Zippy's 98

[Zippy]

Tis the season of upgrades

Had some time one afternoon this week and got to work on the Dech trying to get it all ready for track day.
On the list today was...
New Fluidyne rad
New Harpell Auto Fab Power Steering Tank
Oil Change
Grease it
Try on new wheels and pray they still clear.

First up was the rad, it was a pretty straight forward install. Had to do some AC line bending and moving to get it to fit... but overall went pretty good. Fits nice. Looks nice.
I thought as I am going to be upgrading to more power (the cams) replacing the original rad with an upgraded one is probably a good idea... and well... it looks sweet lol.

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Secondly was the Power steering tank. This is made by Harpell Auto Fab in Calgary area. Great high high quality piece.
It's baffled inside and really just looks cool.
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[Zippy]

Next up was mating my new track wheels and rubber together.
Shout out to Joy City Tire for getting me in right away. They said they balanced up really really well and had to use very little weight to get them into where they need to be.
We've also put aluminum tape on the wheel weights to make sure they will not kick a weight while on track.
but.....
THEY LOOK AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Really happy with how they look and I'm really excited to see how they perform on the track. Taking 10lbs + a corner off the car should feel amazing.
Just a reminder, these are 18x9 +30 Fast FC04 with Nankang AR1 275/35/18.
And for those interested, no spacers or machining of the wheel or any funny business to get them to clear my brakes.
You can also see from the last photo, this combo has ZERO poke. I know I'm running a very aggressive camber, but I bet with stock alignment the wheels would fit perfectly.
I'm almost tempted to buy a 18x10/11 for the back and run a set of these all the time... however I really really enjoy the chrome SVT wheels.

Up next on the to do list is to get the Diff in and I'll be all set for track day.
Also also! I am going to be attempting to polish my car. The poor thing hasn't been waxed or polished in probably 15+years or more. Time to get the paint up to snuff with the rest of the car.
More on Zippy's detailing adventure soon!

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[Zippy]

I snuck the DECH in yesterday evening and got the new diff installed. Man O man is it sexy looking. I forgot to take a picture of course!
Along with the diff I found a Ford racing cover someone had bought but never put on and picked it up for a smoking deal!
Drove it around the block and seems good, car feels lighter on its feet. Excited to see how different it feels at the track!

One of these days I'll get around to taking the diff back out and cleaning/painting it... I think I'll worry about the topside before the bottom lol.
Hope to try my hand at polishing it this weekend or next.

Track Day June 9th... the DECH is ready...

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[Zippy]

First Track day of 2022!

As many of you know, we had our first track day last Thursday, June 9th! I finally got to test out my new diff & my much bigger tire & wheel combo.
Man O man what a difference. The car's handling attributes really changed with the new diff. I now have a bit too much understeer on throttle as I am no longer spinning the inside tire on exit. Really noticed the understeer in T1. I am going to play around with the shock settings next time out to try and get it to rotate a bit better coming off the corner. All in all the car felt much more composed and honestly even easier to drive. I am finally getting use to how much brakes I have and I'm not over slowing the car as much into T1 & T2. Baby steps.

I also had my first major lockup in the car. Early in the morning I was on my street tires... in the first session it started to just spit rain... was fine for a few laps... then all of a sudden a cloud burst going into T1... Its like all of a sudden the car was on ice, had to stand on the brakes and I locked all 4 tires up! Thankfully I was able to keep it out of the grass... apparently it made for a good smoke show from the pits LOL (p.s. I meant to do that, )

In terms of lap time, my old personal best was a 1.23.8 last October in 18C weather.
I am now able to do mid 1.23's pretty comfortably and setting a new personal best time around TMP @ 1.22.6xx. 1.2seconds faster then last year... I'll take it.
I think the biggest thing the diff & tires have done is make me super consistent. Viewing my times, if not caught in traffic, I am within 2-3tenths per lap everylap... which is pretty good in my books.

The next mods I am looking to do is install the Maximum Motorsports Pan Hard bar & remove the poorly installed subframe connectors (done by another shop) and install Maximum Motorsports full length subframe connectors. I also would like to put our bumpsteer gauge on it and get that dialed in 100%.
Now that I have even more grip from the bigger tires, I can feel the rear end of the car moving left and right under hard cornering. The pan hard bar should due the trick.

