Hyundai Excel - Not a sports sedan

[turbosurfer]

Father son thats what im useing as weapon of choice. Im losing the war thou.

[MR 1JZ]

Great to hear you're enjoying it MR 1JZ - it's good fun huh ?

Its like going gokarting with 30 of your mates...awesome fun

[MR 1JZ]

Yeh so I've enquires about entereing next year s WA series and looking at excels to buy.
My son was born 5 days ago so my wife is less than impressed.......
Fuck it, you've sold it to me.

[MR 1JZ]

So my wife is 39 weeks pregnant, kid could pop any day so I made some time today to get the car prepped for round 3 (which is the Ryan Pannowich Memorial Round) So I get to go racing, even though we will have a 7 or 8 day old baby lol

Ticked off a bit of a list

- New front brake pads (winmax 6.5's were in it, have gone with the same again, have done over 200 laps of mallala on the one set so yeah pretty happy with them)
- Painted the new (2nd hand) BBS 15x7's
- Fitted up 19mm rear swaybar (biggest you can go)
- Gutted about 20kg worth of shit from the car, all the deadener is gone (dry ice fucking sweet), what was left of the aircon and stereo and a bunch of other shit, now the hard part is finding the next 20kg but ill get there eventually
- Made a new intake (oem airbox was choking it a bit up top) used the finest $28 SCA air filter and 75mm downpipe bunnings money can buy!

Car is basically ready to go for round 3 once I get my rubber swapped to the new wheels and put it back on the ground...very satisifed with todays efforts

[MR 1JZ]

So quite an eventful couple of weeks in our house, my wife and I had our first baby on the 9th of August and it was a mad rush to get ready for round 3 of the Masters of Mallala which for the Circuit Excel guys here in SA is our Blue Ribbon event being the Ryan Pannowitch Memorial Trophy round, all a bit surreal for me as last year I was on the hill watching this event not thinking this year id actually be doing it.

The small changes made to the car have made a monster of a difference out on track, I managed to cut 2 seconds off my PB and im into the 1:29's

The new wheels look fucking sweet, the offset and width is spot on



These cars are all about the 1%'ers, now ive got a little bit more grunt, a little bit less weight (Car weighed in at 18kg lighter than last round) and a little bit more grip ive moved up into the next battle pack of drivers and cars, the weekend saw me finish 18th from 32 cars which I am happy with considering last round I was 20th from 24 cars.

Hopefully I can be knocking on the door of the top 10 before the end of the year

Heat 1 I pulled a move I am pretty happy with on a couple of team mates, they buttoned off to avoid a crash, I basically headed straight for the fire and slotted the car between both of them haha



The final race was a massive 15 lapper, which was under torrential downpour conditions, I managed to have my front window fogged up completely from about lap 3 onwards so i couldnt actually see (safe as houses), you can see in this pic a thin line where I was trying to wipe the fog off, it was all I could reach from the seat...not ideal but I managed to finish without much damage and drove the car onto the trailer under its own power




Ill try and find another 15-20kg's to rip out of the car before the next round, will look at corner weighting and setting it up for me as well, probably ready to go some more agressive toe settings on the wheel alignment, still in shock as to how much fun this is

[Rascasse]

Sweet! Congrats on the kid, exciting times.

All the small changes seem to be coming together well, great improvement in lap time.

[26ODET]

I reckon you'll find 20kg. Do you need all of the washers in the car, all of the fender bolts, fuse box cover, topcoat, badges, door rubbers, latches, etc?

[MR 1JZ]

Ive still got everything behind the dash, apparently 15kgs worth of shit there. Im definitely sure ill get it where I want it.

[Andy San]

Give me a day of quiet time with it and an angle grinder and I'll find you more than 20kg

[MR 1JZ]

Your hired! Ill supply the souvlaki 🥙

[Mai]

There is about 5kg of weight you can remove from behind the dash, if you haven't done so already you can remove the rear in the front and rear bumpers to save weight. There is also some decent power gains from getting a fuel pressure regulator as well.

Got a question about the rear bar, did you have clearance with the whiteline bar and the coilovers?

[MR 1JZ]

Im assuming you mean the "reo" in the bumpers...considering the closeness of the series and my penchant for "racing incidents" im keeping the reo there
Whiteline rear bar cleared the coilovers fine, needs new bushes though, the stock rubber jobs are fucked.

[Mai]

Yeah reo, stupid autocorrect, I haven't had any racing incidents yet so I don't know how well it will fare without it.
Do you mind if I ask what coilovers and rear settings are you running? I've got Xyz and running 4 degrees on the rear and it whiteline bar touches the coilovers.
Nolathane have a kit for the excel off the shelf.

