The Buchka 242 Daily Driver

Tuff240 said:

Mod the g80, don't just throw it in. They are worthless stock.

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The only g80 I had survive was a stock one. I broke 3 modded ones and I've yet to break a welded diff.

dieselboy said:

The only g80 I had survive was a stock one. I broke 3 modded ones and I've yet to break a welded diff.

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I know welded isn't that bad. But man, in a DD, it really would get old I think.

If it's just going to plug the hole until the finale solution I wouldn't mod the G80. Run as is until you come up with a soooper bitchin replacement.

dieselboy said:

The only g80 I had survive was a stock one. I broke 3 modded ones and I've yet to break a welded diff.

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Seriously, the 242 destroyed a modded G80 in less than 50 miles.

dieselboy said:

The only g80 I had survive was a stock one. I broke 3 modded ones and I've yet to break a welded diff.

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I meant it's not really any better than an open diff unless you mod it.
I've broken a welded diff, but that was my first one where I just welded the spiders together. Since that, they all get filler material and fully welded.

spruill242 said:

I know welded isn't that bad. But man, in a DD, it really would get old I think.

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If you run normal tire sizes and regular tires, it's not bad at all to me. If you run 245's or bigger and sticky tires, it can be a little annoying in parking lots, but not enough to make me not run one.

It seems that cutting the weight isn't enough, you also have to weld things in place on the G80.

Our lemons car broke one after a few races. The shaft with the cut-down weight spit itself out of the G80 and bounced around in the case until I couldn't really find it and I don't know where it went...not through the cover, luckily. The axle was 1wd after that, but finished the race and did a burnout after.

We just broke the spiders in our welded diff last race. It did not want to drive off corners at all (RPM jump, not much acceleration), but felt pretty normal when pointed straight.

Welding the stock diff is not something I am especially interested in. I've driven cars with welded diffs, low speed maneuvering is poor and it makes pushing the car around a giant pain. I am planning on welding the weight on the g80 before I install it. The power-lok I have is in good shape and shouldn't need anything when it goes into the axle I am building on the side.

Sveist diff er jalla, kun svensker som driver med det...

Keep posting Pictures, the Buchka Project are my favorit threads here!!

Been a while since an update. Things have been happening though.

The G80 is in and the car is back on the road. I welded the flyweight to the carrier housing and it seems to be working just fine. I had to do some surgery on the driveshaft to get it back in action; lengthened it a bit and replaced the front yoke with an off the shelf weld-on 1310 version from spicer. Had a driveline shop balance the entire driveshaft as a unit and everything checked out, no excessive imbalance or runout. Also replaced the center support carrier with one from a 740. Bolted it on with an adapter I bought from Jao, it fit really well and I'm really happy with the result.

After all the gyrations I had to do with the driveline I was still having an issue with a low frequency vibration from the rear end. I traced this back to an incorrect pinion angle. The torque rods I fabricated earlier ended up being too short and I couldn't adjust the pinion angle properly without running out of thread engagement on the rod ends. I whipped up some spacers out of a piece of 1" hex stock I had laying around and welded them in. After swapping in the longer links and adjusting the pinion angle some more it seems to have solved the issue



Karl and I built a bracket to hold a hall-effect sensor for the speedo pickup. It reads off the rearmost driveshaft bolts. I would have used the stock sensor and aluminum diff cover I got along with the g80 but since my panhard bar is completely straight there is only room for the stamped steel cover.





The car has been very difficult to start when cold soaked. The MS-2 resets like mad whenever the starter is turning. Karl and I took some voltage measurements at various places in the car and came to the conclusion that the smallish optima yellow top I'm running doesn't really have enough juice to drive the big honkus of a starter and keep the 12v rail for the MS-2 at an acceptable level. Karl just ordered a new voltage regulator and protection diode that have much lower forward voltage drop than the stock parts, this should make the MS happy all the way down to about 6v which will be enough to keep it alive during cranking.

The last big job I have left is to install the ProVent 200 I bought last week. I've been having issues with excessive crankcase pressure and installing the larger separator should take care of all that.

Otherwise the to-do list mostly has minor things left that I can finish in about an evening each; finish the air filter tube I tack welded together a few weeks ago, finish the CBR gauge cluster integration by getting the speedo and tacho working correctly, plumb hoses for the windshield washer pump, adjust the heater valve controls, etc.

Forgive me if you've answered this, but do you get your MIL-spec connectors from Amphenol?

Nice speedo pick up

The MIL-STD connectors are all from https://www.connecticc.com/ or ebay. I wasn't particular with brands, I have a mish-mash of deutsch, amphenol, and souriau.

Thanks!

Are those m12 uniballs with m10 bolts to fit the bushings with a small lip inside the uniball?

Nice work usual!


/Edit

Ah.. Just spied the bushings... So it is m14 uniballs to m10 bolt?

Close, they are 5/8" rod ends with the original M12 bolts.

Alex Buchka said:

Close, they are 5/8" rod ends with the original M12 bolts.

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Cool, thx.. Do you have used left and right threaded rod ends to have stepless adjusting?

..

The car quit running a little bit after the last update. Some kind of ignition problem, I didn't have time or energy to fix it so the car got parked for a few months while I helped other people with various car projects. A few weeks ago I decided to get back into it so Karl and I replaced all the crappy stock 960 battery cables with 0ga welding wire, installed a JBPerf ignition driver board into the megasquirt, and replaced the stock coils with T6 "smart coils". The car runs great now, smoother than before, and cranks much faster.

I drove the car around for about a week and was just enjoying it not being broken. Of course, that streak ended quickly when the clutch suddenly stopped disengaging. Dropped the trans and inspected the clutch, I think I found the problem.



Oil pan has been growing dicks for some reason, I can't explain it.



Dirty but otherwise fine.



More dicks.



Oops, the diaphragm spring cracked in half. Best guess is a surface flaw or pit in the material caused a stress riser that just made the plate fail.

I have a spare Tilton clutch cover I'm going to install along with the quartermaster friction discs just to get it back on the road.

The megasquirt is still resetting like crazy during cranking. Last night I replaced the brushes in the starter to see if the old ones were arcing and causing back EMF to brown out the ECU. We'll see how it goes.

holy ****, the amount of work you have completed on this car since I saw it last at Davis 2015 is astonishing. well done!!!!

keep up the good work and i hope to see you again at Davis 2016! (if they post a date?!)

I thought you were parting this out and selling the shell?

amerbritcan said:

I thought you were parting this out and selling the shell?

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Your thinking of the 16v 242