I bought the materials from DonJer’s Flocking Supplies, as noted in the Zilvia.net article. However, I opted for the spray gun (saves a lot of time) & got orange flocking fibers and undercoat. DonJer’s site also has very nice write-ups and tips on flocking, so I will just list a quick overview & some results.

I decided to start with a test run of the orange flock fibers on my radio bezel/shifter trim.

Basically:
0) Get material & area ready (the undercoat is kinda stinky, so work in a ventilated area)
1) Sand and clean part to be flocked
2) Apply undercoat
3) Spray on flocking material
4) Let sit for at least 15 hours or so
5) Shake, pat, brush excess material off

The Result:
Super smooth funky suede style interior. This shit feels REALLY soft and nice!

I wasn’t super careful with the amount of undercoat I applied (needed to apply more), but it still turned out good overall for a first piece. I’m starting to get the hang of it now. Hopefully the dashboard & center console will be done within the next couple of weeks!

Close-Ups:

YUMMY!

First off, I was amazed that I got all the crap I did into my car (remember, this is a vert w/ a roll bar):
- 2 x 18×9 Fabulous rims w/ 265/35R18 tires for spares
- 1 x Harbor Freight aluminum racing jack
- 1 x tool box
- 1 x 13″ Craftsman bag to hold engine fluids & miscellaneous car repair stuff
- 1 x Kelsyus chair w/ canopy
- 2 x helmets
- 1 x case of Aquafina
- 2 x bags of snacks & drinks
- 1 x gym bag of my clothes
- 2 x large purses of my girlfriend’s stuff
- 2 x laptops
- a bunch of other random miscellaneous things

We left early in the afternoon on Friday. I headed up the 405 -> 5 -> 14 and stopped at Rosamond first. Refilled the gas tank, and calculated my miles per gallon: 25-26 MPG!!! I don’t think I ever had this much n/a or in the stock 240sx convertible I got as a DD (with all that equipment & passenger in the car no less). And this isn’t the “inflated” mpg’s that most 240 owners claim since their speedometers are usually off, which affects the odometer; this is GPS verified mileage + Google maps mileage averaged. Top was up, windows slightly down, approximately 14.7-14.9 afr cruising, and turbo required almost no heavy throttle action. MPG’s stayed constant for the rest of the trip (not taking into account the autox time).

It was never so easy going up 4000 ft elevation passing SUV’s & random riff raff. We arrived in time for Friday tech & the welcome party. Ran into a few autocross friends & met some old & new people who were @ the Lone Pine Time Trials last year.

On Saturday, I arrived early & unpacked everything. I was very eager to see how the Lone Pine Staff tweaked the course to make it an autocross this year; they introduced a couple chicago boxes & rearranged the offset gates on the back straight to keep speeds down. During the parade laps, I followed Mike Nakata, who took his daily driver Lexus IS 300 this year. We gave ourselves enough distance to test a few of the turns. I spun out coming out of the “North Burrows” corner just trying to keep up with him, OOPS!

The morning work group was a little long because we had to have a pot hole patched up. However, the weather was nice (even had a little sprinkle action going on), the cars were well spaced out, and everything else ran relatively smooth. The fastest lap times were in the 135 seconds or so – held by the GS Acura & AS Evo VIII, followed closely by a very skilled Mercedes CLK500 driver Carl V. (left his Porsche Boxster @ home, haha). I believe the rest of the pack was running everything from mid 140′s all the way up to 180′s, with the majority in the 160′s.

The afternoon run group (us) was an entirely different story. Things went smoothly until I hit the course, or rather hit a sage bush going off the course. I totally screwed up coming in & out of the first chicago box, the same corner I worked all morning. I really should have known better & taken it easier my first lap – there wasn’t too much room for error if you exited too quick going the wrong way losing traction.

Luckily for me, I hit a very large sage bush – if it wasn’t there, another 4-5 feet & I would have hit the ditch behind it & possibly flipped the convertible. Other than damaging my front half bumper, fenders, and ego, everything was okay. Pat (better known as Irish) & the crew pulled me out of the ditch – fyi, the FRSport / DavisFab 240sx s13 convertible roll bar also works as a great emergency tow hook! Tom P., our safety steward for the weekend, made sure I was okay, checked out the car, and lent me his air tank to blow out the dust.

