Erik came by early in the morning to offer me the opportunity to take a safety lap. I was quite nervous to drive this car for the first time. While it started out ok, by the time we'd turned a couple of corners, it made a loud noise that Eric quickly identified as air induction sound. It wasn't long before the car died completely, and about as far from the pits as possible. When we opened the decklid, the air intake had come unclamped on the engine side of the mass airflow. This is a part I never touched from when I bought the motor
. Erik helped by running to Jerry Bumpus's car all the way across the track to get a philips screwdriver and radio for help. This intake is held only by a simple hose clamp, and once reattached it restarted easily, but stalled if I let out the clutch.That's where Jim Duncan first helped by towing the car back to the pits. Tom Tweed suggested trying to reset the ECU as the computer had probably overcompensated for the airflow. On that car, it's just a quick turn of the electric cutoff switch. If I had only done that out on the track, I could have saved the tow. Because then the car started right up. In the meantime, Eric brought his Dad back who took a quick look. He reattached a temp sensor wire, and declared that it looked ok (except commenting that my supertrap exhaust looked too restrictive).
I thought all was good then. So, I did some slow figure-8's in the back lot which I am supposed to do to break in the LSD. Then the car stalled again, and it restarted and ran for a while. Then it stalled, and it kept getting worse. At one point, it would not start at all anymore.
Since the car would mostly start briefly, but would not run, I was thinking that it may be fuel related. New fuel cells are notorious for emitting pieces of foam into the fuel lines. I deliberately installed a pre-filter in front of the fuel pump to avoid major problems. I tried changing the prefilter, but it didn't help. Still thinking fuel, Mark suggested that I pull the fuel line from the engine and see if it was giving pressure. This is another time where Jim Duncan was very helpful using a fuel jug as a catch can while I cranked the engine. He reported the fuel was flowing well -- so maybe not a fuel problem afterall. We reattached the fuel line to try something else.
Next thought was raised by Martin as well as a couple other folks to try the DME relay which is notorious on 3.6L motors. I have a spare from my old RSA in my toolbox at home, but not at the track. Keith Verlaque volunteered this time to loan me his own spare DME relay -- only quickly to realize that it was different than the one I had in the car. It turns out the harness I have uses a 3.2L DME relay, and then John Rickard came by with one of those to try. It also did not solve the problem however. But, John was standing behind the car when I cranked it, and commented about the hissing coming from the supertrap. Again, suggested that I take the plates off the exhaust.
By this time, the battery was very weak. I spent some time to take the plates off. I noted a pile of rust, sand, crud that was collected in the pipe and around the plates. I pulled my truck around to jump start the car. Dave Quesnel showed up and provided some moral support, and as I cranked the car hopeful it would start, it wouldn't even catch. Dave mentioned the DME relay, but I said we'd already tried it. I looked back there, and it turns out I forgot to put the original back in the plug when we swapped out the other one (duh!). So, put that relay back in, and with the battery power from my Toyota truck, it fired right up!! It was the exhaust that was plugged up the whole time that was causing the car not to run!
By this time, the practice sessions were wrapping up, and I came to ask Jerry at the start if I can take the car out in a different run group than my own for a couple laps. He suggested I get someone to go with me. It was a great idea, as the car and I could use a check out and I didn't know the track at all at that point. I was concerned I would hold up another driver on a final practice session, and I had no idea if it would end like it did in the morning.
Gary Burch was standing by and I asked if he could help me out by riding with me and he quickly obliged. We started one lap, and although I had a muffler, the car was quite loud. Still it was great to be out actually driving that car after all the time spent building it. We took one more lap quite easily by coasting around most of it after being warned about the sound. It was still great though, knowing that nothing was rubbing or scraping and that the car was in fact track-worthy.
You guys don't know how close I was to putting the car onto the trailer and going home in defeat, and it was through the help and encouragement of a lot of people at the track that I persisted (I heard many folks let me know that the point of the day was to work out these gremlins). Becasue of that, I was able to get what turned out to be a trivial problem solved and get the car around the track. Thanks to everyone for their help.
