Would love to see more pics of the pedal assembly.
Will snag more pics soon. On vacation for a bit but back in a week.
Race number 4 is in the books. We raced at the ridge this last weekend, and it went well. Every type of weather showed up. It was pouring, then sunny, then hailing, then pouring, then snowing, then sunny, etc etc. It made racing super fun, since our car was a little bit more competitive with our lack of horsepower.
We had two unscheduled stops, both on Saturday. One was to fix a tire that was rubbing in hard right turns and we got towed in once when the water pump belt snapped and the car started to overheat. Fortunately we saw the overheating on the telemetry and were able to tell the driver to shut it off before the engine was hurt. Three driver errors also ate up some time.
The brake and suspension upgrades worked well. I finally was able to get confident on the brakes and was braking later than just about anyone, with still a ton of margin. I couldn't believe how well the car stopped, I kept pushing it further and further, and never actually pushed it far enough to lock up. The pedal was firm at every stage of the race, and the stopping power was very consistent once everything was up to temperature. I'm super happy with the setup (recap: Fiat 500 front calipers and rotors, porterfield r4s pads, Ate 400 fluid, stock rear calipers, 2x .625" master cylinders, brake ducts on the front, steel braided lines) and feel like it will be able to handle more power.
The stiffer springs helped it respond more quickly. The car still felt predictable and compliant because we didn't go crazy with the spring rates. The camber plates allowed us to dial out some of the excessive camber we had in the stock setup, and looking at the tire-wear post race it looked like it did the trick. We ended up running -0.5* and it seemed to work well.
Overall I'm super happy with how these relatively large changes just worked without much fuss. I had dialed in the brake balance on the street the week before and didn't need to mess with it all weekend. We also cut some radiator vents in the hood and made some ducts, and it seemed to run about 10* cooler (it peaked at 197 degrees F after a fast lap following someone) , but also the ambient temp was cooler than the last race, so hard to tell how much impact it had, but it seemed to help a bit and the hood louvres look cool.
So I think with these changes working well the car is ready for some more power. I've started looking around for fuel cells, and unfortunately the biggest one I can see fitting in the frunk is only 12 gallons because of how the brake setup takes up space. This is pretty far from ideal, but the driving skill on our team is almost nonexistent, so I don't think it'll be the limiting factor in competitiveness.
A bit more progress on the swap. Got the lower and upper intake manifold on, which required more cutting. Took the engine out to cut a small slot so the water pump pulley would clear, and put the engine back in. Then I undid my previous cross brace to accommodate the throttle body. Got the accessories mounted and the serpentine belt clears everything. The engine is actually easy to take in and out, the process doesn't require any special cuss words. I'll be adding bracing back in now that I know where everything lands. It should end up similar to the abarth prototipo.
As far as I can tell from heresy on the internet, the VR6 weighs about 300lbs, with the 02a transaxle at 90. Apparently the fiat 1500 weighs 230lbs and the transaxle is also 90, so this will add about 70lbs to car. If we get our **** together and corner balance the car before and after the swap, I'll be able to give more accurate numbers for the whole build.