Chicanes - A Love/Hate relationship

                                                           Oops...I did it again...

     Been slacking on my write ups I know.  So, last weekend was PCD cold tire domination at NJMP Thunder.  I'm growing fond of this track (well turns 1-7...9-12 can suck it, just a terrible non flowing section I fail to get right every time).  The group behind this now annual event is a bunch of guys from evolutionm.net that I have met through NASA events, great guys.  The attendance list was huge and I was going to be running in the intermediate group.  My personal goal for the day was to start the long road of working on my line, entry, exit etc (the basics) and just have fun.

     About a week before the event I had another wonderful alignment saga.  Long story short, I wasted a day sitting at a shop while they set the wrong settings and then on attempting to do it correctly found they apparently couldn't get my requested settings.  The problem here was that they were not even able to go back and match the settings the last shop supposedly set the car to.  Wound up realizing the factory camber bolts were set to MIN not MAX.  Out of frustration I ran home, flipped the bolts and ordered an SPC camber gauge with the toe gauge add on.  Time to go back to trying this myself (recall that I had bad tire wear last event again)! Started measuring and found the toe WAY out, hour or so and i got both sides set closer to zero and with less thrust angle than any shop...was having trouble getting believable camber settings though as one side seemed to have a much wider range than the other...I was really only worried about the toe anyway since the tires are basically dead.  On to the track...

     Rolled in Friday night by like 5pm, first time we did the ride with almost zero traffic!  Headed over to the track to get tech'd and hang out with the guys for a bit and had some of the guys who had experience with my alignment gauge help me check what I had setup (little fact - race track garages are built with very flat floors so race teams can do alignments...or so I'm told.  Turns out I got the car set quite well! 

      Saturday morning we got to sleep in for once since nothing started before 9am.  The weather was pretty clear, mid 40's temps but with a bitter wind to take just about ALL of the temp out of the track.  Started tires at 36psi cold and headed out.

1st Session - Took 5 or so laps and a slow pace to warm everything up and get my head in the game.  Started ramping up the pace and immediately the tires felt very slippery.  Nothing exciting happened, rolled into the paddock and checked tire pressures...45psi WOOPS!

2nd session - After airing down the tires to 38 hot I expected the car to feel much better.  Session start was delayed due to a Porsche laying down oil/blowing a motor/catching fire into turn one.  Pop quiz, who remembers my turn one oil incident from just a month ago? (insert sketchy memory here).  Finally got out on track and did 3 or so laps to get the tires up to temp, settled in and started an expectant "decent lap".  Slipped a little through the chicane but lap felt good, came back around, hard braking, turn into the chicane carrying a little more speed, make the flick to the left at which the car felt settled and gripped and then BOOM snap spin (the video above).  Rolled off into the grass and the car was difficult to start for 3-4 attempts but finally got it to fire with a little gas pedal pumping and rolled back to the pits.  Session over for me.

At this point we had lunch and I swapped off my RS3's assuming they are just heat cycled out/have too much damage at this point.

3rd/4th session - Car felt good and just turned some laps and tried to focus on a few things.  Things went well (see video below)

     Lets analyze the video a bit.  First 2 laps are earlier in the day, second two are later (so on smaller tires)

- I am over braking at points

- I need to start using more curb

- I am turning in late...A LOT

     The biggest ting though is that I am not consistent with my marks, but mostly turn in.  I think this is due to not keeping my eyes up high enough and finding my self with almost tunnel vision but unfortunately the unfocussed kind.  This will be a big area to work on next season.

     Thanks to my dad for some cool pictures as usual (apparently he reads this now).

     I have a bunch more things I'd like to get written, but I think I'm going to put together a season wrap up post in the next week or so.  Until then, keep it shiny side up.

One step closer (and my first shit my pants moment)

     Sometimes life gives you a lot of shit and you go through very long periods of nothing going right and you feel like you have no control...and then you get to go racing, in a car you built and maintained and you get to make every decision and be in full control.

                                           Gas - Brake - Shift - Turn in - APEX - Track out

                                                           It really is a great feeling

    

     I woke up Friday at the ass crack of dawn to start my adventure down to NJMP.  I was feeling pretty good, well as good as you can on 3 hours of sleep.  The drive was pretty uneventful but took about 7 hours even without counting the stop at my parents house to meet up with my dad...it was still better than being at work, no question.  Got all checked in to the hotel and headed out to dinner with my Dad, typical life/politics/work discussion ensued.  At some point I made a joke about how the worst thing that could happen would be for them to sign me off to DE2 since that would open up the world of safety equipment purchases and some changes to the car I specifically have held back on...foreshadowing maybe?

