New racing season coming up, but I'll be somewhat on the sidelines. I'll be running, but in Street tire stock class.
The wife's schooling has stepped up a notch and will be at full speed this fall. Studying for network engineering certifications at work will take much of my time this year with at least 5 tests and 3 certifications planned.
The Bimmer will get new tires and suspension at some point, hopefully in the next month. I plan on attending the Texas National tour at the end of March, and probably the Texas Pro-Solo as well.
I have added 255/40-17 Sumitomo HTR-z II's to the rear, replacing the 225/45-17 all seasons and it resulted in quite a bit of improvement at the Harris Hill event, autocrossing on a race track. Moving up to 4th out of 21, after some dismal finishes on the skinny all seasons.
Due to this, I think I may be remotely competitive in tire class with 255/40-17 Hankook or Dunlop Autocross tires, and new Bilstein sport or Koni Sport suspension.
Money's tight, so I have no idea when that may happen.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Screeching to a halt
Life stepped in and decided it was best for the family if I back off of Racing for a while, and get our finances a little bit more in order.
Sold the WRX, yep, sure did. Still can't believe it some days. It was a GREAT car for about 4 of the 4 1/2 years of ownership, including the last 3 years straight without an issue.
I will say that I don't enjoy driving it as much as I did the ol' BMW... And so, here is it's replacement.
1999 BMW 328i Sport Package w/ 125k on the odometer. Got it for about $3k below bluebook retail with a few issues. It needed some cleanup, a drivers side window lift, and has a door ding in the passenger side about the same size as the WRX had, ironically.
Took a week off of work, cleaned it up, replaced the the window lift, removed the tint, banged out most of the dent, Autocrossed it, Tracked it, and then had to replace the belts, and belt tensioner. Still seems like a good buy.
Not sure if it will be a good STX car or not. It's hard to find these things without sunroofs, so I'm just going to go with the flow on that. The problem also with this car is the Diff is generally open, and it's hard to find, if not impossible to find, a limited slip in a 2.93 ratio. May have to have it custom made. It may have a diff issue right now, so it will probably get replaced one way or another anyway.
It will at least get Koni's, 17x9 D-Force's and 255 star specs for some RTR/STX class action soon.
Sold the WRX, yep, sure did. Still can't believe it some days. It was a GREAT car for about 4 of the 4 1/2 years of ownership, including the last 3 years straight without an issue.
I will say that I don't enjoy driving it as much as I did the ol' BMW... And so, here is it's replacement.
1999 BMW 328i Sport Package w/ 125k on the odometer. Got it for about $3k below bluebook retail with a few issues. It needed some cleanup, a drivers side window lift, and has a door ding in the passenger side about the same size as the WRX had, ironically.
Took a week off of work, cleaned it up, replaced the the window lift, removed the tint, banged out most of the dent, Autocrossed it, Tracked it, and then had to replace the belts, and belt tensioner. Still seems like a good buy.
Not sure if it will be a good STX car or not. It's hard to find these things without sunroofs, so I'm just going to go with the flow on that. The problem also with this car is the Diff is generally open, and it's hard to find, if not impossible to find, a limited slip in a 2.93 ratio. May have to have it custom made. It may have a diff issue right now, so it will probably get replaced one way or another anyway.
It will at least get Koni's, 17x9 D-Force's and 255 star specs for some RTR/STX class action soon.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
2012 Mineral Wells Pro-Solo, Spokes event #3, SASCA/Spokes event #4
Well, the wheels are back on, but literally, the rubber is off them now.
Learned some things about excessive Toe-out and daily driving, namely, it destroys tires.
As the car has never been aligned since the suspension install, and now camber plate addition, I finally checked the Toe again after James had said at the Nat. Tour that it's "a bit too much"
My measurements with crude home built toe plates came out to nearly an inch of toe out at full camber, which is negative 4 degrees plus. I'd guess that at race camber (-3) we were still at 1/2" toe out, which is WAY too much.
Adjusted the toe down to zero at the middle of the plates which is about -2 degrees camber. With that, we ended up with pretty close to 1/8" toe out for the Pro-Solo. Unfortunately, running the car daily with that much toe, caused the insides of the front tires to be pretty close to corded when we got to the event.
With the tires that far gone, we we're probably at a mental dis-advantage, worrying about them.
The first day's morning set of runs ended up being my best with a 47.7 on both courses in my second runs on both sides. I suppose the tire degradation may have been getting us by this time, but the front tires were, for the most part, fine. James, was doing just about as poorly as I was, but I think we ended up 5th and 6th after the first day. He fought back to 4th on the second day, but I'll have to update this since our local club is about 10 times faster at posting race results than the SCCA is. Getting real tired of their website "upgrade"
Locally, the added camber has evened things out between Todd and I. We're still extremely close, but I've been able to pull one nasty run out of each of the last two races to end up on top. I'm pushing much harder at the local races than I can seem to make myself go at the big ones, but the car still needs a bit more work, and of course, new tires.
Learned some things about excessive Toe-out and daily driving, namely, it destroys tires.
As the car has never been aligned since the suspension install, and now camber plate addition, I finally checked the Toe again after James had said at the Nat. Tour that it's "a bit too much"
My measurements with crude home built toe plates came out to nearly an inch of toe out at full camber, which is negative 4 degrees plus. I'd guess that at race camber (-3) we were still at 1/2" toe out, which is WAY too much.
Adjusted the toe down to zero at the middle of the plates which is about -2 degrees camber. With that, we ended up with pretty close to 1/8" toe out for the Pro-Solo. Unfortunately, running the car daily with that much toe, caused the insides of the front tires to be pretty close to corded when we got to the event.
