EL ENCIERRO

[Senor_Taylor]

YASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS. HERE WE COME CAR SHOW

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[EclipseTurbno93]

Good things are happening.

[Senor_Taylor]

That's factory, right?

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[RawrImAMonster]

Adding carbon fiber wrap to the top of a car actually makes it lighter since the glue is pulling up on the body. Just make sure not to get too much on panels facing downward.

[SlimKlim]

I hope you're wrapping the entire car in it.

[EclipseTurbno93]

Tomorrow the wait is over.

[rherold9]

[Gordonovski]

Do it for the lulz




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[ScottyB]

i still don't know what's going on but this is fun to watch

[*insertusernamehere*]

EL ENCIERRO, LADIES AMD GENTLEMAN THE MM RALLYX CAR

[Goodspeed]

I love this so much. More details needed, (like where the hell this thing came from) but for now, just love.

[ScottyB]

haha...that's fantastic. can't believe you guys made it happen. i hope it leads a brutally abusive, relentless remainder of its life at the hands of you brave, crazy bastards

[Jake]

Tom got to autocross it yesterday and it was surprisingly not-all-bad. Gonna be a hoot at rallycross.

[youtube]n12lyKTAa50[/youtube]

FOR US!

[Senor_Taylor]

[youtube]I_MBKXY9INo[/youtube]

[youtube]LhDwqt9dPFw[/youtube]

[ryangreen1]

It looks like I'm in Matt's lap but I'm not, its a seat there. Also, there is nothing to hold on to anywhere in this car that isn't sharp

[Chinampa]

yeeeah im gonna need to drive this

[EclipseTurbno93]

Okay so full disclosure time.

This car was purchased by my girlfriend (Haliegh, for those of you who haven't met her) last September because it was really cheap and ran. It had consistent issues and never ran well. Major cause of the issues was that the egr system wouldn't turn off and was melting the plastic intake manifold creating multitudinous vacuum leaks. I spent many hours working on the darn thing, replaced the manifold and the egr valve. Ran good for a while, then the same problem started happening. My theory is that one of the cats was clogged, forcing the exhaust gasses through the egr. The car got retired in November when she hit a curb/pole and bent the lower control arm on the passenger side. I was sick of working on it and she was sick of it not running so we got her a proper Mazda3 which has been infinitely better.

This car proceeded to just sit until about March, until Matt and I started talking about what we could get for cheap to make into a rallycross car. Then I remembered this hunk of junk sitting outside, so I asked if we could have it. She asked " Would it make you guys happy?" to which I replied yes and she said to take it and do whatever we wanted with it.

So we started it up (surprisingly on the first try) and took it to Zach's place in North 38. First priority was to get it running well and have power, because if we couldn't do that it would all be for naught. A rallycross car that can't go over 30 mph and 2500 rpm is pretty useless. So we deleted the egr system (at first badly, and then properly) and set about trying to locate every last freaking vacuum leak on the darn thing. We JB welded all the holes (really should ask about a sponsorship...) and chopped off the one cat we could get to in the hopes that it was the bad one. After getting the cat off I'm pretty sure that it was the culprit. The honeycomb didn't really look like a honeycomb anymore and it sounds like a maraca when you shake it. We then proceeded to hoon about with open exhaust and a bent control arm for a while. Then we got drunk and decided to do weight reduction and tore everything out that we could easily lay our hands on. We left all the seats in because this thing can hold up to six and it can be used as a bus.

We then figured that exhaust that dumps directly under us was a bad idea and got some flex pipe to bridge the gap left by the missing cat. Of course Ford decided that it would be a good idea to use different size piping in front and behind that cat, so Taylor came in with his custom, Rustburg-special engineering-fix of attaching a beer can to make up the difference and hose clamps to hold it on.

It worked beautifully.

Until the first time Matthew floored it and it tore off, releasing the furious thunder of the Vulcan V6 at full throttle on Old Furnace Rd. We then proceeded to fix it properly with an adapter and exhaust clamps. Not nearly as cool. But all was not yet well.

The passenger wheel was toed in and had positive camber though and the steering wheel had to be turned 90 degrees to go straight, so that was next on the list. Oh. My Gosh. What a freaking pain it was. The four of us fought with it for half a week before we got it off, and then another full week before we successfully got the new one on. The feeling of success after that though was glorious. We figured the alignment would be way off, but honestly its not too bad. Pulls just a bit to the right on the highway, but otherwise its not noticeable so we decided to just leave it.

We also had the genius idea to paint the hood witch chalkboard paint so that it would both look ricer and be fun to draw on. It turned out so well we did it on Zach's miata too. Past that, we printed some vinyl for the sides and cut the muffler off to get our surprisingly nice loud noises back.

And now it's ready to kick ass and take names. We probably won't make it to the next DC rallycross, but hopefully to the one after that. Thanks to all the MM'ers who helped out with this, we've got a couple more things that we want to do to it, but we're taking a well-deserved break for the moment.

[Senor_Taylor]

Great write up, James. I feel like I've put the least amount of work in this among the 4 of us, so I'm honored to have my name on the window. This is such a cool opportunity that I hope we don't blow it up on the first rally cross. It's a shame that 3 out of the 4 of us have a Miata so there's really no reason for us to use it as an autocross car. I really hope to land a good job soon so I can get my plans for a vehicle to tow with underway so I can come snag this and haul it around for rally cross for all of us.

[D_Eclipse9916]

I have toe plates for a cheap alignment


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[SlimKlim]

I love it! I'll definitely try to make it to the first event this thing sees.