     Saturday morning I rolled into the track as the sun came up.  Its funny how most days I'm lucky if I get out of bed by 11.30, but put the track in front of me and I can be out of bed at 6am like nobody's business.  Did the usual meetings and car clean out etc, and then had like two hours to kill before the first session (we had a weird schedule this event because of lack of daylight this late in the year and all DE groups/racers on the same track).  I didn't meet up with my instructor until we gridded up for session 1, but Jordan had told me he was a great guy...i should say though that my first two NASA instructors were both great and taught me a lot BUT one drove a Porsche and one a corvette and it was evident in their instructing.  This of course is certainly not a bad thing but it just doesn't translate to driving an Evo.

    So Andy (my intructor) drives a 1M, a bad ass car that has special characteristics I'm sure.  After some chatting it was evident he knew that the Evo was a special car and can't be treated like others.  We head out on track and about a lap and a half in Andy starts to chuckle and just says "you have no business being in this group, you are way better than this group".  Well ok then!  Andy went to talk to the head guys to get me moved up, next session he went out with me in DE2 to make sure i was comfortable and could run a decent enough pace (which I did), and I then got my first white bracelet! WOOHOO.

     This is usually the part where I give a session by session recap, but it was just a seat time day so I wasn't going for time.  Here's what I can say, the car was again nice and smooth and reliable and just did what I asked of it all day.  BUT it seems I still have an alignment issue or something since it appears I corded the inside shoulder of my right front tire.  Overall the tires are just smoked at this point after 7 track days and like 5k street miles.

The "OH SHIT" moment - long story short, an STi blew a transmission/engine/brake line or something and laid slipper fluid from turn 1 through 9.  I came down the front stretch at almost 130mph, got on the brakes and got nothing but abs and the car started to rotate without any input.  I got off the brakes which luckily let the car straighten up, dropped down to 4th and just turned into turn 1 and hoped it stuck...and it did luckily.  (the video below doesn't sort of minimizes the amount of rotation due to the camera angle...but trust me I thought I was gonna be in the tires.

 

Couple Solo Laps

 

 

     Next event is PCD cold tire which unfortunately has been shortened to just one day ut should still be a damn good time.  Hopefully I can squeeze in an alignment before then.

So, it's been awhile (a summer to forget)

     Until yesterday I hadn't even driven the car for 3 weeks? maybe 2?  I dunno.

     After Lime rock in August my grandfather got progressively sicker, quickly.  I pretty much got to spend everyday from the middle of July on waiting for "the phone call".   A lot of stressful days and sleepless nights later, my grandfather finally passed away on September 12th.  It sucked, I didn't deal with it well as usual.

Moving on.

     I'm sitting here watching the Formula D stream from Irwindale, really makes me want  RWD car more than ever.  Did i mention I spent most of September shopping for s2000's? No?...I came inches from buying one but couldn't sack up and do it.

      Flash back to the part where I said I haven't driven the evo in forever.  It started when I had a Friday off from work and decided it was time to take care of the rear diff bushings.  Had one mount off in like 20 minutes and then spent the rest of the day driving around to 3 different shops, all who failed to successfully press the factory bushing out.  $400 later, I ordered up a set of Buschur billet mounts.

     They are sexy and saves like 5 pounds off the rear of the car.  Install was a little tough getting the first bolt to line up with a stock diff still on one side.  Also wasn't easier doing the work at like 1am with beer in hand.  mmmmmm beer.

     Other project was finally setting up the saikou michi catch can i picked up a while ago.  After the obligatory 5 trips to home depot to buy one bolt at a time and one failed bracket making attempt.  I got it all installed.

  

     So how does the car feel you ask? Shifting is actually noticeable improved especially under power, as well as taking off from a stop.  The diff mounts definitely were worth the money.  The engine feels a little more snappy with the new catch can/breather setup but of course that could possibly be chalked up to not being in the car for a long period of time.

     Schedule wise  I am registered for two more events for the year.  In two weeks I will be down at NJMP Thunder with NASA and then the weekend before thanksgiving I will be at PCD cold tire domination 3 (NJMP lightning and Thunder).  In my dreams I will get bumped to DE 2 with NASA at this event which will allow me to finally make moves on safety equipment as well as a wing...we'll see what happens.

     Here's to some better times coming.  RIP Pop.

Lime Rock Race Day Report

     I'm not sure the weather could have been any better today.  mid to high 70's and not a damn cloud in the sky.  It's always extra nice at lime rock when it's like that since it since in a little valley completely surrounded by woods.  Arrived around 10.30am while the Lime Rock club guys were still on track (the rich people who by country club style memberships.  Usually there are some high dollar cars there at this time of day, and today had the best attendance yet.  A few obligatory Porches, 2 SRF's, 2 Radical SR3's, 4-6 Ferrari 458 spiders (including one in an awesome flat merlot color), a Lambo Murcielago and to top it all off...a freakin Lambo Super Trofeo.

