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

[GPz11]

How did you weld your coolant pipe together, mig or tig?

Thanks

[catapultkid]

How did you weld your coolant pipe together, mig or tig?

Thanks

Tigged, it has a root pass and cap pass. That is why it is slightly raised. The wall thickness of the tubing is only .0625".

[GPz11]

Looks good. I'm taking a mig class right now and will take tig next winter.

[catapultkid]

On a air plane to San Francisco, CA. Good time to update the thread.

Got a little work in late one night/early morning this weekend. Successfully got the car running again with coolant. No leaks and started right up. Just have a downpipe leak issue that needs to be resolved with some sort of gasket.

Car looks better without the body work, shows off all the hard work.





Other than that, downpipe is wrapped and rear extended ARP studs where installed.





Two more weekends.... but the list is still a little long.

New pads
Hood latch of some kind
New tires mounted and balanced
Panels in front of tires to keep splashing at bay
New wastegate install
Fix turbo oil return gasket as it is leaking a little oil
Change oil
Roll fenders
Paint cross bar
Rear differential flush
Put it all back together.

[catapultkid]

Here are the tires and as you can see they got pretty big. I'm curious to see how this works out.



The challenge was getting them to fit obviously.

They are ballons. 245/50/16 nt-01s



A little beating later with a cheap hammer and dolly set I flared the fenders...



Hacked out a section from the rear of the quarter panel.



About an inch or so wider.





Got a bunch of little things done as well, exhaust leak fixed, hood pin system made etc. Then took it out on its 2015 maiden voyage. Rear still rubs pretty bad so I will need to do the same back there.

[Esteban]

why so tall? 245/50?!

[catapultkid]

Honestly I don't know. Just to be different It looks most like an 80s car now. In the distant future I'm hoping to have the car swapped to 5 lug with a home brew setup of mustang cobra parts. Then I'll try and run 17x8 or 9s. Now that the fenders are clearanced it should make the transition easy.

Put a hundred or so miles on the car last night. Everything seems good. I call it "big foot" now. The tires are much less precise than before and the gearing is completely different. I can hit fuel cut at 21psi pretty quick with the new downpipe so I've got to turn it down a bit. It comes on strong but not as strong as I thought it would be due to the extra large tires. I can be mid corner and plant the gas and it hunkers down and grips coming out. Remember I'm still on stock turbo making maybe 170whp at most with a bunch of low end torque. From 2.5k to 4.5k it is pretty torquey. Other than that it is dead, I may have made the car worse this winter but we will see how it does next weekend on its first autox of the season and I'll adjust from there.





-Paul

[In XS 7]

That tires can be used on the street?

[catapultkid]

Yeps NT01s are street legal 100 TW. Also I wanted something nice for HPDEs as well without going 100% slick.

First Autocross with the setup two weekends ago. Car did ok, more grip than before. The steering inputs where not as precise however due to the sponginess of the tires. Stopping however was still a big concern as I just had put EBC yellow pads in.

So here are my rotors after a year of autocrossing (12 events and 3 pratices) with 3 drivers... I can still see the factory cross hatching. I replaced the pads and in a single event have worn off all the cross hatching. These old pads are worthless.



Swapping pads.



At the event





More photos and bigger update coming soon.

[xrdoc]

What lip is that on the bottom of the jetta bumper?

[catapultkid]

What lip is that on the bottom of the jetta bumper?

I just bolted on some garden edging. 15 bucks

[catapultkid]

Couple of photos and notes.

So Gunny, Stuart, my own brother Pat and Richardo are the Raw time contenders for the Merkur this year. Out of the 5 of us the Merkur was bettered by the M3 and Corvette. Total separation was less than 8 tenths of a second between all of us!

Here is a few of us on the same corner. Note the different lines.

Mindy


Paul


The merkur lacked brakes big time, I'd mash the stop pedal wayyy to late and that became an issue very quickly at the end of the longish straight and through the finish by locking up tires. I will take some camber out of the front before next event to see if I can gain some braking. I doesn't do much for confidence when I can't trust the brakes.

The new balanced tires still kept the car neutral in the slow corners but it is still very oversteery in the fast corners. I'm not sure what to do here but next event I will try keeping the rear tires at a lower tire pressure. I think a big wing would help in the fast stuff. Mindy isn't convinced.

The new intercooler/radiator placement kept the car nice and cool (even though it was only 40* out). No leaks so far.

The new downpipe did help with boost pressures early on. The day before Richardo and Gunny drove the car and it was noticeably harsher when boost came on. We de tuned it some before Sunday but it came out a little soft for my liking at the event. It was only at 15 psi vs the 18-19 that I'm trying to run. Down 10-15 hp I'd say. Torque curve felt linearish... as much as a 80s turbo car can be...

Till next time.

[catapultkid]

Another weekend and another autocross. This time my brother and Richardo in the M3 couldn't come play so it was the boxster and corvette who remained. The course was 63-65 seconds and the merkur was once again bettered by Gunny in the vette but only by 2 tenths. Stuart in the boxster lagged behind the merkur a tad, however I know next event will see him on new tires which are by far his biggest handicap right now.

The event was at VMP which had the obligatory lane change with slalom down one side, a cross over or two and a few off set gates coming back. Typically I've found it a very rewarding setup if you get it right from the start, as soon as you get a little behind your time usually reflects it because of how easily it compounds. Also grip is down at VMP and at the top of 2nd gear with the throttle pinned most modified cars are skipping, gentle inputs are required.

The night before the event Mindy and I pulled most of the camber out of the car, raised the nose a inch or so and realigned it with 1/8" toe out. This resulted in a much more confident setup with a touch of under steer in the slow corners and a lot more stability in the fast turns. The biggest change however was the braking effects. It was like we where driving a new car. It stopped very well with only a little lock up once braking way too late for a cross over turn. 44 psi in the fronts and 40 in the rear also helped keep the car feeling precise but stable.





Now the bad news. The car still overheats! very strange so I'm working that out. So far I've tested 3 different thermostats in boiling water and the one that was in it (generic parts store) didn't start cracking open until 198-200 degrees, it is a 192* thermostat?! The OEM unit from Ford (motorcraft & also 192*) didn't open much faster however a 180* thermostat from STANT was wide open at 190ish. Looks like I need to gain more flow at 190* so I hope that is part of the issue. I also added a bleed nipple to the upper rad hose so I can make sure there is no air in the system.

Next event is VIR HPDE... more on that later.

[Esteban]

Do you have varying widths of rear shims to dial in camber/toe? If so, I'd like to know where you got them. When you say overheating, what temp is tuner studio showing you? what temp does your fan come on at?

[catapultkid]

Mcmaster has shim kits you can buy. That is what i would do.

Fans are hard wired, I havent looked at tunerstudio. But my gauge reads 210 after a 60 second autox run. Ive got a theory that air is still in there so we will see next weekend.