Ok, I am awake now. Long day yesterday. Finally got to run the sm evo at a national level course at a New england SCCA regional event yesterday. Still running on Hoosier SO4's with the staggered tire setup. Event was excellent with 6 runs for all on a 60 plus second course. Very challanging, and by most accounts a speed maintanance course more than a power course. I finally lowered my car to about 1-3/4 lower than stock ride height and the car was pretty darn close to perfect. It was a little loose, but it was also overcast and in the low 60's, so my guess is that it should be perfect on concrete with temps in the upper 70's to low 80's. I was planning on running the race gas setup, but figured I would start with the pump gas setup first. Well, I found that the pump gas setup was more than enough power for this course, as there were few spots where I could accelerate hard for any length of time. The good news is that the chassis setup is really good. Pat Salerno was there with his z06, along with several other top national drivers. Unfortunately, I got a cone on my last and best run of the day. Officially, my best clean run was a 62.1, Pat ran a 63.4 on Kumho v710's. My last run was a 61.3, but with one cone. It turns out that I won pax by half a second with the 62.1 clean run. The positions after me in pax were stx, and hs cars I believe, along with Pat. I Can't wait for the Toledo SCCA tour event to test this sucker in a bigger pond. lol. More updates to follow.
Mark

 

Sound like it's going to be a good year

 

Can I call dibs for a run sometime before Nats?

When watching Mark run on the far side of the course (about 1/2 mile away) the best way I can explain it is the car went from point A to point C. Point B isn't a factor. Usually, cars that far away you have a hard time judging how fast they are going... it was very easy to see with Marks car.

The car was loose in a few sections, easily able to see that. But I beleive the Ohlins are working well. Seeing as it's a relatively smooth surface, it's going to be interesting to see what happens in Toledo, which is also as smooth, with more grip available.

--kC

 

No, unfortunately he was not there.



Kieth,
Toledo will be interesting, but the grip as I recall is very similar to Devins. Just hoping it will be warmer. lol

Mark

 

A full sec with a clean run and 2 sec faster in raw time then Pat driving his z06? Damn, you are insane!! Mark, I missed your message the other day cause I weren't home, I need your opinion of getting some new wheels and tires setup.

 

Awesome work Mark! I can't wait to see that car in action. I guess I just have to wait until Topeka .

--Navid

 

Too bad my car won't be ready for Toledo, it should be a great battle in SM. I've heard a lot of rumors about Stemler's car.

Toledo is huge and smooth (no bumps). The surface is still very rough being relatively new concrete. Just don't get stuck running the first heat sweeping the dust off the course and don't go off-line or else the grip will be gone.

 

Yes, I have heard many rumors about Eric's car. Most have included massive amounts of power. I am really coming to the conclusion that if you set the car up so you can use really big power, it will push on corner exit mercilously. I have 40 or so whp and torque more available at the flip of a switch, but have yet to find a course that I can use it. Problem is that with really high boost levels, you rapidly lose part throttle control on corner exits. In other words, my experience has been that at 25psi of boost, if you crack the throttle 25% and hold it there, it just keeps building boost and power, and breaks all 4 tires loose. We shall see, but I am thinking that I would much rather have boost available at 3000 rpm, than monster power up top. But that is why we run the races. Right?

Mark

 

The way my WRX was setup last year it definitely made more power than was usable on an autocross course. That has to do with suspension setup, tires, diffs, etc. but running it at full power wasn't the fastest way for me. It was faster for me to sacrifice the ultimate power because the car was just plain easier to drive with less boost. With more experience I'm sure I could learn to control the throttle but last year I just wanted to concentrate more on the course and not have to worry about tire spin.

As for the partial throttle boost issue, you can get around that with a mappable boost setup. For instance last year my initial setup was to limit boost until > 50% tps. The Subaru ECUs are fully mappable for that kind of stuff but if you are running a plane jane boost controller it's hard to control that. A boost controller like an Apexi AVCR can control boost based on TPS an RPM constraints.

 

Rumors about my car... how could that happen?? I'm heading to the dyno this weekend to see what it will put down and to Peru for some testing. I'm planning to burn through plenty of tires...

Eric

 

I'll have spies in Peru this weekend.

I think we both ran the same event at Peru last year, and I pretty much destroyed a set of A3S04s there "testing". Peru is not kind to spinning tires (lots of smoke).

Phil B.

 

Peru is not kind to anything. Shocks, bearings, bushings, control arms, back, neck, bladder.

 

I will be at Peru next weekend for 3 days.......

 

So Eric, spill the beans. Did you really decide to run a bigger turbo, and if so, how about a cool anti lag system.
Mark

 

So what you are saying Mark is--it is not the size, but how you use it. LMAO