Finndurance Motorsports G35 Endurance race car build thread

[IanS]

I tried like 9 different ways to embed that youtube video and none of them worked. Oh well.
So I'm guessing full brake job after day 1? How'd the car do on fuel/range? As good as you expected?

Weird. Maybe I broke it.

We did mess with the brakes a bit, but that story is for later.

Fuel range was good enough, it ran the 1:45 stints on Saturday without sputtering, but the low fuel light turns on after about an hour and a half. My guess is the computer doesn't like all the sloshing. I was a little apprehensive that she would make full 2 hours on fuel at RA which is typically know for having a relatively high burn rate. The temps hovering around 40° also tend to increase fuel burn.....

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Updates?!

[IanS]

Updates?!

Was hoping to have Saturday's in car videos uploaded soon, but its taking longer than expected. They're coming I promise.

[float_6969]

[IanS]

So the in car video has finally been gone through, and it turns out, all the test day and Saturday video is whitewashed due to improper camera settings.

So, on to Sunday.

Saturday night we rotated tires, flipped front brake pads ( it wears outer pads faster) and changed front rotors since they were shuddering pretty bad. Then we packed it up and headed to the Air B&B.

Sunday morning started cold, barely above freezing. I was in the car first, and I was strapped in and ready to go as they lined us up on grid. This is where things began to go wrong. I realised the coffee I'd had that morning wanted back out. Hadn't even left the pits and I needed to pee. No time to get out, I decided to hold it. They took us for another couple pace laps and the pace car pulled off and we all went for it. The track was so cold I couldn't get any heat into the tires. I struggled with a total lack of grip for over an hour. Then my need for a pit stop began to overwhelm the cars. The need for a restroom was becoming more and more distracting. I pushed through for another 30 minutes or so, squeezing my leg on straights to distract myself. At about 1:40 I radioed that I was coming in as I was now in so much pain I was missing Alexis. I stumbled out of the car and hobbled to the nearest porta John. By the time I was out the car was back on track. I spent the rest of the day with a stomach ache.

The next two drivers got in and out without much excitement. Jaret managed to set the cars best time ever at a 2:51.9. We were again working nicely through the field even with my short relatively slow stint. With twoish hours left Eric got in the car and he's able to work his way up to 8th place overall. The northern weather also decided to bless us with some snow as the race ended and Eric took the checkers as snow began to cover the track. The race was over, both cars finished, and it was time to load up and head home.

My Sunday stint



Jaret's Sunday Stint

[IanS]

The cars had a decent coating of snow just in the few minutes while awards was going on.





The team that made it all happen.



Eric taking the checkers

https://i.imgur.com/ZUqyeDi.mp4


Day twos live broadcast.

[IanS]

Well, we had planned to make the trek down to Birmingham Alabama for a 2 day race at Barber Motorsports Park in December. But due to large increase in Covid Cases, a cross country road trip was deemed unwise, so we pulled out.

The car spent the winter hybernating in Evan's garage. We spent a weekend or two doing some reprep. A few weeks before the race we buckled down and made some changes then buttoned the car up. We pulled the diff, and I welded it up. We had been turning the inside rear tire to smoke on some of the tighter turns at Road America. Turns out the factory viscous coupling can't handle the 275 width tires for more than a few laps and would essential turn to an open diff. We also added some more rear camber to the alignment and put on a new set of front brakes.

Evan also took the time to properly organize our spares collection. We purchased new bins, and labeled everything and got things seperated and easy to find in a hurry.

Then the car went in the trailer.



Thursday morning before the race, we hit the road towards Road America for the spring opener, which also happened to be the 2020 ChampCar national championship race. Because we had only run one race in 2020, we weren't eligible for champion status, but it would give us the chance to test the car vs the fastest CCES cars in the country.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Niiiiice.
I've gone out for sessions when I've had to pee, but only for a 40 minute stint at most. Usually it makes my lap times a bit faster haha.

[float_6969]

Race snow. Brings a whole new meaning to Finnishfury, LOL! Love the updates!

[PapaSmurf2k3]

I've never done a track day in the snow, although we got real close to freezing rain once at Barber motorsports park during their Santa Fun Run or whatever they call it.
I have run the tail of the dragon in the snow though. Full pucker the whole time.

