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

[Esteban]

There's a new FW for PiMP available?

[catapultkid]

Yeah just posted to solve a few little issues. See there sticky on the forum.

[michaelb]

Get a bigger hammer they'll fit.

[catapultkid]

Speaking of hammer.

The inner tie rod loosened up and gave me a ton of wobble. This was a scorpio inner and I didn't have a replacement so I had to make one. First thing I did was beat the hell out of the joint to tighten the socket around the ball up some. That helped but I was a little sketched out as I will be putting the sticky tires back on it again this weekend for another event.



Then I drove to the shop yesterday and made this replacement by adding .875" to the overall length of a new xr4ti unit.





Everything is nice and tight now. Happy with the results so far.

I also got the brakes working a TON better by removing some small rivets on the top of the pads that were causing the caliper to twist and keep some pressure on the rotors. It releases well now and I can actually spin the wheel freely. Braking improved a bunch as did pedal feel. I'm still on the stock early MC so I think once I have the bigger MC on it will be prefect.

-Paul

[merkurdriver]

Making your own custom tie rods - NICE!

[catapultkid]

Yeah. I also found out that the scorpio tie rods are actually too long for the job even with the lower control arms I have with drill outward bushings. This unit is exactly the right length. Going to make another very soon as a back up.

[Ray]

What steel did you use (out of curiosity, of course)?

[merkurdriver]

Yeah. I also found out that the scorpio tie rods are actually too long for the job even with the lower control arms I have with drill outward bushings. This unit is exactly the right length. Going to make another very soon as a back up.

I would imagine you would want the Scorpio inner tie rods, Scorpio control arms and Scorpio sway bar as one whole package? They're all longer than the XR stuff and all made to work with eachother. As a bonus the Scorpio front bar is thicker too.

[catapultkid]

You could.

Ok update. Here we go, one step forward, two steps back.

Packed the car up to go to the Virginia Commonwealth games autox. Wheels and tires fit nicely with no back seat.



Got there, unpacked, walked the course and noticed the differences in make up of concrete and asphalt. I decided to get Mindy (my wife) to run in the second heat due to the fact that the heats were small and having a car that overheats doesn't make it friendly with two drivers. I decided to run the third heat.






On her 2nd run she was saying how hard it was to control the rear end as this course had bumps and kinda like a washboard effect in areas. I adjusted the rebound and she went out for her 3rd run, she came back saying it got better be we decided to leave the settings along. On her 4th run she hit that washboard area which was also a fast 3 cone slalom. From there it got loose and it bit back taking her straight off into a ditch/hill combo. That was the end of our weekend.











Damage is as follows.

Radiator fans
Kinked both frame rails
Moved both quarter panels in
Exhaust is bent up
Fuel tank bent up
subframe bent up
LCA on passenger side may have issues
Intercooler
Bumper and supports
core support
piping for intercooler and radiator
1 hooser has a cut, other flat spotted
Possibly the sway bar
Possibly the steering rack

So, now comes a few more things to do. A NPR intercooler popped up on ebay saturday night and I snagged that for 150 bucks. Radiator will be replaced with a dual core unit that will fit and perform much better than what I had. I already had a larger fan and oil cooler at the shop, so those didn't get damaged and will be added. Going with a volkswagen jetta bumper most likely. Next weekend I hope to cut out everything that got bent up and start fresh with tubing and new straight material vs trying to straighten this crap.

So glad she is ok. She wants to get back in the seat again at the next event which is in the middle of august. Hopefully I can have it at least driving by then even if not street legal with lights and what not.

[GPz11]

Dang, that sucks. Glad to hear that your wife is just fine and wants to get back in the saddle.

Good luck with the repairs.

[DSPXR4ti]

Holly $#!* batman that is amazing damage, for autocross speeds. I'm glad your motivated to fix the XR and keep autocrossing, that kind of damage would have taken down a lesser man.

Ben

[merkurdriver]

Bravo for wanting to fix the damage and not just "move to another XR".
I'm sure the car will be back bigger and badder

[catapultkid]

The speeds were roughly 35-40 mph I'm guessing however the issue was to pavement dropped off into a 24"-30" ditch where there was a immediate 45*+ hill on the other side. So once the front wheels dropped the nose came crashing down to smack the hill. Hence why everything is bent in the upwards fashion.

Got a game plan to get some stuff straightened out/cut out and what not. Work has set a mandatory time off that we have to reach by the end of August, so I will have a few extra days other than weekends to get something done I hope. It is still a aggressive schedule however to get this competing again by August 17th. Plus we have our next 24 hour ChumpCar race at VIR the weekend before the next autox...

[MercMike]

So sad I hope it gets way better from here on.

[Grayson]

That's the second-most damage I would have ever personally seen an autocross car take. I watched a Sunbeam Tiger leave a very wet course one day and front-end a tree, and that was de facto worse because it was a Tiger.

I'll be at that VIR ChumpCar race in "The Tools" XR4Ti. I'll be the short guy on the team (at 6'2" tall).