Rice SAE One Lap Milano

[RSAE]

The last time we posted we had barely gotten the interior to a usable state. But after another semester of work, we made a dash of carbon fiber to hold our gauges, got the rear seat reupholstered to match the front seats and fit around the roll cage, and most importantly, we spent all of spring break installing a new 3.0 liter engine.

The dash:


The back seat


The new 3.0 liter, with Greg Gordon's Intake kit and silicon hose kit, (the battery moved to the trunk):


The most ridiculous part - the flywheel closer in the picture came off our 2.5, the farther one on the left is what we put on our 3.0:



At this point we're just about ready to go to One Lap. We took the car to MSR Houston (www.msrhouston.com, who have generously donated track time) to do some testing and found out our radiator is about shot - we get to 215 degrees after 3 laps on the track. Unfortunately, we really don't have the money to get a new radiator. We need the temps to stay reasonable for only 4 laps, as that's how many we run per session on the trip, so we have flushed the radiator with concentrated citric acid, put in a cooling additive, and sealed all the edges around the radiator in an effort to get just a little more cooling. In regular driving, including stop and go traffic, there are no problems.

We're leaving for One Lap in a couple of days, check out the schedule at www.onelapofamerica.com. If you live near any of the tracks, look us up. We can guarantee that we will have the only Milano in the event.

Again, a huge thanks to Andy Garcia and Mike Keith of Garcia Alfa Racing, Andy Kress of Performatek, Steve of Salinas Valley Precision, Jamie at BrooksSpeed Garage, and Greg Gordon of hiperformancestore.com. Without them, our entire project would not have happened.

Thanks for your support, we look forward to seeing you at the tracks.

[JoeCab]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSAE We took the car to MSR Houston to do some testing and found out our radiator is about shot - we heat up after 3 laps on the track. Unfortunately, we really don't have the time to get a new radiator. We'll just be careful on the trip.

[AR4me]

I see no pics, only red "X"s.

Good luck!

Jes

[La Voce]

Nope, no pix are visible to me either

[RSAE]

Try this link

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/ibanezbasser/my_photos

for the ones I posted above, but also for many more as well as descriptions of what we have done, check out www.RacingOwls.com

[nizam]

Wow, you must all be very tall. That's a very tall instrument panel / binnacle!

BTW - Joe's right. The radiator is a very easy part to replace. Have a new 3.0 radiator drop shipped to one of your destinations. The replacement should take no more than one hour.

[RSAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by nizam Wow, you must all be very tall. That's a very tall instrument panel / binnacle!

[Alex Csank]

Difatta Brothers have new radiators available for much less than the other suppliers. Having said that, I would loan you one, but the only good radiator I have is the one on my daily-driver. Maybe someone out there can loan you one for the 'one-lap'?

[RSAE]

Picture links fixed.

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSAE In terms of the radiator, we know it doesn't take any time to replace it, but it does take money, which is something we don't have at this point.

[Mezevenf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSk So lets see ... we spend money on fancy (unnecessary) gauges and a piece of (unnecessary) carbon fibre, and yet you do not have enough money to fix a leaky radiator . Priorities mate, priorities ... Best of luck, I guess. Pete

[RSAE]

Quote:

Originally Posted by PSk So lets see ... we spend money on fancy (unnecessary) gauges and a piece of (unnecessary) carbon fibre, and yet you do not have enough money to fix a leaky radiator . Priorities mate, priorities ... Best of luck, I guess. Pete

[PSk]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RSAE Our stock gauges weren't functioning (tach not even close, oil pressure dead...) and needed replacing, so seeing as we were going to be racing it, we decided to go with Autometer. Big thanks to Pro-AM Auto for providing them at below cost. With the new gauges, we needed something to mount them in, so we enlisted the help of Jamie Brooks of BrooksSpeed Garage, a local race prep shop. He generously donated the piece of carbon fiber and we made the template and constructed the final product. This was in late January. The car was running without problem until just a week ago when we took it to the race track. The radiator isn't leaky at all, we just discovered that it simply can't keep up with the cooling demand presented by road-racing. Unfortunately, we used the rest of the money from our fundraising efforts to pay for the entry fee of the event. Certainly a new radiator is now at the top of our list! We have another track session the day before we leave for the event to see if our half-measures worked or not, here's hoping...

[87Sprint]

failing to get a new radiator a cheap solution would be to make a water mister for the radiator. these are often used to cool intercoolers and would work the same way. have a look on google as i have seen these made up as back yard jobs for very cheap...