Project: The Sky's The Limit

[JPolen01]

http://www.performanceautowerks.com/cata...8v32qd27b7

DONE.

ORRRRRR.....

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Lol. Or just send it over to Kevin at PAS for much cheaper and make a little more reliable power.

[JPolen01]

Got a ride in this after helping brad replace the brake fluid. It's definitely a quick little car!

[BFisch06]

Love these, like mini C6s. Nice choice!

It really has the C6 look with the "swipe" in the door panels. The solstice doesn't look bad, but this looks better. Unfortunately, most people think so, and the price difference reflects that.

http://www.performanceautowerks.com/cata...8v32qd27b7

DONE.

ORRRRRR.....

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.performanceautowerks.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1657">http://www.performanceautowerks.com/cat ... ts_id=1657</a><!-- m -->

Mallet was the first to offer V8 conversions for the kappas. I remember reading a review somewhere that stated "First gear is pretty much useless, unless you have a wheelspin fetish". I can only imagine...

Got a ride in this after helping brad replace the brake fluid. It's definitely a quick little car!

Thanks again for the help! I know you aren't a GM guy, so I'll take this as a major compliment!

[BFisch06]

Before leaving Harrisonburg I made sure to snap this pic:


So moving back to Roanoke has been great but the real world has left me little time to do much with the Sky . I've been to several autocrosses, where it has become painfully obvious I have no idea how to drive a RWD car. hock: Oh well, gotta start sometime and gotta start somewhere.




Then came August - the first day of August to be exact. Work takes me to a customer's manufacturing facility 75 minutes outside of Roanoke every Tuesday and Thursday, and we rotate who's driving to the plant. Sometimes there are 2 of us (my boss drives a Mazdaspeed Miata) and other times there are 3 of us (we take a Toyota Avalon with blown rear shocks), but more often than not, the Sky gets left at a small mall in town. We leave at 6:45 and get back at 6:30. The long days are a pain in the rear, but we don't have to spend the night out of town. Well, we got back a little late, I put my stuff in the car, put the top down, let the engine come to operating temperature, backed out of my space and started to leave the parking lot. I had driven 8 or 10 spaces up the lot when an Explorer backed into me. In hindsight, I have no idea why I stopped and hit the horn, but that's what happened. Kid got out of the SUV and I jumped over my (now jammed) driver's door. I was not a happy camper :evil: but when I saw he only had one arm I changed my mood. [No kidding: the kid had no left arm from the elbow down. I never got around to asking why.] He was very apologetic and explained he was leaving for college (in South Caroline) the next morning. I just told him it could have been a lot worse and that an ambulance wasn't on the way. His dad saw it happen (walking to his own car) so there was no fuss about who was at fault. I got his insurance information and drove it home after thoroughly looking over the impact area.




All kinds of damage to the Ford:


As it goes, I got an estimate, met with the adjuster, etc. The car should be out of the shop by Tuesday to the tune of just over $4,000. New rear fender and door (and associated parts), plus paint matching on the front fender, hood, rear decklid, and rear fascia. I decided to go ahead and have the front passenger fender replaced [Recall it was busted when I bought it] while it was in the shop, and that'll run me about $1000. For those wondering I chose Euro Specialty in Roanoke to do the repairs. Good, bad, or otherwise, that's where the work has been done. I have a Chevy Cruze 1LT as a rental, and while it's a nice car, it has 8 (eight!) more than HALF the horsepower of the Sky, crappy tires on it, and the MacPhersons are set to "ride like a Buick that's driving on a cloud". The sheer lack of feedback coming into the steering wheel has almost earned me a ticket. It's a nice little car - and far superior to the Cobalt that it replaced, but I'm ready to get the Sky back. It's been two weeks. The wife has been nice enough to let me drive the HHR on several occasions, but I think that's just made the Cruze experience worse.

I'll get the car back right after they're done putting it all back together, at which point I get to take it back apart, as these were awaiting my arrival Friday evening:


Stay tuned for a post on what's in the boxes! :mrgreen:

[ScottyB]

i freakin' HATE Towers :lol: ALL the spots are too small and the traffic pattern is completely stupid. consider yourself lucky for just getting that little flesh wound. sorry it had to happen, but hey great time to put that new fender on.

Euro Specialties should treat you well. My family has had a couple fender benders taken care of there and they've turned out fine, but that was years ago.

go drive up to Roanoke Mt on the parkway, you'll feel better :thumbup:

[NTIman]

Sorry to see that happen.

