Another event under my belt, and there are still some things that really need to be done for reliability.
The grounding situation has to get fixed. In the middle of a run, the ground shook loose, stalling the car, and giving me +40 seconds, which didn’t help when every run counts. Fortunately, I was the only MF entry, so it didn’t matter too much. I’ve considered a couple different options for the ground, but I think a buss bar or ground terminal bar is likely the best option to ensure that this doesn’t happen in the future.
The next issue that I have to deal with is the oil. I’ve finally got the car to stop smelling of burnt oil every time it’s in boost, but the crankcase is only ventilated — not positively. On hard cornering, however, oil is spewing out of the crankcase breather port on the valve cover, so something needs to be done about that. My plan is to put a port on the intake pipe before the turbo and then connect the valve cover port to that with a second catch can in the middle. I need to do some more research, though, and make sure that’s going to be the best thing.
A local neons,org member was selling off some aluminium intercooler piping with silicon connectors and t-bolt clamps for a pretty good price, so I picked that up last week. What I can’t figure out, however, is what they would have ever used those pipes for — there’s absolutely no way that any of the sections would work for what I’ve got. What will work, though, will be to cut up the piping and re-connect it so that it will fit. That will enable me to go to all silicone couplers and adapters, and also to re-route the plumbing to go under the engine. In theory, I could likely get the power steering restored to the car, and I’ll definitely have more room for catch cans and overflow tanks.