The General Leif, 142 endurance racer

[122power]

woo

[klr142]

The results post I put up on Facebook:

Finally, weekend results and photos for the Lucky Dog Racing League 8 + 7hr endurance race at Portland International Raceway!

We finished 3rd in class both days and 9th and 8th overall! On Saturday we were multiple laps down on 1st place #35 Giant Motorsport's E36 BMW who had a great day before losing some power with 2hrs left in the race. We had quite a few more issues in the last couple stints so we weren't expecting to still be in the hunt, but we ended up finishing only 11 seconds behind 2nd place #74 PPPRacing's E30 BMW. After fighting a good portion of the day with #48 Mediocre Motoring's VW Jetta, they and others in our class had issues. Our Raspberry Pi dash/display falling down and breaking, rear brake pads going down to metal on metal, throttle return spring breaking, ignition coil working loose and pulling a coil wire off couldn't keep us off the podium!

On Sunday we tried to put on a better fight with less mechanical issues after taking care of some things the night before, but alas, it was another 3rd place! #8 McLarry Honda's Civic had a splendid race and we couldn't keep up earlier in the race. They must have had an issue at the end of the day as they slowed down a lot and lost their multiple lap lead on us and #35 Giant Motorsport again who we had been switching back and forth with throughout the day as their reduced power issues continued. We had a couple black flag incidents that kept us a lap behind Giant at the end of the day and less than two laps down on McLarry.

It was a great weekend overall and we were lucky to have a great group of drivers in Marc, Tony, Keith and Kyle joined by Tonya as crew and cook for the weekend. In addition to the two trophies, we won the Rebellion Timepieces Lucky Dog Racing League watches and won $100 towards new Hankook RS4 tires!

Also a huge thank you to The V Shop, Cathy and NW Safety for letting get out and play!

Enjoy some photos courtesy of those wizards Drew and Dakota.

There's more info, photos and detail on our Facebook page linked in my signature.

[redblockpowered]

Nice work!

What's the suspension setup on this car? Same as a few pages back?

[klr142]

Thanks!

Originally Posted by redblockpowered

What's the suspension setup on this car? Same as a few pages back?

Yes. We swapped to 2.5” diameter 200lb rear coil over springs(from stock diameter 225lbs) for this race and tried the no rear bar for this event, though. It was a bit pushy, not the end of the world. The shocks have too much compression damping all around as they’re for rallying, but we’re making do.

[krymarchuk]

Wow, love the history in this thread! I've just recently gotten back into a Volvo and the TB forums, and came across this thread. I know the General Leif well! I run with the #99 Eh! Team.

Here we are, hidden behind you guys after finishing 3rd during the Portland 2012 race:


Glad to see you have still be able to get out and run over the last year and a bit. We've been limited to Area 27 last October and that's going to be it until Area 27 this October sadly, with the border being closed. Looking forward to seeing you guys out on track again hopefully in 2022!

[klr142]

Hey Kyle! I need to post some updates in here... We've raced three times already this year and will be at the Ridge in September then PIR again in October. I think I heard maybe the border is opening up so you can join us? Or maybe not now. Sigh. Fingers crossed!

Cliff notes for this season so far:

1. Sonoma Raceway in February! What a blast, but a wire and alternator failure, then a fuel cell leak took us out of the running for any reasonable position each day. We'll be back!

1.5. We took the stickers off the car and had some much needed bodywork performed to make the car look decent again!

2. Pacific Raceways in early June! Well, that was a very, VERY exciting event for one of our drivers. On day one, while working our way up the field, the brake hard line cracked for the right rear caliper causing a long pedal in the braking zone on the front straight at high speed. We fixed that and finished the day fine but out of a good position. Sunday, the same driver had the throttle pedal get STUCK under our subpar throttle stop at 100mph going into the slowest part of the course(while in good position to podium or even win our class!). This track is dangerous when you go off and luckily our driver didn't flip the car when he went off. The front subframe was pulling out from under the car and the frame is damaged, but we still went out and limped around before they called the race early due to rain. Thankfully that happened because it was actually unsafe to drive as it was, upon further inspection.

3. Fast forward three weeks, we swap out the front subframe and weld it onto the frame rail instead of using one of the bolts because the frame was bent. We barely made it to the track and had it aligned on the way there. The alignment was still off and uneven, but it was better than nothing! We played with the toe and adjusted the camber a little more then went racing on the hottest weekend I've experienced in my life! Saturday, the race was called early at 3pm instead of 5pm because of the 105 degree heat and exhaustion experienced by many. We might have been in the hunt for something that day if it had gone until 5pm, or maybe we had an issue, I can't remember right now and need to go to bed. That being said, SUNDAY it was supposed to be 115 degrees out!!! They said we were limited to 1hr driver stints and a 4hr race ending at 1pm. That's basically an all out sprint race! So, we went hard and didn't fill the fuel tank to capacity like we normally would so we could be a little lighter/faster. We started 3rd or so, worked up to 2nd and after the first driver change at 1hr, we were in 1st in class as the next car had to take fuel. We kept a 1-2 lap lead until 8 minutes from the end of the race when the car ran out of fuel. We didn't put in enough gas to finish the race in the conditions we were having! We put in 29g of fuel for the day and expected to use about 28g. The hydramat in the fuel cell wasn't on the bottom of the cell and we shouldn't have been so silly about trying to be lightweight anyway. During our second stop when we had to refuel, we had a comfortable lead and should have definitely tossed in another 2-5g of fuel just to be absolutely safe. STUPID!!!