Actually, I think because I see nice cars on a rollback headed to the body shop on a regular basis, I'm less inclined to buy a nice car. It's kind of depressing, but in my line of business, you start to realize it's a part of life and cars are just a material possession.

Either way, that sucks. I know what it was like to back into a pole a few weeks after I bought my econobox. And then a year later when I hit a deer. And a year later when my ex-girlfriend decided it would be smart to run into the back of my car (why did I date her? I must've been mildly retarded for a few years of my life). At least it was (at least mostly) cosmetic I'm sure. I almost cry when I see the car of someones dreams with frame damage.

[BFisch06]

Got the car back exactly 4 weeks after the accident. Went to pick it up and the rear decklid was on so cock-eyed that the weatherstripping had been smashed flat and bubbled up a good 1/4 inch out of the (non-existent) panel gap. I wouldn't accept it, so they took it around back and fixed it. It must have pissed them off because they drove it through a mud puddle fast enough to cake the inside of my front brake cooling ducts with mud. :evil: I signed over my check from Nationwide and paid my share for the passenger fender. The accident alone cost $4700 - a far cry past the $3300 Nationwide cut me a check for. That was already settled ahead of time - I was just surprised at the final cost. When they pulled it back around the guy helping me said "huh, there's a check engine light - I'll clear that for you. It's probably just because it's been sitting for a while". In hindsight that was a red flag and I should have looked up the code right then and there. I did, however, ask for the code before he cleared it. It was P0480.

A coworker drove the Sky to Enterprise while I drove the rental. Dropoff was easy and I got in to drive the Sky back to the office. Check engine light came back on. Not even a mile down the street from Enterprise the Sky overheated. I took some back roads to keep air moving over the radiator, and temps dropped into an acceptable (albeit high) range. Once back at the office, I looked up the CEL code - "cooling fan circuit". Well, that explained the overheating problem. Turns out the fuse was blown - a known issue on the kappa's when the battery is jumped. I let it sit for a while and then drove it to a parts store to get a replacement fuse. It's time for a coolant flush (and I'll probably ditch the DexCool anyway) so I just put from distilled water in for now.

Over the Labor Day weekend I put on new parts: Brake rotors and pads as well as a rear sway bar. The bar is from the Z0K "clubsport" package offered on the Solstices. The Z0K package contained sway bars, springs, and a beefed-up differential carrier. Per SCCA Stock/Street rules, I can only change 1 bar, but most autocrossers agree the stock FE3 front bar combined with the Z0K rear is the way to go. I have yet to really push the car, but it should all but eliminate the understeer I had before. I went with standard rotors and Hawk pads - HPS front, HP+ rear. Again, recommended by Kappa autocrossers to shift the brake balance to the rear.

Contrary to most other members here, I have little wrenching experience. When I worked for GM I wasn't allowed to touch tools per UAW agreements. Anyway, everything went fairly well, but took longer than I expected. The rotors were much more difficult to remove than I thought they would be and I ended up having to rent the tool to reset the rear caliper pistons (the passenger-side worked fine with needle-nose pliers, but not the driver-side). In addition, I ended up having to drop the exhaust to swap the sway bar. Wasn't prepared for that, but the experience was good to have.

While I had the car up on stands I found the driver side fender was missing a bolt connecting the plastic cover to the bottom of the fender. In addition, the hood vents have bubbled up in the center. Guess I'll have to find time to take it back to the shop and get everything fixed up. Disappointed it took three weeks and $4700 but all these details fell by the wayside. On a positive note, the paint looks great.

The brakes are a huge improvement over the stock ones, and I can feel a small difference in handling, but this weekend's autocross event should give me a chance to explore the new sway bar. :mrgreen:

I didn't get too many pictures during the weekend. It rained part of Saturday, and we (Rachel helped) got the exhaust re-hung about 9:00 PM. Once we got going the DSLR was put in the back of the garage away from the rain and I just kinda forgot about pictures.

I don't think I've ever posted a picture with the top up:


Wifey changed the oil on the HHR while I worked on the Sky. Ready to get to work:


Passenger side with a new fender and blended paint. Also: new stubby antenna.


New parts: rear rotor and sway bar


Letting the brakes cool down after following Hawk's bed-in procedure:

[D_Eclipse9916]

:thumbs up: , the only way you learn how to wrench on a car is to do it. Sounds like you did a great job.

