384 replies to this topic

[Birdman]

I have been having trouble with my clutch. The pedal throw is so small it's hard letting it out smoothly, with enough gas as to not bog the engine, or to much gas and break the chain. This in not important for road racing but very important for AutoXing where you want a sharp launch.

So I put a needle valve in my hyd clutch line and adjusted it so it takes a fraction of second for the clutch to bleed down, thus giving me smooth clutch engagement at any RPM.

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[Monte Busa]

That is an awesome idea Birdman...I wish I had one of those on My R1 FWD Mini...the clutch was a bear. Where did you source the needle valve from?

For the rest who haven't quite figured out what he did and why he did it, see the below link:

http://www.zeckhausen.com/cdv.htm

[Birdman]

I got it from a local industrial supply place here in town. About 35 bucks.

Interesting article Aric. I won't have to worry about clutch wear as I never use it except for starting.

[Monte Busa]

Agreed on starting being the real issue - the needle valve brand wouldn't happen to be Parker, would it?

Edited by Monte Busa, 28 April 2012 - 12:39 AM.

[Birdman]

Agreed on starting being the real issue - the needle valve brand wouldn't happen to be Parker, would it?

Yes,it's a Parker.

[Birdman]

Well I took the car to Oregon Raceway Park for a track day yesterday. I burnt off the vacuum line going to my waste gate, and discovered a small oil leak in the oil line going to the turbo. But all in all the car handled great and I had a blast.

[cptkirk]

Good to hear, looking forward to seeing some videos (thats if you want to make some......)

[Birdman]

Good to hear, looking forward to seeing some videos (thats if you want to make some......)

I have another track day this weekend, I'll take the camera.

[Birdman]

I'm off to medford, Oregon for a weekend track/Autocross event. This will be at the Medford Go Cart track. Wish me luck.

http://www.sokarters.org/facts.asp

[Johanmini]

Ah good luck, overtaking shall be tight on a gokart circuit... Let's wait for the vids!

[Birdman]

The track day was a blast. The track is 3/4 mile with 11 turns. With a straight long enough for me to get to 85. All the cars ran one at a time, like an AutoX. 3 laps per run. I got 8 runs in and could have done more but just plain got tired. So we quit about 2pm. When we left I had the fasted lap of the day. So I was pretty happy.
For the most part the car did really well. I spent time adjusting the delay on the ignition cut out on the pingle shifter to get clean shifts with out back fire. I pretty much got that ironed out except it won't down shift while braking with my foot off the gas. It only down shifts with a little throttle so I'll call Pingle today and work on that.
I got what I felt was excessive fish tailing. It felt like the back tires wern't hooking. I did a lot of playing with tire pressure. I started with 23 lbs and went down from there. I got down to 20 and the back tires were kind of hopping through the corners. So I need to work on that. Hopefully adding sway bars will help.
Then my starter crapped out so the last few runs I had to get push started. But no major problems, and it ran cool all day. And timing in the fastest lap of the day was pretty good also.
I did take some videos and will get them posted later.

[Birdman]

Video's

Edited by Birdman, 07 May 2012 - 04:37 PM.

[Birdman]

Here's some additional pictures taken at the track.

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[cptkirk]

Birdman, I think saying the sway bars will help is an understatement, thats a crazy amount of roll in the corners.

Top work in getting vids and photos up, always nice to see how peoples projects turn out, well done.

[Johanmini]

Great seeing those vids, the roll is way too much indeed, perfectly normal that the wheels aren't steady like this!