I must have started a chain reaction, just a few runs after me, David B. rolled his BMW 2002 around the same area I spun out. The car flipped 4 times & the passenger side a-pillar looked completely destroyed. David seemed to make it out okay. A Dodge Viper also spun out before the chicago box on the first sweeper. The Santa Barbara crew (the City College one – there was also UCSB alumni there representing) lost their poor Acura on one of the runs blowing a hole their engine in the afternoon. My apologies to the afternoon work group for having to work a 3.5 – 4 hour work assignment!

I finished my final 2 runs, 158.xx seconds & 154.xx seconds, both with a cone. Of course, I was more focused on just completing the course during these 2 runs rather than completing them as fast as I could. This is poor Kandi AFTER I cleaned her up later on in the day:

Overall, the course was still TOTALLY fun. Despite being an autocross, it was still VERY high relative speed maintenance. I really wish we could have more than 3 runs, though; well, we were suppose to have fun runs, but the afternoon run group was… a little shenanigan-happy.

Afterward, Renee led a final parade lap with Craig’s old 07 orange & black mustang. We ended @ the middle area for Renee & family to spread the remains of Craig’s ashes.

I have the bigger version of the panorama & more pics in the gallery.

More info the Lone Pine Time Trials (known as an Autocross this year), can be found on the solo2 forums Lone Pine Time Trial Event Thread.

I decided to not compete on Sunday since I know I wasn’t going to push the car as hard as I wanted & still wanted to drive home w/ the car in one relative piece. I’ll get to practice my braking point & getting used to the car all over again at the next autox practice.

Time for a new body kit…

This year will also be the first year the Lone Pine event is an SCCA sanctioned event, which means more rules. Latest news is that we may not even be classified as a time trial anymore & be demoted into an autocross –> slower speeds, BOO. We’ll see how it all pans out.

In the mean time, I was able to put in my new secret weapon during the Memorial Day weekend:

I spy with my little eye… an S15 Helical Limited Slip Differential (HLSD) in an S14 pumpkin (keeps stock 4.083 final gear ratio).

WOO WOO! Picked this little beauty up on Saturday from a local forum member who “upgraded” to a welded diff for drifting. Cleaned her up a bit, put in some KAAZ Limited Slip Differential Gear Oil from FRSport along with a new gasket & moved over my S13 rear differential cover.

Of course, the FRSport guys let me know AFTER I install all this that I could have bought some DiF Solid Differential Bushings for the S14 pumpkin I had (I think these bushings should work for the J30 as well, since both front bushings looked the same to me when I sat the diff’s side-by-side). Donny also reminded me that the S13 super crazy rear differential cover that I wanted 2 years ago actually came in some time ago. If that’s true, I’m gonna have to work on the diff again, OH NOES! Of course, I’m just gonna hoard the parts and wait another year or two, haha.

Overall project took half of the day Saturday; it would have been quicker, but the differential is difficult to install with just one person & a jack (and the time it took to drain the old fluid from both differentials to swap diff covers). I used almost all of the KAAZ fluid to fill it up to the fill hole – filling up with diff fluid is significantly easier with the diff off the car, by the way.

This should be a great improvement over the Infiniti J30 VLSD I had in there before because (1) it’s a helical and (2) I’ll be back to stock final gear ratio (4.083 instead of the 3.9xx of the J30 diff) again, which should give me better acceleration.

As expected, the HLSD is quiet as a mofo (woo hoo oem Nissan equipment & helical power) and acceleration has improved (I swear I can feel that 4%… no, seriously). I’ll get to really test it out at Lone Pine this weekend.

Other than that, I also installed a rebuilt starter I got from one of the FRSport guys who was going to put it in their race car – my car has part FRSport race car in it now, YAY! I also finally got my sister’s Sentra an oem replacement battery & moved the Optima Red Top back into my car since the Fusion battery finally took a crap after several years & too many battery drains.

The rear view mirror’s been repaired… again… and a few pieces of new safety equipment came in recently. Hopefully, it all goes well.

My stock 240sx convertible daily driver (or “white trash” as Donny from FRSport dubs it), also got a little attention. I replaced her gross gross carpet w/ 89-90 Zenki carpet, which is in much better condition. I’ve also recently swapped out the hammered Georgia weather-beaten steering wheel for another stock one from I got from a Canadian forum member. Little touches here & there, but trying to keep her stock. Lord knows I don’t need another project car.

I’m going to “try” to get my new beefy fender braces on before the weekend, but we will see if I actually accomplish that.