[BFisch06]

:thumbs up: , the only way you learn how to wrench on a car is to do it. Sounds like you did a great job.

Thanks DJ! :thumbup: I know this is all peanuts for a guy building a LS-powered BMW with A/C like its no big thing.

[Jake]

:thumbs up: , the only way you learn how to wrench on a car is to do it. Sounds like you did a great job.

+1. My first-ever wrenching experience was with DJ, showing me how to change oil and trans fluid. Gotta start somewhere :thumbup:

[Sully]

:thumbs up: , the only way you learn how to wrench on a car is to do it. Sounds like you did a great job.

+1. My first-ever wrenching experience was with DJ, showing me how to change oil and trans fluid. Gotta start somewhere :thumbup:

I remember being sketched out back in high school about changing pads and rotors on a friends Pontiac grand am and had to ask for help. I feel I've come along way considering I've damn near rebuilt the suspension and cooling system of an e36 and dis/reassembled (essentially rebuilt) a trans on a civic since then.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

[BFisch06]

Aside from a deceased grandfather, no one in my family is into cars. Neither parent even knows how to drive a manual! Working for GM was a great experience and it got me close to a lot of the ins and outs of cars, but it was mostly manufacturing stuff. The union rules prevented me from so much as looking at a screwdriver.

The Shenandoah Region of the Porsche Club of America hosted it's last autocross of the year last weekend and the car did really well. :mrgreen: The driver needs some work though. :lol: Sway bar eliminated almost all of the understeer I was having and the brakes came at just the right time: The course had a drag strip diagonally through the lot and I saw at least 73, if not a little more! hock: I ended up 20 out of 46, but the event organizer rode with me on run 5 and was surprised with how well the car handled and how much grip it had. He gave me a few pointers and I shaved 6 tenths off my next (and final) run.

In summary: Damn this thing is fun.

[Beej]

I was looking for you after the autocross on Sunday to introduce myself and check this thing out - sorry I missed ya.

Got a good view while working the heat you were driving, and this thing scoots! Looked great out there.

[BFisch06]

When I started this thread I was all "Why can't the alumni keep their project threads updated?" and now I understand. Now that I should be Captain of said ship, here's what's happened in the last 6 months or so:

September 22, 2013: BRR Autocross at Roanoke Civic Center
I had trouble with this course, but I used it as a learning experience. Hadn't raced at this lot before either. Placed 2nd in class 1.298 behind an S2000. 38 / 90 PAX; 36 / 90 raw time

September 27, 2013: New Tires!


Michelin Pilot Super Sports in stock-size (245/45/R18)

September 29, 2013: NASA Autocross at VMP
First autocross on the new tires - what a difference. The factory-spec Eagle F1's were worn and would slide out easily. The MPSS simply keep sticking. :thumbup:
1st in class by 0.090; 16 out of 47 [Results]

October 19, 2013: VA/MD Solstice/Sky Club Cruise
Found this group on facebook and cruised with another dozen or so Kappa owners down Skyline Drive then had dinner in Waynesboro. I was easily the youngest owner, but still had a fun time. Couple owners had a lot of aftermarket parts (IC, charge pipes, tune, etc.) but I was the only manual/turbo optioned car, and the only green Sky. We spent the night in town since there was a BRR autocross the next day in Verona.





October 20, 2013: BRR "College Challenge" Autocross at Verona
2nd in class by 0.497 to a different S2000 driver. 13 / 77 PAX; 16 / 77 raw time.



Rachel getting some RWD seat time.

October 27, 2013: NASA Autocross at VMP
2nd in class by 0.295; 14 out of 54 [Results]
1st in class was the M3 I beat 9/29

November 5, 2013: BRR Mick Seal Memorial Charity Autocross at Roanoke Civic Center
1st in class by 0.743. 11 / 83 PAX; 13 / 83 raw time

I volunteered for Worker Stewart



December 2013: Coolant Issues
During the month of December (and maybe even late Thanksgiving) the DIC (Driver Information Center) reported "LOW COOLANT" with increasing frequency. I'd add a bit, then it would be back. The coolant pumps on the LNF are known to go early in the kappa platform (i.e. RWD applications) - around 60,000 miles. It's well documented on the forums and (IMO) the single biggest problem with the kappa. I started doing some more research and decided it was indeed pump failure. Some folks have done the swap themselves and documented the procedure well, but it took them 10-14 days. hock: The Sky is my daily driver, so I couldn't take that kind of time (plus I don't have a good place to do the work), so I decided to take it to the dealership. I described my problems and dropped it off one morning before work. They called me an hour later to say they couldn't find a leak at all - they had pressure tested it for 10 minutes without issue. I reiterated the symptoms and my observations and educated the service manager on LNF coolant pump failure history (since both LNF engines they've seen are in my two cars!). They pressure tested it for another 45 minutes and found nothing. I picked it up later that day.

