The winds of change are blowing (hopefully its not just gas?)

     I'm a pessimist that's just the facts.  Due to that I have been looking over my shoulder waiting to get hit by a bus lately...I've just been having oddly good luck.  Most of it's in the life realm, and I can't post it publicly just yet...

     I also managed to survive the hurricane, and even today's nor'easter.

     Anyway...somehow I missed the fact that a new road course is opening near Albany about 2 hours north of my parents house.

Length - 2.1 miles
Front straight - 2,300 feet long, 40 feet wide
Back side - 36 feet wide
Turns - 18
Elevation change - 450 feet

 

     Looks like a really nice layout and EMRA, who has released a tentative 2013 schedule already (sweet!) has 2 weekends scheduled there so far running counter clockwise one day and clockwise the next.

     Speaking of schedules, with how poorly things are going at work lately including an impending nurse strike, we haven't had to request our 2013 vacations yet.  Most people are pissed, but I'm kinda happy because it is allowing more time for NASA/EMRA/NARAA/RTA etc. to release their 2013 schedules, which should hopefully equate to me getting a bunch more days on track (hopefully this isn't where the bus I mentioned earlier decides to hit me...).

     I'm still plotting/planning the car setup for next year as well as setting aside stacks of cash necessary to pay for it all.  Things might change yet again depending on what black friday deals I find.  So far all I've picked up is a spare ACD ecu and a set up barely used Hawk DTC 60 pads to try. 

until next time...

wait...spring is HOW far away???

     I've been meaning to write a post for like two weeks now, but things have been....well intersting  frustrating. 

 Its tough to think about.  It's like just officially fall, and I want spring and race season back.  In case you didn't realize, this is me saying I put the evo away for the winter.  I got a few days off work and was able to head down to see my parents for the first time in a while, as well as do some car work.

    I swapped out the front pads on the evo, and found this:

     As you can see, I have cracked most of the pad material, and chunked the corner of one pad.  The pads are probably garbage.  Then you can see that i torched my dust shields.

     Moral of the story is I toasted a set of pads and dust shields due to lack of cooling, which I will obviously have full bore next year.

     Also learned that spark plugs on a subaru are a pain in the ass...but 2.5 hours later I had em swapped, and had the car flashed to cobb stage 1 aka what it should have felt like from the factory.  Next issue in line is the sloppiest of slop shifter in that car...otherwise I like it a lot.

     So what you ask, will i be doing all winter?  well I needed to keep the racers edge going in my head....soooo....I got this little dealy (it will probably also serve to further ward off women...damn shoulda thought of that earlier).  Full on racing seat with high end wheel and pedals.  Playing forza4 and F1 2012 for now, but heading towards getting up and going with iRacing for some serious race practice.

     Not sure when the next blog will be.  Still debating shop to use and timing of having all the work done on the evo....will keep everyone updated.

Until then my friends...

The 7 minute fix and my first podium

     Remember the last two times I mentioned I wasn't happy with how the car was shifting?  Yeah, well I finally got around to spending the 7 minutes necessary to adjust the clutch.  After all, the clutch has 60k miles of wear on it.  I wound up putting almost a full turn of clutch rod into it in 1/4-1/2 turn increments, and wouldn't you know...it's a whole new car.  Easier to get into second gear, no more 3rd gear grind and A LOT less low speed parking lot chatter and just general bitchy-ness low speed clutch engagement.  I'm not sure whether i should love it, or hate myself for not doing this sooner?

     In other news the results got posted from last event.  I finished third behind an Evo X and an STI swapped 2.5RS...buuut I left early so I didn't get my damn trophy.  Figures.

     I'm now hard at work compiling my winter to do list.  It's looking expensive way too quickly.  I will be letting a shop do the 60k and install some bushings, the running is between DynoTech and CBRD.  If i get the few days off I requested from work teh car will be going into hibernation in 2 weeks.  Need some more time to get the Legacy sorted for the winter.  Needs drive line fluids, spark plugs and a few other minor tweaks...oh and I have an Accessport sitting on the table now...woops.

     Fast Five is on HBO tonight...I'm gonna watch it for the 27th time.

Finished up this weekends video.

     Had some technical difficulties with the camera saturday.  Lost one session because when I turned on the camera I held the button too long and it went into picture mode instead of video (anyone with a gopro knows how that happens).  Then after I melted off the wheel weights, the video become a little too wobbly.  So this is what I wound up with.

lime rock august 25 edit from Nathan Bookbinder on Vimeo.

I live my life a quarter mile at a time...wait what?

     I was very looking forward to go racing this weekend with all the other bullshit going on for me right now.  Relaxed all day Friday, gassed up the car, topped off my tires so I could bleed them down once I arrived.  Went out and had a good times with some friends, and called it a night.