[VStar650CL]

Getting lost in AZ we once did Devil's Highway downhill in a snowstorm when returning to El Paso. No GPS in those days, all it took was a wrong turn. For those unfamiliar, I once worked out the figures for US 191 (formerly 666) versus the more familiar Dragon's Tail in Tennessee. The Dragon worked out to slightly more turns per mile, I think it was about 270 feet for the Dragon versus 310 feet for the Devil, but the Dragon is only 11 miles long and the Devil is over 90. Not a guard rail in sight, either. My wife and daughter can testify, in the snow that was one white-knuckle MF!

[float_6969]

Meanwhile in Kansas when it snows it goes from, "Man, I can almost see Colorado today!" to "Man, that's a lot of snow, I can only see two towns over today!"

[IanS]

Some of us are a bit more comfortable driving hard on ice/snow than others....

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Oh don't get me wrong, I love the stuff... I just have to have the right car/tires for it.

[mbolender]

IanS, I ran across this thread and decided to sign up to get in touch with you.

I'm in the rip-out phase of building a 2006 G35 coupe for Lucky Dog racing in Washington and Oregon. If you're willing to share, I'm interested in any lessons learned or interesting tidbits you ran across while building and racing your car.

[Neverready]

Hey bud. Just read your story. We also have a2004 g35 build. Raced it for a while now with a lot of issues. Got past most of them. Putting the car on a severe diet and I have some wiring elimination questions if you would be kind enough to answer. Concerned about not disabling car from cutting out wrong stuff. Thanks

[PapaSmurf2k3]

^Man that step is always a bit scary. I hacked a lot out of my 240sx when I converted it to a truck and kinda just crossed my fingers and hoped nothing disabled the car or somehow got crossed and caused a big ole battery drain.

[IanS]

Holy buckets do I need to update this. Can't believe it's been almost 4 years. Well with our first race of the season in 2 weeks, I suppose now is as good a time as any.

2022 was a relatively uneventful season. Raced the car a few times. Tried out racing with Lucky Dog Racing at BIR which is more of a bracket endurance series that classes the cars based on qualifying time. We did well, but couldn't quite hang with the corvettes with the car in Champcar spec. Brought some hardware home, but only just.

A selection of in-car.

CCES Autobahn



LD BIR



CCES RA

Getting shunted onto the grass at over 100mph.

[IanS]

2023 got a "little" more exciting. We did well at Autobahn, getting the car into Impound. Had some really awesome battles, and turned out to be some of the more fun stints Ive have.






Following that success we decided to build out a wing and splitter for the car before racing LD at BIR again. We custom built a birch plywood splitter and installed a secondhand Battle Aero chassis mount wing. The car was absolutely hooked up and we pulled off a 1st overall on Saturday. We re-prepped and set up for Sunday. Day started well, we got into the lead but during the second pitstop/driver change the team found large cracks in the Wing airfoil where the mounts were bonded in. I strapped in and the team removed the wing. The car was an absolute terror to drive, but removing the splitter to rebalance the aero would have taken too long, so I hiked up my fancy pajamas and sent it. We "just" managed to hold the lead to the end and made it a double win.

Saturday



Sunday







Aero back off for Road America and things didnt go quite as planned. Did ok on Saturday, but Sunday ended early when I used up the last of the front brake pads, turning the backing plates into steal bacon, puking the brake fluid out, and lighting that corner of the car on fire. Luckily I made it back to the paddock and the crew put the fire out before I had to pull the suppression system. The car was fixable, but with less than an hour left, we called it and packed up.

[IanS]

2024 Turned out to be quite the year. Decided to try out a new track for our early race, so we headed for Gingerman Raceway in April. Being a new track to us, we worked hard on the test day to learn the lay of the land. Saturday went well, no major incidents, and we put it in impound, but missed the podium.



Sunday "was" going similarly until I got into the car last. Most of the way through my stint, the steering and brakes started to feel funky. I rolled it through the pits and the team gave it the hairy eyeball, even jacking up the LF and giving it a shake, but no obvious faults, so I was sent back out to break it the rest of the way. It didn't take the whole lap. I hit the pits again much more sure of the cars brokenness. The pit in marshal quickly informed me that I was on fire, so for the second race in a row I headed for the paddock. Another spray with the extinguisher and some time to cool, and we pulled the wheel off to find that the hub flange had fractured and the wilwood caliper was the only thing holding the wheel on...... We stuffed a spare hub assembly and caliper on the LF, and put the car in time out in the trailer.