Recently, Lien from FRSport had some time to street tune my 240sx convertible, Kandi. She feels MUCH faster now. I obtained a set of 17×10 Enkei RP-F1′s (only 17 lbs!) and 245/40R17 Bridgestone RE-01r’s all around. The acceleration & turning response just from lighter rims is definitely noticeable, not to mention the stickier tires.

Between those upgrades, the much needed seat time, and the very slightly better CST (California Street Touring – basically, “run what you brung” with street tires of 140+ treadwear), I’ve recently moved up the rankings from the low 200′s all the way to 148 in the last event with CSCC / SCCA.

My buddies and I also attended the 2009 Pro Solo event at El Toro. Donny from FRSport & I competed in XP (bumped to R1 – Race Tire Index) class with our RE01r’s, hahaha. We had our “battle for 2nd to last place”, which turned out to be a complete blast. Pro solo’s are about as fun as autox’s can get, with the Lone Pine Time Trials coming in at a very close 2nd. It was very fun launching against Donny on Sunday.

I’ve also attended several events before that and the event directly after. The most recent autox had a practice slalom & figure-8 for testing & tuning during rest periods. Absolutely AWESOME!!!

Unfortunately, something got screwed w/ my DVR setup & I don’t have any video from my February/March/April events . It’s more or less the same stuff, though . I’ll definitely work on getting some quality video this upcoming event – a bunch of friends and I will be working the Motorsports Z Autocross event, which gives us a free practice the day after. Stay tuned!

In any case, I found out my relative Donald was attending the Speed Ventures autocross on November 22, 2008 w/ his 350z. I didn’t even know he tracked his car at all, so I had to sign up. We bet lunch. Chris & I are pretty close in times at autox, so I figured it would be interesting to dual it out vs the 350z track edition + some federal tires (better than the oem ones in my opinion).

The Speed Ventures autocrosses are held in the small parking lot on the inside of Roval @ AAA Speedway. I was doubtful if it was going to be enjoyable at first (the GReddy Fest autocross had a bigger lot @ El Toro & it got boring pretty fast, though it was fun beating all the “hard parkers”). However, the course design was quite entertaining, with many elements stressing looking ahead and setting up correctly for the next turn. Not having to work was awesome as well. However, at $90 ($80 + $10/person fee to get in), I don’t know how often I’d want to go again.

Easiest lunch I’ve won in a long time, hee hee. It turns out he has only done drifting events, and it was his first autocross event. I was ahead of him several seconds in the morning. By the end of the day, he finally got within 1 second and some change – just a hair over 45 seconds flat for my relative, and a 43.7 for me. The fastest people of the day were in the 38′s & 39′s, so I still had quite a ways to go, but I managed to best the majority of cars there – something that NEVER happens @ an SCCA/CSCC event.

Mike Equina and Jayson Woodruff gave me great advice after they noticed how I was plowing into most of the turns despite my speed & not rotating the car very well. “Why don’t you stiffen up the rear suspension?” OOO YYEAAAA. I was running 18 all around for the past few months as a compromise between having it soft enough for more forgiving transitions but stiff enough that I don’t destroy my wiring harnesses that are right above the tires (can’t relocate those yet since the convertible has a factory brace that blocks the way). I ended up running 24 out of 32 in the rear. The car felt like a totally different animal. I was able to get on the throttle much sooner since I was no longer understeering out of the corners (in fact, I was able to sort of throttle steer my way through & out of the turns).

My fastest personal run from the Speed Ventures autocross:

^^^ Video comes out normal scale, but no “watch in high quality” – however, you can see it in all its glory on my gallery page.

The following weekend, I brought my Uncle Trinh to an SCCA autocross practice (November 28, 2008 practice). He didn’t want to take his 240z or his IS-250, so I let him co-drive my car. Since we shared a single entry, I also did the course work for him so that he could get the maximum (virtual Speed Ventures no-work style) enjoyment out of his first autocross.

We did a course walk and took some ride-a-longs during the first heat so he could get used to the whole course setup.

By the time it was our turn to run, I let him have the first few runs. He DNF’ed all over the place, went to slow in the fast sections, and turned too late in the slow sections. In one of the videos, you can hear me screaming “YOU’RE KILLING MY TIRES!!!” As the day went on, he got more comfortable with the course and car and managed to go from 91+ seconds DNF’ing to about 77/78 seconds clean.

The most important thing is, he’s addicted to autocross now, hee hee.

I managed to go from 73.xxx seconds to 71.8xx in 4 laps. The new digital recorder messed up in the afternoon, so the fastest run I have recorded for myself is my 72.xxx run & an 82.xxx run for my uncle.

