Race 1 Redwood Region PCA autoX:
I have raced here in the past and both done very very well, and sucked horribly. What was I going to do this time I wondered? The course had the longest fastest slalom I have done out there (well into 3rd gear), but it wasn't just a line of cones lined up, this was a gated slalom that required full braking, accelerating, and turning to get through the course, this then made a hard right turn into a jellybean shaped feature that was narrow and had a very slippery surface (shiny paint on broken asphalt.) This led back out to a 3rd gear arch that made a hard decreasing radius off camber, rough, low traction, right turn into what is known as the go-cart feature. A tight narrow chicane that is off camber, on camber, rough and all together tricky in any car. The last time I ran here back in June, I bent my steering wheel catching the car before it flew off the course. This dumped out into another tight right turn through a gate then doubled back onto the original course that ran down to the next tight gate and into the finishing sweeper. (This will make more sense when I post the video) We got 4 runs in the morning, and another 4 in the afternoon (we would have had 5, but a turbo Volvo blew an oil return or feed line and oiled down most of the last part of the course. It took a good 45 min to clean up the mess as best we could. It was still pretty slippery.) Since I had no real idea of what the car would do with the new changes, there was only one way to find out.
Off I went, took an educated guess on the tire pressures and went for it. I soon found that the car was very neutral through the slalom, but now tends to push at the limit. The car has never done that before unless I had way overcooked a turn and was just skidding. I got through the course with a clean run and a fair opening time. The difference from previous times was that the car more or less went where I wanted it to rather than hopping, skipping and or leaping someplace I didn't want it. The understeer was something that was giving me trouble with however. All part of the learning curve of something new I guess. The forward weight bias was very pronounced, I had to add fuel to the tank to get the car to balance out. This helped the understeer issue, but didn't solve it. The front end would plow, and the back end would kinda float around, adding 8 gallons of fuel made things better to make it a full 10 gallons. The extra weight didn't affect my times at all, infact nothing I did affected my times. I ran the most frustratingly consistent times ever. Of 8 runs, my times varied about 0.2 seconds +/- from my first run. The one that was slow was due to all 4 of my rear driverside lugnuts working loose (I know I torqued them to 80ft lbs, because that was the wheel I started with.) I don't know what caused this as all the other 4 wheels where tight. I pulled the wheel checked everything over, and retorqued it back to the set 80 ft lbs. The wheel did chew up the inner most threads on the lugs, and I will be replacing them in the very near future, but they are still safe to run as the threads that count are ok. I then went out for my last 2 runs and pretty much still ran the exact time that I had started with in the morning. Even with an oiled down course, I ran the same time. I never got out of the 65 second range. TTOD was down in the 58s. Other cars that I have beaten in the past were also down in the 59s. I was a little disappointed with that, and more than frustrated because I couldn't improve my time even one second. I tried moving my lines around, changing my braking points, running different gears, trail braking, everything, but it didn't matter, the car was not going to go any faster than it did. Mind you, the tires I'm running were discards that I found at the track and figured they would never fit, and because the car wasn't handling well, it wasn't worth spending the $$$ on a new set of race tires. Free was the right price.
Sunday: NORCAL UFO at Marina airport.
Back to Marina, with its 150+ miles of driving each way. The trip down was far more comfortable than it has ever been in the roadster in the past. When I got to the race, I didn't feel like I had already done 10 rounds with a prize fighter (a big +1 for the new springs right there). We had only 4 runs that counted at this race. The first 2 I ran with a passenger and was right there with the fastest time in class, my 3rd run was my best, but still a little off. For the 4th run I knew it was a do or die, so, I went for it. Well..., I had a smoking time going right up till I pushed it a little too much at the end and spun.
. That wasn't the way I wished to finish the day. Since we were done early, it was fun run time $5 gets you 5 runs. Normally I don't do fun runs because I'd rather save the tires and I have about an hours worth of packing to get the car ready to go home. Well, I wanted that last .3 of a second. I knew the car had it.Caution was thrown to the wind, and since it didn't count, it was time to go for it. I had noticed the car likes to drift still, but now its controllable. It didn't want to instantly swap ends and just be hard to live with, it actually liked to be driven this way. So I let it slide. Not only did I put on a good show for the really slow drift crowd, I also managed to find a whole second on course. I then added a passenger (the class winner in fact) and went out again. Same sort of thing, I let the car drift and found even more time. Generally speaking, running with a passenger is worth a 1 second penalty, so the fact that I found more time with a passenger says that I was able to find a class winning time plus some. The car is back to being the one to beat in class. With fresh tires, it should be pretty impressive.
Now, I do have a couple of questions. The understeeer; is very mild, but it is there. It seems to be mid corner that is the issue. Could I dial it out by setting the front shocks a turn softer (set full stiff) or should I swap from my 23mm sway bar to my 21? It feels great through long sweepers and more open corners, but tight stuff its irritating. It could also be that I need more negative camber. I'm currently at less than or equal to -2 degrees. (like 1.9 or 2, can't remember.) I could also go a turn stiffer in the rear (set full soft). It sounds like the car corners with much less body roll now, pictures will tell as soon as they are posted. I will add the panhard rod as soon as I have a chance, but that will likely be after I take them off to send to the spring company to see about reproducing them.
Overall I think the springs are the way to go. Yes I need to relearn how to drive the car. In the long run, the price I paid was worth it just in comfort on the street. I think they will be very good on a full road course track. I'm going to try and do a day at Thunderhill sometime next month. Yes that will delay the possible start time to produce the springs, but I'd rather have all my bases covered. I think anyone who likes to play on the track will find a benefit with them both in loss of weight, but also in spring performance as well. With these available, I don't see why anyone would want to run the stock springs. These are better in every way. The ride height is good, roll center and roll couple is good, and the loss of 31 lbs is hard to argue with, but it does screw with the front/rear balance of the car. Its not overly negative, just different for me since the car has never ever had a hint of understeer unless I had blown the corner to begin with.
I'll post pics and video as soon as it uploads. The video from Santa Rosa should show just how much more settled the car is as I have another video from June at the same venue. Not quite the same course, but still exactly the same place with the same pavement, and we even ran the go-cart section the same way both times.
Will
I was pretty irritated with myself when I saw the results. Eh next time...