It's always something. Maybe we'll have better luck later this year. The Ridge race will be a fun tournament style one with points and multiple races. Some will be shorter endurance races with some short sprints as well. Fingers crossed for that and we have some more work to do ahead of then to get the car ready. We also bought some NEW and ALUMINUM 8" wide 15" wheels to replace the super heavy steel ones, so I'm excited to see those on the car soon.

[klr142]

Nothing?! No comments on that awesome picture?

Anyway, we race again tomorrow at the Ridge Motorsports Park! Follow along on the Facebook page for the latest information, photos and updates.

I'll come back in here and post more information sometime. We have NEW WHEELS, a new fuel cell bladder, a better alignment and a splitter back on for this weekend's event. w00!

Here are some pictures before cleaning the car and installing the splitter, but after getting the new wheels mounted! Also the alignment sheet... The caster is lame, especially the lack of it on the left front, but we'll run it for now. This is at least another degree or so per side compared to what we drove with at PIR in June!

The weights on the scales are with Marc (about 210lbs or so) and 18 gallons of fuel in the cell. Ready to race!

[Swedbrick]

I'll take it for my wallpaper collection, love this car! Good luck on track

[klr142]

Speaking of wallpapers, I added pictures to the above post! Thanks for following!

[2manyturbos]

That's a lot of rubber from braking. Were the tires still round? Good luck this weekend.

[klr142]

Originally Posted by 2manyturbos

That's a lot of rubber from braking. Were the tires still round? Good luck this weekend.

They weren’t as round as we first thought but we did do one more race on them! Hammered on the wheels a bit to get them slightly more round, rebalanced the tires and put the flat spotted ones on the rear. Worked ok enough but we won’t bother again!

[2manyturbos]

Update? How did it go at the Ridge?

[klr142]

Hello Roy!

It was an adventure with a brake rotor hat failure early on in Friday's practice (luckily no other real damage occurred and after trying to locate a replacement we were luckily able to overnight a new part from Wilwood direct sent to Eric Mollerstuen an hour away!), then a clutch pressure plate failure about 45 minutes into our "practice session" amongst the first 6hr race of the weekend (Eric's boss had a clutch kit at home an hour away!), then while fixing that we found our downpipe was cracking off again near the manifold flange at 11pm Saturday night (and we had the help of another team in the pits to weld it back together enough to run!).

Sunday was much better!

We ran the 2.5hr race without issue and had RANDY POBST drive the car for a few laps. Sadly he's limited to 30 minutes in the car and he was doing the last half hour of the race, but there was a full course yellow situation for about half of it so he didn't get many laps.

We ran the 3.5hr race with almost no issues until one of the shifter arm bolts came loose from the transmission's arm on Marc and we pit to fix that.

The last race of the day was a 1hr sprint that I drove and we ended up winning B class after the car I had been chasing almost all of the session was bumped up to A class.

More on all that later, but that's the quick and dirty. Here's a video for viewing pleasure, too.

[propav8r]

Mr. Pobst putting in work in an old Volvo. Why am I not surprised?

[2manyturbos]

Originally Posted by klr142

Hello Roy!

It was an adventure with a brake rotor hat failure early on in Friday's practice (luckily no other real damage occurred and after trying to locate a replacement we were luckily able to overnight a new part from Wilwood direct sent to Eric Mollerstuen an hour away!), then a clutch pressure plate failure about 45 minutes into our "practice session" amongst the first 6hr race of the weekend (Eric's boss had a clutch kit at home an hour away!), then while fixing that we found our downpipe was cracking off again near the manifold flange at 11pm Saturday night (and we had the help of another team in the pits to weld it back together enough to run!).

Sunday was much better!

We ran the 2.5hr race without issue and had RANDY POBST drive the car for a few laps. Sadly he's limited to 30 minutes in the car and he was doing the last half hour of the race, but there was a full course yellow situation for about half of it so he didn't get many laps.

We ran the 3.5hr race with almost no issues until one of the shifter arm bolts came loose from the transmission's arm on Marc and we pit to fix that.

The last race of the day was a 1hr sprint that I drove and we ended up winning B class after the car I had been chasing almost all of the session was bumped up to A class.