     7.15AM saturday, and I am welcomed with a noticeably (to me) low left front tire.  Get out the gauge and it reads 28psi.  That means it lost 5 psi in about 12 hours...great.  The valve stem ball/pin needs to be tightened, and surprisingly my dad claims he has the tool, but obviously not with him.  Put 5 psi back in and got on my way to the track.  The thought was that being a metal valve stem with an o ring at the cap, i shouldn't really have to big an issue...and i do carry a spare electric pump anyway.  An uneventful ride to say the least.

     Arrived at the track, rolled into the paddock, and surprisingly my dad was already there and had the EZ-up up and providing shade...sweet.  I set on to unpacking my car, get registered (at which point i found out I was being bumped from novice to intermediate run group), tech'd, etc.  Had a half hour to kill before the drivers meeting so I re torqued my spacers, and a few other rituals, and set all 4 tires to 32psi.

     It was a great day weather wise to be racing, although we quickly found the track temp was above its optimal zone and in the slippery hot zone.  

Decided to run on some of this for the day (put 4 gallons in a half tank of 93, and put in another 2 gallons when i was at 1/4 tank).  And let me just say, even though I'm tuned for 93, the car definitely has a ballsier feel to it. 

1st session - Mentality was to just go make sure i have the muscle memory of the proper line and do a couple 7/10th's laps to see where i was at.  Quickly noticed that the exit/trackout point of turn 2 and into the braking zone of turn 3 was covered in dirt and rocks.  This lead to having to re adjust your double apex of big bend so that you could stay way inside out of the dirt.  That sections leads itself to stabbing the brakes and getting ABS lockup even without the dirt...  Either way, did a hot lap and wound up surprising myself when I clicked off a 1:06.62, already beating my previous best by a full second.  I felt like I hit none of my marks whatsoever, and literally felt the rear end jumping around under braking, and definitely had to counter steer a few times.

Second Session - Was kind of a waste, I wound up in bad traffic twice because they kept black flagging a guy and then releasing him back on track at not the best time.  Did some slower laps to make sure I could identify all my marks, and then clicked off another 1:06.xx.

     After a cool down, and 2-3 minutes sitting, the guys in the pit next to me gave me their infrared heat gun.  outside edge of my calipers were over 500 degrees, rotors were upwards of 600 degrees.  The wheel was even too hot to touch, and that's after the heat travels through a 20mm thick metal spacer.  The extreme heat did me the favor of removing all my wheel weights from the barrel.  This made the ride home down the mass pike well...interesting.

     I also started having issues with downshifting into 4th gear and 5th gear ground on the way in once.  The downshifts make sense since I'm granny shiftin, not double clutching like Dom says I should.  Sorry Fast and Furious flashback.  Basically I need to figure out heel toe soon, or a more effective braking strategy to be completely done braking and then blip the throttle.  It's also possible that at 60k miles my clutch is pretty worn and needs to be adjusted and/or its not releasing all the way at high rpm.  Have a few things to try this winter to get it to shift better as previously mentioned.

Third Session - By now i was fatigued and low on gas, even after putting in two more gallons of VP100.  Traffic was a little better and i clicked off a 1:06.8x, 1:06.7x and finally a 1:06.6x.  Midway through the session I went to take the hill at turn 7 and the car sputtered and was acting like I had some weird boost/rev limit.  Turns out what little gas I had in the car was too far from the pump.  I called it a day at that point.

overall:

     I was literally and figuratively out of gas, and became pretty convinced that my brakes were used up.  I didnt want to put more 100 octane in at $9.99 a gallon, and figured I wasn't gonna get any faster.  Of course right as I'm packed up and session is called...instant cloud cover rolls in and I bet the track came down 10 degrees dammit.

     Again...super impressed with my car.  Only change from last time was the 60 dollar mini battery.  the change in feel of the car in the turn 2-3-4 complex was very positive.  That, combined with my goal of the day (which was literally "trail break the shit out of everything") led to going 1.5 seconds faster than last time out.  I'll take that.

Observations:

     I appear to have my tire pressures dialed.  The rollover looks pretty good...could aregue both ways against/for another pound.

     I think I over heated/smeared my pads.  The CL pads i run have an interesting failure mechanism.  As opposed to other pads who just over heat and the mu goes off a cliff (leading to stepping on the pedal and getting nothing at all), these slowly compress giving you a longer pedal almost like boiling fluid.  My pedal did get longer but...i dunno.

     In the end, the car has done great.  Specific to this track I think with some well thought out changes there may be a second per lap still left in the car.  I'm at the point where I am almost positive the spring rates are the limiting factor.  Id love to jump to coilovers next season, but to many annoying things to take care of that cost a lot to do this winter.  I also need to get out to more tracks that involve more than two gears.


gonna re read this in the next few days and edit/add/etc, as well as finish editing the video...check back!

...in other news (I have no idea whats going on edition)

     While having beers with a coworker/friends on Friday night I realized that I'm pretty sure I just black out Monday through Friday and wake up for Saturday and Sunday.  I don't know if it's rage, blood pressure, or turning into the Hulk...by my typically one day off  (if I'm super lucky I actually get two in a row) I have zero idea what has happened the rest of the week.  We are so understaffed at work it's not even funny.  With the latest being the tragic/sudden passing of one of my nicest coworker's husband, which really put everyone in a crappy mood...oddly enough it quelled some of the other bullshit for a day or two.

