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.