So I decided to share my exploits here, looks like several of you guys get some good feedback when you post what you do, so I figured I'd do the same.
First...a name. Well, I hate yellow Camaros, or is it my car that hates them?
Anyway...one of my friends started calling my car "shockwave" so we'll go with that.
I've had the car for a couple years, never wanted to do any sort of autox/tracking with it due to it being my DD, and due to my 50 mile each way commute. I got a new job this January (And a decent pay bump...heh) so, under the knife my car goes.
This is how it was in January:
What it had going on-
Suspension- Koni Sports (Previously Steeda "somethings") with Eibach sport springs. For my take on this setup, see here: spoiler alert- I will talk about some of this again.
http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1800741&postcount=99
Tires- 275/35/19 Michelin Pilot Super Sports- great street tires...not so great track tires.
The car is a Brembo car, and I ran the ORIGINAL pads to 42k miles...pretty impressive. No track work ever on those, but I wasn't exactly "putting around" either. The picture above is from Deal's Gap, where I spent a fair amount of time when I lived in Alabama. GO if you ever have the chance. DO NOT MISS the Cherohala Skyway.
Back on topic- I had autocrossed before a little bit, was never very serious about it. One of my friends from school convinced my to go in January with the Mustang, and I got hooked. Since then, and since my car is no longer a DD, I have decided to make it a dual purpose autox/hpde (maybe TT in a few years? who knows? Stuff gets boring after a while with no competition) car. In the months since then, I ran several events with Delta and Gulf Coast SCCA regions, with several of the events at NOLA motorsports park, which is a great facility. This is where I'll pick up the story...
May 5- Delta AutoX- I had just bought the first round of "real" parts- AST 4150's w/550F/250R springs, whiteline swaybars, and a Torsen T2R.
This thing will change your damn life. I nearly crashed the car turning out of the shop, it rotates so well now.
I had been running on some scrub 275/35/18 g-Force R1's, because they were cheap, and because I wanted to try some R-Comps, and because I knew they would last a while, and possibly be able to be resold. Well...yeah they last a while. I don't think I've been able to heat cycle them yet. They have about 75 runs on them and look BRAND F******* NEW. They don't EVER feel tacky like other R-comps. I DO NOT recommend them for autox.
My hope is to run street tires in STU (please, SEB!!!) and be done with these, or, if we don't get that move, to run 315/35/18 V710's in ESP.
Back on topic- May 4 was the Delta AutoX, I was pumped about all the new parts, and I had some "trackside support" too. You can probably guess who that would be by the parts combo and the wheels. Anyway...I used it. Thanks guys.
Anyway- the results of the autox were...not great. My car had a pretty catastrophic push, and any corner entry speed at all was greeted with the lovely feeling of understeer. I had ZERO entry speed, I actually had less than I did with street tires and Konis. Conekiller (STX) beat me by 4 SECONDS. Terry beat my by 6, and he wasn't even really competing. Something was WRONG. While my car was up, Ryan from Vorshlag noticed "some" (ok, a crazy amount) of front bar preload. I will let this picture do the talking, after I got a more suitable endlink-
Don't ask me to explain why this made the car push...I don't know. BUT, when I put the shorter endlink on there, everything was fixed, and the car felt good again.
Soon after that event I moved to OKC for work, and was out of any events for a while due to moving stuff. Anyway, since then, I've had two things (both last weekend)
June 29- Eagle's Canyon Track Day
FIRST TRACK DAY EVER!!! WOOO!!!! I was excited. It was a blast, and I'm hooked on it. I ran on the Pilot Super Sports, and they didn't seem to have a whole lot of grip. My instructor thought they sucked as well. Oh well, better to learn with less grip I think.
After all the brake fade horror stories, I went with Carbotech XP16/XP12 pads, and super blue fluid. Changing stuff trackside (really easy, btw)
The brakes didn't fade at all, I was on them pretty hard by the last couple sessions, so hard that it made it difficult to do things like shift and steer. I never like the seats in this car anyway, and I think that being planted a little more securely would help lots of things. So, that's up next.
Here's a picture of the car at that event:
Anyway, this was a success, and my intention of doing track stuff with this car is gaining traction.
June 5- OK SCCA AutoX #5
First event with the new region. They hold events at Remington Park in OKC, which is pretty good, but it aint NOLA. Anyway- this event went pretty well. We got 9 runs, which was cool.
Format explanation:
-First five runs were "in Class," ESP for me.
-Second four runs were in "PAX," with choices of:
-M- Old guys
-X- ST classes and R-comps
-T- Street tires
-N- Novice
Technically...I'm still novice eligible, but I ran in X for more fun. Doesn't look like anybody here runs ESP, which sucks.