[MR 1JZ]

Sorry mate there are some things im not allowed to share on the internet, wheel alignment settings being one of them. Im running Cieka coilovers, they are shit and will go supashocks next year

[Mai]

Fair enough, I've heard good things about the Spax supashocks, i was too tight when i went with the coilovers and regretted the decision now.

[MR 1JZ]

Yeah the supashocks are what all the front runners here in SA have. It's a no brainier for me

[Bob Vegana.]

Plug the vacuum line to the fuel pressure reg.

We did it on the rally cars, for a free but small gain.

[MR 1JZ]

So it gets no vacuum reference?
Thats definitely within my budget ill give it a whirl

[MR 1JZ]

Round 1 of 5 of the SA State Championships kicks off this weekend so I have had a few sessions on the car to make some more improvements. Driver and car are now down 20kg's from when I last raced at round 3 which should put me right on the 1000kg minimum.

Everyone seems to be fitting fuel pressure regulators and making a few KW's here and there so I got one of china's finest on there, the high pressure hose cost more than the reg, rail adaptor and fittings ha!



Also washed it and scrubbed all the rubber off, came out good. Rewrap this year at some point




Thats my mates new car from QLD, after seeing all the fun I was having he got FOMO big time

And lastly I got a new race suit, someone at my work won it in a competition a few years ago and its sat in its bag in their closet ever since. Once I tried it on and it fit I had to have it




Was worn by a pitcrew member of BRITEK during their 2006 Bathurst Campaign

[mikeye]

So good! Both the suit, and the cars. Love the BRE style paint on the QLD car.

[womblesti]

Awesome race suit!

[MR 1JZ]

Yeah my mate has been a datsun nut his whole life and he sold a nice 510 to get into this so it made sense

[Sketchy]

Considered moving the battery to the boot and setting up a proper airbox for the filter in it's place? Sure to be half a kw in that if it's not against the series rules.

[MR 1JZ]

Considered moving the battery to the boot and setting up a proper airbox for the filter in it's place? Sure to be half a kw in that if it's not against the series rules.

Yep its on the list, the 90 degree bend in the intake isnt helping power so ill make a new one...out of aluminium and silicone this time...the PVC has had its day

Had round 1 of the state championships last weekend, for the 1st time ever I have finished in the top 3rd of what is now a massive 34 car field.

To look at my first qualifying session in the car and where I went on the weekend fills me with joy




Managed to finish 12th in points on the day, still a very basic car by front running standards, if I hadnt been pushed off the track in race 4 I would have finished in the top 10 easily, just need to keep working at it. To finish a couple of races in the top 10 for the weekend makes me a very happy lad anyway, I was aiming to do it at least once this season, to get it done at round 1 makes me think I need to set higher goals.




Its also the first round ive sustained any sort of measurable damage since 2016...was battling a new kid in a very good car, he had come from Karting, I actually had some words with him and his dad after race 4 shenanigans which saw him push me off the track at the exit of southern hairpin, they apologised so no blood was spilt.



Will need to replace headlight and corner light and that front guard has had a few too many love taps so it will go as well.

Now ive got plenty of time before June which is our first run at tailem bend to get shit sorted out.

[Fatboy]

Good stuff mate, congrats !

Just bought another Pulsar for the APRA series here in NSW - can't help myself, cheap fun !

[MR 1JZ]

Good stuff mate, congrats !

Just bought another Pulsar for the APRA series here in NSW - can't help myself, cheap fun !

Yeah the pulsar class seems to basically be the Excels of NSW! Slightly more expensive to run but at least they have some straight line grunt

[Fatboy]

Apart from initial purchase cost they are pretty much the same mate. If someone had come up with the APRA series idea a few years earlier they'd be in every state. Some bastard did a 1.09.6 in qualifying at Wakefield last year. Stupidly fast for what they are...

Keep posting your updates, good to see you progressing through the field !

[perthdrivers.txt]

Seriously inspiring thread, nice one

[MR 1JZ]

Apart from initial purchase cost they are pretty much the same mate. If someone had come up with the APRA series idea a few years earlier they'd be in every state. Some bastard did a 1.09.6 in qualifying at Wakefield last year. Stupidly fast for what they are...

Keep posting your updates, good to see you progressing through the field !

funny how power makes such a big difference in cars that dont fucking have any haha!

[MR 1JZ]

Been racing this all year, pretty firmly in the top 10 for the championship which is nice. Blew my first gearbox in 3 seasons on the weekend during race 3

Team got one in in under 2 hours to get me back out there and I started rear of field, managed to chop up 18 places in 4 laps.