2014 Season Grinds To A Start

The MRolla is "ready" for the first race of 2014. Engine compression is even and at tolerable levels. Alignment and brakes have been fussed over. New safety requirements have been met. Niceties have been added.

The new improved cockpit.

The original MRolla cockpit.

When we built our second twin-engine lemon, we applied much of what we had learned worked and didn't work in the MRolla. One result was a much nicer cockpit in the FX32. We went back to work on the MRolla updating the instrument layout, improving shifter and extinguisher mounting, and replacing the welded passenger door with a functional door.

Our door bars did not meet a new safety specification. We added a third driver's door bar and a second passenger door bar.

Lower door bar added.

One of my favorite aspects of racing shitty cars is you can paint them however you want and as often as you want. The aesthetic of the previous theme's brown had dwindled before the latex interior house paint had dried. In a marathon of OCD fueled grinding, we stripped the car down to exposed layers of paint and bare metal, then clear coated it. The result is almost not horrible.

Archaeological.

We cut the number from the old door and tack welded it to the new.

A new rear window to meet new safety specs.

Most of the latex paint just pulled away from the AE92 hood's factory finish.

We added a new rear window, now a safety requirement to protect the driver from potential rear engine bay fires.

Also we welded on some feisty new tow hooks.

A the end of the last race the only issue we had was the rear end gauge cluster was dead. This turned out to be a blown fuse. The car was otherwise about race ready. Along with mild to unseasonably pleasant weather, this was a relatively low-pressure and enjoyable race prep.

Big Lapse Of Judgement

Yeah? Well. Watch THIS:



Learning from the mistakes and lack of footage from the MRolla project, we were pretty diligent setting up the tripod every day we were at the shop working on the FX32.

Footage was shot one frame every 30 seconds, for a total of 20,684 stills, representing over 172 hours at the shop. There were maybe 5 hours we were unable to shoot over the course of the project. I rendered it in 800x600, and to get the length down while using ALL of the still images, it is 60 fps. It was the first time I'd ever used Adobe Premier Pro, so there was a little time lost to the learning curve, but I really enjoyed putting it together, and I'm just a bit proud of the results.

Yes, you do recognize the music. English Beat's "March Of The Swivel Heads", an instrumental remix of "Rotating Heads", is the song at the end of "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". I did do a bit of editing and extending to sync the song's and video's features.

I'm glad this video project is done, but if someone had some good in-car or bumper-cam footage of the FX32 on track, or especially any footage of the crash with Metro-Gnome at the final turn of the race, I would love to include such footage.

I'm a bit disappointed with the quality of the Youtube stream. I think once it gets enough traffic Youtube enables HQ, but I'm not sure how that works. Youtube will allow you to download the full quality MP4 file.

Coverage

Rear engine is now mounted.

The new build is moving along nicely. The project is getting some coverage and discussion around the web.

I've been updating some build threads on various enthusiast forums where some Q/A is happening:

AE82.net, A favorite little community specific to this generation of Corolla.
MR2OC, The most authoritative MR2 community on the web.
The 24 Hours Or Lemons forums.

Scott Ith, our new and hopefully regular teammate writes for Hooniverse and is a prolific automotive blogger. Here are articles he's done so far:


At Hooniverse:
Teaser
Build Update
Build Update 2
Build Update 3


At Scott's "Need That Car" blog:

Teaser

Build Update

The most thorough photo album is on the Farcebook.

Another Fine Mess

I was looking forward to a nice relaxing 2013 race season; Racing in cars that are built already; Leisurely eliminating donor cars from my yard as I piece together a new daily driver. Instead, these brief conversations that occurred in less than an hour have altered my future plans considerably.

Call from Bill:

• Bill- Do you want my MR2?
• Me- Not really. What shape is it in these days?
• Bill- It’s not registered. I couldn't pass emissions. You can have it.
• Me- I don’t know what I’d do with it. Why don’t you sell it?
• Bill- It’s at my old apartment and they want it gone. I've moved to Idaho and don’t have time to come deal with it.
• Me- Did you call a scrap yard? I’m sure you could get a couple hundred for it.
• Bill- I can’t find the title. 
• Me- I really don’t want it at my place. Let me talk to Bender. Maybe we could flip it,

Call to Bender:

• Me- Do you want Bill’s MR2?
• Bender- No.
• Me- Free?
• Bender- Free?
• Me- Yeah. It was running after we helped him with that timing belt. Maybe we could fix that oil leak, swap in a 5 speed, get through inspection, and sell it for a few hundred bucks.
• Bender- Well  if it’s free…
• Me- I doubt it would take more than a weekend. I’m not going to have much time until February, and then we should be prepping for the March race.
• Bender- OK, I think we could do it.