All in all I'm really happy with the progress I've made. Just need to keep practicing and inching up on it.
Big thanks to my dad (ZR) as always for helping me figure out what to do and helping me get it ready to run each track day.

Here some photo's of the car at Track day and some pics of my laptimes.

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[Zippy]

Paint work!

I finally got around to getting the DECH shined up. Last weekend my dad and I spent Saturday Night/all Sunday polishing the car.
What a difference it made in the paint. It had a ton of car wash marks/scratches aswell as light cover marks in it. We were able to get alot of them out and the car looks fanastic.
We used meguiar's products on it. Compound - > Polish - > Wax.
It is by no means perfect, but it looks a ton better.
The car looked like a straight blue before... now you can see a little bit of pearl in the sunlight. It has gotten dramatically brighter.
I'm going to go back over it and take a more aggressive pad to it in some area's and get some more of the marks out of it... but for now... couldn't be happier.
I recon I'll be able to pick up at least 2 seconds with how slippery the paint is now. LOL.

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[Zippy]

Track day July 25th, 2022

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Before heading to the track we did some upgrading onto the DECH. The DECH got a brand new maximum motorsports clutch cable and quadrant/adjuster. The old cable was starting to bind and was having a hard time getting it into gear once the trans got hot after track day. Install went smooth as silk and also put on a new belt as the old one was starting to look a bit suspect.

I had a really great time at the track. For once I wasn't all that nervous about going and was able to eat some food in the morning which kept me energized for most of the day. The car ran really well and felt insanely good from a balance POV. Not much understeer and just enough on throttle oversteer where I could rotate the car at will. It was insanely fun to drive and throw around... couldn't have been happier with it.
It was an open lapping day at TMP so there were some new comers out there that were way off of my pace, so unfortunately wasn't able to string out a bunch of good laps in a row... but when I am on a clean hot lap, I can consistently now put it in the 1.22s at TMP. I am basically running my old PB's as my new consistent laps... which I'm super stoked about. I had a new PB of a 1.22.2xx at the end of the day... sadly my next two laps were held up by traffic... and I think I would have been in the 1.21s looking at my early sector splits.

All in all, extremely happy with the car, it's so easy to drive and is very predictable. The only slight problem I am having now is, I am cornering so hard, the rear end is moving or the tire is deflecting enough and it is now hitting the Left side tail pipe which is in turn moving the tail pipe into the frame rail. Not a big deal at all, going to put a spacer on it to give it some more room.

Up next on the mods lists is PAN HARD BAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Super excited to see what that does for it. I can't wait!
Here are some pics from the day. Enjoy

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[ZR]

Awesome job behind the wheel Rosco.

[Zippy]

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[Zippy]

Track day September 15th, 2022

Best track day yet?
Most likely the last track day of the year for me happened this past Thursday @ TMP. The changes I made to the car worked really really well. Camber 3deg negative, toe zero & went way up on compression settings on my koni shocks all the way around. The track in the morning was quite slippery for some reason, I think I lacked tire temp. However, after lunch, the car started to really work well. My lap times throughout the day went from a low 1.22.xxx to mid 21's in the afternoon.
The very last session, i said screw it! Let's drive it for everything it is worth. I did 4 or 5 hot hot laps then ran around really slow to cool the tires... then did another couple of laps. I was able to get it down all the way down to a 1.20.121! That means from my last personal best to this one... I shaved 2.1seconds! Now, the track & weather were probably in the best conditions I have ever run... but to shave 2.1seconds purely based off of 'driver mod' ... I'm pretty freaking happy. My goal of getting into the 1.19s is within sight now! I am excited to get the cams & pan hard bar in and see what it does!
As always, a big thanks to my dad @ BoothAutomotive for making sure it's 100% before each track day.

I have been currently been driving the DECH to and from school... and hope to do so till late October. Man I love driving it around... even when it has the "bus brakes" on it. LOL.

Here are some photo's of the day.
Big thanks to the GF for taking killer shots.

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[Zippy]

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