     Cut to the chase and I head out for the first session.  The run group was packed and included a bunch of ass hats.  Multiple people had difficulty keeping there car on the pavement, which got pretty frustrating.  I wasn't able to turn what i felt was a good lap with having to slow for a yellow or someone who refused to give a point by.  The car was under steering and severely lacking front end bite, it was basically plowing through the turn 2-3-4 complex.  Came off track and found my front tires had heated to a little over 39psi so I bled them down to 38 and checked temps (155ish Outer and Middle, 170ish Inner).  I then added a click to the rear suspension since I always start them soft to regain a feel for the car.  Wound up managing a 1:06.xx

     Session Two - Actually had some pace on track this time but kept getting held up by an ST class C4 vette who apparently didn't have any mirrors on his car.  He was 10-20+ mph off the pace around the whole track and absolutely refused to put his hand out the window and wave me by while ignoring blue flags.  Meanwhile...the car felt better through the tight section and was definitely rotating better.  I was focusing on the "flick it" method that Jordan had showed me at Pocono, and actually wound up getting a pretty neat slip angle feeling out of the car.  I think that i even managed to put it into a 4 wheel slide once or twice as I had to put in a little oppo.  I also worked on trying to be back on the throttle by apex as this was another evo specific technique mentioned so that the rear diff can start clamping and pull through the exit.  Maybe it's just my head, but it certainly seemed like I could feel the rear diff locking and the mid turn characteristics changing.  One second it would feel like i was about to have to lift to not under steer off track and then there was a very neat "pulling" (technically pushing?) back onto line where I had the car pointed

     Third session - Nothing that great to report.  I had added another click or two to the rear shocks.  The car felt better yet but overall really just felt all day like I had no tires under me.  I think my RS3's are beyond the competitive lap times portion of their life.

    The results? - In session two I somehow managed to click off a new personal best of 1:04.74.  Of course I was the only tuner class car, but surprisingly that time was good enough to top the 3 cars in Tuner MOD class which included an Evo that as far as I know was on Hoosiers, a 2011 STi on R888's and an STi swapped 2.5RS.  I'm taking that all with a grain of salt though...the other evo is either a terrible driver or running a terrible setup to be a second slower on Hoosier's and I really think the STi is a green driver also, but that being said they should have a higher level of modification on the car to be entering that class anyway...

     I had one other odd feeling from the car.  It's best described as the car "shaking it's hips" under braking.  It feels like as soon as the rear unweights it wants to dance around.  My initial thought is that worn bushings are allowing alignment deflection, as I made absolutely sure I was braking in a straight line.  I will have to investigate this further but it is also making me want to get some rear downforce on the car...

                                                             (click for the video)

Ever say something incredibly stupid?

     Like so ridiculously stupid that you want to take it back before it even finishes exit your fucking mouth?

...yeaaaahhhh I'm that guy tonight.

     Anyway...Started prepping for Lime Rock next weekend, should go super smoothly right?  L-O-L.  Put the kiggly in last week, which was a slight struggle.  Took some time to get the valve cover off CAREFULLY, 5 minutes to swap the HLA's, and then another 2 hours to put the valve cover most of the way back on only to realize that I had pinched a wire and needed to disassemble everything again, yay!  Got the car back together and started trying to flash a new map on with no luck, no problem the batteries probably just a little low since I haven't driven the car in two weeks.  Couple hours of charging, get it flashed, start her up and SWEET 3000rpm idle...I shut it down and walked away for two days.

     Long story short, I couldn't see anything obviously wrong.  Flashed a new map again, started it up and all seemed normal.  Weird.

     The tune us very close now just needs a small touch more WGDC from 6500rpm up.  Still having some weird boost error so I am a little hesitant to turn error correction on, but it should work well since I have gotten it dialed pretty close to where I want it.

     Today I pulled off the rear tires (which were the front for part of the day at Pocono) to assess how much inner shoulder wear I had done, and get them flipped.  It seems the inner shoulders got slayed more than I originally thought and I pretty much have no idea why.  The wear occurred while they were on the front of the car so my best guess is that they were just completely over driven?

 

     Oil change and brake pad swap and I'll be ready to go.  Pretty excited to get out on track and keep my mind off my other fuck ups...

  

Sometimes life gets in the way of racing (where the hell have I been?)