Call to bill:

• Me- OK, we’ll take it.
• Bill- Thanks! The key is in the ignition. There are some parts in the seat and the battery is gone, but it should run.
• Me- Alright. Should have it gone soon.

Text with Bender:

• Me- You working? Do you have jumper cables? At lunch and Bill’s place is on the way back to the office.
• Bender- Out running errands. Have a tow strap. Could be there in 10.
• Me- OK.

Conversation with Bender after towing the car to my house:

• Me- This car smells like Hantavirus.
• Us- (Blah blah blah. This car is horrible.)
• Bender- It would great to show up at a race with TWO twin engine cars! 
• Me- (I think at this instant I was abducted by aliens, brainwashed, and placed back on earth with no interruption. Note the change in my thought process.) An FX16/MR2 would be GREAT! We could use this MR2 and I have at least one FX that is otherwise destine to be scrapped.
• Bender- I need another project.
• Me- If you are serious, I’m in. But I’m busy until February. Let’s target a race after Sears Point in March, like Colorado in June.

Facebook before I get back to the office:

• Bender- We’re bringing two twin engine cars to Sears Point in March!

At this point, I think Bender needs some sort of regular psychotherapy and/or meds, and if I don’t already, I will by March.

Miscellaneous Debris

Much going on lately. Here’s a run-down:

Joe, Bow, and Randall ran the Snowspeeder at the debut race of The Ridge. They had a blast, worked through a few issues, and placed 15 of 45.

We’re prepping the MRolla for the September Thunderhill race. Other than checking compression and fluids, no maintenance, much less upgrades, have been done to the front engine. The water pump held on through the Denver race but was dribbling, so this weekend Paul and Will got to work on that. When they opened the covers they discovered that the timing belt was far gone. Very lucky this didn’t fail on track. I’ve never seen one so worn and still functioning.

We often find ourselves struggling to get the main pulley nut off our 4AGE engines. This time we fabricated a tool allowing us to hold the pulley and still torque the nut off with a breaker. It was handy this weekend and should be in the future.

While Paul and Will did the water pump and timing belt, I started rigging a new manual kick-down control for the rear automatic transmission. I used a bike brake lever and cable, and shortened the shift lever in the process. What you see is the manual shift lever for the front engine’s manual transmission, that also has a grip lever that will control the shift RPM of the rear automatic transmission. It will shift at about 5300 RPM when the lever is released, and at about 6500 RPM when the lever is activated. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but we are optimistic this will improve our climbing and low speed corner exits significantly. Our secret (but published on our Farcebook page) weapon!

In non-racing news, I’m getting a new garage. In the last two weeks my old shack has been demolished and removed, concrete pumped, building and roof erected, and electrical installed. Some roofing, hanging the doors, and parking concrete will complete the project. This will allow me to house the “nice” car, as well as a project car, and a bunch of bikes. The additional concrete will be used for additional parking and parts car storage.

Knowing an increase in capacity is forthcoming, I have already obtained enough vehicles to surpass the additional space. I picked up a rusty but straight Corolla FX which is wimpy, carbureted, with disposable brakes and suspension, but has some body and interior parts that will be useful. Then in exchange for deliver of a giant old V8, an AE82.net fellow gave me an FX16 GTS, which looks like a good candidate to receive all the best parts from the three hatches.

New Lapse Of Judgement

Remember the old time-lapse videos of MRolla construction? Well I've revisited the video project and created an updated, single, more complete time-lapse that includes some additional stills and video. Enjoy!

T-minus Tomorrow

I want one.

We leave tomorrow morning, bright and ugly. We're feeling well prepared. I'm getting excited. I'll mention a couple odds/ends then try to get some updates done during the race. No promises.