Uncle Trinh said he’ll be able to beat me after a couple more events. I wonder how many lunches I can milk out of this deal .

*Videos are stretched because of codec I used – I need to remember what settings I use to get high quality video without the video stretch on youtube. The following videos can be watched in high quality if you watch it directly on youtube. You can watch the high quality unstretched versions on my gallery page.

One of the advantages of having an open face helmet (I was wearing a closed face one) is that you can hear & talk easier. I was yelling over the sound of the exhaust making sure my uncle heard me, fun times… not for my tires tho.

Trinh’s first autox run:

Trinh’s fastest recorded morning run:

My fastest recorded morning run:

Lastly, I attended the autocross championship event on November 30, 2008 – which essentially runs the practice course backwards. A lot of the regular CSM guys weren’t there (I didn’t know this), leaving only me, Art in one of his 280z’s, and Vincent with his MR2 Spyder. Jason Flores instructed me my first run, managing to get a 63.8xx second lap time while taking it “slow” and talking me through what he was doing. This is only his second time driving my car, but as with most instructors, I always learn a lot from having better drivers take my care around the course.

Even with his instruction, I choked and coned my first run with a 66.xxx second lap time. My second run netted a 65.6xx, but I knew I was a good 2 seconds off from where I should be. The final run was back in the 66′s. In my set of x-runs, I finally managed to get down to 64.1xx seconds, but my driving was not nearly as smooth as Jason’s. I was still happy I was able to get relatively close.

After cleaning up course, much to my surprise, Michael Palero yells at me “Did you see how you did?” I check the results, and BAM! First place in CSM by 1/10th of a second. SWEEEEEEET. This will probably be my only trophy for a LONG TIME, considering the SM class guys were running 58 second lap times. I still have quite a ways to go, but at least my car is finally getting closer to the condition I’m trying to get it in; and as I said before, the car, despite the automatic transmission and weight, are definitely not the bottle-necks in my driving.

I’m really glad I came out to the championship this weekend .

blurry video, but I think it’s worth it, haha.

I was still able to floor the car leaving the turns & through a couple sections. Throttle modulating is something completely new now, hee hee, but I’m glad I’m able to actually need to modulate the throttle as opposed to just flooring it most everywhere before when I was n/a.

My basically fully prepped 240sx (everything but the 5-speed) still lost to Chris’ stock 350z. Though I had a lead pre-lunch, Chris pulled away by over a second by the end of the day. I think Chris is finally getting used to his car – can’t wait to see what he can do w/ the Z once it has nicer tires. I really need to pick up the pace and get my head back into this – the only consolation is that I am faster relative my previous performances (comparing the times I’m ahead/behind most people through the past few events, with the exception of Chris, of course, since he’s been improving as well).

The video below is my first run with the turbo setup. Jenny finally took a ride-a-long with me after accompanying me to a few events.

Higher quality version is available if you watch it directly on YouTube.com.

By the end of the run, the car is on fire… literally! Luckily it was very small & easily put out. After lunch, I finally figured out why (a few different factors):

- after first installing the setup, the hi temp thermo-coat was not enough to keep the area near the turbo cool -> partially melted my brake reservoir.

- after that, I wrapped some exhaust heat wrap on the dump pipe & covered the brake reservoir and hard lines in high temp heat wrap (2000 F stuff).

- during the autox run the brake fluid splashed around and seeped out the hole/grap created by the partially melted reservoir & reservoir cap.

- after drenching the heat wrap around the bmc (explained the brake fluid smell after the runs) it leaked onto the thin heat wrap around the front brake hard line, which was directly touching the dump pipe heat wrap.

- in the end, hot dump pipe + thin heat wrap directly touching it + brake fluid = small fire.

After I removed the rest of the heat wrap, the car ran fine.

I have since replaced the reservoir & everything seems okay now, hee hee. I’ll see what happens the next event.

Video of my fastest run during the morning can be found in my gallery.

Overall, I got 13 runs – they were hoping for 16, but we ran short on time, but I was only expecting 8-12. The course layout was AWESOME. It was really nice how they minimized the space used for parking & maximized the course size while still fitting everyone.

This was my first autocross (not counting Lone Pine since it was a time trial, officially) with the Power FC & 265 tires all around. Second gear feels SOOOOO good thanks to Lien from FRSport, who hooked up the Power FC adapter & base map off Cat’s S14.