     But anyway...

     Unfortunately, the coworker mentioned above had graciously offered to work a day for me so that I could go to the EMRA race at NJMP in September.  For obvious reasons my trip has been cancelled.  This very likely means that my event at Lime Rock next weekend will be my last for the season.  There is a chance that pending my work schedule, which of course I probably won't have until October, that I could make the NASA NJMP Thunderbolt weekend the end of October or even the EMRA summit point weekend...but I'm not sure I want to head all the way to West Virginia.

     I've been "falling out of love" with the damn car lately on top of everything else.  It's running great, but my wide band has apparently died yet again and on top of that, after pulling some logs last week found out that my logging resolution has dropped to 1/10th of what it had been (aka the data is useless).  This of course happened right as I had 3 days off from work and planned on tweaking the map and converting to Tephra V7 finally.  I spent 2 hours re installing all my software and drivers and got no change.  The only suggestion I've gotten from anyone is to just reformat the damn computer...I fucking hate windows.  The shifting of the car has gotten reaaaaallly annoying.  Keep in mind I have about a 3 mile commute to work through the city, so a low rpm 2nd gear lockout is a giant annoyance.  My best guess is that the clutch is not fully disengaging, and since I've been lazy with the trans fluid change interval and not installing the new clutch line/removing the restrictor, it's my own fault.

     As of today, as much as I don't want to, I think my plan is going to be to go park the car for the winter in September and go get it out if I wind up making the October NASA event.  I don't really want to park it for 7 months, but by the time the middle of next month rolls around I'll be over 59k miles (did about 5k so far this year), which means I need to seriously start planning my 60k service and winter mods plan of attack...and getting down to setting aside the money obviously.  I'm trying to rationalize it because it will save me equipment costs, my current tires will only have 2 events, brakes only 3, which will probably get me pretty deep into next season.  On top of all that, another car was broken into in classic smash and grab fashion right in my apartment buildings parking lot, ya know, the one with all the cameras, and a guy I work with had the cat cut off his truck in the work parking lot 2 days ago.  To say I'm mildly concerned about my wheels and/or car being stolen would be putting it lightly.  This is a large part of the reason that I'm trying to find a new place to live that includes a garage, but that too is proving futile. 

     Who knows...lately I can't plan more than 2 days ahead with the way things are going.

     My feelings will probably completely change after Lime Rock next weekend.

     I'm rambling...no wonder I have insomnia....
    

"How being an Idiot is the Smart Way to Drive Fast"

     I spend a lot of time reading car forums/blogs/industry sites etc, etc.  Some of my favorites: jalopnik, autoweek, autoblog, smoking tire, crank and piston, speedhunters, you get the idea.

     So I won't lie, I stole the above title straight from a great article from a series on jalopnik called "how to drive fast", which is written by Alex Lloyd (indy car driver).  I suggest you all read it, his articles have been great, well written and its really cool to get insight straight from a professional driver.  The main point of the article is that in the end, to be/become a fast driver...you actually need to be a bonified (sp?) idiot.  I mean the truth of it is, the breed of person that dives feet first into auto racing could be reasoned to have a screw (or multiple) loose, since we do after all hurl ourselves into turns at speeds that normal people cant even handle in a straight line down the highway...and come out the other side (most of the time at least).  The game is as much mental as it is physical and engineering.  (here's the link for the lazy)

     Try explaining that one to the girl you meet at the bar. (hint: she wont get it)

     But I digress, back to the car at hand.  In random forum discussion the idea of making a sway bar adjustment was brought up.  It had crossed my mind but the I hadn't really done the research on the key points like my actual spring rates and how much stiffness change each adjustment point on the bar made.  This stuff was an easy find, my springs are 290in/lb front and 330 rear and whiteline has a readily available stiffness chart.  After talking to Andrew at GTWorx, he suggested that going to the middle setting on the rear bar coupled with my springs, and that this would not push me into an over steer situation, which obviously wouldn't be a good thing for a green driver like me.  Long story short, I had hoped that I'd be able to up the bar and it would make an awesome change to the car...low and behold the bar was already set there.  On one hand this is good because it's stopping me from making a big swing at the setup that may get me in trouble, but at the same time it means I will have to learn to drive around the inherent evo under steer that I hoped wouldn't be so blatantly apparent.  There is one small change I can make, but that's a story for another post.

     Here is my sub $100 mini battery setup that sticks to my modus operendi of building a car that at anytime I can put back to stock, operates in a close to stock manner and is fast...and hey I make a good salary but even still im not dropping $250 on a freaking mini battery (most vendors sell kits with trays that replace the stock tray, cost well over $200, and use a bettery that is 2 pounds heavier...I win.)