Fast forward to Christmas day: I drove to my dad's house and parked in the driveway behind my sister. After opening gifts and sharing breakfast, she and her fiance needed to leave, so I went to move the Sky. As I backed out of the driveway, my coolant pump failure suspicions went from questionable to confirmed: a massive red puddle filled the driveway. I took the car home, grabbed the HHR, and continued about the day.

I planned to have a garage before the 2014-2015 winter, so the Sky was only going to spend one winter outside. My hope was that it would be mild. :lol: I didn't get a different set of wheels / tires and there were several days that it was *interesting* driving. hock: Between the ice and snow, I took the HHR some days (Rachel is a kindergarten teacher and didn't go out if schools were closed for snow), but still had to drive the Sky more often than I wanted to. We got a really bad storm around Valentine's Day - Roanoke ended up with 22 inches or more. Long story short I had the HHR at a customer site ~ 35 minutes out of town. Rachel took the Sky to school and I texted her to put it in my Mom's garage to sit out the storm. A church family invited us to get snowed in with them, so Rachel went home to pack first. By the time she got across town (to Salem) to put the car in my mom's garage it had been snowing for several hours. She turned right off a primary road onto a secondary that went up to my mom's neighborhood. She lost traction and slid sideways into someone else at the light. Minor damage to the door, the police were contacted, etc. Both cars were certainly drivable and all damage was cosmetic. Before the police officer could leave someone else copied Rachel, sliding into the passenger side of the Sky (which was still sitting in the intersection). Even less damage, but disappointing none-the-less. Rachel was extremely distraught and the church family picked her up after parking the Sky on the side of the road. I drove back from the customer site, which took over an hour, had some food and caught up on details of the accident. Given the forecast and the family father's offer, Rachel, and myself took off in their Volvo V70 AWD wagon to rescue the Sky and get it to my mom's. It was already dark when we arrived and 3+ hours later, we had traversed the 2.5 miles to my mom's house, shoveling a good 40% (or more) of the way there. It was near impossible to keep the car moving, but we made it without further incident. I picked the car up later that weekend and was able to survey the damage.




While driving it home, I realized there was suspension damage: the wheel was a good 20 degrees off center when driving straight. I had it aligned the next day.

>>>> I can't finish this post right now, but look for an edit/update soon!

[Senor_Taylor]

Damn, you have the worst luck, man. I hope the repairs are cheap.

[*insertusernamehere*]

Oh man! So much going on! That sky is a trooper! Good luck with everything!

[BFisch06]

Sooo... it's been a while.

Current mileage: 82,XXX

Overview: Car's been doing great. We bought a house so now it can stay in the garage (which was nice given all the snow we had this winter) plus I have a place to wrench, so I bought some upgrades prior to the start of this autocross season.

To pick up from my previous post:
- Seems as though the "suspension damage" was simply the front end being knocked out of alignment. A shop got it cleaned up and I haven't had any problems with it in the last year. Unfortunately the shop bondo'd the door so magnets won't stick... which sucks come autocross time. I have to use the area just under the door handle as there is enough metal left for them to hold on. Paint looks good and parking lot accident ruined the resale value, so whatever.

Autocross:
I participated in all 10 of BRR's events and won each time (I only had competition 3 or 4 events), making me the only member with a perfect season. Car is fun and my skills are getting better. By the end of the season I was placing in the middle of the PAX class.

For the first time I attended in the Virginia Autocross Championship hosted by the Tidewater region. I have never autocrossed on concrete before and it was rather different. I expected more grip, but adapted and did fairly well. The only other person in my class was in a C5 Z06. Turns out it was Mike "Junior" Johnson - the director of the Evolution Driving School. He could have run the course in reverse and still beat me - he's incredibly fast. hock: Good experience even if I ended up a distant second (last) place.

