: 1:31.474, by Blues Bros Racing after their backhoe-provided on-site weight reduction.) Total tows: 7 Miscellaneous casualties: Laz's ankle, which has not been quite the same since.
So, we were fast, and finished more than half the race! (Win!) However, it was only .5 laps more than half. (Lose!)
We figure this leaves plenty of room for improvement at Reno. A wide-open field, as it were.
We regret to inform that our arch-nemesises, Team Unsafe At Any Speed, finished 54th with 249 laps. Clearly, this is because they cheated.
They did, however, swing by to collect their specified stakes, an 18-yr Macallen. And we are happy to report that it was only moderately delicious.
When we kick your asses at Reno, we'd like to request a Glenfarclas 15 or better.
We've been officially accepted to the Reno event. I'm happy to report that the application process is less stressful the 2nd time around.
In between now and then, Ling Ling should get some electrical TLC. She will make a shake down appearance at the April 3rd TEAM Racing track day at ThunderHill. In addition to the usual "beat on the car to break everything we can before the actual race" strategy, the plan is to find some poor intermediate group driver, stick to their bumper, and do some "simulated yellow" laps to see if we've cured our electrical ailments.
In the team gossip category, some of the Pandamonium Racing crew have spun up their own turbo minivan team to go for the glory. See Mysteries Inc Racing for some details.
There's quite a bit of internet coverage on the race, some of which actually mentions Pandamonium Racing. For example, we're one of the "top 20 coolest cars" on Autofiends.
I've also put together a highlight reel from our in car footage:
A friend of our friends Team Unsafe posted a video of us being towed:
Which prompted me to upload a video to YouTube, only to mark it as a "video response". I hope this transgression does not harm our Vimeo sponsorship deal. The video got some people upset, and I can't help myself when they bait me in the comments.
In another movie, you can see Ling Ling zip by at the end of this video:
I was driving since this was 10 or so laps after the start of the race. I had both E30's in my sights when Porcubimmer snuck by the bronzit bmw e30 and promptly spun 1 turn later. I think the spin freaked out the bronzit car driver, because he pointed me by a turn later.
Finally, here are a coupla photo galleries with Pandamonium pics from the race:
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