My first five runs were not too great- inconsistent, with bad feeling lines. The car was SUPER loose steady-state (and was at Eagles canyon as well, which was pretty unnerving) and even resulted in me spinning once in a sweeper. I took the rest of the run 60%, and learned the line..hmm.. may have to take first runs slow to figure out what it feels like from in the car? That may be a viable strategy.
Anyway- On runs 6-9, I dropped about 1.5 seconds, from run 4, and ran +/-.12 seconds between runs 6-9. Here's the best run of the day-
I think a 34.9 may have been possible with a hero run, but whatever. If I can't get it in 9 runs...the problem is clearly with me. I would love to do an autox school, and I'd love to collect some data during my runs. At this point, I am holding the car up, not the other way around.
So that was fun. Short course, but fun. A decent-ish metric- I was about 2 seconds slower than a BSP E46 M3 on pretty new A6's with a very good driver. Is there that much time in tire compound, from R1 to A6? I have no idea. But for now I'll think there might be, and that makes me feel good.
I ran this event on AX6 pads, which are pretty fantastic. I run them on the street too, with some noise. Going from 42k mi Brembo pads to brand new AX6's, with stainless lines, was a bit of a difference.
Since this event, I have softened the rear bar in an effort to get the car closer to neutral, or at least to the point where I can do finer adjustments of balance with tire pressures.
Plans for the car for the future-
-Forgestar is building my 18x11 F14's as I type this. If we get STU, they will get 285 RS3's. If we don't, they're getting 315 V710 (for the height)
-I need some seats. I like the look and feel of Cobra Imolas
-If we get the diff cover- I want to do a Watt's Link, Probably Whiteline becuase I know it fits with their rear bar, and I have been
impressed with their stuff.
-This winter I'm going to put the car on jackstands for a while and do headers and intake. Even with the R1's, I don't have the power to spin the wheels at any given moment, which is something I want.
-I want a front splitter because it looks cool.
-I want to do a catch can on the cylinder head=>intake PCV tube
-I want to do a more permanent solution to my rigged up spurting axle tube solution:
I have since repositioned the flask so it is above the axle tube so the gear oil should drain back down, but I'm still not satisfied. The barb fittings still leak.
If this wasn't TLDR, thanks for reading.
First...a name. Well, I hate yellow Camaros, or is it my car that hates them?
Anyway...one of my friends started calling my car "shockwave" so we'll go with that.
I've had the car for a couple years, never wanted to do any sort of autox/tracking with it due to it being my DD, and due to my 50 mile each way commute. I got a new job this January (And a decent pay bump...heh) so, under the knife my car goes.
This is how it was in January:
What it had going on-
Suspension- Koni Sports (Previously Steeda "somethings") with Eibach sport springs. For my take on this setup, see here: spoiler alert- I will talk about some of this again.
http://www.s197forum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1800741&postcount=99
Tires- 275/35/19 Michelin Pilot Super Sports- great street tires...not so great track tires.
The car is a Brembo car, and I ran the ORIGINAL pads to 42k miles...pretty impressive. No track work ever on those, but I wasn't exactly "putting around" either. The picture above is from Deal's Gap, where I spent a fair amount of time when I lived in Alabama. GO if you ever have the chance. DO NOT MISS the Cherohala Skyway.
Back on topic- I had autocrossed before a little bit, was never very serious about it. One of my friends from school convinced my to go in January with the Mustang, and I got hooked. Since then, and since my car is no longer a DD, I have decided to make it a dual purpose autox/hpde (maybe TT in a few years? who knows? Stuff gets boring after a while with no competition) car. In the months since then, I ran several events with Delta and Gulf Coast SCCA regions, with several of the events at NOLA motorsports park, which is a great facility. This is where I'll pick up the story...
May 5- Delta AutoX- I had just bought the first round of "real" parts- AST 4150's w/550F/250R springs, whiteline swaybars, and a Torsen T2R.
This thing will change your damn life. I nearly crashed the car turning out of the shop, it rotates so well now.
I had been running on some scrub 275/35/18 g-Force R1's, because they were cheap, and because I wanted to try some R-Comps, and because I knew they would last a while, and possibly be able to be resold. Well...yeah they last a while. I don't think I've been able to heat cycle them yet. They have about 75 runs on them and look BRAND F******* NEW. They don't EVER feel tacky like other R-comps. I DO NOT recommend them for autox.
My hope is to run street tires in STU (please, SEB!!!) and be done with these, or, if we don't get that move, to run 315/35/18 V710's in ESP.