     Every once and a while life throws you a curve ball...or sometimes just beans you with w 100mph fast ball.

     

     After the excitement of the Pocono weekend everything was pretty much down hill.  Lets recall that my mom still has a broken leg...well as I walked into work on Tuesday my phone rang.  Unfortunately it was my mom calling me to let me know that my grandfather had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer, and has been put on hospice.

     Yeah...the rest of that day sucked.

     After an emergency trip home, having to skip the EMRA event at NJMP and battling a lot of even worse than normal insomnia, I started digging back into the tune on the car...and quickly realized that the boost map I was running at Pocono was shit.  6 revisions later I've got this (ignore the power numbers, the road wasn't perfectly flat, but the boost curve speaks for itself):

     I still need to do some work from 6k to redline since it's about 2psi short of my target.  This is not using any error correction yet, mostly because the error I'm logging is a little weird, and I don't want to turn on correction unless I have my head completely wrapped around it.  

     I should be  heading to Lime Rock at the end of the month pending life.  I'd really like to finally get the Kiggly HLA installed by then since I've had it sitting around for like a year.  Also, need to get two tires flipped so I don't do any more edge damage and wind up cycling out before the tread is gone (they have a ton of tread left).  Other than that, I should be able to dial in the tune and go on the hunt for a 1:04.xx.

     Hopefully a few things start to go my way...

I love it when a plan comes together (and when my car works!)

     Another track day along with its emotional roller coaster has come and gone.  I lucked out and managed to get a three day weekend for this event.  Got on my way a little later than I wanted to on Friday morning thanks to spending a half hour on the phone with my credit car company dealing with some fraudulent charges...awesome.  The route from where I am out to Pocono goes right past my parents house, so I was able to stop home for a little while and see my mom for the first time since she broke her leg, which was definitely nice.  Got out to my hotel, which was just a tad sketchy, around 8pm and went on a little adventure to find some beer and a WaWa.  Only to find that PA has some weird ass liquor laws...and buying beer at a pizza shop.

     For various reasons I got little to no sleep and finally got out of bed around 6am Saturday morning, got some breakfast, got to the track around 7.30....and then the bad luck hit.

     It was a tad bit foggy as you can see, wound up not clearing up until almost 1pm which was a little shitty, but it gave me time to wander around and meet some new people as well as hang out with some current friends.

     Go Time...first sesion we went right out on the big (north) track which uses nascar turn 1.  It was pretty damn interesting and speeds were easily in the 120+ range minimum.  Learned the track asll went well.

wait...did I just say things went well???  YES I DID.  I must have prayed to the car gods just enough.  THE BRAKES FREAKING WORKED.  No drama, no shudder just bled speed instantly and so smoothly.  It was a down right beautiful thing.  It is epically awesome when you go out and the car just works and you can focus on driving and just going fast.  I found out that i actually can be progressive and control my braking when I know in my head that they are going to work.

     Next up was the South East course which is short, but very technical and pretty fast for what it is.  First session on this track I figured out the line and thought I was doing well.  Had a quick turn around right back out onto the big track and had a nice clean session and pushed harder...to the tune of 130mph on the way into turn 1 and carried 115mph through and out the other side...it was a pretty damn cool feeling.  That's officially the fastest I've ever gone in a car.

     Back to the southeast course.  I had been chatting with some of my evo buddies, and Jordan (one of the NASA NE head instructors and an evo racer) said he finally had time to go out with me for a session.  I have been looking forward to this for a few events now, as the Evo is a special beast and I needed to be shown how to appropriately drive it.  MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.

     After three laps Jordan asked if he could drive my car and show me how to do it.  Yup, I felt like less of a man after that.  I was absolutely stunned at what my car could do, and how weakly i was actually pushing it.  After that awesome demo, I took the wheel again and went after it.  Check the video:

     This was a damn good weekend even with the weather delay.  Good friends, fast cars and high speeds, what else can be said about that.

(pictures courtesy of my dad)

     Jordan gave me some great feedback and told me I made some very big improvements after being shown how to do it (the word flick was applied HEAVILY to driving the car).  He also added that the car felt pretty good overall, brakes were very good but it felt to him like the car was lacking some front grip.  Our collective thought is that the tire pressures I run were dialed in with my weak driving, so they probably need 1-2psi taken out when driven correctly.  That plus a little more camber and I should have a very solid car to improve my skills with.

     I actually did have one tiny issue, the car started to eat the inner shoulder of the right front tire after 2 sessions.  Luckily I caught it and rotated front to back.  By the end of the day the drivers front had also started to show signs.  This is more evidence for me to change up the front alignment and I will probably get the tires swap side to side and get the worn edge on the outside.