More on all that later, but that's the quick and dirty. Here's a video for viewing pleasure, too.

What did Randy think of the General?

[klr142]

He really loved it! I kind of feel like he says that about everything and forgets everyone he talks to, though - ha. Then again, he does drive a million things every month, so that's understandable. Driving a race car is indeed (almost) always fun, too. He really liked the T5 transmission, haha.

It does need more front roll stiffness or less rear, he did comment. We had the rear bar on the softest setting and the front isn't adjustable. Initially the rear bar was off the car but after a few laps on Saturday we decided to put it on to help stabilize the car and make it respond quicker. It was definitely lifting the inside rear a bit more than I remember it ever doing and rotating a lot(fun, but not always the fastest or most confidence inspiring) for this race weekend.

[2manyturbos]

I need to get his gig. Show up at a race track and everybody wants you to drive/crash their car.

[towerymt]

Fun video and nicely edited. I've never raced with such little traffic...that must be a blast to have just a few things to focus on at any given time.

Where will you find the extra 20-30hp you need?

How big is the cell? How long can it go on a tank...or do you even get to run it that long with whatever restrictions the organizers may put on driver stints? I'm only familiar with lemons, no limits last time I checked. I saw 3.5hr race and thought...that's one driver.

[klr142]

Originally Posted by towerymt

Fun video and nicely edited. I've never raced with such little traffic...that must be a blast to have just a few things to focus on at any given time.

Where will you find the extra 20-30hp you need?

How big is the cell? How long can it go on a tank...or do you even get to run it that long with whatever restrictions the organizers may put on driver stints? I'm only familiar with lemons, no limits last time I checked. I saw 3.5hr race and thought...that's one driver.

Yessir! The car count this weekend was in the mid-70s, but not every car was still running on Sunday, or even participating in each event. This weekend's race was a "tournament" style with a 6hr and 2hr Saturday followed by the 2.5, 3.5 and 1hr on Sunday. MOST of the time Lucky Dog Racing League does longer races, 6-9hrs, sometimes 12 and 24 or other formats at some tracks that allow it. Every car is required to stop for a driver change and 5 minute(or 10 minute, depending on pit layout for the weekend) fuel stop every 2 hours. Our car uses about 14G/2hrs but we've run out of fuel costing us a win or podium position multiple times over the years. That used to be because the fuel cell we were running wasn't large enough, but most recently we can't place the blame on that as our fuel cell is now a 22G one.

At the last race before this in June at PIR I ran out of gas with a solid lead and 8 or so minutes remaining in 105°F heat. It was a 4hr race and we had to pit every 1hr due to the heat (it hit 115°F later that day! ). We had an advantage with our current 22G fuel cell by only needing to take fuel once where our nearest competitor had to take fuel twice. If you take fuel, it has to be a 5 minute stop, so they had two of those longer stops where we only had one. I didn't think the car would be very fast compared to our rivals so we were running the car with less than a full tank. Well, that would've worked if our Hydramat hadn't moved to above some foam in our cell and our ancient fuel cell bladder hadn't started leaking. We had a fuel cell bladder issue in Sonoma in February that we JB welded successfully, so we got another ancient but not leaking bladder installed for the June races. It didn't hold up to the heat of Saturday at PIR so we swapped in the JB welded one for Sunday, and that started leaking in the same way. Too much heat for how old the bladder was, I guess. Now there's a new Hydramat in the car with a new bladder and new fuel cell top plate! No problems with that at the last race and we won't go stingy on fuel again.

Regarding more power, our block was rebuilt in 2013 and has been used on/off since then. In 2015 and 2016 we were 16V, then we took 2017 off, then we put in RSI/Asher's 2.6L engine that blew up during practice/qualifying in our first event with it (possibly due to excessive ignition timing, or because stroker), and later in 2018 we went back to this block with my 244's big valve head, then back to this head after being repaired. It has had lower compression on #4 ever since it was first checked back in 2018. Current warm compression numbers before this last race were 210, 225, 220 and 190-200(more cranks for 200) psi on 1-4, respectively. It's been about that the whole time. So, the engine is a little tired and nothing special, just a balanced, .030" over B230F.

Our next engine will be a rebuilt B230F with I think a little bit larger overbore, flat topped pistons and a "fresh" 531 head with even higher cranking compression. We just need more money and to get off our buts getting the block to a machine shop.

In the meantime, we have a Type 3 (44/51/64mm) header for a 240 coming from KG Trimning and hope that we can tweak that to work in place of the badly compromised (repaired poorly at the two or three times), near stock setup we're currently running. It should help pick up a few horsepowers in the meantime.

Further down the road, we'd like to re-imagine the intake setup to something that is one piece instead of a k-jet manifold with an elbow, which isn't the best for flow.

