To my knowledge, leaving that e-brake connector disconnected will not affect the operation of the low fluid level sensor. They will be set up in a parallel configuration (either/or), as opposed to a serial(need both) configuration. The warning light going off after time I'm not sure about, but I would think it might be setup on a timer (such as the headlight switch being left on after ignition switch is turned off to avoid draining the battery). I currently don't have access to a FSM, so I can't verify all that, but the 3-wire fluid level connector leads me to think there is a connected/disconnected internal test.

Shadow thank you. That makes total sense. I have a digital copy of the FSM, I’ll go through it and verify. But what our saying sounds logical.

Around here..... Lemons, champ, or luckydog do NOT enforce expiration dates on seats. I saw you had mentioned you needed a new seat since the old one was expiring soon. They check belts and window nets if you run champ/luckydog but not the seat themselves.

Interesting. I’ll have to check with John Pagel and see what he says. I was annoyed when we had to switch out belts cause ours were still perfect. Would be nice to avoid having to plunk down cash for a new seat.

If we do have to change, we’re considering the Bimarco containment seat. Few other guys I know run them in Vics and they love them.

Thanks for the heads up.

We have an older kirkey road race containment seat. Noone has ever looked at a date on it. If i had to guess its 10-15 years old. Im sure pagel will echo the rulebook. Just has to be a fixed back.

Now that everything is installed, adjusted and running, lots of little cleanup items to handle before she’s track ready.

The first thing to do was fix the clutch cable routing. It was way too close to both the EGR tube from the exhaust and the upper steering shaft. I didn’t want to remove it and have to re-bleed the system, so I removed the upper shaft, zip tied ithe clutch line below the column and away from the EGR. Thank goodness I did, because the EGR had already melted the plastic slightly around the braided stainless line. I wrapped it with metal tape to prevent future issues, although it’s about 3-4” from the EGR now so probably not an issue.

Sorry no photos of all that, I forgot.


As long as the car was on jack stands, I figured it was a good time to deal with the parking brake cable. It wasn’t as easy as I thought, but it wasn’t all that difficult either.

I removed the pedal the other day, so today started with wrestling the firewall grommet off the cable. It really only required a back and forth twisting motion and firm pulling. Unfortunately when it finally let loose, I whacked the living crap out of my elbow on the seat. Nothing funny about a funny bone. Right ring and pinky finger went numb for about 5 min. lol.

Here’s the stubborn little bugger.



Next up, there is a little bracket on the frame that takes a 14mm (ish) to remove, it’s near the exhaust and of course I burnt my arm. lol off to a great start for the day.

There are a couple little barrel type squeeze clips, and once you figure out the trick with those, super easy.

Once I got to where the cable split, I dealt with the driver’s side first.

No parking brake pedal, and no cable, means no shoes needed. Out they came. (They have to be removed to access the cable end anyway.)



Then onto the passenger side.



And here’s the pile parts when it was all done.




If you look closely, you can see I took the old auto shifter stalk off. I was going to remove the turn signal stalk as well, but quickly learned there are several plugs that go to it. 2 of the 3 of them have to be plugged in so the brake lights work. (Brake lights are a requirement of our race series.) Rather than reinvent the wheel and try to rewire the brake lights, it occurred to me I could just pull the turn signal fuse. Plus, this allows us to actually use our wipers in the event of rain.

So, fuse 11, thankfully is a stand alone turn signal fuse. Popped it out, and boom, turn signals dead. But emergency flashers and brake lights still work. At least now if we bump the stalk when using the clutch, we won’t look like idiots on track.

I got us a cool little sequential shift light. It hooks into the OBD port and is programmable. I’ve got it programmed to flash like crazy at 5500 RPM, which should give everyone time to shift before the 6k redline. From experience with the auto trans, the car held 6k quite a bit on the track, but the power actually seems to fall off a touch above 5700, so hopefully this will be perfect. It’s adjustable so we can move the sequence and flash up and down as needed.

We moved it to several spots to see where we liked it, the winner is right above the tach.

On the column was okay, but had to look down to see it.



Over the little OBD gauge that tells us engine temps and volts is okay too, but it’s not really in line of sight.




Right above the tach is the winner.


I ran out of time, but next up is to remove the rats nest of wiring left over from the night race. Once that’s out, I’ll need to vacuum out and wipe down the interior to get rid of 10 months of dust and dirt.

Alignment and tire rebalance at the end of the month, then test and tune on 5/1.

Oh, and a quick, short lap of the court to make sure the new shifter handle works. (Boy she smells good, and sounds mean with no cats.)

Click here for 30 second video.

You lost a pound or two with the parking brake delete!

Keep going...we want to see the cassette tape run!

I have had really good luck with using rubber hose underneath some fire sleeve for protecting anything from heat. Not sure just metal tape is enough. We melted two different trans cables before we figured out what worked. I also added an aluminum shield in-between the wrapped exhaust and the heat sleeve, rubber hose, and trans cable. Continually buying the same melted cable was rather aggravating.

Are you still using the egr or just have the capped piece off the header? We ditched the egr and entire evap system long ago.

Thanks for the tip. The line is a good 3-4” away now, so it shouldn’t be an issue. I just ordered some header wrap to wrap the new cat less pipes too. I like the rubber hose with heat shield trick. I actually have some adhesive heat shield, probably a good idea to just cover the hydraulic line anyway for some added protection and to keep the heat down.

We still have the full EGR system. I was under the impression just cutting and capping it caused issues. Really don’t see any need for it at this point. If I pull the whole system is the computer going to get pissed and go nuts?

If you have a tuner it they should be able to turn it off along with the evap. I would check with them first though. We just removed all of the egr ( since it was turned off )and just connected the wires on the evap sensor ( tuner could not turn it all the way off) to keep the cel off.

Pay attention to the header wrap direction. You need to wrap it from the back forward. If you dont it lets the wind catch the leading edge and it wont last long. I had good luck with the header wrap spray stuff. It seems to stiffen up the fibers and makes them less likely to get frayed by the wind. Also bought some cheap amazon dimpled heat shield to wrap the headers/collectors/where the cats used to be. It did a lot for incar temps since we had previously melted drivers shoes and given some a blister on their heel.

Thanks for the tip. I ordered DEI Titanium wrap. It’s a dry wrap that requires SS tie downs on the ends. But good tip to wrap it the direction air flows over it.

I’m not sure if Marty will bypass the EGR and Evap. A lot of tuners are reluctant to do that these days cause they’re concerned about federal law. But a block off plate and cap would be nice for putting less warm air in the engine.

Thanks for all the help.

Those SS tie wraps are [censored]. Go on grainger and order some hose clamps. You can still spray the dry wrap, i wouldnt say its required but it definetly seemed to help by creating a layer of silicone or whatever that made the wrap stiffer/less likely to fray.

Ours is race only so the tune isnt a big deal.

Good to know about the tie wraps, thanks for the help.