Sunday was our first Fathers Day Rally-Cross. Most of the mechanical issues with the FX16 were dealt with, I even had the time to work on little things like replace the made in China replacement window cranks that slip on the fluted shaft, swap center console, move over the racing harness. On the drive out to the track though, the damaged shock cartridge bothered me more than I thought it would. During the event it would become even more obvious, I’m going to have to replace it.
But despite that, the car drove well. Well enough that I had to do a double take on the new digital scoreboard! Well enough that after Cory’s Subaru was knocked out of running by a broken engine mount and I offered the FX for him to drive his runs, he turned in some of the fastest times. Fast and clean, so much so that we are pretty sure he won overall! Duking it out with even the turbo STi’s. Cory was loving it, he was practically gushing how awesome it was to drive. That’s the first time I’ve heard someone say that engine has power. I guess it’s more the smooth power curve, not the peaky turbo power. I can only imagine how the FX will be when I fix the shocks and put in a LSD. That should bring the wheel skipping under control and allow a bit more of the power to get to the ground. I think I’ve created a little dirt monster, looks like a plain little econobox that lots of people mistake for a Tercel, but get it into a little dirt patch and it’s a fun little fiesty bugger!
The damage assessment this time around was relatively minor. The rearview mirror popped of in the middle of one of my runs. I think whoever did the windshield glass tinting got the plate in backwards. The weak mounting for the aftermarket cone filter came loose leading to loosing a hose clamp and injesting an unkown amount of dust. And the reason why the exhaust got really rowdy again was not the muffler falling off, but the flex pipe failing. The battery shifted and tweaked the mounting bracket a little, looks like I should work on relocating that. But in all, the FX came through in good shape, I’ve got spares. Till next time!
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