gills

Hey guys, I figured I'd migrate my build thread from www.nissanroadracing.com to here since it is like a morgue over there these days. It's a long read initially so hopefully you get through it and enjoy it. It covers a lot of time.


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New Years resolution: BUILD THREAD!

This is something I've been wanting to do for a long time. Not only to document and share my journey through the rapidly growing grassroots endurance road racing genre that's happening in the US, but for my own compiling of information and progress with the development of myself, my car and team. I’m treating this like I started back in 2013 so IT’S A LOT. I have posts scattered all throughout the forum since then that cover technical issues of my first S13 race cars, but to get that all in here ordered properly is tough. From this point onward however, I will do my best to post everything I do in here.

I’d also like to mention that I have access to lots of equipment at my work, including CNC vertical milling machines and professional CAD/CAM software that I always use for designing and making stuff for this racing adventure. Some of the stuff I’ve made I intend on offering, including a bolt-on rear Wilwood BBK that doesn’t require cutting the stock caliper mounting ears (only works with OEM steel and Z32 uprights for now) that will cost you less than $900 for everything. I will also offer radial mount caliper brackets (based off of a design Def created) to run Wilwood FSL6R calipers with Defsport rotor hats. Hopefully a full kit in the future for people who don’t have Defsport hats already. I can now finally brake confidently along side BMW’s with this setup. More on these later, I’ll start rambling now…

Ever since the introduction of the 24 Hours of Lemons racing series in 2008, the endurance genre of amateur racing has grown tremendously. There are now no less than 5 entry level endurance racing series (24HoL, WRL, ChumpCar/ChampCar, AER, LDRL) across the country that cater to different rule sets and regions, but all mutually related as one spun off another and snowballed from there. All of them fill the grid for every single event. Although late to the game, SCCA also created something called "bracket enduro."

And there's good reason for it; nowhere else will you find the bang for buck that endurance racing provides without sometimes irritating, stickler rule sets (with the exception of maybe Chump/ChampCar). You literally accumulate 1000's of laps of wheel-to-wheel racing experience with relative speeds between different classes of cars that compare to pro racing. The laps per dollar can’t be beat at the grassroots level. So if you and a group of friends/family have been considering entering an event or campaigning, I'd highly recommend doing it if you're getting bored and trust each other.

I started HPDE's in 2005 and have been driving on track several times per year since then. I took a more unorthodox approach to racing vs. the standard NASA/SCCA HPDE ladder climb to getting a comp license by starting in the 24 Hours of Lemons in 2011 with my boss's 1985 Alfa Romeo Milano (Team Pro-Crash-Duh-Nation). He's an Alfa Romeo junkie and also vintage races older Alfa's. His car is cursed. He started racing it in 2009 and still hasn't won a race overall, but has multiple 2nd place finishes that I've been a part of almost every time. Does the picture look familiar?:



Yea, that’s his car nailing the deer.

It does sounds incredible though!:

Alfa V6 Aural Bliss


Fast forward to 2013; I've learned a ton on what it takes to actually win one of these events. My brother, myself and a couple of friends decided to embark on building an S13 to run in 24 Hours of Lemons and ChumpCar (which recently acquired the rights to and renamed to the ChampCar Endurance Series).

We picked the S-chassis for obvious reasons, and ironically I went full circle as a S13 hatch was the first car I ever owned 20 years ago (which I bought for less than what they are going for today).

This one was found in New Jersey from the all-too-common aspiring drifter in January, 2013:



Sorted the car out for the teams inaugural race at New Jersey Motorsports Park (NJMP) in August, 2013 using a cage kit from rollcagecomponents.com (highly recommended) and built to simplicity, lightness and reliability. Welcome team "Abe Froman Racing." We didn't care about the gimmicks, we just wanted to race and win like all the A-class 24HoL cars.

Of course some chassis prep:

Cat hump clearance removal



Custom seat bracketry


rollcagecomponents.com cage kit installation:



Some custom front ARB brackets:




The goal was just to finish the 1st race without a mechanical issue. To finish first, you must first finish! The car was reliable as ever, but the drivers weren't. We were black flagged out of the race on Saturday about 6ish hours in (4 black flags in a day gets you parked for the rest of the day in 24HoL), but had a flagless and incident free Sunday. Finished a paltry 36th out of 136 cars, but had the 3rd or 4th fastest lap of the weekend.

Comical black flag penalty when the judges had enough of our passing under yellow shenanigans:



BMW’s forever haunt us:



when there were 6:



So fast forward a couple other mediocre finishes (but with 3rd or 4th FLW’s) to the May, 2014 NJMP race. The weekend from hell. First, the OEM fuel pump wiring circuit decided to start going haywire on race day when on practice day it was perfectly fine. Got towed in no less than 4 times. Finally bypassed the OE circuit completely and direct wired the fuel pump from the switch panel and all was well.....for about 1.5 hours... then this:






(yes those are plastic Salami’s/sausages lol. Abe Froman Racing!)



An E30 blew its engine a few seconds ahead of our driver (also least experienced) thru the fastest turn at NJMP Thunderbolt. A turn that’s WOT, starts the main straight and well known for eating cars on the inside tire wall when people lift. With no in-car video or data, we’ll never really know what happened, but it’s probably a combination of a bit of oil and panic braking mid-turn.

After a couple days of deep depression and deliberation about salvaging the chassis, we wasted no time and picked up another S13 that was in drifter purgatory in Queens, NYC. My wife was due in a week and a half with our 2nd baby at the time so it was a now or wait-many-months moment with getting another chassis.





The thing was terrible. Teal spray paint covering everything. What the hell are dudes/dudettes smoking?


The build continued in early-mid 2015 to hit the August ChumpCar race at Limerock Park, CT. 2 guys had quit the team after the last race and we were down to 4 members. New team name also. Team Failken: Formula D-Bags.

The decision was made to re-use the cage from the wreck vs starting from scratch. Whether or not this is less work like we had envisioned is debatable. Anything roll cage related is a **** ton of work, even if it’s a “kit.”

We cut the roof off of both cars, removed the cage and hoisted the cage into the new chassis. We braced the new chassis with some square stock on the frame rails and A to B pillars. The cage had some preload in it from welding so it moved a bit once it was released from the wreck. Of course it required some manipulation to get it right in the new chassis.

In 5 weeks time we went from this:






to this:



to race ready:



The Limerock ChumpCar race was an ok result. We had zero sleep and were beyond exhausted. We placed 4th in class and 15th out of 60 cars, another top 5 fastest lap. We had issues with overheating due to using a crap stock radiator to comply with ChumpCar rules, and our clutch was slipping in 5th gear because we forgot to adjust pedal actuation during the re-build and were too dumb/brain dead to realize it at the race.






Next race was 24HoL New Hampshire Motor Speedway in October, 2015.

WE WON! 1st place overall in a field of 107 and had the 2nd fastest lap of the weekend. The car didn’t miss a beat. The start of Sunday morning was cold and raining, with P1 thru P3 on the same lap (we were P3). We were gifted when P2 got wrapped up in P1’s spin in the first lap and took both out of contention:

Short clip of P1 taking out P2


Talk about luck. The rain eventually dissipated and we were able to pull away from the field. Our first race win and last race with the 24HoL. The payout in 24HoL is in rolls of nickels. Some eyebrows raised when I went to the bank to exchange the $500 in nickels lol. The KA24DE now had about 70 hours of racing.

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