I'm hoping to get a spiffy "Toyota 4WD" badge for the MRolla. I've had my eye on the local junk yards for the last month or two with no success. May stop at a junkyard on the way to the race and see what I can scrounge.

On bit of MRolla tech we’ve never really mentioned is the rear air flow. The stock radiator for an MR2 is the front of the car. When constructing the MRolla we opted to move the rear engine’s radiator to the back. This reduces plumbing, which is one source of trouble in many MR2s, and also avoids contention and fit issues with the Corolla’s radiator. We obviously have two big scoops on the rear corners pulling air into the trunk space, and the radiator is visible at the rear end. We’ve also placed oil and automatic transmission coolers inside the scoops.

From the left we have transmission fluid cooler,

electric water pump, radiator, and oil cooler.

We finalized our kill switches. Paul matched the paint on the b-pillar box, we got the labels on, and the switches mounted. I love the new location and think it’s going to be a very useful modification.

Complete new kill-switches, and you can see the rear scoop

that directs air to the transmission cooler and radiator.

MRolla Transmission Lessons

Transmission configuration is surely the most interesting and debated issue of the twin engine MRolla. We considered several configurations, feasible and not, but opted for what we felt would be the simplest to drive, most reliable on track, and easiest to build.

First we considered possible combinations of manual and automatic transmissions. We were initially drawn to two manual transmissions, as are most people with opinions on the MRolla, but just under the surface of a seemingly simple concept lurk highly technical problems in control linkages and synchronization. Even if we had time, I'm not convinced there would be a racing-reliable way to execute dual manuals.

Two automatics would be easiest to execute, but was too... automatic for our tastes. With the lessons learned from the MRolla this far, I think dual automatics are quite feasible for endurance racing.

We chose to use one manual and one automatic transmission to simplify control and execution. We didn't really care which end had what, but Paul observed we could use the Corolla's pedals unmodified if we put the automatic on the rear MR2 engine. We like simple. Throttle cables for both engines are attached to the original Corolla pedal, allowing us to put the rear engine in drive and ignore it (until we need reverse), then drive "normally" using the Corolla's original controls. This has been successful on track for three endurance races so far.

Here you can see the dual transmission
controls and instrument clusters.

First problem: Many drivers shift by sound intuitively. That doesn't quite work with the MRolla because the rear engine with the automatic has a louder exhaust than the front manual. This situation quickly reveals the danger of the rear engine pushing the front engine past red-line to detonation. Our solution is a shift light on the front engine. There is a short learning curve of a few laps before drivers get used to dismissing engine sounds and watching the shift light.


The picture is a little abstract
but this is the top of the
throttle pedal with both
throttle cables attached.

Next problem is controlling the automatic. Ours is a fairly simple automatic from an 1990ish Geo Prizm (Corolla), no fancy-schmancy computer control, but it has several potentially complex factors affecting it's shifting: Engine speed, axle speed, kick-down cable, electronics, overdrive switch, and the shift lever. Much to consider.

We figured out a way to electronically shift the automatic using multi-position switches, but didn't execute it. I envisioned a twist knob to shift the automatic, on top of the manual shift lever, so the driver could control both transmissions with one hand concurrently. Not only do I think this is feasible, but would top coolness charts. But meh... We found a quicker solution and so far: "Ain't borked. Don't fix".

We assumed manually controlling the automatic shift lever while operating the front transmission would be too complex and confusing, but it didn't take long for some drivers to start grabbing lower gears in the rear on certain hills and corners. Manually shifting automatic transmissions actually seems pretty feasible now. Since we wanted to simplify driving as much as possible, and maximize reliability of the rear engine and automatic transmission, we leave it in "D" by policy.

Here the kick-down cable is simply
extended a few cm and clamped
in position.

For the MRolla's first race we stumbled upon a fortunate set up. Our engine, originally with a manual transmission, didn't have a linkage to connect the "kick-down" cable to the throttle. What's a kick-down cable? You know how you can romp on the gas in an automatic car and it will down-shift and operate at higher RPMs until you ease up? The kick-down linkage basically informs the transmission when driver is standing on the gas. Since we ran out of production time to link this mechanism to the throttle, we just left it disconnected. During initial test laps we observed the shift point was an extremely low RPM, and we could get no power without manually operating the control lever. So we pulled the kick-down cable out a bit and clamped it in position. That gave us a happy 5500 RPM shift point, and the clamp stayed for two races.