I also completed one of SCCA's new Startling Line schools - basically the Evo Phase I school. The school was very good. The big takeaway for me came from 2 of the instructors. In the morning we each took 10 laps or so around an oval. After lap 3 the instructor turned to me and said "This is impressive!" so I'm thinking "Nice! I'm actually decent at this!". The instructor continues with "It isn't often I find students able to guess this consistently.". He goes on to explain I'm not looking where I'm supposed to be, but instead I'm looking too close to where the car is and not where I want to be. However, I do a good job of memorizing the course and making guesses as to how and when to turn in to put my car where I remember it should end up. He has me change where I'm looking and BAM - I could instantly tell a difference. He let me do a lap and then told me to focus on my hands - I wasn't putting little corrections into the wheel like I was before. Instead, I was turning in and holding the wheel at a constant angle simply because I focused on the end of the turn before I even started it. Maybe that's "duh" to some of you guys, but that was an eye opener for me. In the afternoon session we had instructors ride along, then we had to make runs by ourselves. My instructor - multiple national champ Jenny Williams - got to the point he hit me over the helmet with her clipboard because I wasn't looking far enough ahead. :lol: Long story short that's what I spent the rest of 2014 working on.

Rachel and I bought a house in August and I soon filled the garage. A high school friend needed to find a new home for his 1986 Datsun Nissan (yes, they were dual-badged that year) 300 ZX and sold it to me for $500. My plan to was to make it into a ChumpCar, but a friend and I decided to buy DJ / Paul's RX-7. Not Sky related, but worth mentioning since I doubt I'll create a project thread for it.


As we passed into 2015, Rachel and I attended the annual BRR awards banquet and walked away with our first class wins - me in A Street and her in Ladies!



In addition, I was voted 2014 Driver of the Year!




I was also elected to the Board of Directors. I know some of you aren't SCCA fans - I think that stems more from the road racing side - but I've made good friends with a majority of the BRR "regulars". I did my first autocross with MM and won't forget who planted that seed. :thumbup:

Moving in 2015 I decided to take advantage of the new Classic American Muscle (CAM) class that SCCA introduced in 2014. For 2015 they split the class into three sub-classes: CAM-C (contemporary, CAM-T (traditional), and CAM-S (sport). I fall into CAM-S due to seat count, wheelbase, and weight. In short I have to keep a full interior and run 200+ UTQG rated street tires, but can do ANY other modifications - unlimited engine, brakes, suspension, etc. So I bought myself a few goodies:

- Front chassis brace
- 1/2" 'Race' Backbone brace
- 'Probeam' (in lieu of the Z0K Solstice SCCA Club Sport package's differential carrier, the probeam ties the diff carrier to the lower control arm mounts and just stiffens up the rear)
- Trifecta "canned" tune which bumped the boost from 14 to 24 psi and changed the throttle mapping and other parameters
- T-bolt clamps to replace the stock hose clamps that are known to fail with higher boost levels
- Greasable front sway bar bushing because the stock rubber ones squeak if it's below 50 degrees outside
- New wheel studs and lugnuts because a shop stripped one back in the fall and the Skystice have unique wheel studs, so parts are damn near impossible to find. Moved to ARP and got gorilla lugnuts, so now I can use air tools! :thumbup:

Old versus new backbone brace:


March 22nd was the first autocross of the season and the car is a blast. The power bump of 50-60 horsepower & 60-70 torque is quite noticeable, but I was especially impressed with the handling due to the all the brace work. The car's still too quiet for my liking, but it is on rails and just flies. I ended up 2nd (to a national champion) out of 69 - not where I expected to place in the season opener after adding parts. My fast run of the day:
[youtube]lSEKGJkIuxo[/youtube]

My power steering pump started whining and after some research online I found it is a common issue with the turbo kappas since the reservoir is about 5 inches from the turbocharger. The fluid gets frothy and leaves the pump upset until it cools down. I replaced it with Red Line synthetic last weekend. The old fluid was definitely overheated - it came out brownish.

[Senor_Taylor]

Well...uh.. you've been busy.

[Jake]

Great updates, Brad! Fun to read about your experience with the driving school and learning to look ahead. It's something I still struggle with, and I do notice an immediate improvement if I keep telling myself to look up, look up, look up. Look where you want to go and the car will go there.

You should start a thread on your Chump Car experiences once you start racing it! My new roommate has an E28 533i Chump Car and we are debating doing a race with it somewhere down the road.

[WRXtranceformed]

Nice update, I have always really appreciated those Sky Redlines. Trifecta makes some great tunes too, that is a really impressive power bump for an OTS tune! Great racing and I wouldn't be bummed or anything about finishing second place with all of the changes you made!