Captian's Log: Sink-Oh

Quick update on the Rabbit, then a little something different.

I've been tooling on the Rabbit pretty hard these last few weekends, and my past personal posts reflect that. I'm pretty much where I want to be with it for the time being, so It freed me up for other things. Before we get into that, I will start with the finishing touch that was made to the Rabbit last week.

Integrated Engineering's Stage 1 07K(2.5) Tune

The reason I was working on the Rabbit these past couple of weekends was for this, a ECU tune. I wont go into too much detail, as it's all been mentioned previously in my posts. However, I will give it s brief review.

Great.

The flash took about 15 mins, and it really makes the car fun to drive. Throttle response is tight, redline was raised, and the car just feels dialed in now. I even get pops and crack between shifts and during engine deceleration. Really waked the car up. Ill post a video when I can.

 

Now, on to the weekend.

 

Friday

The weekend officially started on Friday, when my youngest decided to run a fever, and had to stay home. Not much was done that day, other than naps and TV.

 

Saturday

After cleaning up the garage, I stopped by my Dad's house to look at and old go kart I used to ride. I'm wanting to get myself and my boys into cars and engines, and I think karting is a good start.

The old "Jegs" Kart. (It has a Jegs decal on the back). 2 seater, Live Axel

Plans are to freshen it up, redo the back axle and wheels, and the drop on the Predator 212 engine I picked up from Harbor Freight.

 

This joker was $89.00 with my Inside Track card!

Plans for the 212 are what's keeping my wrenches turning right now. Common sense would say leave it alone, and let the kids cut their teeth on karting with stock power. However I do not think straight, so it's already under the knife. Nothing serious... yet. Just a carb and muffler swap, governor delete, and billet flywheel swap.

 

Saturday ended with a little Nintendo action. Farm Simulator.

Yes, it is fun. No, I don't know why/how

This game is quite relaxing. It's exactly what it says, and nothing more. The oldest even likes it. You just tend to the fields and animals using various farm vehicles. Game of the Year.

 

Sunday

Sunday started early with church, then unrolled into a long afternoon. Stopped by Publix to pick up some subs for lunch, then the kids went down for a nap. I took this opportunity to start working on the 212. Stripped it down so I could bolt the carb and exhaust on when they come. Also got sidetracked and did some pointless (maybe) dress up to the engine. Pulled all the idiot stickers off and added some others.

 

As it was

Stripped and fuel tank pulled

Found some thermal tape in a drawer. Couldn't hurt, right? Cool fuel...?

Subsequently, I think the color scheme is going to be gold and black.

 

After that, I  turned the race on, and spent some time in and out of the garage watching the game and tooling on the lawn mower. It's yard work season. I hate yard work. However, it must be done, so I try to keep my equipment running. Spent some time cleaning the mower and making sure it was running right. I bought it in 2008, still running like a champ. Its about do for another round of plug/blade/belts. Just a cleaning for now.

 

Disassembled and cleaned the air filter housing, as well as the external part of the carb. Little feet.

FWD has been weak. Decided to clean and tighten things up.

My Foreman made sure everything was done to code. "You fix this"

Cleaned and greased the FWD system.

 

I wish this was a flame thrower and grass could scream. (Too dark?)

 

 

As the day drew to a close, a trip was made to Publix again, and the weeks groceries as well as the nights dinner was bought. Biscuits and (homemade) sausage gravy for dinner. No pics of this, too busy eating.

 

Ended the night with a late night drive around one of my "routes". I have a few mapped out routes for when I feel like taking a drive. This is a shorter one, takes about 30 minutes, full circle. One day i'll actually route out the different courses and share them.

Driving is a good way to end the day. Gives the mind a break and helps me reset.

 

 

Well, that's the my weekend in a nutshell. I think I'll be starting to add another group of posts dedicated to Kart related activities only.

 

As mentioned previously, I am on call this week. So I'll either have lots to post about, or be so busy/tired I wont have time. ONLY TIME WILL TELL.

 

 



Mudhole: Eternal

Ok, I slacked off a bit this week...