     It's odd being in a position with a car where it feels complete and well rounded.  I honestly don't think with all the cars I've ever built that I have had this complete feeling a car.  I continue to be impressed on a very consistent basis with how well this drives to and from work, and yet goes out and rips it up on the track.  I think big things will be coming next year.  Global Time Attack has recently announced an "enthusiast" class with much tighter rules a la must be driven to the track.  This was set up to combat the "street class" cars that are aero'd out with 500whp, slicks, etc and running higher classes normally, from strapping on street tires and running the next down class to easily win and set records.  I fully plan on hitting the GTA NJMP event next year.

     Now I just need to find the time to get the tune a tad more dialed based on what I was seeing on my wide band last time out.  I still need to get around to converting to ECU boost one of these days too...

     I actually don't mind writing these either lately...just need to come up with more shit to talk about.

Not just a pretty face.

     Found this is the pocket of my work pants while doing laundry today

oh ya know...just calculating surface areas of available oil cooler options.  As you can see, I'm struggling to figure out what to do for my setup still, since I'd really like to have it higher than the stock location AND give more cooling, but mounting is proving to be an issue.

     Been driving my subaru, and I actually really like it.  Has all the ammenities of a car that should cost a lot more.  still really only planning on throwing an AP stage 1 on it.

on the evo side - I picked up a gruppe s gauge pod so that I can have only boost on the steering column, and then AFR/oil p/oil t on the dash, allowing me to see more of my tach and use the knock light features of Tephra.  Also ordered a deka etx14 mini battery and terminals and plan to just lay it in the factory tray.  This will shed about 20 pounds off the front left of the car for under 100 bucks, as the pc680 is way more expensive and weighs more too!

     I was lucky enough go to the GRC race at Loudon this weekend.  And thanks to my great friend Orod, I got great access to the PUMA team, all the way down to beers and dinner with Mirra/Lasek/Sverre.

NHMS/GRC race photo set

EPIC weekend basically.

Evo will be back out of storage in two weeks...should have lots more to talk about then,

A week of work

    On the cars that is.  I was on vacation from work this past week (my yearly week off for my birthday), so I was able to accomplish a decent list of things.  I wanted to prep the winter car (05 Legacy GT, since I hadn't gone over the car since I bought it back in March, and had some much needed work to do on the Evo.

     Legacy got an oil change, AVO dry panel filter, bottle of techron, tint, tinted tail light overlays and a plasti dipped (blacked out) grill.

     The evo got even more love...

      - Racing Brake slotted/firectional vane front rotors

      - Racing Brake stainless brake lines

      - Fresh brake fluid (ATE type 200...the non blue ATE)

      - Torque solutions Prop shaft bushings

      - Heat wrapped downpipe

      - Rolled rear fenders

     Rotors, lines and fluid went quick ans easy as can be expected, especially with my motive power bleeder.  All necessary nuts and bolts loosened with no trouble, which is always a nice thing.  I was lazy and only did the front SS lines since I actually wanted to not spend all day everyday working in the garage.  On some quick break in stops it became obvious that braking has changed a lot even with the same pads.  I was able to trigger ABS on hard stops with a very definite modulation point on the pedal...could make re learning the braking interesting...  The RC5+ pads have close to 3k miles on them plus 2 track days and have TONS of life left which is pretty cool.

      The prop shaft bushings have been sitting in my parts bin for almost a year.  I had expected stuck bolts and needing to drop the whole exhaust.  I was able to accomplish this easily while the downpipe was off.  No stuck bolts again...sweet.  I actually only did 3 out of 4 bushings, since one was in a pain in the ass location, and I thought maybe it would dampen any increase in NVH.  The car has always given me trouble going in to second gear at low speeds around town, almost requiring a double clutch or 3 count before attempting to put it in second.  That is now gone, along with a decent amount of the "whiplash" feeling when letting off the gas under load.  Very nice improvement.

     The heat wrap is one of those mods that I feel is essential at this point.  A 15 foot roll made it from turbo outlet to just beyond the oil pan.  I probably could have overlapped a little less, but it came out pretty well I feel.

     Rolling the rear fenders...a job I've been afraid of doing on multiple cars for many years.  With the 17x9.5's and 255's, there was question as to if I even needed to roll, and through 1000 street miles and a day at Lime Rock I didn't rub once...but i have a feeling I'm going to want bigger than 255's at some point so I may as well prepare now.  First fender went great.  Kept it hot, and got it nice and flat without any issue.  No body line distortion or paint cracking whatsoever.  Then i got bit in the ass on the other side thinking I knew what I was doing.  Using even more heat, I got a nice paint crack basically the entire length of the roll.  I think i had a bad starting angle on the roller or something.  No body distortion or anything, so I'm not that mad.  I can replace paint.

     Now, just imagine if I/you had payed $200+ to have a shop roll your fenders and they told you they cracked your paint.  How ape shit pissed would you be?  This basically proved my principal of do all the work you physically can so you only have yourself to be pissed at.