With the tires that far gone, we we're probably at a mental dis-advantage, worrying about them.
The first day's morning set of runs ended up being my best with a 47.7 on both courses in my second runs on both sides. I suppose the tire degradation may have been getting us by this time, but the front tires were, for the most part, fine. James, was doing just about as poorly as I was, but I think we ended up 5th and 6th after the first day. He fought back to 4th on the second day, but I'll have to update this since our local club is about 10 times faster at posting race results than the SCCA is. Getting real tired of their website "upgrade"
Locally, the added camber has evened things out between Todd and I. We're still extremely close, but I've been able to pull one nasty run out of each of the last two races to end up on top. I'm pushing much harder at the local races than I can seem to make myself go at the big ones, but the car still needs a bit more work, and of course, new tires.
2012 SCCA SunBelt National Tour
My second National tour was yet another learning experience.
Co-Driver James Wilson proved that the car can be competitive, which was important. The money tree needs to start bearing fruit soon, so the power upgrades can be made. The camber plates were a big help, proven by catching up to Todd at the local events. I actually ran 5th, and only a couple hundreths of a second off Mark Sipe's fastest clean run on the second day.
Ended up 6th out of 9 in STX. James missed winning STX by less than a 10th of a second over two days runs. Overall, ended up 1.3 seconds out of 1st, and only 0.9 seconds out of the trophys. I never felt like I put together an "all or nothing" run. I know when I'm pushing the car, because I hit ABS when I brake, and I don't think I ever hit ABS. I don't trust my braking, or the car's ability to "un-bog" itself. More power will help with that.
Ended up 6th out of 9 in STX. James missed winning STX by less than a 10th of a second over two days runs. Overall, ended up 1.3 seconds out of 1st, and only 0.9 seconds out of the trophys. I never felt like I put together an "all or nothing" run. I know when I'm pushing the car, because I hit ABS when I brake, and I don't think I ever hit ABS. I don't trust my braking, or the car's ability to "un-bog" itself. More power will help with that.
The Spokes Hotel
Tech Trailer
James, the co-driver, and Todd, the competition (He took 4th in the MS-3!)
"The Road to Lincoln" Trailer
I love the smell of burnt rubber in the morning...
Vitek's Banshee, and Federico's Alpha Boxster
Monday, March 5, 2012
SASCA Event #3
Well, the wheels seem to be falling off now. Not losing any hope yet, but suffered the second consecutive loss.
Had another difficult time with tight turns and bogging. Also gave away two runs by somehow forgetting to turn off the traction control both of my first two runs. There was a really tight turn at the finish that took me totally out of boost and left me pushing into the outside cone if I tried to carry any speed. I tried shifting to first there on the third run, but it didn't seem fruitful.
I think with the lack of camber, a tight corner at the end of a course is going to find me with over-heated tires and just not enough grip to carry speed.
I'm taking measurements myself and ordering the camber plates tomorrow. Never heard back from Eibach.
Sold my iracing/CCNP study computer to pay for the camber plates, so I'm experimenting with Win8 right now, on the living room entertainment PC, so I don't have all the pics, and vids from the last race yet uploaded to this computer.
Had another difficult time with tight turns and bogging. Also gave away two runs by somehow forgetting to turn off the traction control both of my first two runs. There was a really tight turn at the finish that took me totally out of boost and left me pushing into the outside cone if I tried to carry any speed. I tried shifting to first there on the third run, but it didn't seem fruitful.
I think with the lack of camber, a tight corner at the end of a course is going to find me with over-heated tires and just not enough grip to carry speed.
I'm taking measurements myself and ordering the camber plates tomorrow. Never heard back from Eibach.
Sold my iracing/CCNP study computer to pay for the camber plates, so I'm experimenting with Win8 right now, on the living room entertainment PC, so I don't have all the pics, and vids from the last race yet uploaded to this computer.
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Spokes Event #2
Well, first loss of the season had to come eventually. Total domination wouldn't have been as much fun though, and Todd's catching up will mean we'll be pushing each other harder, which should pay off with dividends in the Big Races, versus the non-Spokes competition.
It looks like in comparing to one of the pacesetters, I may have had a slightly off race driving-wise, going from -3.65% off his PAX time to -4.64%. It's possible that the car may do worse on longer, more open courses.
This will likely mean I'm going to HAVE to come up with some scratch for Camber plates ASAP. This course had more slaloms, and the first one was a double with an offset in the middle of it, so I think the camber would help there. With the Wife's birthday coming up, and a friend coming to town the week before the National Tour, it doesn't look promising. Next after camber plates would be the downpipe and tune, which should help with the longer courses by adding power and turbo spool up.
The ugly truth...
It looks like in comparing to one of the pacesetters, I may have had a slightly off race driving-wise, going from -3.65% off his PAX time to -4.64%. It's possible that the car may do worse on longer, more open courses.
This will likely mean I'm going to HAVE to come up with some scratch for Camber plates ASAP. This course had more slaloms, and the first one was a double with an offset in the middle of it, so I think the camber would help there. With the Wife's birthday coming up, and a friend coming to town the week before the National Tour, it doesn't look promising. Next after camber plates would be the downpipe and tune, which should help with the longer courses by adding power and turbo spool up.
The ugly truth...
Warning. For those that cannot stomach cone abuse, skip the first video. I'd like to say that no cones were harmed in the filming of this video, but I'd be lying if I did...
Much better, but not enough to catch Todd
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