     Next event is up in the air...I will update when I know.

Vacation's are great....until they end

     Another vacation has come and gone.  Surprisingly I actually accomplished 98% of what I wanted to on the car...still didn't get the damn kiggly in.  Got the brakes all rebuilt and nicey nice, wasn't a bad job at all.  The dust seals were definitely cooked and hardened but overall they didn't look terrible.  I'm sure it won't hurt to have upgraded anyway.  I wound up only replacing one rear sway end link since the drivers side wound up coming loose after a little work and was able to be adjusted, while the passenger rear needed lots of cutting/sparks/brute force.  In hindsight I probably should have just replaced the drivers side even though it moved...oh well.  

     I've got the ecu boost control pretty dialed with just a little work left to do from 6k rpm up.  Had a few hiccups and found that that my RPM/gear table is a tad off so I was getting weird interpolation on one of the tables, and just yesterday with some help found why my boost error was logging all wacky.

      Overall, the car is an oil and brake pad change away from being ready for pocono next weekend.  Pretty excited to get back out on track.  It looks like for DE we will be running the south east infield which doesn't look terribly exciting, but I'm sure it may prove otherwise for me somehow...but it is kinda lame I won;t get to be out on the NASCAR pavement.  Either way track time is track time.

     Unfortunately it looks like I might be doing this event with out my dad/crew chief.  Shortly after I left my parents house to end my vacation my mom wound up breaking her leg pretty good ad spent two days in the hospital, had a rod put in and all that good stuff.  Looking like the crew chief will have to be a nurse instead.

     If my luck holds out, I will be hitting NJMP again 2 weeks after pocono.

Welcome home (clutch break in is a bitch)

     Picked the car up from DynoTech on Friday.  Made for a damn good birthday present.  It's like driving a whole new car to be honest.  The clutch engagement is much smoother and requires a lot less finesse, the exedy flywheel actually improved things I think, as now when you let off the gas while cruising the rev's don't immediately drop like a ton of bricks (I was very concerned about going to an aftermarket flywheel, but the exedy is only like 2 pounds lighter than stock...great choice).  The gear box is straight up buttery end of story.

     Of course the bill wound up being a little larger than I had hoped, as they didn't listen and did an oil change and put in Denso spark plugs...I ONLY run NGK.  But i can't really complain DynoTech has been great, and even with 15 cars at the shop in various stages of builds they met my deadline like pros even, even though the transmission took way longer to get here than I thought.  

     Interestingly, the timing belt hardly looks worn to me.  I figured at 61k miles I would at least see a few cracks.  The clutch/flywheel also surprised me, never slipped on me once but it looks like theres a few hot spots on both the face of the pressure plate and the flywheel.  Im curious what the thickness of the stock disc is though...

     I'm on vacation this week so that means more work on the car.  Big things are the new rear end links I think I previously mentioned, as well as rebuilding the front calipers with Racing Brake stainless pistons and high temp seals (PLEASE SPONSOR ME RB!).  Also bought a vortex generator because I really feel like my car does not look aggressive enough.  I had wanted a factory one since there is wind tunnel data behind it, but I couldn't justify the price plus needing to paint it...enter rexpeed...whatever its for looks and maybe a tiny bit of performance since it will eventually be a small part of a large aero package.

     Also started playing with a few things that may/may not aid in cooling.  You can see I just covered up gaps where air could escape with aluminum tape.  I will also be installing a 6.5 inch 300cfm puller fan on the oil cooler to help with cool down/in case I get too hot on track.  Guys have seen about a 10 degree drop with similar setups.  Next step will be wrapping some things with Aerolyte foil (google it, they use it in Indycar it, it's something like >90% heat reflective.

I'm going through track withdrawal....

I miss my car...

     I've been too lazy to post anything, but today I'm in a crappy mood and normally when that happens i would just go for a ride in the evo....but it's not here.  I dropped the car off at Dynotech on the 1st  for a ton of work.  If you listen closely you can hear my credit card crying.

     So now i play the waiting game...

     That's my transmission.  So the current list of work goes something like this:

          - 60k service (timing belt/balance belt/water pump)

          - Comp Stage 2 clutch

          - Exedy lightweight flywheel

          - Jack's Stage 1 ransmission

          - Stainless clutch line

     The car should be done by my birthday aka the 21st if we stay on the current schedule.  Then I'm on a much needed vacation from work for a week and have even more parts in the form of new rear end links so that I can soften the rear bar (the proper setting to compliment my coilovers, and the old links are rusted on), energy suspension rear diff bushings and RacingBrake front caliper rebuild kit which includes all new seals/dust boots and of course brand new stainless pistons...I really hope this will sort my braking shudder on track or I'm going to be severely pissed. 