There are more videos on my Youtube page and I am eventually working on making new videos. I guess I can upload the video from my 1hr sprint "in the raw" now for fun if anyone wants to watch the full thing. I'll work on that now but here's the link to my playlists where I have things grouped by track, or all of them in one go.

https://www.youtube.com/user/klr142/playlists

My Sonoma 1st stint videos from February are a good watch as we punch above our weight on a damp track, which seems to be the car's favorite.

[klr142]

Want to ride along during my only race stint of the Ridge Motorsports Park weekend in the General Leif? Come take a look!

I still want to make a condensed, highlight version of this with writing in the footage, but I’m not getting around to it and figure it’s worth sharing anyway. I made some cliff notes in the description that I suggest you read, but I haven’t gotten around to making time stamps yet.

Watch as much or little as you’d like of the Lucky Dog Racing League’s 1 hour sprint to finish off the fun tournament race weekend at the Ridge Motorsports Park last month! There weren’t a ton of cars out there by the end of the weekend, but you can ride along as I, Kyle, let Don in the Purple Haze by with an error on lap two and tuck in behind the BMW, expecting it to run away. I catch back up by the end of the race, but it’s too little, too late. - Or, is it?

Also, our next Lucky Dog Racing League event is Halloween weekend at Portland International Raceway! It’s free to get in and watch, you should come check it out!

[rb92673]

I assume you are running Racecapture. How do you like the Racecapture dashboard instead of an analog tach? Any reason you went with a Pi instead of a Android tablet like the Fire 8?

Are you integrated with your ECU?

I just put a Racecapture track in my car with a FireHD 8 and connected it to my Microsquirt.

[klr142]

Correct, and fun!

We are not integrated with the ECU at all, so we are using the CoilX to make the RaceCapture Pro MK3 box get a signal. It's a very noisy signal. You can see it having an approximately 200rpm swing or so. I liked the analog gauge we were using previously, but with all the other information, this is just fine and the ability to change the gauge colors and have the pop up warning to shift is fun. One day, it would be nice to have it pulling RPM from the ECU so it's a cleaner number. I don't think we'll do that with LH2.4, though. Maybe one day when it has a more modern, aftermarket ECU in it that would integrate easier.

Regarding the Raspberry Pi 3 dash, we did initially have a Fire8 tablet in the car for the main display. I'm not 100% certain why we changed it, but it did have the Amazon ads and was a little more of a headache than this is. You turn the Pi on and it "immediately"(about 1 minute) goes straight to the RC program and we're in business. No need to touch anything. It's connected via USB so it's likely more stable than the Bluetooth connection we were using to connect to the Fire8. The Fire8 was also just really slow. Brent of Autosport Labs seems to really like them and say they have plenty of performance, but it didn't seem to be that great for us. I think that was in 2019 that we were regularly using it. Last year we did have the Pi display separate from its mounts so we had to replace that and added some tape to the new one to help give it a little more support. On that weekend we slapped the Fire8 back in the car so we could still have a full sized display instead of just switching the screen over on the phone to a gauge layout. It also helped that Marc's son loves computers and was playing around with Pi computers for fun already.

Here's a clip from last year's October PIR race when we had the display fail the day before and we taped the Fire8 into the car for Sunday, hah.

[rb92673]

You really should consider a newer ECU. I really like the Microsquirt for troubleshooting. I have a Pi in the car that logs via Tunerstudio. It's really helpful for me when something isn't working.

We added the Racecapture for our last race and I like it for remote diagnosis. Most of my drivers don't pay attention to gauges. The last race we were having fueling problems on Saturday, so Sunday when I sent a driver out it was nice to be able to watch the AFRs under boost to make sure we had enough fuel. Integration with the Microsquirt was super simple and the broadcasting to Podium just worked from our Fire.

I think I will just use the Fire for predictive lap timing and a couple of idiot lights. The interface does seem slow on it.

Maybe our paths will cross one day. I mostly run 24HoL from a Socal base. Sonoma, Buttonwillow, Thunderhill. I have done a couple of 24s with Lucky Dog at Buttonwillow.

[klr142]

Yes, the telemetry through Podium is awesome! One day we will upgrade, it will happen. So far this has been reliable, consistent and doing the job without missing too much. I know something more modern will be better at everything, though. It just hasn't been a priority. right now, we need a new/fresh engine before spending money on that. Real, heim jointed suspension in the front and back would be great to have. Then there's just the maintenance and upkeep and fixing of other things. It's only money! Hah.

I love running with LD! Cathy is great. What team do you drive with and do you have a page here or on FB for me to follow?

[rb92673]

Originally Posted by klr142

I love running with LD! Cathy is great. What team do you drive with and do you have a page here or on FB for me to follow?

Lame build page: http://forums.turbobricks.com/showthread.php?t=351705
Lame Instagram: whatever_racecar
No FB.