     Interesting find of the week...A cracked spacer.  While bolting everything back on after the rotor swap, I randomly looked at the spacer and found a nice large crack.  Now, there are all these arguments against spacers, but I do not feel this is a standard failure, and Ichiba feels the same.  A quick email to Touge Factory, who then forwarded my pictures to Ichiba, and I will be getting a free replacement.  I really have no idea what caused this...

    
      Evo is now resting in the garage for about a month to save some miles, since I'm quickly approaching the 60k mark (60k service).  That and I though it would be a good idea to do some real world testing on the legacy, since it's been sitting in the garage since I bought it.  So far, I really like the car, seems like a solid beast.




     Back to work tomorrow...I am SOOOOO excited.  (can you feel the sarcasm through your monitor?)

The funny part is I'm afraid of roller coasters.

     Time to try and recap another awesome day...

     I didn't get much sleep (read that as about 3 hours) since I got home from work Friday night around 11:30pm.  I still had to pack up a few things and go over the mental list, then I tried to relax and couldn't due to bullshit from work.  Long story short...fell asleep around 2am and woke up around 5am and just kinda layed in bed till about 6am.  Jumped in the shower, packed up and headed out...to Dunkin for coffee and breakfast.  Finally hit the road for real at about 7:45am.  Got stuck behind some slow people and finally made it to the track around 10:45am.

     My dad arrived before me and staked out a spot, so with my help we quickly got the EZ-up up to have some shade.  I hit registration and tech, then went about pulling the front wheels off to check the torque on the spacers as well as what the brakes looked like.  Checked over a few other things are all systems were GO.

Cliff notes style recap:    

Session 1 - 15 minute run time.  Told myself I wasn't going to push too hard and just re learn the track and find the limits of the new tires.  Well I wound up doing none of that.  Right off the start getting on the brakes for turn 1 provided a nice shudder in the pedal, and a now expectation that the brakes were shot, and not gonna have a good day.  Had a few moments missing turn in for turn one having to stand on the brakes so hard, but rode it out and luckily it seems it was just deposits cleaning off from street driving as the judder mostly went away, and I put down a 1:12.66 lap.

Session 2 - 20 minute run rime.  With a little more confidence in my brakes I was just gonna go out and drive and practice some hot lap cool lap ratios/strategies to try and keep the brakes and tires at useful temps.  Dealt with some traffic because one of the guys thought i was a slow car and not cooling so he subsequently dive bombed me into turn 1, and i was able to ride his ass for two laps before he got the hint.  In clean air right from the green flag I layed down a 1:12.09 then 1:09.92 then a 1:08.86! NEW PERSONAL BEST!  For the rest of the session I hovered in the 1:09-1:12 range.

Session 3 - 20 minute run time.  By now I was psyched, and was planning to push it.  Did the warm up lap and then got up on the wheel and pushed (this is what you will see in the video).  In three hot laps I ran 1:08.34, 1:07.87 and then 1:07.79 for a new PERSONAL BEST.   Unfortunately the session was black flagged due to two wrecks right after I layed down three of my fastest laps

Lime rock 6-16 from Nathan Bookbinder on Vimeo.

     I know 3 spots I'm leaving time on the track.

      - I can't get the braking point/turn in point dialed in for the left hander (turn 3), even though         

        I have big bend figured out (turn 1 and 2)
      - Slowing too much for west bend
      - Need to use the downhill to 7 to my advantage. Compression=grip, and if I can run

        harder into/out of turn 7 I will lower my times

     Guys running around 1:03's claim a turn 7 exit speed of 100mph.  Early in the day i was in th elow 80's, but definitely increased that exit speed and it became very obvious the benefits...my top speeds were climbing all day (best was 115.6mph) 

     Anyway...the question now stuck in my mind is, that due to the fact that i was pushing MUCH harder and the brakes showed signs of this, is it the pads, old rotors, or fluid?  I have new rotors, lines and fluid waiting to go in.  Definitely need to get my cooling ducts in now too...

Can't wait to get back to LRP and get my 1:05.xx

    
  

Some dope new stuff

     Got some new duds just in time for the race this weekend.

Very good friend of mine was heavily involved in the design the new PUMA GRC shoe comparing as well as the design of the cars.  Lucky bastard got to go hang out with Dave Mirra and Bucky Lasek to show them the shoe...but hes still awesome and hooks me up.  So without further ado:

   PUMA GRC street Mid (BIG THUMBS UP to OROD on these)

 

Shoe side shot, plus the Alpinestars tech 1 race gloves.  The gloves are SFI with some nomex but not very high up FIA tags.  Picked up a pair last minute just to try and will probably upgrade quickly since these are a tad small.

     I'm super stoked for this weekend.  And can't wait for the pro version of the shoe to be out.

Here's some more about the project

PS - 250 views on this page and no comments??? come on people its getting lonely around here!

Hangovers give you a lot of time to think

     I had a trying week at work this week, so my head has been swirling and working over time more than normal with life issues in addition to all the car stuff.  Then, last night myself and a large group of friends took a party bus to Foxwoods...it's all a little fuzzy after that...

