Monday, May 11, 2015

Where Do I even Start?

This is how I felt living in the Northeast...




     Holy hell was it a long winter.  It feels like I did absolutely nothing but worked (as usual right) and bombed around in the Subaru through mountains of snow.  I guess I have to confess at the time I wrote this I've already done 3 track days this year...

     You call it lazy I call it writers block so whatever...March rolled around and it was time to start prepping the car as April was looking pretty fun.  Basically just did fluids, injectors and a retune around them (which still isn't 100% complete) and mounted the splitter.  "well you can't run a splitter without a wing" says everyone...well let's get right down to that saga.  I ordered a Kognition wing the weekend after Thanksgiving (That means November you turkey's...haha get it?).  After countless messages, excuses and generally terrible customer service Mike@Kognition finally got my wing to me in the middle of April...FUCKING APRIL.  Oh and he forgot to send me end plates.  So after missing his promised delivery date I completed two track days without aero and then put all the aero on for my first ever trip to the Glen, complete with Walmart cutting boards I made into wing end plates.



     So 3 track days on back to back to back weekends...lets see what I remember:

Lime Rock 4/11 - This was the first event out using DTC60's on the rear of the car.  Between sim work over the winter, and just experience at Lime Rock at this point I was pretty much up to speed first session matching my old personal best.  Thanks to my new traqmate system I was able to quickly see i was losing 1-2 seconds.  Temps were cold and windy, but the car was flawless as usual and i drove it to a new PB of 1:03.1.
 


Lighting 4/17-18 - It was an uneventful but fun weekend.  Bailed early on Saturday because they wound up combining group 1 and 2 which never works for me.  It was obvious I needed to ask for a check ride since I was lapping at the front of group 2 consistently.  Got my opportunity on Sunday and was finally bumped up to group 3!  Last session of the weekend I got to run around in a combined 3 and 4 session...and hot damn was it fun.  I learned more in that 1 session being around faster cars than I did all last season.  Didn't achieve my goal of a sub 1:20 lap but it' coming...

     Between traqmate issues and forgetting to start the camera a few times I don't have any great video to edit...may post the full last session at some point.

Watkins Glen 4/28-29 - This was bucket list level shit.  I have dreamed of running this track and it finally happened...and damn did it turn out to be EVERYTHING I had hoped.  I stupidly threw on the wing and splitter for this event having never been on the track.  Cool and damp the first day so used to to find my bearings etc, and again thanks to the sim work over the winter I was right up to a decent pace.  Next day brought 60 degrees and sun, which allowed some extra pushing and a 2:18 lap time.




     I removed the OEM oil cooler duct to make installing my brake ducting easier with the splitter.  This taught me an interesting lesson...pressure=cooling.  Even in 60 degree ambient temps I was easily seeing 220+ oil temps.  At the time it wasn't an issue, but when we hit 80-90 ambient at NJMP in July I think I'm in trouble.  Planned work is below:

- Rebuild front calipers (dust boots causing piston to stick = bad vibration)
- All driveline fluids are due for change
- Increase front spring rate (multiple pictures show way too much roll)
- Build bigger splitter
- CSF radiator + dual puller fans + front mounted oil cooler so I can start playing with more aero.

Next event will be autocross with the s2000 in two weeks which should be pretty interesting.  After that Evo should be back on track end of June at NJMP...may wind up on r comps...