Back on topic- May 4 was the Delta AutoX, I was pumped about all the new parts, and I had some "trackside support" too. You can probably guess who that would be by the parts combo and the wheels. Anyway...I used it. Thanks guys.
Anyway- the results of the autox were...not great. My car had a pretty catastrophic push, and any corner entry speed at all was greeted with the lovely feeling of understeer. I had ZERO entry speed, I actually had less than I did with street tires and Konis. Conekiller (STX) beat me by 4 SECONDS. Terry beat my by 6, and he wasn't even really competing. Something was WRONG. While my car was up, Ryan from Vorshlag noticed "some" (ok, a crazy amount) of front bar preload. I will let this picture do the talking, after I got a more suitable endlink-
Don't ask me to explain why this made the car push...I don't know. BUT, when I put the shorter endlink on there, everything was fixed, and the car felt good again.
Soon after that event I moved to OKC for work, and was out of any events for a while due to moving stuff. Anyway, since then, I've had two things (both last weekend)
June 29- Eagle's Canyon Track Day
FIRST TRACK DAY EVER!!! WOOO!!!! I was excited. It was a blast, and I'm hooked on it. I ran on the Pilot Super Sports, and they didn't seem to have a whole lot of grip. My instructor thought they sucked as well. Oh well, better to learn with less grip I think.
After all the brake fade horror stories, I went with Carbotech XP16/XP12 pads, and super blue fluid. Changing stuff trackside (really easy, btw)
The brakes didn't fade at all, I was on them pretty hard by the last couple sessions, so hard that it made it difficult to do things like shift and steer. I never like the seats in this car anyway, and I think that being planted a little more securely would help lots of things. So, that's up next.
Here's a picture of the car at that event:
Anyway, this was a success, and my intention of doing track stuff with this car is gaining traction.
June 5- OK SCCA AutoX #5
First event with the new region. They hold events at Remington Park in OKC, which is pretty good, but it aint NOLA. Anyway- this event went pretty well. We got 9 runs, which was cool.
Format explanation:
-First five runs were "in Class," ESP for me.
-Second four runs were in "PAX," with choices of:
-M- Old guys
-X- ST classes and R-comps
-T- Street tires
-N- Novice
Technically...I'm still novice eligible, but I ran in X for more fun. Doesn't look like anybody here runs ESP, which sucks.
My first five runs were not too great- inconsistent, with bad feeling lines. The car was SUPER loose steady-state (and was at Eagles canyon as well, which was pretty unnerving) and even resulted in me spinning once in a sweeper. I took the rest of the run 60%, and learned the line..hmm.. may have to take first runs slow to figure out what it feels like from in the car? That may be a viable strategy.
Anyway- On runs 6-9, I dropped about 1.5 seconds, from run 4, and ran +/-.12 seconds between runs 6-9. Here's the best run of the day-
I think a 34.9 may have been possible with a hero run, but whatever. If I can't get it in 9 runs...the problem is clearly with me. I would love to do an autox school, and I'd love to collect some data during my runs. At this point, I am holding the car up, not the other way around.
So that was fun. Short course, but fun. A decent-ish metric- I was about 2 seconds slower than a BSP E46 M3 on pretty new A6's with a very good driver. Is there that much time in tire compound, from R1 to A6? I have no idea. But for now I'll think there might be, and that makes me feel good.
I ran this event on AX6 pads, which are pretty fantastic. I run them on the street too, with some noise. Going from 42k mi Brembo pads to brand new AX6's, with stainless lines, was a bit of a difference.
Since this event, I have softened the rear bar in an effort to get the car closer to neutral, or at least to the point where I can do finer adjustments of balance with tire pressures.
Plans for the car for the future-
-Forgestar is building my 18x11 F14's as I type this. If we get STU, they will get 285 RS3's. If we don't, they're getting 315 V710 (for the height)
-I need some seats. I like the look and feel of Cobra Imolas
-If we get the diff cover- I want to do a Watt's Link, Probably Whiteline becuase I know it fits with their rear bar, and I have been
impressed with their stuff.
-This winter I'm going to put the car on jackstands for a while and do headers and intake. Even with the R1's, I don't have the power to spin the wheels at any given moment, which is something I want.
-I want a front splitter because it looks cool.
-I want to do a catch can on the cylinder head=>intake PCV tube
-I want to do a more permanent solution to my rigged up spurting axle tube solution:
I have since repositioned the flask so it is above the axle tube so the gear oil should drain back down, but I'm still not satisfied. The barb fittings still leak.
If this wasn't TLDR, thanks for reading.
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