Some may recall that the first SCCA event of the season, our setup on the STi was somewhat off that forced us to run an unhealthy 51 psi rear pressures with Toyo RA1 tires. The car was on track setup and we could not get the rear to rotate enough, it was a little too neutral for autox and we were fighting the car rather than guiding it. The DCCD was also on full rear open.

We made few relatively minor changes with the chassis and alignment and voila! The car was just near perfect; so much so that our co-driver, Mike Cole, kept saying "keep it like this, don't change anything, this is it"

The reason I say it was "near perfect" is because we were able to run with 42 psi in the rears, whereas I would prefer if we can run them around 38 or so, but 42 is certainly in the acceptable range. We also kept the DCCD in full rear open.

The car was oversteering with throttle control and had nearly no understeer and could easily recover from a driver-induced one with gentel throttle input. The car was truly a joy to drive, I just could not get enough of it.

As always Mike set out with a very good run from the very first one with a 50.9, but took a cone. Brian Burdette with his Camaro Z28 responded with a 50.7 but also took out a cone; Mike responded back with a clean run of 50.1; while Tyler Stewart was schooling all of us by running a 49.7 in his third run. Mike pushed a little harder as he is still trying to figure out the limits of the STi and ran a 50.4 but with a cone again, ending up with 50.128 as his best. But Brian on brand new Hoosiers came back hard and hit the 49.9 and Tyler went even further and ended up with 49.405 as his best.

I manage to reduce my times each run and was amazed with the level of control we finally had on the STi without upseting the cones. I ran 54.3 (+1), 52.4, 51.1, and ended up with 50.754; and got to 4th place and improvement from my 8th place from the first event

The ESP was fielded with 13 cars this time. And Filip Wojcikowski with his Evo VIII got 7th place with a best of 51.6 and Richard Kremer got 12 place with a best of 55.8 with his stock STi. Winged car representation is still low in the DC region within ESP as many are struggling with car setup or moving directly to SM class.

The better part of the news however is that Mike was able to feel comfortable with the chassis and its balance and was able to reduce the gap to Tyler Stewart's Camaro (which has several years of development behind it and won the 2002 National ESP) by 0.5 second compared to the first event. Hence, we are on the right direction and if we can improve the chassis a little more (may be some Hoosiers on 8.5" wide rims - we are accepting donations ), I think we have a chance to beat Tyler somewhere around mid-season

In the SM class, Jack Brennen with his Evo VIII was also in a fierce battle with John Doby with his E36 M3. At the end, however, Jack was able to extract some of the benefits of his coilovers that we custom tuned for him. At the end, Jack got first place over John by 0.14 seconds running a best of 49.133. Way to go Jack. SM is very competitive as always with total of 25 cars this time around.

In AS, Burak Tuglu - as always - got 1st place with a 51.069 over John Todd's Evo VIII, who ran a 51.697. George Stanton placed 6th with 53.5 in his STi and Richard Fekete (STi) settled with 8th place running 56.7, Heather Brunstetter (Evo VIII) 9th with 56.3 (+1), Michael O'Neill (Novice group with an STi) 10th place with 61.089.

There is no question that the number of STis and Evos are increasing in several classes, which is great news accelerating the learning process for setup issues. We are obviously quite behind against the BMWs (BSP cars were running low to mid 48.xxx) and the established American Irons, especially the Camaros. But we are making progress for sure.

Next test is the Nationals during May 29-30 and ProSolo June 5-6. Hopefully, we will get to meet some of famous names in our home town

This was one fun event from many angles, thanks to the SCCA crew and all the sponsors

Preliminary Results

 

So what changes did you make, or are they top secret?

 

Good fun indeed! FWIW, I was just looking over the results and one interesting thing I noticed is that I would have gotten the same exact place had I run in SM and not in ESP. The same goes for the previous autocross at Fedex. It's still isn't worth much, but I would have a better excuse running in SM....you know more cars, more mods allowed etc.

 

Congratulations Jack. I guess the new coilover worked well!

 

No totally secret

We change the front A/R bar to a smaller one, decreased rear A/R stiffness a notch, increased front camber by 0.5 deg., and increased rear bump by one

 

It was good to get within reasonable striking distance of Burak. I really thought my last run was quite a bit quicker than my third, but they were virtually identical time-wise. Us first heat guys struggled with the cool temperatures I think, based on how we PAXed as a whole. The notable execption there was Landstra in the yellow SS Z06, but he had a co-driver so I am sure tire temps were much less of an issue for him. It warmed up quite a bit even for the second heat and I could see heat waves coming off the pavement by the time that heat was done.

