I was a great morning. I signed up for the SCCA PDX following the 12 hour endurance race in early June.
All my friends from the track were there, so I wanted to make a good showing. I prepped the car and lined up on grid for my first session. I was second in line behind a BMW. Behind me were several more BMW’s a Corvette and a newer Rabbit GTI. These are fast cars, but it’s just a track day, right?
I was taking it easy since I didn’t know how the car would act, but on the first lap, I blew past the BMW and was pulling away from the field. Here is one lap from that event posted on youtube.com
And a pic of me one the second lap leading all the “faster” cars.
The car was doing well, but I still hadn’t really pushed it yet. I had purchased some new tires at the event, R compound Toyo tires, so this was also new.
As things go for me, there was a problem. On lap 6, just when I was getting going, the engine decided to blow up. A large cloud of smoke exited the tail pipe and I pulled off.
Oh well.. There goes $200 for 6 laps. I still don’t know what the suspension has to offer, but it was fun anyway.
Now that we know the car works, we need to start the ITA conversion.
Consistent with the rules, I do some searching and find the uber set up is too expensive. I opt for Megan Coil Overs from Underground Motor Sports. They come with camber adjustment for the front and are true coil overs. I figure for $800, they will work for now. Sure they may not last as long as the Koni set up, but at half the cost, I thought the track time I get with the rest of the money will would have better value.
I also bought a front Progress Sway bar from the same supplier I will find out later, I should have gotten the rear, but we all make mistakes. More on that later.
Installed, they look great
I also find out that the rear suspension beam will need to be bent to resolve the rear toe in issue. There is only one or two guys in the country that can do it, so I need to work that out, but that will have to wait.
After adjusting everything up, she is sitting low, lean and mean
I also bought a camber gauge and do my own alignment. After lowering and setting the camber to 2.5 deg. the toe is perfect at 1/16th inch toe in (too spooky).
First thing I need is tires. I received 9 wheels with the car, and found another in the trunk, so I have 10 rims to play with. I decide to get some Falken Azenis RT-615’s. This is a street performance tire, that will work well enough, last a while, and costs 1/3 of a true DOT race tire.
I spent a day removing lot of pealing stickers and giving it a general clean up. I change the oil, bleed the brakes installing DOT 5 fluid. I install a race seat for the passenger side I bought off ebay for $145, and a set of 5 point belts. I determine she is ready for the track.
I sign up for Scca’s PDX at Summit Point Raceway. This is an event where you can take your street car out and learn to drive fast. I have done some other events like this so they put me in the more advanced group, with and instructor to make sure I am safe.
On the first lap, the new tires still had a coating on them and it’s sliding all over the place. After a few laps it calms down, and I start to push it a little. It drives like I expect it would. It understeers like no bodies business, and leans like a fat chick in a boat.
The car does quite well, I am happy with the purchase, now it’s time to start the conversion to it’s current class, Improved Touring A (ITA).
Now that I have the car, of course I want to drive it. First thing was to get the seat move back as the previous owner was around 5 ft tall, I am 6′1″. I got to a friends house and we proceed to remove the seat and redrill some holes in the seat mounting and I take a ride to the end of the street and back.
First impressions are good. Plenty of power, the transmission is smooth as silk (I guess he wasn’t fibbing when he said the trans was freshly rebuilt), no strange noises or smoke from the engine. It seems mechanically sound..
Since it had been sitting for a while, some mouses had made it their home and peed on everything. I commenced on the next phase, interior removal. I must have pulled 200lbs of seats and trim out of the car. Since the car is being built to compete with SCCA, and the improved touring rules package allows for this, it was first on the list. I also removed the factory air box, and replaced it with a K&N cone filter. That will give it that nice growl when you open the throttle. This work takes most of the day so back on the trailer it goes.
Next up, I need to get it ready for it’s first track day. In order to do that, I will need a passenger seat similar to the drivers seat (race style with 5 point harness). I will be watching ebay and following up with some racer friends of mine.
This is my first race car. I bought the car from a fellow who had not raced the car in years, 3 to be exact. It was in good shape, but dirty.
The car is a 1996 Nissan 200SX SE-R. I has a 2.0L SR20DE inline 4 cyl. engine. It was built to compete in SCCA’s (Sports Car Club of America) SSC (showroom stock) class. The rules package for SS for this car was take the stock car, add some performance shocks, a rear sway bar and modify the ECU to remove the speed limiter. Other than that, the normal SS rules applied. Among the rules, it must have all the interior parts the car came with, you may however install a race driver seat and some other small items like a race steering wheel. Safety items include a 6 point roll cage, and removal of the air bags. For more detail check out the SCCA Web site.
The car had low miles as it was built from a wrecked car into a race car with around 20k miles on it. The odometer said 28K when I bought it. The body was in good shape, but many of the stickers were pealing away, and the drivers door had bondo falling off from a poor repair job.