Off my game last week as:

1. We had Monday off
2. I've been with out a truck most of the week (DEF crap)
3. Had to take off Friday because the youngest one decided to be sick.

Anyways, we did have a leak or two, and an exceptionally muddy one on Thursday.

Main side, lateral leak. Domestic.

What started as a small leak, turned into a giant mud hole. Normally, when you have two services (meters) next to each other, the end up tying in together at a "Tee". Then that tee feeds into the main. If you go back on some of the posts I have had about leaks, you can see this.

Well, we expected this as well with this leak, but... this was not the case.

Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy

It turned soupy, quick.

When digging down on an active leak, it can get a little hard to see what you are doing. Most initial guesses as to what is broken is done with the hands, and not the eyes. This is why we were confused when it felt like a 3/4 inch line was feeding from the main. Normal, as mentioned above, there would be a tee. Tee's are always going to be a larger diameter that the lines that feed off of them (what we call the service). So it made no sense to have a 3/4 line feeding off the main, splitting into two 3/4 services. That would cause a volume issue for the two customers on that lateral line, should they both try to use water at the same time.

ANYWAYS.

We dug on.

Trying to keep the water off us long enough to figure out what is going on.

Is the lateral over here?

Or is it over here

The hole got wetter, deeper and wider as we went. Eventually we uncovered the right service and verified that it was indeed a single service tied directly into the main, with no tee. This would mean the other service would be the same.

The single tap off the main

The service was broke right at the main. She let go once we started missing with it.

After a new service was built and screwed into the main, we could stop the water flow, and build back. I always take this time to look at what broke, and why.

This weird metal/pvc female adapter broke. Over tightened more than likely on install.

Rebuilding each service in poly. 

Ground was still muddy as could be.

Very muddy. A few boots were lost

Made sure the lines were flushed, and and backfilled what we could.

Still wet!

What. A. Mess.

Then on to the most important part of the day. Lunch.

Well, that all for now.

I go oncall this next week, from Monday to Monday. It's my first time as an on call leader, so I'm sure that will be fun and bring it's own challenges. (I hate being oncall by the way.)

Here's to the next time!

Captain's Log: The Fourth

Three Day Weekend

Hardly did 9anything Saturday, used it as a freebie. Watched the Daytona 500 Sunday (I have a casual relationship with NASCAR), and finished off the day with some Winter Olympics. I must say that with the new NASCAR season, and the Winter Olympics, this is the most "Fan-ing" I've done in awhile. I'm looking at you, Green Bay (maybe next season).

The race was fun, and I actually watched the whole thing. Trying to pick a driver to like right now. Before the race, I had narrowed it down to either Austin Dillon (because of his seaming embodiment of the "3" car and his willingness to "wear the black hat") or Bubba Wallace Jr (Because I like Petty, and I think he see's something in Wallace). I'm still on the fence, as Dillon won the race, and I don't wan't to jump on the band wagon yet.

As far as the Winter Olympics, I have always enjoyed it more than the summer games. Almost every winter game involves speed of some kind. My favorites are the Super G and Alpine skiing, Skeleton and Bobsleigh, as well as Ski Jumping. They just feel faster than the summer games.

ANYWAYS, on to Monday (Presidents Day)

Spent most the day working on the the Rabbit, on and off. Swapped out the intake manifold for a newer revised version. The newer manifold has shorter runner, and will in theory give me more top end. Even more so once I get the Rabbit tuned.

The Old Intake - Longer Runners

The "New" Intake - Shorter Runners

Spent some time cleaning the manifold, as well as the ports on the block. Not too much build up after 122k miles. Plenty of Chemtool and rags took care of the mess.

Installed new O rings on my cleaned injectors.

Crud. This was probably the worst of the five

Didn't get too into it. Just a finger and a rag.

The only snags I ran into were reaching the two bolts on the manifold hidden on the bottom and the rubber spacers between the manifold and it's front bracket.

