Street Prepared build

[xelderx]

Finally a little update.

I've run a few more events since the last post and I've had to change a few things. The major problem, aside form the burning oil, was the Hoosiers. After the event where I won Pax I went to racing on concrete at a 2-day event. My first few runs were good and then I just kept getting slower. I still won FSP, but I didn't have much competition (2nd place was 11 seconds behind me). I went to Danville, VA the next week and I corded the front Hoosiers pretty bad. It seems that after I won PAX at the second event on them the tires started deteriorating. I'm pretty disappointed in them since they had no life on my car. When they were good they were great, but after that they were dead. I've now purchased a set of Hoosier R3S04's 225/45-15 used for less than 1 new tire. I'm hoping the roadrace compound will last me a little longer and that I'll be able to get them hot enough. I also got all 4 in 225's so I can rotate them properly to extend the life. I recieved another full motor from the dealer (VTCS screw rattled out and went through it). It has very low miles on it and I should have it rebuilt in the next few weeks. Once that is done I can swap it out and get started on tuning the MPI.

I have a set of Momo Start seats headed my way and once I get them installed I have the car weighed again.

 

[xelderx]

I'm back from the AutoX on Sunday. I am happy to say that the roadrace compound Hoosiers did what I wanted them to do. My first 2 runs had me sliding a lot since the tires just weren't hot enough yet. I fuel starved the car on the second run so I made a run to the gas station and I made sure I got the tires up to temp on the way back. I was guessing at the air pressures in the morning, but I got lucky and stuck with my initial guess. I kept bleeding off the pressure build up as the tires heated up and running 35psi front and 30psi rear seemed to get me pretty even tire temps and full tread use. My last two runs were pretty solid and I felt I maxed them out to about as fast as I was going to go on that course. There was a downhill, 4 cone slalom right out of the start that I probably could have knocked off another 10th or so, but with only 4 runs and only 2 runs on hot tires I didn't want to risk a penalty so I drove pretty conservative. I'm thinking about finding someone to co-drive with me for the rest of the season to help keep the tires up to temp. I finished 1st out of 5 cars in FSP, but I wasn't up against any well prepped cars. 11th place Raw time and 5th place Pax will keep me satisfied until my next race on the 24th.

 

[mp5smuggler]

good job man
very good job.

 

[122 Vega]

I didn't want to risk a penalty so I drove pretty conservative.

At the National Tour in 2001, right before the finish there was a Chicago box that broke up a semi long straight to the finish gate. By mid-morning it was discovered (mostly by the Corvettes and Vipers) that if you the last corner cone fast enough, you'd save time with the penalty. Funny seeing this cone get systematically destroyed over the afternoon. Not funny for those station workers.

Track had been redesigned by the next morning.

Britt

 

[122 Vega]

BTW, in your sig you're wearing a Motocross helmet? Are those legal for SCCA Solo 2? They aren't here.

Britt

 

[xelderx]

BTW, in your sig you're wearing a Motocross helmet? Are those legal for SCCA Solo 2? They aren't here.

Britt

My regional club is independent from the SCCA and our helmet rule is a little less strict, but I'm in the market for a new helmet before the Norfolk Divisional in October.

 

[xelderx]

At the National Tour in 2001, right before the finish there was a Chicago box that broke up a semi long straight to the finish gate. By mid-morning it was discovered (mostly by the Corvettes and Vipers) that if you the last corner cone fast enough, you'd save time with the penalty. Funny seeing this cone get systematically destroyed over the afternoon. Not funny for those station workers.

Track had been redesigned by the next morning.

Britt

There was a thread about this a few monthes ago on the SCCA forums. I always have it in the back of my mind to look for things like this. Most of our local course designers know to double cone a potentially "faster by hitting it" area. Those instances are so rare though. It takes a hell of a box to take up 2 seconds.

 

[122 Vega]

It takes a hell of a box to take up 2 seconds.

True, but when that box is in the middle of a 75+ mph straight, it will eat up two.

Britt

 

[Orthonormal]

As long as the motocross helmet is Snell M90, M95, or M2000, it's legal to use in SCCA Solo2 events. (When Snell releases the 2005 standards, M90 won't be allowed any more). I tried on a really nice motocross helmet made by Arai last year. The visor and chin guard were removable, leaving an extremely lightweight open-face helmet with an M2000 rating. Too bad it cost $400!

 

[xelderx]

As long as the motocross helmet is Snell M90, M95, or M2000, it's legal to use in SCCA Solo2 events. (When Snell releases the 2005 standards, M90 won't be allowed any more). I tried on a really nice motocross helmet made by Arai last year. The visor and chin guard were removable, leaving an extremely lightweight open-face helmet with an M2000 rating. Too bad it cost $400!

I know exactly which helmet you are talking about. We used to have a couple at the motorcycle dealer I worked at. I love the Aria's, but when it comes to a SA2000 helmet I'll have to get something a little cheaper.

 

[Lt. Dan]

I'm loving my Bell SR-Pro... wide open eye area, and no visor....

Dan

 

[xelderx]

I'm loving my Bell SR-Pro... wide open eye area, and no visor....