Early in the day, Mako, the one who always takes awesome pictures of everyone’s cars, took a ride along. “I didn’t realize your car was automatic until you started driving, then I just felt sorry for you.” Sad, but true. Mako noticed that I was taking the turns really wide & said I should be taking the apexs much closer than I currently am.

I had developed this style because of the lack of acceleration of my heavy stock automatic car – if I took turns wider, I was able to maintain a much higher speed average. If I slowed down and took turns too tight, the acceleration coming out of the turn felt like dog poo. Of course, I am positive I took it too far & take turns WAY too far out. During the morning, I was running 75 seconds down to 73 seconds. That was enough to be competitive with most of the newbies, but embarrassing for the class I am in (and considering I’ve been doing this almost 3 years now, yikes).

I spent half the day working on this and got ride alongs with faster guys & girls.

During my work assignment, I got lucky & only had to do gate duty, woo hoo! I still managed to get a sunburn on my shoulders because I took off my long sleeve half way through the day & didn’t reapply sunblock.

By the afternoon, I was getting into the high 71 & low 72 second range. I was lucky enough to get Jason Flores (races an 89 Honda Civic SI in STS with Steven Yeoh, check out his codriver’s blog here: http://yeohbaby.blogspot.com/). Jason gave me some tips, notably that I was entering the hairpins too fast and too sharp. After applying his techniques (which I still need to practice better), I was able to shave about .4 seconds off my time.

Here’s the video with some of his comments @ the end:

Run w/ Jason (YouTube version):

Run w/ Jason (Hi Quality version):

All available videos @ higher quality (640×480) available here: http://www.bewbews.com/wpg2?g2_itemId=1447

Thanks for the tips, Jason!

No pictures this time, I got too lazy. For those who want to see pictures from the championship (next day), you can check it out on the solo2.com forum thread: http://forums.solo2.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=203.

I was suppose to show up to the championship on Sunday too, but didn’t make it – half way into the day I realized my tire was STILL rubbing into the driver side harness. By the end of the day, relays were clicking like crazy & exposed wire was looking really sketchy. I spent Sunday patching up the harness & readjusting the coilovers – seems like they keep getting a lil loose on one side.

I’ll be prepped soon enough to get a baseline of where I stand overall – hopefully by July.

QV

To get started, I purchased an led interior dome light panel (3×6 leds – 18 total) off eBay. My particular light came from bliss-star for just under $13 shipped to my door. On to the write up w/ pics!

Note: I also test-fitted this same led panel into the 240sx convertible trunk light – fits perfectly w/ no modding at all!

Tools:
- Philips and flat blade to pry off the dome light and remove it.
- Dremel w/ sanding disc or equivalent tool to cut the plastic in the dome light
- 18 LED Dome Light w/ 194 bulb adapter (the one I bought comes w/ several adapters), or whatever size you like

Total Project Time:
I believe it took me about 15-20 minutes, most of the time moving from my car to the house, setting up the tools, and going back to the car.

Step 1:
Remove your old dome light
- Use a flat blade to pry the plastic panel off, be careful as the cover is probably pretty old & brittle
- Use a philips screwdriver to remove the dome light; unplug the connector & remove the 194 bulb at this time.

Step 2:
Trim the plastic panel so that the led light can fit comfortably with the plastic cover on. I had to trim off about 5-7mm either side of the housing for the light to be able to recess far enough into the housing so the plastic cover cover slip over. YMMV.

Step 3:
Reinstall the light. For the 194 bulb, the red wire is on the bottom (toward the front of the car). If you have it reversed, the light won’t turn on – you can just open/close the door to verify.

The led panel comes with adhesive backing, but I opted to not use it – the pressure between the housing and the plastic light cover are enough to keep it wherever you put it.

Step 4:
Marvel at your super bright LED dome light.

In reality, each of the individual led’s are noticeable (it’s not a blur like how the camera picked it up)

Note: No flash was used for this image; also looks much brighter in person.

Overall Impression:
Looks absolutely fantastic, day & night. Of course, during the day, you don’t gain any light, but the bulbs look cool. At night, there is a very even glow across the entire front and some rear area of the car. I could not accurately capture the lighting at night with my camera, but this should give you some idea.

Compared to stock, it may not be as bright spotlight wise, but it is close enough. It also feels much cleaner, nicer and more modern than the oem bulb.

If you are concerned about possible water leakage into the housing (think you have bigger problems if this is happening), you can always cover up the back of the housing w/ duct tape, glue, adhesive, caulk, etc.