The first issue didn't take me long to figure out, but it did take me a while to implement my strategy. There are four bolts on the bottom part of the flange that attaches the manifold to the cylinder head. Two of them are on the outside and easy to get to. The other two are hidden, and you have to use an extension to reach through these two holes in the manifold to get to them. The holes aren't big enough for a 3/8th drive socket, but the socket bit (a 6mm allen head) does not come in 1/4 drive.

ADAPTATION.

I took my suuuuper long 1/4 inch extension, a 7mm socket and the 6mm allen bit from a 1/2 inch drive and combined them into one super tool.

I had to sacrifice the 1/2 inch socket, but it will not be forgotten.

"It cant be tight if it's liquid"

Good night, sweet prince

After that, the 6mm bit didn't fit in a 6mm socket, so I had to use a 7mm. The fit was too lose, so I had to wedge something down in between the allen head and the socket. A piece of paper clip did the trick. My tool was made, and off came the manifold.

Long John Silver

After the above mentioned cleaning took place, I started back on reassembling. "New" injectors in, and double checking on my hose and wire connections.

Old versus "New"

This brought me to my next hiccup. These stupid rubber mount things. I dont recall the engine in the junk yard having them, but my car did. The mounts were captured on my manifold, and I couldn't swap them over to the new one.

Stupid

I ended up freeing them from the old intake by cutting the intake up, and them melting and crushing the ABS plastic in a vice. Then I couldn't get the brass insert off. I said forget it and went to Home Depot to make myself a mount.

After installing the manifold and loosely bolting it back in, it looked as if I didn't need them after all (nor would they have fit.) I ended up sticking a few rubber washer in between the mount and manifold for good measure, and called it a day. The Rabbit fired up without hesitation, and a little while later we went for a test drive.

Finished!

Impressions:

I've pretty much lost all my bottom end, or at least it feels that way. I knew that I would probably experience a little drop in low end torque, but the drop was noticeable. I guess 4 inch shorter runner would do that.

I do feel, or think I feel, a harder pull around 4000 to 5000 RPMs, but unfortunately, I currently top out at 5700, so I'm not sure if this surge continues. Hopefully the tune will sort this part out.

On the highway, It looks to be getting slightly (+ 2-4) MPGs. This could just be hopeful thinking (or weather), but next trip to Orlando will be the judge.

Well, that about wraps it up for this one. 

I'm sure there will be more work related stuff coming up this week, and I'll try to get in a non car related personal post here soon.

Ok. Thats it.

Mud Holes, Forever

The week seemed to be dry and all the clothes were too clean.

But we got a chance to get a little dirty before the week was through. 

A few leaks popped up this week, some where passed off to other crews, but we fixed a few ourselves. Friday was the muddy one.

A reuse leak came in a few days before, but it was small so we let it go for a couple days.  Since it was reuse water, we shut (we thought) the main off so it could dry up (it didnt).

We headed out Friday morning to get it fixed. I hooked up to a trailer and we brought out our BobCat and a mud pump.

No matter where you go, make sure your hair is fabulous.

A few scoops taken out for exploratory reasons.

The main ended up not being off all the way, and the somebody turned the main back on with someone else in the hole. Main was shut off all the way, then the repair began. Ended up being a slipped fitting coming off the main tap saddle.

Mud hog pumping down the hole

Squeeeeezing the bucket between the main and other utilities.

I thought the main was off!?

After we got down to the break, I headed back to the yard with a trailer full of mud. That proved to be a task. All that muck settled driving back to the yard, and suction cupped itself to the trailer floor. I had to hand shovel it all out.

Brownies?

The mud did not move. At all. I even shook the tar out of the trailer and nearly broke the hitch.

After getting more dirty emptying the trailer than I did working, I loaded up some fresh dry dirt to back fill the hole, and headed back. Fuel first.

All the lights

Once back, both reuse services were built back in poly. Meter boxes were set, and we began to backfill. All in all the repair went the way it should.

Tee'd straight off the main.

Not much leak action this week, but I'm sure there will be more next week. I think we have a repair scheduled to remove a meter from a driveway, so that should be fun.

See you later!