Dan

The yellow helmet I have now is an M2R RevX that I got super cheap when I worked for the motorcycle dealer. It's a kevlar/fiberglass shell which makes it crazy lightweight, but I'll look into the Bell's pretty soon once I get the rest of the car sorted out and I can keep tires on it for more than a month at a time.

 

[xelderx]

Alrighty...a very long overdue update. So, I've been having trouble keeping R-Comps on the car for any reasonable length of time. It may be partially due to being too aggressive on them, but watching a video of a few runs something else became obvious. Without the front swaybar hooked up there is way too much roll in the front. The car has been handling great and the extra roll in the front end hasn't seemed to slow me down any. I think it made the car a little more predictable since it had a little give to it. Anyways, I decided it was time to put a front swaybar back on the car. I dug my stock bar out of the parts bin along with my AWR endlinks and a little while later she's back on the road again. I knew that having the swaybar on the car again was going to unbalance the suspension from the great setup I had. I decided to leave the 450lbs springs up front and to attempt to rebalance the car I went up to 450lbs springs on the back as well.

I haven't really pushed it too much yet as the whole setup has taken the huge sweetspot the car used to have and made it much smaller. I used to be able to toss the car into any corner at will and control any oversteer with throttle input and a little bit of countersteer. Now the oversteer is much faster and once it's out it's harder to control the direction of the car. I'm used to the backend stepping out and being able to floor it right after the apex and the car just settle in and take off. With the new rear springs the oversteer is a little more abrupt and I haven't quite built any confidence in it yet. Once the rear end is out the throttle/steering input to control the slide and aim the car at corner exit doesn't quite work the same now. Where I used to be able to flatfoot it in the middle of a little oversteer, now a heavy bit of throttle actually causes the front to start pushing. This is a little unnerving since now all 4 wheels are sliding instead of the normal 2. Now that the front is pushing/sliding the steering input goes away unless you actually let off the gas. That was a big no no with the old setup unless you wanted more oversteer. It will probably just take a little figuring out on my part. I'm going to loosen the rear bar a little and possible swap the front 450#'s out for my 375#'s I don't want to introduce more roll into the chassis, but I miss the old sweetspot. It made driving the car a no brainer since as long as you could turn the wheel fast enough to catch the oversteer the front of the car was going to go where ever you wanted it to.

 

[chaosProtege]

might have to start racing dirt rally!

 

[xelderx]

might have to start racing dirt rally!

I think that would be a hoot, but I have enough creaks and pops in the suspension as it is now. I also found while I was swapping springs around that niether one of my rear struts are in good shape. One is blown and the other is on it's way out. I couldn't imagine how much crap I would break doing rallies.

 

[aMaff]

a lot....

 

[xelderx]

Ok...a little more info about the new setup. I've had a chance to do some aggressive cornering and I think I'm tuned in to the suspensiona little better. The key to driving the car fast has always been corner entry. The old setup allowed for a greater degree of error when turning in since going in too hot just meant you would have more oversteer to contend with and going in to slow just meant that you could get on the gas very early. Basically you could just toss the car into a corner and make corrections on the fly. It didn't always yeild the fastest corner speed, but it did make it extremely easy to get the car setup for the exit and the next gate. In short, I rarely hit cones and it was very simple to drive a few gates ahead since the "safe bubble" was pretty big and forgiving. With the new setup I had to make a few driver adjustments. The overall feeling of the car is that the driver inputs that used to cause big changes in the cars attitude are not as effective any more. For instance, chopping the throttle mid corner used to unload the backend and produce enough oversteer to demand some quick attention to what you were doing with the steering wheel. Now the car feels more numb which I'm not thrilled about, but it's a lot more stable and possibly faster if the corner entry is spot on. With the added possibility of understeer now corner entry speed becomes much more crucial. I'm still haven't bolted on the Hoosiers yet to get a feel with R-comps so I still have a lot of figuring to do. Add to all that the 1 blown rear shock and I might have to reevaluate all over again when it's finally rebuilt in a month or so.

 

[xelderx]

Ok...I finally got to race the new setup on Sunday. The car felt much better. The front roll is gone. There was a little understeer present, but it was mostly from me driving into the corners too fast. I was right about the corner entry speed having to be more precise. Once I slowed down and started smoothing out the lines I started dropping a lot of time. My first run was a 45.562 and I ended up with a 43.299 on my last run. Weight transitions were much easier to control and that made the tight offset gates much faster. I had to be very careful with throttle input in the corners since I was cornering faster and more toward the traction limit. Too much gas would cause the front to push. I already feel like a more skilled driver since I had to actually use more restraint and control in driving the car. It payed off very well. 1st Place FSP over Jinx Jordan's nationals Civic driven by his co-driver (Jinx ran Pro class and beat my time by about 7/10's), Fastest time Street Prepared, 8th Fastest Raw time, and 8th in PAX. I was on used Hoosier A3SO4's (225 front, 205 rear) so I'm expecting even better results next weekend in Atlanta on almost brand new V710's.

 

[aMaff]

Congrats! Can I borrow your car?

 

[Rogue]

you're gonna kill me....but it'll be awesome to see you again. I'd love to get a ride-along, and would appreciate if you'd ride with me to offer pointers.