     Swapping the o ring on the map sensor didn't solve my fuel trim issue, which sucks.  I think I finally pinpointed the spot in my AFR map that is causing a big rich dip just before peak load.  Hoping to try out a new map tonight.  Hopefully I've solved it, since I probably wont have any time to make another map before I get out on track next weekend.

     I'm on vacation next week, so I have a few maintenance things I can get done on the car.  I think I'll be ordering some Racing Brake slotted/directional vaned rotors as well as stainless lines, but I haven't decided if I'm going to put the rotors on yet or just carry them as spares for now.  The stock rotors are not showing any issues but do have all 56k miles of the cars life on them.  I need to get my cooling ducts set up which is proving difficult to plan out.  There is a good discussion going on right now between a few bigger evo time attack/time trial guys so I'm following that.  

     Off to Lime Rock again next weekend.  I'm trying my best not to think about lap times, but its tough.  I think that just by not having to deal with the running around to the classroom as well as a lot less anxiety in the realm of what to expect from the day/car/myself that I will be more relaxed and as a result faster.  I keep randomly watching my video from last time, and there are some very obvious spots to take a different line.

   I still need to figure out what to do about tire pressures for the RS3's...thats kind of important I think.

                                               I can't freakin wait for next weekend

    

10 cent o-ring=$10 headache and the Indy 500

     Quote of the week: "I had to stop seeing her...she got a case of the feelings"

     I've been a tad sleep deprived fr a few days, working day shift for 3 days straight when i normally go to bed at 3am and get about about 11...getting up at 5 am really shocks your system, it really starts to exaggerate everything (feelings, emotions...yes I do have each of those).  Anyway, for the first time in years I was not able to watch the 500 live, and just finished watching it off the DVR last night.  Two things:

          1. The Dan Wheldon tributes bring a tear to my eye 

          2. HOLY EPIC RACE.  The new DW12 chassis is awesome, the racing was awesome and 

              I spent 3 hours on the edge of my seat.  It really is the greatest race in the world.

     Back to the previously mentioned O-ring.  There was a random post on Evom from someone who appears to work at a tuner shop stating that the O-ring on the omni map sensor that I runis a little lackluster.  For a long time now I have been battling a fuel trim issue on the car to the effect of the car thinking it is very lean at the oxygen sensor, indicating a boost leak somewhere.  So since I had the factory map sensor with o-ring in the glove box, I spent 5 minutes swapping the o-rings...and damn was the omni sensor loose.  No resistance to fitting the sensor port AT ALL.  With the factory o-ring, a much tighter fit was obtained...This very well may have been part of my issue, but I still think I need a bigger ring.  

     Tried out a new fuel map last night too.  AFR's are close, but still need some tweaking.  Some spots are definitely touching a tad leaner than I would like.  Whats cool to see is the pickup of ~10whp and 10 plus wtq in the mid range. The numbers are a little whacky due to the new big tires though.

 

          Also, was watching top gear this morning and they were doing a segment on "lapping days" as they call them.  I wanted to share this...Clarkson just sums up the feelings very well.

    

Like a Bauce

     Headed to my parents house this weekend to attend a good friends wedding, and accomplished a few things on the car...new wheel setup is on, alignment, oil change, new WB sensor, and the harness bar is in.

     This is all I have in the way of pictures, the weather got crappy so i didnt pull out the good camera.

     The setup is VERY wide, the RS3's are F-A-T.  The one worry was the rear rubbing, as the setup sticks out 3mm further than factory setup but in 250miles I have yet to rub once.  The clearance to the rear trailing link is minimal and with any deflection I will probably polish the arm.  If I can swing it I'll pick up a set of R/T Ernie's offset links to allw for 275;s in the future.

     Next up was the alignment.  I was targeting -2 degrees front camber, -1.5 rear and zero toe all around, but with my luck I figured something was gonna go wrong.  Not to disappoint...the shop called to tell me that they could swing the left all the way to -2.4 degrees but the front right camber bolt was seized at -1.7.  Rather than trust a shop I've never used to fix a seized bolt, I had them match the left to it and call it a day.  It also appears that the tire i wrecked at lime rock may not have been due to toe...dammit.

Final Alignment

-1.7 camber front

-1.5 camber rear

0 toe

~3.8 degrees caster

     Now...the Buschur harness bar.  This was an impulse buy I shouldn't have made for various reasons.  In a fit of frustration yesterday, I think I have decided to sell it.  Oh the ups and downs of building a street driven race car...oh and life too I guess...

Until next time...

  

Small update

     Apparently since this place has been viewed just over 100 times, I might as well keep finding things to share.

    While I continue to dream of my next day out on track, I've ordered up a few odds and ends.

     - 17x9.5 +38 RPF'1s (after 2 weeks of convincing myself they will fit...soo I'll probably be rolling fenders on my June vacation)

     - Kics Leggdura lug nuts  Muteki Sr35 lug nuts (decided on steel instead of aluminum for now)

     - Kics 20mm bolt on spacers

     - Just got my tracking numbers for a set of 255 Hankook RS3's from tire rack

     Should all make for a quite grippy setup.

