With Honda Nationals @ Winton approaching it was time to start some prep on the car. Have a few items to tend to.

IAT engine light at Morgan Park

At the end of the day I got a CEL as I went to go back out on track, which the laptop showed to be the intake air temperature. At the time I couldn't fix it so called it, as there was only 20 minutes left of the day anyways.

At MP it wouldn't come on straight away, I had to drive around the pits a bit first. I tried driving up/down the street here but it doesn't want to come back on, typical. I removed the IAT sensor, seems slightly dirty so gave it a wipe down and reinstalled. I checked the wires around the plug for any damage but couldn't see anything externally. Might have to try rewiring in the future if the issue exists.

Alternator hitting the chassis leg

With the discussion in the previous MP post around the mystery loud rotational noise potentially being the alternator rubbing the chassis leg, I went ahead and ordered a shorter belt. The car currently has a 4PK735 which is definitely stretched too, has been on the car for 7 years or so. There was no 730s in stock so I went with a 725.

Old = 735 | New = 725

It's current position with the 735. Second photo shows the damage from MP, doesn't seem that bad to be honest, to cause this constant noise.. Hmmm.. I'll chuck some new paint on this area so I can keep an eye on it at Winton.

And here's the issue I thought might happen with the much shorter 725. With a pry bar I can barely pull it away from the motor, and as you can see it's not completely in line with the smooth part of the bracket to tighten it flush. I'll leave it for now, but definitely not ideal. This will probably need to be revisited.

Fender harness

When doing the overhaul earlier in the year before Morgan Park, as I was running out of time I left the fender harness in the car as I had originally cut them to remove from the car, and had the intention of rewiring it with a plug on the chassis. I taped up the loose ends and cable tied it back up underneath the dash.

At Morgan Park I was trying to figure why my new race dash had decided to not work now that we were at the track. My 3 gauges on the dash were also not working, and this lead me to believe I might need the indicator stalk plugged in for hazard switch to complete a circuit somewhere? Doesn't seem right but it's all I could think of. At the track I plugged it in and turned on ignition, and could smell burning electrical straight away, assuming something is shorting out in the fender harness which I've tied up underneath, so I unplugged it.

As I have time now, decided to go ahead and rewire them in. I'm going to have to do a bit of double handling and resolder them as I still need to search for a small bulk head plug i can use in the arch against the body, below the A pillar. Didn't really take any photos during the process, just let the beats play and got it done. I've realised now uploading this that the photos are a bit blurry, apologies..

Photo before putting the harness back in, but I always like the look of the front with fenders and seeing the tyres.

New seat rail setup

For nearly as long as I've owned the car, I've used Bride rails. To be honest, I've never liked them as they seemed to also sit me high in the car. Sometimes the slider action would be a pain as well, but this probably could have been fixed with some grease. I also think my seats were too wide and pushed the rails outwards on an angle..

Going through some parts I found the custom rails that came on my EF9 with a old school fish net Recaro. I decided to compare them against the Bride rail and surprise surprise, the holes on the custom bracket actually align with the bride! You can see from the first photo it sits lower too.

The only modification I had to do was drill the holes bigger for the side mount brackets. Popped over to mums to use the drill press as my brother was last using it there.

Reassembled! You'll notice the piece of 25 x 25 mm bar is now blue, this is because I replaced the one which was already attached. If you look closely at the disassembled photo you can see a join in the bar where they've welded 2 pieces together... No thanks.

Seating position

With it reinstalled in the car, it felt a touch lower but nothing crazy, and feels like the seat wobbles around just as much.

One issue I have is I sit too high, which gives me a floaty feel, and you could probably go on about the whole centre of gravity blah blah. The other issue is my legs are now higher, and as you can see by the photos below my hands hit my legs with my feet resting on the accelerator and clutch. Pushing the pedals down obviously helps but still not ideal at all.

Whats the long term solution? Well I bought 2 sets of FIA approved weld in seat mounting kits earlier in the year but never got around to installing. I've now been put off doing it, with the idea I might also have co drivers in the future. I'm still undecided, I don't want to spend $500aud or so on the PCI ones but they do seem to be the best option. We shall see..

Drive shaft angle

With the new ride height prior MP I noticed the drive shafts sat on quite the angle. Speaking with Honed they said unfortunately it's a sacrifice you have to deal with when wanting to run this low. The Innovative conversion mounts will contribute to it, so I could look into different mounts in the future.

Of course it tore a passenger side CV boot at MP, you can see it in the first photo below on the inner. I'm getting tired of how many boots this thing tears. It's always a pest removing the CV, taking it to my mate, sends off to his CV guy and then I go get it back and reinstall. With this I've decided to order the special clamp tools and do it myself. My mate forgot to put in the order for the CV boot kit this time round, so I'll just leave it torn for Winton and fix afterwards.

I'll also do some research/asking around to see what the cause might be and how we can mitigate it.

Shifter bird cage bushing

If you've watched any of my YouTube video's on the track, you'll see how much my shifter flops about. It's always been pretty bad, over the years I've tried the Hardrace alloy bushing set, and we rebuilt the uni joint with my mate Tony which did somewhat help. The next item on the list to try was the bird cage bushing.

The old one was quite worn, so I had high hopes for this helping. I made sure to grease everything up as well, and also install a new bitch pin as I read those can sometimes contribute to the slop. Spoiler alert, it barely did anything in the end...

Misc:

After realising I forgot to paint the radiator brackets before MP, I just had to give them a fresh coat of paint to match everything else.

GoPro's always seem to have useless battery life, so the solution for that was to hard wire it into a charging port. I spotted this nice fused USB piece on a fellow club members car, currently taped it down on the floor where the rear seats go for now, until I change the battery location.

String alignment

I went ahead with the usual string alignment checkup, especially after it's first outting with the Honed kit, but something weird happened.

Usually you square the string to the car to create a perfect box which you then take your measurements from. You typically measure this by the center of the hub to the string and make it even all round. My measurement is 113mm if the string sits on the 2nd inner slot on the poles. I could square the front, but then the back would always be 5mm different regardless of which side I set to 113mm.. This had me walking around the car for honestly, probably 1hr, going back and forth, taking everything off and resetting, I just could not set it up correctly.

Really annoying as I could see the toe was out in the front, but with this not aligning correctly I decided to just stop. I'll pull apart the jigs and completely reset everything another time.

Ready

She's ready for Honda Nationals Winton 2023! Even gave her a wash, definitely needed it. Actually scrubs up alright still! Would love to see some dark coloured wheels on it though. I didn't take photos of it, but the night before leaving I was rushing about wiring in the AC switch to work as a trigger for the data logging. Temporarily I'll tape it down in the coin slot in the middle.

Bonus content..

Decided to compare the EF9 bumper to the original ED bumper and boy what a difference. I'd like to make a lightweight FRP bumper mould with some air dams, but was hoping to use the ED bumper. Can't see that happening!