Lots of good driving in Dixie today. Congrats to Jim, Jason, Dennis, and Mike. Good luck in the shootout tomorrow.

 

If I counted correctly, eight drivers trophied in an Eight today. Nice job everyone!

 

I didn't realize it was one of those silly Match Faux-Tour events

 

Great driving again this morning by RX8's in STX, putting down good times and both making the cut for the LCQ! Looking forward to the NE swing of events in a few weeks.

 

Have you driven one? They are very fun and the format is quite interesting. I really enjoyed the event at Charlotte last year.

 

Well I really enjoyed my first National tour event. In the end I did not run in DSP as my car was illegal and the tires I have are endurance tires so I jumped into Andres Mazda 2. I have never really driven a front wheel drive for autocross but it was well setup so I had a blast. I coned away my best run on the first day. But did well in the LCQ getting 39th of the 180 remaining drivers, so a good show for my first time and in a strange car.

Congrats to Ruggles and Jim for 1 & 2 in STX and Michael for a very impressive 15th on overall PAX and 2nd in DSP. Also well done to everyone else who drove RX8's of which there were plenty.

 

It was a good weekend. Car has about 35 more whp with the new engine than it did last year. Who knew the car would be that much faster with some 275 Hoosiers on my STX wheels. 295s on 17x10 would be perfect. DSP is definitely a good place for the 8.

-Mike

 

Silly rabbit, PAX racing is for noobs ...

 

Here's a picture of the header with the heat shield installed. It is loosely wrapped around the manifold - but open at the front and rear to allow some airflow when the car is moving. The tubing back toward the mid-pipe is only covered on top (maybe 60% coverage).



The material is a flexible high temperature insulation sandwiched between two very thin layers of inconel. It weighs almost nothing and seems to be very effective. This is the same material I used to wrap my catalytic converter in 2011, and that has held up surprisingly well.
Heat Master Shields

Also, if your exhaust manifold gasket is 9.5 years old, you may want to replace it as preventative maintenance. When we pulled mine off, it crumbled to pieces. It is very possible it had been leaking.

 

the gasket only needs to be replaced when the manifold comes off, it should always be replaced and never re-used

what material did you use for the manifold piping?

 

In this case the gasket was actually leaking. There was clear evidence that the OEM manifold gasket had failed at the center port. We had planned to use a new one all along.

Everything is 16ga T304. We had to go to 4 different suppliers to find everything 16ga. Our goal toughness over ultimate light weight. Based on my solid model, i did some weight comparisons between 16, 18 and 20 ga material. I think it was 1lb heavier in 16ga over 20ga. The heaviest part was the Racingbeat Stainless flange. That was 6lbs!

The V-Band is Burns with the rolled S321 flanges. Its a REALLY nice piece of kit. One of my buddies at work designed pressure vessels for deep sea research and he was helpful in setting out the best method for making sure the V-Band would seal and align.

 

Looks great! How much did the materials and fabrication run you for that?

 

Thanks Jeff. The heat shield is $1 per square inch. I faxed a template over to Koolmat, and they had it built the next day. Pat (Patricia) is great to work with.

Jeff A built the header for me. The RB flange and the Burns V-band were the big ticket items. The rest of the materials weren't too bad.

 

I work in a custom fabrication shop who specializes in complex machining, so the labor was free. Unfortunately the welding machine in our shop got all screwy lately and caused all sorts of problems during welding.

Honestly I'm not sure it would be worth doing something like this unless you had the access and know how to do it yourself. The raw material/parts added up to over 400 bucks, if you had to pay for machining, welding, etc.... it would be a big bill.

We went down this path because:

A. I'm and idiot and love to design stuff like this in the computer, so designing it was fun
B. I have access to a vast manufacturing facility and can do stuff for beer.
C. Dave asked me and he's nice enough to let me drive his car so I said why not give it a shot.

Jeff

 

Lucky you. That would be a bit out of budget with having to buy new tires. May just give one of those cheap ebay headers a try. If it's a wash on power, at least it's a loss of weight. I'm thinking that for about the cost of the flange alone it's worth a try.

 

and to think I only built mine with a bandsaw, a drill press, and a TIG welder I'd recommend watching for cracks around the middle and rear port areas

any who I cancelled my entry to College Station this weekend; didn't see any point in being all stressed out and out of pocket change just to show up unprepared against only two other competitors ...

 

What Kind of mid pipe is that in the pic. Im running IStx. this year. and I want a high flow cat. But I dont want a check engine light, any recommendations?

 

It's custom with an HJS cat. I can't comment on other commonly available midpipes, but I have been happy with the HJS. Good luck in STX this year.
HJS North America, LLC: Catalytic Converters

 

Ive read about that setup before and it seems to be the way to go. Can you recommend a good HJS cat. model number. I just dont know which one to get. I dont want to much cat. but I dont want not enough.
And did it cause a CEL.

And talking about set up. I just got a set of TR motorsports 17x9 48et. not a big offset, and no tires yet, but soon 255/40/17 Federal 595 rsr

 

Any particular reason you are going with the Federals over some of the more traditional ST tires?

 

A friend of mine is running them on his vw gti, and loves them. Also for the cost you cant beat them. They seem to get pretty good reviews and Hold up pretty well.

 

For not much more, you'd be into Hankooks, or maybe you can find some Star Specs on a deep discount. I think you'd be more pleased with those.

 

I agree, alot of people run the hankooks and star specs, I just want to try something different. I will keep an update on how the federal's are doing as my friend progresses through the season and get mine also.

 

Sounds good.

I don't think I've seen any federal tires on course before. Most people run the other tires because they really are faster, but if the cost savings is worth giving up a little, go for it. I'd be interested to see what you think.

 

I think alot of what I need is seat time first. And really after cost of shipping the rs3 are the same price. I just wanted to try something new, and now that you mention it. the person Ive seen with the federals is my friend. well Ill keep you guys updated on performance and durability.