Jack was looking good with the new coilovers, especially considering how well-used his Hoosiers are getting to be. Despite the new setup though, he was still lifting his inside rear wheel in places...maybe it's time for bigger sway bars?

On the subject of tire pressures, I started with 45 front & rear cold, as I did at our last event (my first on the A3S04s). Unlike the last event though, the car was way loose and I struggled to keep from spinning the thing. For my second run I went to 48f/48r warm (and I use that term very loosely, my highest pyrometer reading at that point was only in the 90's). I don't know why I expected anything to change balance-wise and was still very loose and did indeed spin that time. For my third and best run I went to 46f/48r and got pretty good balance out of that. I kept the pressure the same for the fourth run and as I mentioned earlier, I got about the same time. The rollover at this event was much less than at our last event despite going to lower front pressures. I attribute this to the fact that the tires never got close to operating temp and hence never developed enough grip to get much roll over. This (and a conversation I had with the 3rd place A Stock M3 pilot Nick Rubenstein) is leading me to believe I need to try even higher pressures when it's warm out. Nick said that Bob Tunnel and some other Nat'l level guy are running 55 psi in their Hoosier-shod M3s. Worth considering I guess...

JW

 

I was checking the Hoosier tire pressures of several people, and you are right John, most were running in the mid-50s. I think that is what you need to try; but if your tires are not rolling at lower pressures, then that must good. One danger is always compare different cars' setups, they won't match. Tire pressures are like springs, they differ from car to car.

Jack was certainly lifting his inside wheel/tire, but may be 2-3" at best, which is considered to be ideal for auto-x. Unfortunately, especially in off-camber sweepers - which all of them were, you were lifting your inside wheel nearly a foot. Many commented that they thought you were going to roll over

 

I've heard that the A3S04s like tire pressures as high as 8 psi above what people have used with the A3S03s. I ran my S03s on Saturday at 46 psi, so maybe 54 psi for the A3S04 tires might not be far off.

Also, a note to anybody who is setting ride height with coilovers. Do it with your competition tires installed. I set up the car with the stock A046 tires, which tucked neatly inside the rear fenders, and there was no tire clearance issue. With the wider Hoosiers, the right rear tire was rubbing the fender under compression -- luckily it was very minor and didn't cause trouble.


I was pretty pleased with the handling balance of the car. My four runs were made with damper settings at -7/-7, -6/-8, -8/-8, and -8/-8, where 0/0 is full stiff front/rear. So the damper settings were all real close to mid-range, and with only minor adjustments. The first run, the car was loose -- in retrospect, probably a good autoX setup, but a little looser than I was accustomed to. On the second run, the car pushed in transition -- the most understeer I've felt in the car in a long time. On the third run, the car felt pretty darn good. For the fourth run -- same damper settings and tire pressures as the third run -- I drove a bit harder, looking to press the limits of the car, and generally made a mess of the run, but it was good to explore the limits of the car and to gain confidence in the car.

Overall, the setup with the new JIC FLT-A2 setup was very confidence inspiring. I knew at the very first cone -- a right kink followed by a quick left -- that this wasn't my old Evo. It felt like a go-kart; now, I know that some say the stock Evo has kart-like handling. Well, you ain't seen nothing yet. It took me probably another 3 turns before I settled into the quick response and lack of body roll and convinced myself that the car wasn't going to spin out on me. The car was decently fast whether loose or tight, and even when I made mistakes, the car didn't punish me for them. Sure, I lost time, but I generally was able to continue on without any drama.

The promising part here is that my third and best run, which was good enough (barely) to win the class, had at least two substantial mistakes where I went off line -- between those mistakes and my general lack of experience with the handling, I think the car was definitely capable of running 1-2 seconds faster than I managed to do.

Alignment settings were done on Friday in my garage, and possibly shifted a bit by the time I competed on Saturday. But FWIW, I set it to about -2.4* front camber, about -1.9* rear camber, about 1mm toe-in front, and zero toe rear.

 

Jack, I assume you will be at test and tune on May 28. I have couple of different settings for you on the dampers that I'd like you try; I am positive it will feel better that the ones you utilized.