For our steering rack setup, we just put the hydraulic pump on, ran a 89-90 240SX power steering line (to match the side the pump is on), and then put our old hydraulic ran in. Filled it with fluid, bled the air, and were good to go.
After driving on various spring/shock combinations, it was time for a real suspension setup. We decided to go for a Koni race shock coilover setup, as well as moving to aluminum rear spindles from the 300ZX. Changing the spindles meant going from a bushing on the shock to a fork style mount. We took some very cheap coilovers I picked up locally, and changed from stock to fork style.
After getting the rear coilovers together with 8611 (single adjustable) Koni shocks in them, this is what they looked like:
The fronts still had the same style mounting, so they were a little more straightforward. They are an 8612 (double-adjustable) Koni shock.
After we got the suspension together, we put the car on scales for the first time. This was with driver in place, and some weight simulating the cool suit cooler, and I believe around a quarter tank of fuel. A little heavy up front, but good cross-weights.
Our next race was at Oregon Raceway Park, and we had never been there before. There was some serious forest fires going on, so the morning of us driving there you can see a very red sun and a lot of haze.
We showed up on a Friday to get some practice in. ORP is a unique track in that it is designed to be driven in either direction. So for the practice day we ran clockwise in the morning, and counter-clockwise in the afternoon. Our "track walk" was taking vehicles from corner to corner and stopping to talk about the track, and there was ash floating all over the place during this.
As the driver with perhaps the most sensitive butt, we sent out Nathan Feigion to feel out the suspension. We have no experience with multi-adjustable shocks.. just our single-adjustable drift cars where we've just kind of settled into "the middle" because the low end is definitely underdamped and the high end feels too stiff. Nathan went out, asked for more damping, we gave a little more, he tried again, and after a couple of iterations said, "I think that feels pretty good". And that was it. Our car was "pretty good" and ready to go.
The track is a blast! It is draped over the hills of Grass Valley, Oregon. There is constant elevation and camber change throughout the track. I had been playing with the track in a sim previously, but one thing I didn't feel the sim captured very well was how different the braking was. Coming to turn one the track drops out from under you, which suddenly reduces available braking. The in the braking zone for turn 3, the track goes up giving a sudden increase in braking traction. There are definitely a lot more layers of complexity than I was used to, as most of my laps have been at Portland where it is dead flat.
Feeling pretty good and ready for some rest, we headed back to our motel for the night.