Today we went to our first autocross of the season, the "Test and Tune" day. It is one of those days that give competitors a warm up and does not count towards points. There were many Evos and suprising number of STis; just a wonderful sight to see

Since our STi is not out of the shop yet, a customer of ours (wojo from these boards) asked us to drive his Evo to help him tune the suspension. His car has a turboback exhaust and I believe that is about it for power upgrades, and we had put in his JIC FLTA2-RS coilovers and did corner balancing as well.

The event was at FedEx field and was a beautiful day. The lot's asphalt was nice as usual and the course was a great mixture of handling and power. The start favored power and a good lunch could truly make 05. -0.7 sec difference. The a right-hand sweeper, then a series of single-cone and gate slaloms with 90-deg turns and shift and 180-deg turns and so forth.

Wojo has set the JIC's bump settings to 12 front and 12 rear out of 15. Tire pressures were 36/36 if I remember correctly without my notes. And we started running...

During my first run, the car was not pushing too much, it was relatively balanced and I took it quite easy and had a passenger (another Evo owner who was not running today and first in auto-x ). There was a portion of the lot that was relatively bumpy and we noticed that we were skipping a little too much and was not able to put the power down in that section where it would have been nice. However, the slaloms and overall turn-in response was quite nice. My best time was a 67.xxx and Wojo did a 66.xxx

In the second run, we adjusted tire pressures, and the car responded quite well to transitions with the RA1s, but we were still having problem putting power down in that one bumpy section. But our times went down to 65s.

Before the 3rd run we adjusted the rear bump to 8 and left the fronts at 12. And now we could really put the power down in that bumpy section, but we compromised our turn-in during the slaloms, slowing our transitions with less stiffness in the rear. But overall my time went down to 64.7xx, so focusing on that side of the course was the right objective. But we had to keep the power down but also get good turn-in during the slaloms. So, we wanted to try lower bump in the front and we set it to 10.

Unfortunately, that compromised front turn-in too much and I hit a cone during the first slalom and since we hadn't readjusted the tire pressures, they were a little too high in pressures due to heat and it became more difficult to control the front-end. Ended up with a 65.xxx in the fourth run.

My third run was the best and was enough to get 3rd place in ESP behind a mustang (0.2secs) and a camaro (~2secs). So, overall I would have throphied, but being roughly 2 seconds behind first place finisher is never too good .

However, we truly gathered invaluable data for shock setup on the Evo, which will also be applicable for the STi with slightly different settings.

We certainly got the results I was looking for: adjustable shocks played a significant role in putting our available power to the ground and modifying handling characteristics as they are supposed to and Wojo was particularly pleased to be able to have that capability as he drives on the street, autocrosses, and track events with nearly equal focus.

We'll see how the real thing goes next month

 

My best time was 67.9, but I have loads of excuses

- I was on 400 treadwear rating M+S tires.

- I was doing left foot braking in an autocross for the first time.

- I didn't launch hard on any of my runs.

- I still sort of suck, despite winning the WDCR A Stock championship last year.

I don't know how the rest of A Stock fared, but I did hear Burak (STi) got a 62.3. Give me 3 sec for my tires vs. Burak's relatively new Hoosiers with a tire-warming codriver. Give me 1 sec because I know I was slower (for now) doing left foot braking than I would have been otherwise. That leaves 1.6, which is a good chunk of time still, but not insurmountable. Put on my new A3S04s, get some more practice left foot braking (2 days of Evolution school this weekend should help!), and he'll probably still beat me, but I should at least be able to make him work for it...

JW

 

I don't know that I'd agree that the course was a great mixture of handling and power. Where was the power section? If you mean that uphill, wet pavement start, that was only a power section for the AWD contingent. The course was full of transitions and good opportunities to practice slaloming (something I need work on), which was especially good for the M3s that ran in the 60.x and 61.x range in BSP. I was reasonably happy with my times in my SM Camaro. Like you, I was still getting used to some suspension changes (softer springs and bigger bars) and some extra torque/power (finally dialed in my tuning with a wideband on the street). I ended up with a 64.3, which was okay for a first time out. With a little more practice in the car I hope to be competitive in SM regionally. I just need more opportunities to put down my car's power advantage over the smaller cars in the class! Slow corners followed by big straights are my car's friends. And I vote for putting a 90 degree turn about 15 feet out from the starting line. That'll show you AWD turbo guys!!

 

LOL Rich.

Well, I think the start could make a big difference in times, almost as much as 2/3 secs with proper launch. When I say power, I really did not mean at the crank but at the wheels I think the start really favored the 4WD Turbo guys that could spool up early, read: STi

Then there was the left-hand sweeper, first one after the start that led to a longish slalom with decreasing distances. The first part of that section could really use some power, IMO.

Also, at the top of the course there was a 90deg sharp left-hander leading to a up-hill slalom. With the right power in that section, the car would accelerate very rapidly without downshifting, IMHO, and played a key role in reducing times, may be another 1/3secs. It was bumpy and cars that had center differentials had no problems there, but the Evo with wrong bump settings did; again, give one up to STi for that section

Other than those, you are right, it was mostly a handling course; that is why I am a little disappointed and thought we should have done better than having a 2 sec difference to first place in ESP

 

It definitely hurt some of the more traction limited cars, though I did notice that Tyler in the ESP winning car got out of the hole surprisingly well. I watched some of your runs (or was that Wojo at the wheel) and thought that you were being pretty gentle off the line compared to some others (like Jack).