This is not really directional. Shift points are the same
whether increasing or decreasing speed.

Above we see that with the kick-down cable fixed in position, automatic shifting is a simple, nearly direct function of the speed of the car. Whatever may be happening with the throttle pedal or the other engine and transmission, the rear transmission keeps it's gear selection until it hits the shift RPMs. Deceleration works the same way. For racing this automatic shifting is nearly as intuitive as manual, since you generally want to shift at a peak RPM to maximize power.

Here you see the throttle cable
above, and kick-down cable below,
are linked.

For our third race we tried to improve our automatic control and played quite a bit with the kick-down linkage during test/tune. We hoped we could vary shifting according to throttle pedal position like a normal automatic, giving harder acceleration out of corners, and allowing the engine to rest during low speed situations like yellow flags. We linked the kick-down and throttle cables and put a few drivers through the course. It worked, but it sucked. The transmission varied shift RPMs relative to throttle position, as planned, but as illustrated below, this gave the automatic schizophrenia.

Note the automatic transmission initiates 11 shifts
compared to 3 with a fixed kick-down cable.

Shift initiation (represented by diamonds on the bottom row) was now a function of car speed plus CHANGE in throttle position. For each manual shift of the front engine, the driver releases then engages the accelerator, causing the rear automatic to disengage and initiate shifts twice. The normal automatic shift points due to acceleration are also in the mix. The automatic didn't have time complete many of these extra shifts before throttle pedal changed its mind again. The results on track were frequent, incomplete, hard, clunky, and unnecessary shifts, especially entering and exiting corners.

For the race we went back to the clamped kick-down cable, but at maximum pull. This pushed the shift point to about 6300 RPM. This high rear shift point had an unexpected affect: It put an unbalanced work load on the rear engine. Shifting the front, healthier engine was happening at 6000 RPM, or lower under relaxed conditions. Situations like coasting down The Carousel, we were idling the front engine, but flogging the rear engine. That engine had been past due for catastrophic failure since we first welded a cage into the original V-RAM MR2, and had a long racing career of repeated over-heating since then. We ended up blowing the head gasket.

Finishing the race on a blown engine.
Thanks to Judy Kiel for the photo.

So we killed an engine in the learning process, but have a pretty refined, effective configuration now. For the upcoming Infineon race we'll have the fixed position kick-down cable, targeting about 5700 RPM or less.

Progress

Here are a couple more pics of our B-pillar-kill-switch-box:

Paul's bondo work keeps everyone guessing
where factory  Toyota stops and MRolla begins.

I really like Paul's bending and shaping work.

Paul and Will have been getting the spare engine rebuilt and it's nearly ready. It's going to live in the DOT.MATRIX for a few weeks to break it in before Infineon, where hopefully it will just stay in the back of the truck.

Shutov Assembly

The only rule change that has much affect on us this season is the kill switch location must now be within driver's reach. Pretty sensible.

Old kill-switch location was just out of reach behind driver's shoulder.

We thought the optimum location would be on the cage's front down tube just above the steering wheel, but our car is pretty crowded and we feared it would hinder steering or be accidentally killed during more aggressive/frantic maneuvers. We toyed with several ideas and finally acted on this one. We thought the old location was excellent for all use by non-drivers and wanted to alter it to be within reach, but there just wasn't the clearance between the cage and pillar to make it work well. Having two engines and kill-switches compounds the issue. So we cut out the pillar and Paul fabricated a big sturdy box. Now the driver reaches the switch just over the shoulder, and anyone outside the car still has easy reach.

Easy over-the-shoulder access.

Out With The Old. In With The Less Old.

We've been wrestling a lot of engines lately. The Toyota 4AGE engine is the stock engine in all of our race cars, and many of our street cars. Since last summer we've accumulated three of the more desirable "small port" variety 4AGE.

The previous rear MRolla engine complete with automatic transmission. We used all of it's electronics on the new engine.

