Jason in Texas - ext. track - 09 SS/TC

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Knowing that some of you guys are having much worse weather than here in Houston, I will not complain too much. But it did kinda stink racing today. The last autoX event of the SCCA calendar was held at a little track south of town. The organizers did their best to litter orange cones around it to slow us down. Not mentioning any names, but some of us may have put a few orange cones in their graves today...... :0

It rained in the middle of last night making for some highly interesting conditions - especially given an open wheel Goblin. We all got some car cleaning to do tomorrow. The 50 degree temps did not help the rubber stick to the wet pavement either. I think myself, Russel @Rttoys, as well as my son Cooper all tested out our drifting (spin) capabilities at some point in the day. ;)

Our Goblins are solidly gaining ground on the fastest times posted by all the different cars. All three of us started a little too tentatively. Understandable given the conditions maybe. However, we all ended up with some excellent "best" times:
Cooper - 67.6
Russel - 67.7
JB - 65.8.

So, sit back and relax from building a Goblin for a bit, and enjoy!

Goblin on friends!

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jaredthenav

Well-Known Member
OK. Hit the road block of building a turbo and not having videos to cover some of the details. I assume I have the latest hardware, since I picked up my kit last Friday. Anyone confirm that the heat exchanger gets mounted as shown below. Bolted in the front holes of the side brackets. And, the side brackets have slots, but still do not line up with the welded in points on the frame. Clearance to the steering rack is, well, tight.
And, did you pop rivet the intake plenum? Or use some donor dash screws?
Did you end up keeping both the fan and duct kit? Figuring out mine right now... It looks like to do both, I need to raise the plenum about a half inch.
 

Brett

Well-Known Member
Did you end up keeping both the fan and duct kit? Figuring out mine right now... It looks like to do both, I need to raise the plenum about a half inch.
And when you raise the plenum, it will interfere with the steering rack. I ended up making brackets to hold the plenum up and moving the entire assembly 1/2 an inch forward. This caused a snowball effect necessitating new cooling lines in the tunnel.

It is worth noting that Lonny recommends NOT running both since the fan will block airflow from the ducts at speed.
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Lonny is the expert, for sure. But, the cool thing about this kit, is there are plenty of places that a builder can experiment and make changes (for good or bad.... ;).

I beg to differ with Lonny on this one. I am certainly open to other's thoughts here on the forum, though.

I have been pleased with the performance of the fan in addition to the ducts over the past 2000 miles. I still think it is a good idea here in Houston and driving in traffic. Temperatures, geographical location, and driving conditions may cause another builder to disagree. Ideally, one could put a temp sensor on both sides of the heat exchanger and log the data with and without the fan to get a good comparison.

I do not disagree that you may get more air flow at speed than without it. However, the fan will not restrict flow much at that point. The fan moves plenty of cfm to keep air flowing while driving less than 40 mph or so at the point where good clean flow actually enters the ducts. Any blockage the fan may cause then would be minimal or unneeded. Using the fan to ensure air movement across the heat exchanger at all times, even at a stand still in traffic, is comforting to me. And with the ducts, you are assured to pull in cool air and not warm air from the back side of the radiator.

If we assume the fan blocks air flow for the heat exchanger at speed and should not be used, then wouldn't the same theory extend to the radiator? But of course, every radiator has a fan - for the same reasons I gave above.

Anyone else have thoughts here? :)
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Beautiful day in Houston today! Got to go out and dodge some orange cones with my two sons and Russel @Rttoys. I think we actually avoided most of them........

Pretty fast track, but did have a few hairpin turns that kept us from going too fast.... We ran in the first heat, so temps were still around 50 or so in the morning. Tires were not in full grippy mode and they let us know about it..

A higher-up dude from SCCA was in town to help the locals out. We were told in some terse tones were should be in E Mod class. Some here on the forum had pointed that out in another thread. So, Russel and myself in our Goblins as well as my youngest in his J32 swap Miata had our own little class to ourselves. Actually, none of us give a flip what class we are in - just so we can run our laps and have fun. ;) And we did!

We all ran times good within a second from each other with Cooper winning with the fastest lap 0.027 sec faster than me in the first six "counted" runs. Dang it......
I did end up running a 48.101 in one of the last six "uncounted" runs for the fastest lap of the day for the three of us.

I think we are all technically getting a little better running around the cones. Always room to improve for sure!



Enjoy the videos, and Goblin on friends!






 

Rttoys

Goblin Guru
What is your guys' definition of "cold as all get out"? Lol
Like Jason said, basically anything under 50. It was about 44 and a wet breeze off the gulf. I’m born a raised here in Houston. I don’t do cold. o_O
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
Not everyone who builds a Goblin will push it to it's physical limits. And that is OK. It is an amazing platform to have fun with and the cool factor is off the charts.

But if you do push the Goblin, you will find that the 60/40 weight balance will show up in extreme braking conditions in a negative way. The front tires will lock up before the rear. DF Lonny actually let this condition exist so operation would be a little safer for the average driver - versus the rear locking up and sliding around. However, with the stock setup, there is braking capacity in the rear that is not being used.

So, as several others have done, I added a brake proportioning valve to limit the front relative to the back. I have to give some of the credit to Russell Rttoys for deciding to implement this solution. He installed the same valve. And, he had the flaring tools for the brake lines. :)

I can tell you that the Goblin always stopped stupidly quick. So much so that I usually enjoyed scaring the first time passenger going into a corner and braking late. But now, Oh my! All four tires reach their limits about the same time and the seat harness gets used in the forward direction!
The real test will be our next autoX. I am hoping we can pick up a second or two that we have been trailing some of the other more experienced guys with balanced braking systems. ;)

For now, we set them at about three turns tightened out of ten. Will have to see if any more adjustment needs to be made.

Goblin on friends!

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Zoom Zoom

Goblin Guru
Not everyone who builds a Goblin will push it to it's physical limits. And that is OK. It is an amazing platform to have fun with and the cool factor is off the charts.

But if you do push the Goblin, you will find that the 60/40 weight balance will show up in extreme braking conditions in a negative way. The front tires will lock up before the rear. DF Lonny actually let this condition exist so operation would be a little safer for the average driver - versus the rear locking up and sliding around. However, with the stock setup, there is braking capacity in the rear that is not being used.

So, as several others have done, I added a brake proportioning valve to limit the front relative to the back. I have to give some of the credit to Russell Rttoys for deciding to implement this solution. He installed the same valve. And, he had the flaring tools for the brake lines. :)

I can tell you that the Goblin always stopped stupidly quick. So much so that I usually enjoyed scaring the first time passenger going into a corner and braking late. But now, Oh my! All four tires reach their limits about the same time and the seat harness gets used in the forward direction!
The real test will be our next autoX. I am hoping we can pick up a second or two that we have been trailing some of the other more experienced guys with balanced braking systems. ;)

For now, we set them at about three turns tightened out of ten. Will have to see if any more adjustment needs to be made.

Goblin on friends!

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Nice Job
 

JBINTX

Goblin Guru
For any of you doing autoX, you may be getting tired of putting painter's tape on your Goblin to denote the class.
Here is a quick and cheap idea to clean up the process.
Plexiglass cut into 10" square. Painted back side with black paint.
Had the wife cut some decals (or you can order pre-cut ones). They need to be 8" tall minimum. Magnets back side of the plexi, and on the inside of the side body panels.
:)

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