Yes, I agree, assuming you didn't overcook that corner and push out (which I did on my last run...doh!) If I hadn't pushed there I probably could have lower my time to a...woulda coulda shoulda...

Actually, the two sections that I thought of as power sections was from the 2nd to last slalom cone coming up the right side of the course before that sharp left hander at the top and then from the top of the course through that chute of sorts where you cut through the 3-cone gates at a 45 degree angle. The uphill section that you are referring to was traction limited for me. That slalom was bumpy! I didn't notice it on the walk through and it really threw me off on my first run. After that, I just ignored it and my car had no issues staying on line over the bumps, but then I'm running only 450/100ish spring rates.

Not sure if you know the usual ESP crowd there, but I have good news and bad news. The winning purple Camaro driven by Tyler was the 2002 ESP national champ car (when driven by Sam Strano). It is rumored to be close to, or under, 3000 lbs. (i.e., lighter than an Evo). Then again, some of the fastest ESP drivers were very handicapped yesterday. Brian Burdette, last year's regional ESP champ, is running on very worn Hoosiers (a whole season + an autocross school) and could probably pick up a lot of time with tires. I believe he also coned his best run and had a 63.3 raw time. Also, Pat Griffith is definitely hot-shoe material and blew a tire after running only one run -- a 64.0. You can be sure that he would have given the class a run for his money if he had kept his tires intact, and his car is not prepped anywhere near the limit of the rules. Still has a 305 motor and a 350 (a lot more torque) is a legal update/backdate for him. ESP is a good class in the D.C. region. Wish I could compete there myself, but unfortunately I did some mods to my car a couple years ago for drag racing and now am DQ'd for that class.

Looking forward to the next event!

 

I forgot to include that in my time calculations. OK, I didn't forget so much as I ignored it because I didn't know how hard Burak was launching. Assuming he was getting good launches though, that would get the deficit down to around a second. That's doable. Maybe not easy, but definitely doable...

JW

 

Preliminary results are up at http://solo.wdcr-scca.org/results/20...e-3-28-04.html

Burak was fastest in AS by about 1.6, so with all my excuses eliminated, I would have finished second As it was however, I finished 8th out of 11. It will be interesting to see how things go 4/18. Burak also PAXed 9th out of 224. Not too shabby...

FT was second out of 16 in ESP (2.4 out of 1st) and wojo was 6th.

In SM jbrennen was 2d out of 23 (0.9 out of 1st).

It's looking like we will have some healthy fields in AS/ESP/SM this year. Hopefully, we can do ourselves proud

JW

 

I prefer to say 0.069 (and a cone) out of 1st. And that cone came about 4 seconds from the finish line.

I'm more concerned that there were two SM legal cars which were way faster than I -- the top two M3s in BSP. Even my fastest raw time was over 2 seconds behind the winning BSP car. That doesn't give me much confidence to take on true Street Mod M3s at the National level. Granted, I ran Sunday with a bone-stock suspension and with Hoosiers that seem to be past their prime -- and I would also love to put a front LSD in the car. And it was my first dry pavement event since adding a ton of horsepower.

But I really can't complain -- it was fun to get out there and slide the car around. Quite different than running A Stock last year -- it accelerates much harder now, which means more speed into the corners, and it's much easier to get the back end sideways under power. If I were staying with the stock suspension, I'd be tempted to add some rear toe-in to decrease the car's tail-happiness, but since I'll be putting on coilovers soon, I'll wait and see what that does to the handling.

 

LOL, John you are cracking me up man.

I gotta sit down with you to learn these time reduction method

John, I think you and I might be talking about some suspension bits by mid-season

Also, Jack just thought me a line: "It took the 2002 National ESP Champ car to beat my time"

 

Bench racing at its finest

I also conveniently neglected to mention that Burak's best raw time had a cone. Taking that into account, I've got to find yet another three tenths.

No excuses on 4/18!!!

JW

 

LOL, rgr that, I think I can come up with couple of new ones though for the 18th

 

I think my Hoosiers heated up by 30 degrees in the first 1 second of my first run. At a ProSolo, you get to do your burnout before you stage for the start; unfortunately, they don't allow that in "regular" Solo II.

I hope I didn't throw any pebbles onto the front of your car, Rich...


As far as Fatih and Filip and being gentle off the line, if you stood near their car between runs, you'd understand why. Parfum de burnt clutch.

 

Yes indeed..."eau de clutch" at its finest

I launched pretty hard during my first run and surpise, suprise that was also my best time. If I recall correctly, FTs best time also started with a sweet, but hard launch. Having a vision of having to replace the clutch, I backed off on my next 3 runs and the lap times were much slower.

Anyone planning on running next wek @ rosecroft? I might, just to shakeout some of the rustiness I felt on Sunday.