     I also picked up a ricey Broadway 300mm rear view mirror.  A big lesson that needs to be learned for racing is how to check your mirrors appropriately while having the confidence balls to hold your line with another car getting larger in your mirror quickly.  The stock rear view is a tad lacking for seeing anything until its directly behind you (especially with the large stock rear wing obstructing part of the field of view too)

60 Bucks in Drill Bits Later...

A little back story...

     I used to run a resonated test pipe, which had a welded in o2 bung which was readily available for my wideband.  To meet noise restrictions at Lime Rock, I fitted a Berk High Flow cat, which did not have a bung.  Prior to install, I had planned on welding on a bung but due to my questionable welding skills, I chose the AEM no weld bung.  To my dismay (read - cursing and throwing tools) no drill bit in the arsenal was sharp enough to even scratch the Berk stainless steel...its serious high quality.

     Fast forward to today.  I had some garage time and had gathered a 1/2" carbide tipped drill bit, a 7/8" hardened high end bit, and my dad picked up a Harbor Freight D-Handle drill.

Ta-Da.

     Now I just need to figure out why I seem to be a little richer under boost than I recall the tune reading...I have an inherent (healthy) distrust for my wideband.

Sold off some parts (ported hot side, manifold,  swaintech'd megan o2 housing).  Last summer, I had set a goal of 375whp, hence the parts stash.  after the first track day, I quickly realized I have plenty of power for now and I'd rather make some suspension/braking/drivetrain mods that will probably make a quicker lap time than more raw power.  Especially in my rookie outings here.

     Also rotated the beat up tire to the rear, set tire pressure, checked the pads etc.  The RC5+'s show little to no wear which is pretty neat, but then again Lime Rock isn't a big braking track.  Rotors also still look great.

     

 

The First Round of Random Thoughts

Time between track days, as I expected, breeds a lot of thought about your car and setup.  Daydreaming, real dreams (even though I don't sleep much), and spending most of your free time researching, reading and re watching your in car video.

Results were finally posted for both the EMRA TT and Real Time Attack events.  I promised myself I wouldn't pay attention to times but...I couldn't help it.  Turns out the times I clocked from my video were pretty decent.  The times appear to be the fastest of the student group, and would have put me mid pack for my competition class.  Watching the video it isn't too hard to see where I can pick up some decent time between lifting early into braking zones, only running 60-75% throttle down the front stretch (car was over boosting in 5th), and being a little wide in turn 1 and going into the uphill.  

- 2 days prior to the event I logged the car and found it was knocking above 6800rpm, I have since fixed that (I think).  I definitely need to switch over to ECU boost so I can get the 5th gear levels under control.

- I jumped in a batch of harness bars from Buschur Racing to try and help rectify how bad I was flying around in the seat. A fellow evo driver warned me that some sanctioning bodies may be totally phasing out 4 point harnesses, so after an hour or so trying to interpret the NASA CCR (first go round with that), a call to the US distributor for Schroth, and some emails back and forth with the NASA NE tech director, I was able to confirm that there are two 4 points that will still be allowed (Schroth Profi II ASM and the Teamtech Jet Pilot...I'll be going with the Schroth.

- I will be getting an alignment, many fellow evo racers pointed to my front left tire issue more than likely being a toe issue. The car was hit in the drivers front fender last summer and I suspect that although I told them what camber to put back in that wheel, they may have set it to factory toe settings, and not matched the other side.

- I think I'm decided on picking up a set of Hankook RS3's (255's), and will probably wind up matching them to a set of 17x9 RPF1's.  As much as i want a set of TC105N's, I think they are out of the budget for this year.

I think that's it for now...

Pics/Vids from Lime Rock

Took me a while to edit the video because I apparently suck at using iMovie.  This is session 4, as shot with my GoPro.  According to the video I was running laps in the 1:15 range.  To give you an idea of how much time i left on the track, listen to where I lift below(it takes balls to drive deeper and deeper obviously...I'm also running out of 4th gear)

Here's the full edit of Session 4.

Click Here to go to the video at Vimeo

These are some shots my dad got from up on the hill.

Lime rock ate my tire

     I should have started this blog sooner, since I'll probably have to jump backwards to post some stuff but...

     Yesterday I survived my first track day (and had a freaking blast!) with EMRA at Lime Rock.  I got 3 20 minute sessions in which equated to 60 miles on track.  My instructor was very helpful and showed me the line very well.  He went on to tell me that he was surprised at how quickly/well i picked up the line, and how big a jump in speed I made from session one to two.  Between the mass of students/shortage of instructors and the car control/understanding of everything I displayed both to the instructor and in class, I was allowed to do the last session (still with the novice group) solo, and they made suggestions as to which cars to try and follow (the more experienced guys/instructor pairings).