Here are the varieties of 4AGE engines found in USA market versions of Toyota Corolla GTS, MR2, FX16, and also in the Chevy Nova Twin Cam and Geo Prizm GSI (both rebadged Corollas).

• Blue Top: 112 HP. 1984 - 1987.
• Red Top: 120 HP. 1987 - 1989.
• 4AGZE Supercharged: 145 HP. 1988 - 1989.
• Small Port: 130 HP. 1990 - 1992.

Through the rest of the century Toyota and Yamaha continued to refine the 4AGE with 20 valve and variable valve timed versions reaching over 160 HP, but no domestic cars offered these versions.

The 1990 Prizm GSI that sourced our first small port 4AGE.

Fuel for a day of  chopping cars.

I found a cheap, thrashed Prizm GSI I figured would make a good engine donor for my FX16. The thing polluted my driveway for months. 

In the mean time an acquainted MR2 enthusiast sold me another small port 4AGE he had replace with a 20 valve version in his street car. It was wired to plug and play into a blue top equipped car, and was a trusted clean and ready engine. It was an even better choice for my FX16. 

Paul with the fresh pull.

Then at the October Infineon race, we killed the MRolla's original rear engine, and Paul's spare. We had a new home for the Prizm engine.

The remains of the Prizm.

New recruit Will and my friend Jared
at the junk yard.

Over the holidays I found another small port at the junk yard that seemed to be in good condition. I arranged an afternoon off work and we rallied to yank it before the gulls at the yard picked it too useless bits. This one will probably be a spare at the next race and then end up in who knows what car.

The new year has been very productive so far. Last week we helped initiate Paul's new shop. We yanked the dead rear engine from the MRolla. Today we finally got the Prizm engine installed and fired up in the MRolla. 

This small port 4AGE now lives in the rear end of the MRolla. Fired up on our first try and sounds great.

Bad news. Another Prizm GSI driveway turd just showed up in the local classifieds. Maybe we don't need all the small port donors that come available in this town. Maybe we find homes for some engines first. Or maybe we drop a low-ball offer and see what happens.

Another already?

More MRolla

Another HUGE field at Infineon, 164 cars. FUN!

Infineon October 2011: Nutshell version is we blew two rear engines but kept racing on just the front to finish 106 of 164.

We rolled into California early enough to attend the Evil Genius Racing party on Thursday. Evil John was as interested to see dyno results for the MRolla as we were.

On the dyno at Evil Genius Racing.

Front - 97 HP @ 6500
86 ftlbs @ 5250
Rear - 82 HP @ 6300
71 ftlbs @ 5100
Combined : 179 HP & 157 ftlbs.

We also put it on scales:
2810 pounds.
52% front 48% rear.

Drivers were Paul, Judy, Sparky Pete of Killer Zombee fame, and yours truly.

Thanks to Judy Kiel for this photo.

We had a good test/tune day Friday. Dialed in our alignment. The double springs up front made a huge improvement in body roll.

Looking at some photos I think we need to review our tire and pressure decisions. Below is the MRolla rounding the tightest turn on the course on our usual set of 195/50 tires on 14x5.5" stock wheels.

Our friends the Black Flags bearing down. Thanks to Judy Kiel for this photo

Note that the tires look like they are about to rip right off the rims.

Tires look like they are barely hanging on.

Compare to the Snowspeeder's new 205/50 15x6.5" and 15x7" staggered set.

I heart these wheels. Thanks to Judy Kiel for this photo.

As usual, the MRolla was among the fast cars when it was running on both engines, but we (I) blew a head gasket in the rear. So we disconnected the axles and finished day one on the front engine, swapped the engine overnight, forgot to adapt plumbing for our electric water pump, overheated and trashed the second engine, raced most of day two on the front engine.

Wee hours of engine swap. Thanks to Judy Kiel for this photo.

Paul and I were at the track until 1:30 am doing the swap. The lack of sleep really fatigued us and the next day was exhausting. I literally couldn't keep my eyes open while I was watching the race and Paul ended up doing a good share of my driving.

We did get smashed into by two other cars. I'll try to get some details and pics of the damage posted later. Also I'll post about some of what we learned bout our transmission system.


Overall we still had a ball and enjoyed all the challenges. Learned much about our car and we can't wait to make another run with the MRolla.