     Of course when I dropped the car at the shop I was knee deep in tuning the car on ECU boost, which is annoying because I'm sitting here waiting to try a new map revision.

     Anyway....not much else to report, as I'm jut playing the good ol waiting game, and once the car is back in my hands I have to play the 500 mile clutch break in game...

     Next track day is July 13th at Pocono.  Crossing my fingers that all this work/money/time without my car will make it a dream to drive again...otherwise i may just bail on any more track days this summer to save money and redo a ton of shit on the car.

Be Progressive! B-E PROGRESSIVE!!!

     So another track weekend has come and gone...in the form of 1000 miles and a lot of gas money.

     After what should have been about a max of 6 hours of driving taking 9 freaking hours on Friday, My dad and I had dinner and crashed for the night.  In typical fashion I woke up like a kid at Disney Land Saturday morning and made my way to the track.  My instructor had emailed me Wednesday before the event to have a quick discussion about expectations for both of us as well as my car etc, which was pretty nice.  Even though some fellow evo guys think I'd be fine in DE2 with NASA, I decided to stick with DE1 so that I was guaranteed an instructor all day.  With 5 track days under my belt prior, I explained to my instructor that I was really looking for some coaching and to see if we could identify my specific weak areas.  The issue I was slightly expecting was that it can be very difficult for a non evo driver to instruct in an evo...my instructor (Alan) was of course a Porsche GT2 Rs driver.

     Lightning was a much more technical track than I initially expected, but damn is it a fun one.  For the first session I started slow and began ramping up the speed while keeping the braking zones long.  As soon as I got comfortable my wonderful brake shudder came BACK!  Lets back up for a second...if you look back a few posts, you'll see the brake issues I had at LRP last month.  In an attempt to combat this issue, which was assumed to be cause by some bad deposits, I put on a set of new blank rotors, but with the same pads...dumb idea.

     Overall the day went well, Alan told me it was impressive to see how quickly I was able to pick up and show that I knew the line.  Notice I said knew the line, not drove the line.  I was having some...well...issues putting the car exactly where I wanted at times and I honestly think it was due to losing focus thanks to the still grinding 4th and 5th gear syncros as well as the god damn brakes.  At the end of the day, Alan was able to pinpoint exactly what I was doing wrong under braking...i am not PROGRESSIVE, I seem to be either on or off the brakes instead of gradually increasing pressure nad the "rolling" off and back to the gas.  I started to get a little frustrated in the afternoon with the car, and myself for not being able to do what I knew I was needing to do so I called it a day.

     Now all that was left was to drive my ass all the way back to RI.  In the end, the car was impressive honestly.  I have never driven it that much in such a short period of time, it didn't event flinch at the trip and even managed 26mpg on one tank of gas.  The addition of about 10 square feet of dynamat to the trunk floor help GREATLY as my head didn't feel like it was going to explode after 2 hours of highway cruising.

     I know I've said it in probably the last 3 posts now, but hopefully I will get to work on ECU boost this weekend finally.  I'm waiting on a large parts order including clutch/flywheel/fluids/stage 1 transmission so that I can get the car back to almost perfect.  I thought everything was on schedule but of course now I was told 3-4 week wait on the gear box...oh and this:

 Apparently I ordered a clutch and they shipped drugs???  I mean c'mon...

     The other big issue right now is safety.  Some big wrecks have happened in Time attack/track days lately and safety has been constantly on my mind.  I will probably be ordering a Hybrid Pro Rage neck restraint and new helmet very soon to hold me over while I try and decide on what to do about a cage/seats/harnesses

  Next event will hopefully be NASA at Pocono July12-14 pending my day off request with work.  I've pretty much decided to dump all June events due to the transmission, Having to baby the car gets frustrating VERY quickly.  No idea on other events...

     Not to self:  WaWa's by NJMP only have 92 octane.  I found out the stupid way that my car does not enjoy 92 octane....and then had to spend $70 on a half tank of 100 octane.

See ya on the track.

Just a quick update

     Not a ton to report at this point.  The car is currently sitting at DynoTech getting the passenger side front axle replaced due to the tiny tear in the boot.  Other than that...

     - Got the car up and running on Tephra V7 finally.  Pretty much went without a hitch, had an EGR cel pop up but it it turned out that I hadn't perfectly matched the periphery settings from ROM to ROM.  This brings up an interesting point due to the fact that as far as I knew, the car should not need any EGR systems shut off through the ROM...

     - I need to decide what to do about the brake shudder.  I either need to skim the RB rotors, or pick up some blanks so I don't have to deal with the terrible shudder again.  The trouble is finding some place to skim the rotors.