Session 1 - I was definitely nervous.  Not knowing how the car is going to react and basically having not had the opportunity to build high speed confidence in either myself or the car.  Drove the session and it FELT fast, but I'm sure it wasn't.  Had a very wide line everywhere, and pulled it tighter as I got more comfortable.

Session 2 - Now knowing how the car was going to react, I had the goal of smoothing out the line and hitting marks/reference points.  Its quite amazing to be able to feel the handling difference when you get the weight transfer better and even though you are rolling  a lot, it feels more planted and in control.  I kept very long braking zones and attempted to turn in later and later until i was finally hearing a little feed back from the tires.  Instructor commented that in his opinion I was easily 5-7 seconds or more faster than the first time out (I did not run a transponder to try and prevent myself from hunting a time and could just focus on learning).

Apparently star specs can get VERY sticky when used correctly.

 

Session 3 - Little nervous to be going out on my own, but I had shown myself and instructor that I am capable and have the knowledge to go out and do it, I just need seat time.  Experimented with a new line through no name stretch/the esses, by making sure I put a tire on the inside rumble strip mid sector.  A few quick glances showed a gain of around 5mph down the back stretch and into the uphill.  Just shy of halfway through the session the tires got slippery, and were REALLY talking back.  The car started pushing pretty hard in turn 4 and 7 (into the downhill).  Had a moment in turn 4 that required a quick lift and some steering input to get pointed down the track instead of at the flag stand...pretty sure I was a little sideways...

checked my tires at the end of the day and discovered this on the front left.

     Overall, I was blown away by how good the evo really is on the track.  I have enough grip with how its setup up now to get considerably faster I think.  The RC5+ pads with no ducting and factory 54k mile rotors did great, and the pedal was there all day, with no issues what so ever (definitely helps you get comfortable when you have consistent brakes).  Next event will be back at Lime Rock on June 16th.

Priority List:

- Fresh alignment (wasted tire may be from too much toe, or possibly bad hot pressures)

- Dedicated track wheels/tires (RPF1's with either RS3's if they come off back order, or maybe R-Comps)

- Find some way to hold myself in the seat better

- Get the brake ducting done

Will hopefully get some other mods done right after that, before I head to NJMP...more on that later.

The beginning

...I'm almost positive that at some point I swore I would never start a blog.

     Unfortunately I don't really have any good explanation as to how my obsession with cars started.  I am the only gear head in my entire family, although my dad always did most of his own maintenance.  I think at some point, someone just made the mistake of letting me pick up a copy of sport compact car or something silly like that.  In high school I became friends with a few guys who owned mildly modded hondas which of course only fed in to the urge more...until I got my first car...a 1997 Subaru Outback, possibly the most unmoddable car ever?

     I'm just shy of my 26th birthday as I begin this adventure.  I got my license at 16 and have gone on to own 11 cars to date, including multiple tuned Saabs and one very heavily home built honda motor that spent life in 2 different chassis (and holds a naturally aspirated 1.8L dyno record of 212whp)    The evo is #10 and #11 is my current "beater"/winter car, a 2005 Subaru Legacy 2.5 GT that I just picked up last month.  I can in fact tell you when I became interested in evo's.  In about 03/04 I was out with my car buddies at the local hang out spot one Friday night, as one of the guys who had graduated the year before (and worked at the local mitsu dealership) rolled by ever so slowly in a silver evo 8.  They were on my mind from that day forward.

     After 6 years of college and dealing with 6 months of job hunting (which involved many hours surfing forums and for sale threads), I landed an interview and was eventually offered a job.  Almost as soon as I solidified the job and found an apartment, I ran across a 2006 apex silver evo with 45k miles on it, mild mods that I would have chosen myself, and adult owned...and snatched it up as fast as possible since a basically unmolested 1 owner evo is a rarity.

But how did you decide to try and get into racing/track driving?

     Good question.  I began watching racing on tv at some point, and gravitated to open wheel racing and INDYCAR (I will NEVER miss watching the INDY500, and have attended the race once so far).  This slowly grew into watching every type of racing available on speed channel from every NASCAR series to F1 to Australian v8's...and slowly getting into learning the theory behind car setup and engineering.  My knowledge of car setup topics is pretty ridiculous, and I felt it was time to apply it in real life.  

     While attending the 2011 Baltimore INDY grand prix with my dad, he decided to tell me that if I'm so interested in this stuff I should just find some way to do it.  BIG MISTAKE.  After that, I spent a lot of time researching ways to get into racing and did a lot of reading on Formula 500/F1000/Formula ford type cars, but the cars are $20k plus and costs add up QUICKLY.  The next best option was to start attending HPDE's with the evo, and work my way towards a competition and eventual competition in Time attack events.

This all marks the beginning of that adventure.  Time to get after it.

How did you come up with Prescription Racing (RxRacing)?

     Quite simply actually.  I'm a pharmacist, this adventure will hopefully cure my itch to go learn to go fast, and in the process learn a great deal about engine/aero/suspension setup through hands on experience...kinda like a prescription for something...duh