Hoping next year is more normal - I'll have lots more vacation time to use. If Packwood is still around next year (fingers crossed), I think I'll finally have to come up and see what it's all about

 

Welp, Nationals is cancelled. While frustrating, I totally get it and believe they made the right choice. I hope it returns in 2021...

 

Competed in STU at the Mid Divisionals this past weekend. The fun thing was, we ran EXACT copies of last years Nationals courses. This was confirmed by multiple people there as the cone paint marks were still there from that event.

I recently added the Ciro Design adjustable endlink brackets for the front bar. I love these things as adjustments are simple. I do feel like this has helped with keeping the inner rear tire from not lifting even remotely close to what it did on my previous car/setup. I know it's not really a massive deal to lift on entry, but it was interesting to see all 4 tires stay almost planted.

Day 1 I had a bunch of under-steer powering out of turns, so I dialed the front bar down. Day two went much better and I could get the car to rotate on entry and on exit.

I did have a co-driver for the event. Both days he absolutely destroyed me in the slaloms. I lost approximately 1.1 seconds to him from about 4 slalom areas over the two courses. I just haven't had enough time in the car to realistically feel completely comfortable to how it's going to hook through the slaloms especially. There was video of me, showing that i was WAY off the cones, so that's something I need to work on. Plus I'm still trying to dial in the JRZ's. I feel I may have been running too low of compression, as I had a similar feeling on the old Reinharte 3 ways when I was on low compression settings.

Here's a slow mo of how bad one of my slaloms looked...
Short slow-mo vid

 

Back to manual or DCCT choice for Evo X, I don't think I agree completely with the above. One thing I do agree for sure is that launching it is way too hard and it is not a good choice for Pro Solo because of that one. But, for Solo 2, I think auto trainy has more advantages compared to the labor intensive multi operation process that 5 speed brings! There is even an extra pedal that you have to use there!!

Joking aside, I have had some of the issues with trainy not wanting to shift out of the corners, but that is the case only for the automatic mode. It happens only when you have a bit faster and longer corner with a decent straight section that follows. Basically, thanks to going faster through the corner with throttle being open longer, it thinks/wants to shift to 3rd (even though it should not) and due to all the extra load that was built, it sees a bit too much torque and says nope, not this time. But all of that is enough to not be worth the risk at an important event, like Nationals with only 3 runs. Manual mode takes complete care of that and it is not an issue.

But, when running in auto mode, it does go to 3rd way more time than one would expect. I usually see 3 to 4 times that to happen, and it is all benefiting your run. The best part is that it is all so seamless and you barely can notice it while running - watching the video of your run shows those details.

Still, since on most courses, I would keep it in manual, all these auto shift have no benefits. But, you can still easily shift up and down then needed without affecting your car at all and for those spots that want you to go 65 mph or so, it is a great help. Gearing is also a bit lower than 5 speed, so you get a bit more umph out of that - not much, but still some.

It does have tendency to overheat here and there, but lots of times that is caused by slightly pressing on the brake pedal during the runs. Left foot brake-rs need to be more aware of that. Two drivers don't help this either, but cooler is right there and spraying it between the runs helps for sure.

So, at the end if it, if I would have a choice to choose, I would still go for 6 speed one!

 

i have these too but only set to the stock position. did you get his endlinks as well? apparently was needed to access the stiffer parts of it. how easy to adjust?

 

Yes, the endlinks too, so up to 150% stiffness from what I recall.

Super easy to adjust. Literally need a couple 14mm wrenches and it literally takes seconds.

 

awesome. going to try to get this done today, to the 4th setting, one towards stiffer. do you feel the difference?

 

Absolutely did I feel the difference. Prior to it installed, the evo was actually quite loose for my liking. So...

At this past weekends events, we started the day with the Ciro brackets on full stiff just to see if that alone would take much of it away. It did. The car understeered at the limits so for day 2 we adjusted it to the 3rd holes instead. Feels way more neutral with a hint of rotation on entry and exit at this setting for our setup. It SEEMS to have helped prevent the inside rear tire from lifting too!

 

isn't the 3rd hole stock?

 

I believe the 2nd hole is: http://cirodesignracing.com/suspension/

 

ahh my b - carry on lol. i'm on the 3rd, will prob go 4th. car was a little loose when i set rear bar to medium

 

Based on the town hall it looks like the make-STU-awesome proposal is going to be pushed to at-soonest 2022 implementation.

I wrote a letter

 

I, personally, was hoping for letting the new allowances go through in 21, but keep the faster cars out until 22.

 

That would also be fine

 

well there is a contention that the new allowances are supposed to rebalance the existing cars against the new faster cars. I'd like to see the increase in speed of existing cars before dropping the big dogs in.


...write another letter.