     -  I've become a little well, disenchanted I guess you could call it with EMRA.  I deal with enough politic-ing and bullshit at work to not want to see it going on when I'm at the track where I should be having good pure fun.  This is not to say I will not do any more events with them, but I think I need to change up my schedule a bit.  I had planned on going to the NYS safety track with them in June, but there has been a severe lack of updates on basic events let alone for an event at a brand new track...the track has even announced they are totally open yet.  I think I'm going to target a TrackDaze event in it's place at NJMP.

     Here's an an awesome picture taken by JDS photography at Lime Rock last event.  He has some more I will probably purchase since they are wall hanging quality for my condo/garage, just haven't had the spare cash yet.

Some espresso and two red bulls later...

     And the first event is in the books.  Another good day at Lime Rock.  Keep in mind that I went into this event on new suspension, alignment and brakes.

     I headed out for the first session having no idea what to expect.  I had spent the week contemplating how to set up the rear suspension as well as what I was going to be facing with my brake cooling.  The weather was challenging, as it was in the low 50's with the sun going in and out of cloud cover so track temp was staying quite low.  Since the first session is a short warm up one, i decided to just run the brake ducts full open and go easy.  Upon returning to the pits and checking the rotors with my handy dandy laser temp gun, I saw somewhere in the range of 300 degrees...waaaaaay to cold, I knew i needed to be in the 700+ degree range.  The suspension was down right impressive.  The new lateral grip is intense and a challenge, as I am now having a VERY difficult time staying situated in the seat even with the CG lock.  

     This was also my first competitive day on a familiar track since I started with iRacing.  Do I think it helped?  Absolutely.  I already know the track well at LRP, but there was a new mental feeling, almost more focused.  I knew exactly where to point the car and had some new turn in points that felt much better than last year, as well as rolling the corners better and overall just feeling like i was maximizing the setup a decent amount better than I was last year...pretty neat if you ask me.

     The next session, I added some tape and blocked off about 50% of the duct inlet which resulted in much better brake temps at the rotor of about 500-600 degrees.  Unfortunately I developed HORRIBLE brake shudder.  After some discussion, it is possible i made some bad deposits on the rotors running the DTC 60's in the rain in February.  Further more I had 4th and 5th gear grinding both up and down shifting.

    

 After all was said and done, I came home with a 1st place trophy and a new personal best lap of 1:05.8x.  Although I will admit that it was first place because my only competition got protested and bumped up a class for running R-comps (not by me though).  That being said, my time would have landed me in about 4th place in the next class up.

     My GoPro didn't want to cooperate, so I have very little useable footage from the day.

     I didn't even remember to mess with the rear rebound all day, as I was distracted by the brake issues.  As always, my work is never done, and the car has more in it even just as it sits.  BUt of course I am now left with a decent checklist of things to do.

-I need rear diff bushings ASAP

- Probably need to have my rotors turned

- New pass front axle/boot, as I discovered grease flung everywhere, and a small tear in the outer boot

- Need to adjust the clutch a little and see if I can get it shifting better before i wind up with a large repair bill

- Could probably use to check the tune and start working on ECU boost/Tephra v7 finally.

OVERALL:  car was great, tire wear and temps looked very good and now i just need to prep for the next event, my first with NASA in May.

Spring Break: more car, less tits same amount of beer edition

     I finally consumed enough beer to be able to sit down and write tonight.  Unfortunately, I have to start off with a rant, I apologize in advance.

     For those who don't follow closely, on basically a yearly basis I take a vacation from work in March, call it cliche or whatever but it's sort of my spring break, and allows me to do a bunch of work on my cars and as of the past two years has been my sort of season prep time.  This year I added moving into my vacation.  I've lived in a small expensive apartment in the city for a little over 2 years now, and while certainly nice, it was pricey for what it was and the parking situation sucked.  I always search listings/craigslist as does my mom, and back in December we ran across a condo listed.  Fast forward to February and I sign the lease to rent a 2 bed/1.5 bath condo with a garage and ample parking in the burbs from a young professional couple who bought a house.    

     Now is the part where I lost it.  I used the first two days of my vacation (this past weekend) to move, which promised about as much fun as getting kicked in the balls.  Long story short, things go semi smoothly, but when I get to the condo it is straight up GRIMEY, like they never mopped, just moved the dirt around or some shit.  every cabinet and shelf is gross, all walls/molding need repaintig in my opinion.  So whatever, I rushed them to let me move in.  Next day, go out for breakfast, come back, and I'm locked out...come to find out pretty much every lock in the house has a different key including the damn front door knob and deadbolt, and the garage door opener took a shit on me...WTF.

