Off Topic 3L Swappin' Contour

A little update for this season so far, since ive not been on track in this since Gingerman.

As a result of putting the passenger side brake duct in, I had to axe the windshield washer fluid bottle. I don't mind not having a bottle, but on occasion it's been a bit frustrating due to bugs or road filth.

I was originally going to chop the OEM bottle up and attach a new bottom onto it, but I found out (through online research) that polyethylene is a bear to join together.

I used some cardboard to mockup a potential replacement container, but the opening was offset and the container too deep. That would have been the "best" path forward because it was a drop-in solution with a pump and nice looking lid.

PVC pipe with a cap and bracket is the easiest path forward and I'm delighted to say, at least so far, I haven't noticed any leaking

The sace I'm working with. There's a boxed section under the tape which protruded inwards towards the engine bay, so space behind here isn't as large as I'd have liked it to be. I'm limited in length. Could go wide towards the front of the vehicle, but that's added "junk" and complexity, I think.
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Chopped old bottle would have been nice to use.
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PVC bottle. Holds enough fluid to likely get me through a months' worth of normal driving.
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Here's the fill lid in the bay. I'm trying to decide if I want to have the threaded cap be the removable portion, or I just remove the clean out entirely. Both work, and I think I'll need a funnel in either case. But, it's an improvement over the nothing that was previously there.
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After some more tinkering this morning, I had the bracket bent up. I should have had the strap piece shifter further back, but I managed to get this to work through some trickery.
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I ended up having to bend the bracket slightly to clear the opening into the engine bay. The 2"-1.5" adapter was fouling on the body more than I wanted it to, and there's a ziptie that was being crushed too.
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The PVC cap as it sat in the engine bay was low and removing it meant torquing the bracket a bit more than I'd wanted to. So I got to thinking if the OEM filler neck would fit. It did, but only after I opened up the adapter a bit with a Dremel tool. Now I have far easier access, and apply far less torque to the bracket!
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Here is the near-final product. I'm letting the cement dry and once that's done, I'll leak test the setup. I'm really happy with how it's turned out.
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An update from this past weekend's autocross at Grattan, with a few updates from happenings prior to that. I was hoping to make a HPDE at Waterford Hills on the 15th, but unfortunately the brakes on the Contour weren't up to snuff, so I took my GTI instead. That was a mistake, as the brake pads and fluid weren't really suited for a track day. I got through one session and the pedal was soft, and the steering wheel was very shaky under heavy breaking. So I decided to cut the day short and helped a guy whose C5 Vette gave him ice mode and sent him off course (no accident, just copious pounds of gravel trap gravel in the nooks and crannies).

I had a hand bleeding the brakes on the Contour weeks prior to the track day at Waterford, but I had an inlking that I should check the pad wear, since the pistons were sticking out somewhat far. This can be remedied by placing spacers or shims between the backing plate of the pads and the brake pistons, which I had in a box but thought nothing of using them. So I set about installing a more square set of pads, but they were a different compound. As much as I tried to bed them in, I wasn't able to get good pedal feel, so I decided the safer route was to take another car to the event.

So what did I do to fix the pedal feel? Replaced the brake pads with the same type of pads, just new in box. Glad I did as the pedal had feel immediately, so I was very happy to take the car out to Grattan this past weekend. I threw some caliper temperature stickers on too, to see whether I was really cooking the calipers or not. The positioning wasn't great, and my results went against another measure I had access to unintentionally. The brake caliper indicators had a temp range of 380-465F and the Sil-Glyde lubricant I used on the backing plates of the pads is good for up to 425F, and I think I saw smoke from the Sil-Glyde specifically, but I've not removed the pads to inspect just yet.

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Getting exhausted with the exhaust
Another frustration I had was the rear header flange pulling off of the header. At the last AutoX back in September event that I did with the car, it got louder as the day went on and I thought maybe the midpipe was leaking, but I torqued the header flange bolts down some more as they felt loose when I had the car up in the air. Of course I didn't think much of it at the time, but I got home and found out that I pulled the flange over the "bulb" on the header... There's a local muffler shop to me that fixed the flanges up easily enough. I gave them a few options - increasing the bulb diameter, welding the bulb to increase the size of the bulb, or welding the flange to the bulb. The "easiest" option was taken - welding the flange to the bulb, and I'm pretty happy with the results to be fair. I do notice the engine rocking around a fair amount still, which I think flexes these flanges more than is ideal.

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Grattan was a blast because there are tons of elevation changes, and you have to really commit to the turns. So I was apprehensive initially about going off course, but there was much more grip than I thought there would be. My friend and I co-drove the car, and he managed to beat me. Just desserts for me beating him in his Miata at an AutoX previously. We were up against a ZZPerformance Sonic RS that was well prepped, but he thinks he threw a rocker after his first run. So it was us versus a turbocharged Buick Regal and an Acura RSX. All of us were on 200 treadwear tires and so we were all on a level playing field. The Buick makes roughly 350 HP and the Acura was on 255 section width tires, so I think the Contour did well to be within two seconds being newbies on that course. I hope that next year we can give them more grief and keep them as honest as they've been.

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Video with poor lighting of my runs, my friend's runs are also on my channel:

To do for the winter:
- heater core (it was brisk driving to the track yesterday morning)
- pull engine and transmission in order to
- inspect diferential
- lightweight flywheel
- driver's seat change to something more bolstered
- add back in the street link to the front motor mount, inspect poly-filled rear mount for longevity
- poly fill pass motor mount?

Edited to add pic of how toasty the brake pads got. This is Sil-Glyde on the backside of the pads. Adding "apply rotor temperature paint" to the to-do list this winter...

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