Then We decided to change things up slightly. In 2023 Crew Chief Shauni decided she didn't want to sit on the sidelines all the time anymore. She picked up a retired Spec Z. We made some roll cage updates, and signed up for Autobahn with a group of novice rental drivers. Due to scheduling conflicts, I was the only experienced team member there on the friday test day. I spent the morning making setup changes to the car to help it be as driveable and confidence inspiring as possible for a group of new drivers. Everyone got some seat time and we got the car ready for Saturday. Ran through all of Saturdays drivers and a few showed some real pace.



Sunday started off the same, and by the end of the day there was some time left due to drivers getting tired/overheated so I hopped in the car and proceeded to have one of the best stints of my "career". The car was really talking to me, and I came out of the pits in the mix of the race leaders. We were thoroughly out of contention, so I licked the stamp and sent it. I was able to mix it up with most of the top 5, and was actually pulling away when one of the rear CV axles let go and nearly put me in the wall. I limped it back to the pits with my tail between my legs, and for the 3rd race in a row we put a broken car in the trailer.

[IanS]

To finish off 2024 did changed things up again. We had planned to run BIR again, but the track decided to pull the date. Since we had already paid entry, we found another race on the schedule to go to. So in December Jaret, Evan and I loaded up and aimed the tow rig towards Burmingham AL to try out Barber Motorsports Park. We refit the aero, and reused the BA swan neck wing mounts to hang a 9 Lives Racing airfoil with a medium height gurney flap.

We used qualifying to attempt to learn the track, and we each got 3 laps. Let me tell you, Barber is one of the coolest road course layouts in the country, and no video or game will ever do it justice. The elevation change is next level, and makes the whole track like a roller coaster to drive. We hit the ground running and pulled out a second place on saturday by keeping it clean and nailing all the pit strategy calls. Wait to go team.









We also tested out a new one touch live streaming setup. Instead of waiting days-months for us to get around to editing and posting the video, we will now live stream the whole race to youtube. The system worked flawlessly.



Sunday turned out wet, and we had limited setup options to adjust for the reduced traction. We gambled that it would dry out in the afternoon, so we sent it as is. The FWD cars really shine in the wet, but save for an "ice mode" ABS incident that sent me off into the grass, the day went well, and we pulled out a 3rd place overall.



Sure felt good to finish a whole weekend, and on the podium as well.

[IanS]

And to bring us up to present day, both cars are prepped and ready to head to Gingerman in a couple weeks. We invaded Jaret's workplace to do re-prep so as to stay warm in the nasty MN spring weather.



And in preperation for heading to VIR with Lucky Dog this summer, the aero stays on. The plan is to go out and win EC, or brake another hub trying.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Solid update! Hopefully you've broken your streak of being the car-breaker!
Also, when I raced at Barber, they said if you go off-track and hit a wall, they'll bill you to fix the grass, repair and paint the wall, etc.
Did you ever get a bill for going off track? Or was it so wet and slick it just didn't do any damage?

[IanS]

Solid update! Hopefully you've broken your streak of being the car-breaker!
Also, when I raced at Barber, they said if you go off-track and hit a wall, they'll bill you to fix the grass, repair and paint the wall, etc.
Did you ever get a bill for going off track? Or was it so wet and slick it just didn't do any damage?

Every track I've been to bills for wall/guardrail/tire barrier repair. It's pretty standard. We were told that we would.not be billed for grass damage unless it was egregious. Since this was the first time LD had raced Barber, we were all told to behave.

I got Nissan ABS "Ice Mode" going into T5. Same brake point as other laps, pedal just went rock hard as soon as I hit it, and it locked me out. Could have been some oil mixed with the water there lowering traction even more. Luckily due to the rain I wasn't carrying much speed, so I went straight off, dipped into the gravel, and carried just enough speed so as to get out the other side without getting beached or ripping the splitter off. No grass damage that I know of, and I didn't hit anything.

The ice mode issue is one we've faced before in really wet conditions, and we have a switch to fully disabled ABS of needed, but that was the only instance, and it dried up a lot after I got out so it was a non issue.

[float_6969]

Thanks for the huge update! I generally try to avoid socials so I don't get sucked into arguments with idiots or waste half a day doomscrolling, so I had completely lost track of all your racing. Love to see you back here giving us updates!

[IanS]

Thanks for the huge update! I generally try to avoid socials so I don't get sucked into arguments with idiots or waste half a day doomscrolling.