     How, as a young professional couple with money do you live like this?  I mean I get that they probably said fuck it were moving...but c'mon man.  So now I'm gonna have to replace multiple door knobs to get them properly functioning and on the same key, and hang a new garage door opened...the landlord has proven that his DIY skills are terrible...but I won't get into that.

     Let's get to the car.  This week my main goal was to get my gauges installed as well as my Ohlins coilovers.  Took me a rediculous 2 hours to do my gauge install even not having to do any wiring, this is gonna go well...

     So, I decide to at least do the rear coilovers the same day in case I run into any bad bolts etc.  All bolts come out easily, but this is what I find:

     I know what you're thinking, "Nate you suck, how did you kill that bolt???".  The asnwer is I didn't, that is either a factory defect ORRRRR (revert to rant mode).  The shocks and springs on the car were installed by the previous owner.  Either he put this bolt back in with a 1000ft/lb air gun OR he saw this and decided to re use it.  I HATE IMCOMPETENCE.  It's just a major kill you if it breaks suspension bolt...no biggie.  Apparently the dumbass has never heard of anti seize either...

     Onto the front, drivers side goes ok, passenger front not so much.  2 days, multiple heat sessions and lots of hammering later, the seized camber bolt was out. So there you have it, it took me 3 days to install coilovers (insert facepalm here).

     I had hoped to put some shifter bushings and diff bushings on the suby, but didn't get to that.  Same with my oil pressure sensor, and kiggly HLA.  Oh well.

      OH, I did grow a beard though.

     Car goes off for an alignment tomorrow.  -2.8 camber front with zero toe, -1.5 camber rear with 1/16th total toe to counteract the possible over steer i might get from having seized end links and not being able to adjust the rear bar softer...I picked up a Smart Camber gauge for cheap off eBay, but I feel like I should at least get a baseline and only trust myself to make adjustments from there.

     Looking forward, officially registered for Lime Rock on 4/13 and NJMP lightning with NASA in May.  Let the fun begin!

    

The green flag waves, and were underway...

     Well, the first event of the season has come and gone...and what a great event it was.  The event was put on by a group of guys known as PCD aka Philadelphia's classiest drunkards, a large group of guys who all track their evo's.  They had the first event last year as a season kickoff/warmup and had a great turn out, so luckily they decided to do it again this year.

     I went down to my parents house and prepped the car the weekend before, fluids, brake pads etc, nothing crazy.  Trailered down to the track next weekend, and after that it's pretty much a blur at this point.  

     I spent most of the week leading up the event staring at the lame weather forecast, as the midwest got dumped on with snow...it didn't look good.  Everyone kept saying a rainy track day is the best thing you can ever do, but of course that's hard to believe.  I was bummed, but finally accepted the forecast, and damn did my attitude change after the first session on track.  I know understand, and would recommend to ANYONE to do a wet track day if you can.  I learned exponential amounts about my cars handling and how to be smooooothe (learned that the hard way...see below).  When the speeds are lowered by rain you are given all kinds of time to concentrate on exactly what the car is doing and how it is reacting to every little input.

This is what happens when you are not smooth:

     I got on the power way to early and hard and went right around.  

     Don't have much to say, other than to reiterate my big thanks to the guys who put on this event, and that I hope i get to hang out track side with them many more times.

on to the video:

and here's a little teaser of whats to come:

Yes, those are ohlins...and yes, I'm a baller (I would never have bought these if I hadn't gotten the SMOKIN deal I did from one of the PCD guys who switched to something else).  Running hyperco springs in the generic and well accepted evo rates of 8k/10k.  Will add more camber up front and see how awesome the car becomes.  I have some other thing in the pipeline I'll talk about later...

Back to iRacing for awhile....

It's been a long winter...........

     Yeah, I know I have posted nothing basically all winter.  It's called real life I guess.  Some stuffs happened blah blah blah.

     Anyway...

     So lets start the season fresh, did I mention I'll be on track next weekend?  Group of evo guys are putting on a second annual track day at NJMP, sort of a season warmup event/lapping day.  The car has been in the storage all winter, and I finally got my dad to go release it back into the wild this week.  As the "pit crew" he has been tasked with getting the car inspected and burning off the gas that has been sitting in it all winter...I just have to keep reminding him that the boost gauge has a memory function...

      I've spent an ass ton of time playing iRacing the past few weeks, so we shall see if it has any effect on real driving.  I'm also signing the lease on a new place today and it has a garage, which is sweet!  I will finally have both cars in one place.

     I will have some fun new part announcements coming soon too...