We bought our first xr. Autox/street machine in the making.

[catapultkid]

Some new photos popped up from a new photographer. I like these two. First is the wife driving though. Second is me. You can see a little change in line between the two, she is a little later than I was, but not much.

[merkurdriver]

Love seeing the inside front tire lifted.

[catapultkid]

Yeah too bad it is slowing us down. This was about 60 feet or so from the trailer and spectators. I was told by more than one of them that there butt hole got a little tight when we would run through as they jumped out of their chair.

[DSPXR4ti]

Yeah too bad it is slowing us down. This was about 60 feet or so from the trailer and spectators. I was told by more than one of them that there butt hole got a little tight when we would run through as they jumped out of their chair.

But you are also coming over a small hill and it's off camber, so it's going to look a little more dramatic.

If that's the best pic of your wheel lift/

Ben

[xR4rally]

Looks like you're doing well sorting the car. And I also gotta say, you do some pretty nice welds.
I hope to be able to translate some of your experience to my rallycross XR.

[catapultkid]

Ben, Yeah that was over a small crest helping the lift.

Thanks for the compliments. I've been looking at doing a rallyx xr for awhile now but I gotta slow down on all these projects. I toy around on rallyanarchy and it just seems like a hoot and a half. Plus I live on a farm, what better way to get practice in than 5-6 miles of curvey dirt roads we have on this place...

[catapultkid]

Here are so quick images of the PBR brake swap. I ended up using the ebay brakes as cores while I kept the sliders and what not. I found one brake had two cracked pistons and AutoZone didn't have rebuild kits. So it was a easy decision.

Painted the DG brackets



Added the flex line and slider, also bought some $28 pads.



Comparison of rotors and calipers





Just does clear the wheel weights on 15s.



Bled them and took it out, long long pedal stroke but it will lock them up pretty easily once you get down there vs before where I couldn't ever get it to lock up. Upgrading to the later year master cylinder soon I hope. It's autoxable but I'd like it to feel a little better. Also better pads would help. Semi metallics are not the best.

[DSPXR4ti]

Bled them and took it out, long long pedal stroke but it will lock them up pretty easily once you get down there vs before where I couldn't ever get it to lock up. Upgrading to the later year master cylinder soon I hope..

I would check to make sure you have all the air out of the lines/calipers. It sometimes takes time to bleed all the air out.

Ben

[Esteban]

The pbrs from 99-02 are cheaper at AutoZone. They offer a better core charge too. The difference is in the banjo thread compared to the 03-04 calipers.

[Esteban]

Btw. I'm surprised you get that much clearance with your 15s. That's what it looks like with my 16s!!!. I had to request they move the weights to the center of the wheel.

[catapultkid]

Ben may be right. All the air may not be out. I remember I took it out the first time, felt bad, returned and bled it once again. The second time a few little bubbles popped up but then clean fluid. They didn't get any better I dont think between the bleeds. I'll rebleed them again this weekend when I get back to the shop.

Estaban, I thought I was going to have to swap the 16s for the front due to the brake swap but it just does clear. What wheels are you running? I think these are 00 calipers and they came with banjo bolts.

[GPz11]

I had to remove the cooling fins on my PBR's with 16" rims.

The wheel weights also scrape the calipers, need to get them moved.

[catapultkid]

I guess I'm just lucky I haven't had to do any of that of these 15" ronals.

So, another weekend and more surprises. This weekends intent was to head home and finish up some welding for my father. However that soon went by the wayside as I discovered some stuff not quite right in the rear.

It started with me taking a rear wheel off to see what it would take to install some stiffer springs from Ben. (Thanks Ben!) I happen to glace over the CV on the passenger side and noticed this.



And after poking around a bit I found a few other issues. All but 2 on the passenger side CV where hand tight, and all on the driver needed a little more snugging up, oh well easy fix and tightened them up. Then I took a look at the Diff and it was missing 90% of its hardware! I can't believe I hadn't noticed it. The car hadn't made any more noise than when I first got it, so my guess it had been missing for some time. All was holding the front of the diff up was a single, hand tight, 1/2" bolt with a broken nut.

I made a bunch of new bushings and heavy washers in the lathe. Then got new grade 8 bolts and lots of locktite to finish putting everything back together and torque'd the crap out of it. I felt very luck to have caught this before something serious had happened. Especially considering the number of autox's this thing is going to see over the next few months.

Here is the heavy washer painted with locktite and ready to go on.



Bushings I had made.



While I was there I put in the new 650lb springs.



Then cleaned everything up on the underside. The driverside rear pumpkin seal is leaking some, so that is something higher up on the list.



I did decide to so some lightening of the car, per Ben's recommendation. Got roughly 95 lbs out with the following. 15-20 more to go with the tar. It sadden me a little but I'm keeping everything nice so it can go back in late next year when we "retire" the car... we will see.







Here is current race weight. I think we can get into the 2600's with a few more "easy" things. More on this later.



Then swapped out the pads and bled the brakes again in the front. The new master cylinder is here from merkurdepot and I am looking forward too the upgrade. The pedal is still too long for my tastes but these new pads are so much better. AutoZone let me take the old ones back and pay the difference to these ceramic pads. I'd daily/autox these, as they bite harder once a little warm and have a decent cold bite.





Till next weekend.

[michaelb]

Watch your brake lines on the sway bar.

[catapultkid]

Good catch. I noticed the rubbing but a little unclear as to why the PO ran the lines the way he did. I'm thinking just putting something over it may be the best solution, maybe I should route it below on the control arm.