Thanks. Definitely need to spend more time here. Car builds on facespace just don't have the same gravitas, while somehow also being more laid back. Sadly, our off seasons have gotten significantly less exciting as far as updates are concerned. After years of campaigning the platform we've "mostly" figured out the normal wear items. Typically the car only comes out of the trailer once or twice between race weekends, not including final loading/Organizations. We blast through all the reprep in a day or two then wait impatiently for race week to arrive haha. I really should get back in the habit of taking pictures, I used to be really good at that.

I sometimes wonder if Zuck secretly bought Photobucket the carpet bomb forums to boost FB.

I dream of a day when Forums once again rule the internets.

[IanS]

Had a great weekend at Gingerman with the team.

We ran the G in EC class because it's still setup for LuckyDog series rules. The wing and splitter would give us an additional 2 penalty laps if we classed the car normally.

Got the G dialed in on Friday during testing, and got all the rental drivers some seat time to get acclimated to the Z, then swapped in fresh brakes and hung a sticker sets of RS4s on both cars. We also found a loose outer tie rod and lower ball joints on the Z. Gingerman is a pretty bumpy track with a lot of sustained cornering loads, so we changed both out of an abundance of caution.

Saturday started cold but clear. The live stream camera in the Z refused to connect so I spent the morning scrambling. Both cars took the green flag with only the G streaming.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/live/3Dqva_mqKa ... LRbVTZ4Akn[/youtube]




Managed to break another CV axle on the Z. I think the ride height on the KWs it too low for endurance racing, and that combined with the exhaust cooling the inner boot, that joint fails.

I did eventually get the live stream connected in the Z, but it stuck in VR mode, so the video looks all wacky.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/live/PeS6GYtuyB ... 9ZAIBCw5Kd[/youtube]

Besides a tiny bit of contact with a car that had a delaminating tire, we had a flawless race, and we first on top of the pile. Not much fanfare because we're EC, but we weren't the fastest car there. We weren't even 3rd fastest, we were just super consistent and we nailed all our stops for the day.





Sunday started more of the same, except darker since we started an hour earlier to account for the quiet hour.

Got bothe loves working properly this time.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/live/YSBiz7ABuU ... GTkuzLyNWI[/youtube]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/live/ruhvzCDjzB ... gM-hcTDYws[/youtube]

Got shunted by a Miata at about the 7.5 hour mark. No damage, but annoying.

Fought the brake rotors warping on the Z so bad that it gave me a headache. The G ran perfect all day and we pulled off another overall win.



All in all a great weekend for the team. Both cars drove into/onto the trailers, and we towed the 10 hours home through the night. Now to reprep the car to head to VIR in a little over a month.

[PapaSmurf2k3]

Congrats, champ!

[IanS]

Congrats, champ!

Thanks Dad!

[IanS]

So, not really a race car update, but racecar adjacent.

Since I began racing way back when, I have been toting my electronics gear in a combo pelican hardcase/backpack. Back in about 2016, as the team grew, this method went from poor to awful..... We kept adding gear to the bag, and at Gingerman we reached a braking point. organizing 2 display tablets, 2 Mobile hotspots, 2 live streaming cameras, 4 in car radios, spare radio harnesses/helmets kits, a pit headset, and a whole fleet of chargers, and trying to fit it all nearly sent me into a fit of rage. It was a huge hassle, and the chances of breaking something were too high.

Before it got pushed into the corner with all the other race stuff until the week of the next event, I decided to do something about it.

I looked at lots of options, from cheap to expensive. After much thought, I decided the best option was to separate the radio gear from everything else, and build out 2 Apache hard cases.

I got the first laid out, cut, and packed. It took way longer than I expected, but was totally worth it.

Bottom layer holds the spare harnesses and programming cables that are rarely used.



Middle layer is essentially a separator with a few cuts for the really deep items.



And the top is the regularly used items.



I'm a little worried about the breakaway foam coming apart more, and I would have preferred solid cutaway foam for all sheets like the separator, but it is Hazard Fraught after all. I found the tearaway block were annoying to tear, and I ended up using a snap knife anyway. Only time will tell.

I will build out the camera/telemetry case later. After scrounging up every charge brick and cable the team had to do overnight charging I felt it was time to streamline that as well. Sadly the 6 port USB charging hub I ordered shipped late and won't be here for a few more days.