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Ryan, you want to buy a more raceacar oriented rear bar? I made one for when my car plowed like a pig before I stopped trying to build a turbo csp car and came up with my own spring rates. I also didnt notice it making slaloming any worse, the only thing it did worse with the same balance vs only springs in the rear was put power down exiting corners, tighter the turn the worse it was.
Stiffness was between the OEM NA and the MSM on the bar I made. I think I was running it with 800/500 springs and I ended up with 1k/650s, which was on the looser side of neutral with the gendron bar but perfect with the RB race.
Phew. That was a long weekend. Had a total blast, but did not go as smoothly as I hoped for.
Last week I installed an electronic vacuum pump to try to correct all the braking issues. I only took it for one lap around the neighborhood, so wasn't really able to make a good judgement on whether it was working well or not. But, the pump was running and making vacuum, so it couldn't have been worse than what they were before.
Friday, Matt was able to get three TnT runs in, but at the end of the last one he said the pedal was super hard. Popped hood, vacuum pump not running, and it was extremely hot. Well, crap. Must have gotten a faulty pump, or I screwed something up wiring it. It was a 12v pump that I just connected right to a 12v source. Unsure if it was supposed to have some sort of voltage regulator or something, and that lead to killing it or what. But, it melted everything inside it. Tried running to the Napa warehouse not too far aware to see if they had any sort of vacuum pump in stock that we could use, but no luck. Got a couple check valves and installed them - knowing full well they'd get blown out immediately.
Beautiful weather on Saturday. First run was good, but had a cone. Surprised myself with how fast it was relative to everything else I'd seen times for. Almost immediately a full second faster than street mod, and left a ton of time on the table. That was the first time this year the car has seen over 60mph due to all the NER courses being abnormally slow this year. All the changes over the winter worked amazing - the extra mph was huuuuge. I think I hit the 74mph rev limiter four times.
Then, it started falling apart.
Matt finished his second run, and said the brakes stopped working. One of the check valves had exploded internally so we had no vacuum at all to the booster. That caused his DNF as he went for the brakes and got basically nothing. Mad scramble to take it out of the line and piece it back together.
My second run, brakes are acceptably poor, but consistent. Coming out of the turn around, the gauges go out - and oh crap - I don't have power steering. Somehow managed to wiggle it through the rest of the run at nearly 70mph the whole way. Checked the fuses, all seemed fine. Somehow the lead to the fuse block I've got behind the passenger seat came loose a little bit. Tightened back up and got everything back.
Solo storm had me on pace for a 53.6 on the last run until I blew it at the turn around and then tried my hardest to put it in the grass at the finish (that video is almost worth posting). No idea how I saved it.
Sunday - total mess. Really annoyed I hit the last cone on course on my first run. Then the driving ability just went down hill from there. I have no idea why my second run was so much slower than the first. Then followed it up with a almost too conservative third run that was shockingly slow. I thought for sure I gave it away. My jaw hit the floor when I saw the time as I had no clue how I slowed down that much. Overall, really disappointed with myself that I even put myself in that situation. I don't know if I have a lot of learning to do with care and feeding of Hoosiers at hot events, or what. I've never experienced *that* much of a slow down. I can generally rip off a bunch of runs in the same tenth bracket, so to slow down 1.6 seconds from my fastest is really shocking.
But - win! I'll take it. I'm thankful that both Mazda and Hoosier support this stuff so well. I might run around screaming like a girl when those two Hoosiers show up. I don't think many people realize how fortunate they are when they win 10's of these things every year.
Super excited to have won something in my own car.
Great job on the win. I know I would be ecstatic to have Hoosiers on the way. A win is a win, regardless of how much better you could have done.
On the topic of brakes. This will be my second season on manual brakes on my CSP car and I have zero interest in going back. Once you get used to the hard pedal it actually feels better and is easier to modulate. I can also lock up a tire if I want to.
I 2nd the manual brakes. It was in the cards for me, even though my booster works fine.
You probably killed the vacuum pump from it just running ***** to the wall all the time. I'm sure in the actual car it has a pop off vent that limits the max vac it can create or it has a sensor that turns the pump on and off to maintain vac.
The brakes work great, still can't figure out the pedal feel. Super long, not very firm, may or may not be hitting the pedal stop? I can't really tell - or it goes from vauge/mushy to hard with very little extra travel. But, it stops hard, and no lock up. Can feel the ABS working sometimes.
Ran the Bristol Match and Champ Tours this weekend. Holy crap. What an amazing event. Highly recommend that everyone go to it.
Match Tour: Lost by .001. Damnit. But, that was easily the most fun battle I've ever had.
Champ Tour: Had the lead by .150 after day 1. Throttle body gasket failed day 2, which lead to all sorts of boost issues. Ended up 4th.
Overall, absolutely awesome event. Super happy the car very clearly has the pace in SSM. Need to work on the little issues/prep issues (human) before nats. Up the driving game some more, and hopefully bring home a jacket. It's definitely a possibility.
Fastest run from the Match Tour, which was also top pax for the afternoon session.
Great driving this weekend man. It was fun hanging out with you. You and your car are going to be a fantastic addition to the class. Looking forward to the week long party in Nebraska in a few weeks.
Ordered new brake pads (Hawk HP+). Hoping to get some more braking power over the StopTech Streets (or whatever the old name for the good ones was). Hoping I don't hate the feel of the HP+ as much as I remember I did, but maybe the ABS will help. But they were free from Hawk winnings this year.
Also picked up another car.
200 something thousand miles, but Florida car. Automatic, but will probably fix that at some point. Blown engine, but came with spare engine. Going to be new daily driver.
And traded the Colorado for a RAM EcoDiesel. Realized I couldn't afford what I actually wanted for a truck (6.7 F250 or 2500 Cummins), so this seemed to be the best alternative. Crazy loaded - heated/cooled seats, heated rear seats, sun roof, etc, etc. Will re-evalute truck options in a year or two.
I didnt hate the hp+ on my car, but you know I used the brakes as mostly a sledge hammer since they just provided so much deceleration compared to anything else. I didn't like how the rear kept warping the backing plates from sticking in the rubber.
2nd in PAX yesterday. Had raw time on first by a few tenths, but needed like another second to get him on PAX (4 time CSP champ/nats pax champ)...not happening.
Had some wiring issues in the morning with the brake vacuum pump. Missed a few runs in the morning, but was able to make them up after some re-wiring.
For some reason, I keep leaving events feeling like the car is not handling like it should. But, I really have no idea what to change to make it better. It just doesn't feel like it wants to rotate/sweep as well as my brain thinks it should be able to. At this point, not going to risk changing anything before nats, though.
Oh boy. If it doesn't rotate how you like at devens you're gonna have a bad time at Lincoln. Better bring the setup change you think you need to make into the pits.
I don't think it's bad balance wise, but I'm definitely just not getting all of the lateral grip out of it that I think it should have.
I just don't know what to do setup wise that wouldn't hurt other things. I don't really want stiffer rear springs (600's right now). OEM NA rear bar. I think I'm on the verge of lifting the inside rear under some circumstances, so I don't think going stiffer there is a great idea. SFR front bar on the middle setting. May try going half a setting softer there? But that would probably hurt turn in.
05-13-2019, 02:33 PM
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