claudermilk
Senior Member
Late write-up, but I've been busy with family stuff. It was a pretty fun course; little in the way of weird gimmicks and was pretty fast & flowing. The catch was the long slalom at the end with a kink--the last two cones were turned from the rest, so it was pretty much two shorter slaloms with a turn in the middle. I got to work that station and made up for years of quiet work stations in that one group. Bleh.
I changed tactics on setup and it worked. Instead of cranking the Konis to full stiff & backing off, I started from the other end and added rebound. That worked much better. I ended up at 2 turns from soft in front and 1 3/4 turns in the rear. The car felt much better than coming down from full stiff. Now I am thinking that the tires have had it for this kind of abuse; they have a track day and several autocrosses on OEM suspension and 4 autocrosses on the new parts with better camber. The shoulders are looking a little ragged; I know when I do the track day in October I'll be keeping a very close eye on them.
My main issue was the loose nut behind the wheel. Run 1 was slow as I wasn't pushing hard enough. I saw plenty of problems at my work station, and was able to see further up the course where many competitors spun at a particular turn. Run 2 was good with a couple of bobbles. I completely blew run 3--cooked the first real turn and ended up entering the first slalom the wrong way. Crap, now just go fast enough to stay out of the next guy's way. At least I knew right then exactly what I did and how to fix it. Run 4 was looking to be the best, right up until the last section. I went into the last sweeper before that tricky slalom too hot, and the front tires seemed to give up more grip than before. Getting too hot? Anyway, I scrubbed lots of speed and time, then killed a couple of cones for good measure. I guess the tarnished silver lining it that I am at least aware of what I am doing wrong, and have an idea of how to fix it--given another run to do it & keep the red mist back.
I had some issue with the telemetry-gathering. The GPS hooked to the app great, and I'm getting the hang of defining the course without having to think about it as much--just have to figure how to get the start & stop lines more accurate. For some reason the OBD dongle didn't connect, so I only have GPS data and the phone's internal G-force to work with.
I don't think I mentioned an update with changing the camber. Yes, it turns out lifting one corner at a time causes the sway bar to bind things up. Lifting from the K-member makes the adjustment easy. Thanks to those who pointed out that blindingly obvious tidbit. Now I just need to get some helper ramps--my HF jack just barely fits by sticking it under right in front of one of the tires, then wiggling the handle a bunch. Feels like Austin Powers trying to do a U-turn.
Now the obligatory embarrassing video:
I changed tactics on setup and it worked. Instead of cranking the Konis to full stiff & backing off, I started from the other end and added rebound. That worked much better. I ended up at 2 turns from soft in front and 1 3/4 turns in the rear. The car felt much better than coming down from full stiff. Now I am thinking that the tires have had it for this kind of abuse; they have a track day and several autocrosses on OEM suspension and 4 autocrosses on the new parts with better camber. The shoulders are looking a little ragged; I know when I do the track day in October I'll be keeping a very close eye on them.
My main issue was the loose nut behind the wheel. Run 1 was slow as I wasn't pushing hard enough. I saw plenty of problems at my work station, and was able to see further up the course where many competitors spun at a particular turn. Run 2 was good with a couple of bobbles. I completely blew run 3--cooked the first real turn and ended up entering the first slalom the wrong way. Crap, now just go fast enough to stay out of the next guy's way. At least I knew right then exactly what I did and how to fix it. Run 4 was looking to be the best, right up until the last section. I went into the last sweeper before that tricky slalom too hot, and the front tires seemed to give up more grip than before. Getting too hot? Anyway, I scrubbed lots of speed and time, then killed a couple of cones for good measure. I guess the tarnished silver lining it that I am at least aware of what I am doing wrong, and have an idea of how to fix it--given another run to do it & keep the red mist back.
I had some issue with the telemetry-gathering. The GPS hooked to the app great, and I'm getting the hang of defining the course without having to think about it as much--just have to figure how to get the start & stop lines more accurate. For some reason the OBD dongle didn't connect, so I only have GPS data and the phone's internal G-force to work with.
I don't think I mentioned an update with changing the camber. Yes, it turns out lifting one corner at a time causes the sway bar to bind things up. Lifting from the K-member makes the adjustment easy. Thanks to those who pointed out that blindingly obvious tidbit. Now I just need to get some helper ramps--my HF jack just barely fits by sticking it under right in front of one of the tires, then wiggling the handle a bunch. Feels like Austin Powers trying to do a U-turn.
Now the obligatory embarrassing video:
