Which diameter front bar? Same as Billy? Are you bottoming out the front suspension? My car would slalom great with the softer suspension setup in it but sustained corners it would just get onto the front bump stops and not turn, I ended up trying rear toe out, and a rear bar but 1k front 650 rear with no rear bar ended of balancing it well. The sfr bar on the 2nd from the end hole + the loss of nose weight once I came back with the mzr motor made it a little loose, but I think without the nose loss weight and maybe a hole stiffer on the sfr bar with that spring setup would be prime.

Prime =
1000 front, 4th hole on bar
650 rear, no bar

?

Yes. With like 3.5* front camber, maxed caster, 1/4" toe out, 2.5* rear 1/16 toe in. That's what I liked my car the best at. With like 1/4" rake. Idk about 600lb rear springs but 650 requires 5" long springs instead of 6".

That's pretty close to where I'm at. -3* rear camber and 0 toe. The rest is identical.

Caster I'm at 5*. There was definitely ~7* available, but chose to go with 5.

Is the lack of grip at high speed or low speed? Just basic thinking here but if it's low speed try making changes to mechanical grip. If high speed, try aero changes.

I feel like it's not really that closely tied to speed. It seems pretty consistently mid corner sweepers.

Our 90" wheel base has a meaningful impact on our cars "steady state" abilities...but our relative narrow width and relative low weight helps us transition. It's always a balancing act.

Through the middle of a sweeper is the one area where I just HATE my car. But it does everything else so well, I'm not giving up those things to "fix" it.

Less front toe out will help with the middle of the corner.

The short wheel base makes the tuning window narrower between unrepentable push and undrivable oversteer. You shouldnt really have an issue balancing steady state and transition handling balance unless your shock tuning is all jacked up or you have a binding problem and you just manage to bandaid one but not the other.

Yea man. Those jacked up shocks and band aids all are pretty worthless.

Softened the front bar and it got a lot better.

So, I went a hole softer on the front bar, and it felt significantly better. The front end feels like it's working now, where it didn't before. It's maybe a touch loose on exit, but that could be tires. These probably have 120-130 runs on them. Got out-paxed by STR, so, meh. Coned all my morning runs as the turn in was so much better. This should be much better at lincoln.

If it's a touch lose on pavement, it should be close for LAP. But new tires will change the balance slightly too.

Since they have moved the practice course, there is no real data for how that surface compares to the actual race surface.

Historically there was a meaningful difference. I.E. your car could be great on the practice course and garbage on the race surface.

I have your tires already loaded into the trailer and will be hitting the road Wednesday after work.

Looking forward to hanging out again.

Awesome! Thanks Eric. I'm so excited for this.

A friend took photos at Bristol on a old film camera. Captured a cool moment.

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Happy with my third place in SSM. I knew going in I had nothing for Thorne (Big Bad Wolf - 700whp S2000 that has run One Lap Of America, and towed Jet Skis - https://www.instagram.com/thebigbadwolflives/). That car, and he are operating on a different level.

I was surprised to be in 2nd place after day one on the East course, as I felt like that was the more power intensive course, where my car is generally lacking. I was almost 1 full second behind Thorne, but 3 tenths or so clear of Randall (TNTUBA's car), and even more clear of everyone else.

Day 2, I was kind of expecting to be more competitive vs the not-Thorne contingent, as it seemed like a more handling oriented course. But, I was never able to really put a great run together. I was almost the same 1 second behind Thorne, but Randall was only half a second off which moved him ahead of me. If I had a fourth run, I might have been able to improve a little bit, but not sure it would have been enough.

I need to take the shocks off my car, as we're thinking something is broken there. Through the finish on the East side, the front end was bouncing pretty violently while driving straight/coasting. You can also see in the West course video in the long right hander out of the show case, that it does not handle those bumps well. I've not seen video of any other car that reacted that violently to those bumps.

Also, see these two GotCone pics:

2019 SCCA TireRack Solo National Championships » SSM » 3g7a8716.jpg: GotCone Autocross & Rallycross Photos
2019 SCCA TireRack Solo National Championships » SSM » 3g7a8717.jpg: GotCone Autocross & Rallycross Photos

That's full compression to almost full rebound in ~10 feet. WTF.

Anyway, video.

East inside: East outside: West inside:
Can't wait for next year. Already planning the upgrades.

I broke the splitter just before leaving because I'm an idiot. So, going to start that winter project this week. Foam core, wrapped with fiberglass. Hoping it weighs half or less what the current one does.

Splitter pictures: https://photos.app.goo.gl/RGSF3jRfVbxtgRAS6

Won our Pro class for the year, and an absolute bloodbath today. It was basically whoever won today was taking it for the year. Mark dudek had 1 point over me, who had 1 point over Brian Kuehl who was also tied with Will K, who had 1 point over Grant. Whoever won was taking it.

I had the lead by a decent amount (4 tenths?) over Brandon Dean in the morning, with Grant in third. Grant's first run in the afternoon, he jumps up to just 12 thousandths behind me. Crap. We were only doing 2 afternoon runs (total of 5), so I had to make the 2nd one extra good because I knew there was a good chance Grant could just go out and drop more time. I ended up coning a run 3 and a bit tenths faster, while Grant slowed down. Phew.

So, ended the points season with top pax out of 181 drivers, and won the season


Other thoughts:

New splitter. Foam core (pink foam insulation) was not worth the effort. It ended up being about a 2lb savings over the 1/4 plywood one I had before (that I drove over packing up for nats...idiot). Not worth the effort that took. Will be going back to a plywood one this winter, which I think I can get some weight out of anyway.

But, holy christ. I added about an extra 1 sq ft of area due to actually reading the rules right this time. I know the tires I was on were good (stickers at Nats), but they weren't good enough to be the only reason the car was absolutely amazing today. So yeah. It's crazy what that little bit of extra surface area did.

Started working on some of the winter projects:

Making the front bumper a vertical air dam.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...40b5312e_b.jpg

Going to make panels for the bottom of the fender that tucks into the wheel well more.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...59bf5fe7_b.jpg

All this shit fell out, including the P clamp that didn't come from my car.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...1fa6f7ee_b.jpg

Going to do a compression and leak down test this week.

Got the IRP Shifter. Ufff. The feel is amazing. Going to try to rig something up with it so that I can lock out 5th gear, but then flip something out of the way to access reverse.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...88e28f49_b.jpg

After a month and a half redoing my kitchen, I'm finally in the home stretch and can start working on the car again.

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Made most of an ignition coil holder last night. Going to cut some speed holes in it, and it needs a couple gussets.

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This thread makes me want to take my BSP car to SSM.

Do it!

Progress is much slower than it really needs to be here. Tried to get the coils wired with Bob Day but turned out the DB37 connector on the MS didn't have the pins set up for sequential ignition. So, had to email Reverant to find out what pins they were. Will attempt to get that finished this weekend.

Going to abort on replacing the clutch before the first event this year as I simply don't have time. Will probably do it in May.

Still need to put the new engine mounts in.

Make new radiator brackets.

And the big one. Making a new splitter. Have made a couple test pieces over the last couple days trying out resin infusion.

The setup:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9665dc4f_b.jpg

First test piece came out kind of crappy. I think the vacuum bag had a tiny pin hole that I couldn't find, which resulted in a bunch of air bubbles. That ruined the surface finish, and resulted in a couple of dry spots. I will still probably use this as a radiator finish panel (or whatever that piece is called).

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...b07d4c1b_b.jpg

And last night, a test layup for a new splitter. The whole point of this endeavor:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...733b0bf1_b.jpg

I feel pretty good about that piece. That is like 20sq in. The splitter is 1.2sq meters. Definitely nervous.

Andddd did another test last night - this time much bigger and doing what I planned to do on the actual splitter. Huge success. This piece is two layers total, one on top, one on bottom. Holy christ. I can hardly deflect it trying to bend it over my knee. The real one will be 2 and 2.

Link to photos as I took a bunch: https://photos.app.goo.gl/X9gwWinzsi6S5yUz8

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...6e46f943_b.jpg

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The only real issue with it at all is this:

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...448565b7_b.jpg

I wrapped one layer around the edge, using spray adhesive to hold it in place. For the top/finish layer, I let it just flow over the edge and have the vacuum bag do the work. You can see how it didn't fully close that gap and there's a little void there. I think it would trim/sand fine, but that's a lot of work.

The right plan is to spray glue that in place and trim it flush.

I wish I could have gotten a video of this infusing. It's so fricken cool.

Infusion process is cool, but it needs a lot of trials and errors before you get it right. I would had a bigger chamfer to that core piece, it'll help getting the top and bottom layer blend together and avoid that gap. We didn't use to much glue, as it prevents the layers moving properly under the vaccum bag.
I would leave a small flat section when you trim, it'll prevent it from delaminating.
Good work!

That's good to know. I did try pulling a vacuum really slowly and trying to work the overlap into the corners. Also makes sense with using too much glue.

Thanks for the comments.

This trimmed up nicely. And, weighs under a pound. Scaling this to the full splitter, it would weight about 7.5lbs, but I will be using two more layers. That should result in something that weighs less than 10lbs still.

I dropped this piece onto the edge from ceiling height onto the cement floor. It just laughed at me. Pretty sure with 2 more layers it'll survive a conemageddon on course.

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Did discover this tool: https://compositeenvisions.com/radiu...idth-2019.html. That, or similar (had the thought of using a plastic trim removal tool), seems useful to help get the corners to bond properly. Interestingly, the 90* corner along the back edge was almost perfect. The one that I (partially) chamfered is the one with issues. Maybe the composite people here can explain why that might be?

Not much progress given the current situation, and the car is at my parents house. But, I did make the splitter!

Pictures first, then story.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8f7df0ef_c.jpg

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Overall rating: Success

The not shown on TV part:

Start of the infusion went super well. It was definitely a two person job (girlfriend was helping) between mixing resin and keeping the supply cup filled so it wouldn't suck in air. I measured, she mixed and poured into the supply cup.

Then, tragedy struck. The bag got punctured by (presumably) the spiral tube where I had cut it - right at one of the tees feeding the resin. This meant a shit ton of air got in, and the bag obviously lost vacuum. <many curse words later> I managed to glob on enough tacky tape to seal it back up. Disaster mostly averted. Then, it happened again at the other supply tee. And then again at the tee on the vacuum side. Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Figures this did not happen when I did the test piece, which had the exact same layup. Note to future self: put some regular breather cloth or infusion mesh over the tees/cut spiral to protect the bag.

Those issues definitely lead to some problems in the finished product. The print from the foam core is definitely more visible than it should be, and there was one small dry spot on the front edge, where there was an air pocket from one of the bag tears. Thankfully, that dry spot mostly sanded away when I trimmed it. I still need to dab a little epoxy in a few spots before calling it done though. None of the issues seem like they would be structural, though.

The part itself:
For the first two layers (one top, one bottom), I wrapped the excess over the front edge. For the remaining layers (1 top, 2 bottom) I just draped them on, and let the excess hang over. Each layer was lightly spray glued in place.

The bagging setup:
I applied a few coats of Partall Paste Wax to the melamine, and then coated it with 2 layers of brushed on PVA. I'm not sure the PVA was necessary. I had resin feeding in from one bucket that was split into two lines into the bag, with spiral spanning the entire leading edge. On the vacuum side, I used a piece of spiral the width of the splitter and into one exit from the bag.

I can dig up all of the consumables/fabric/etc if people want a full list.

Overall, I think this cost about $500 (excluding the vacuum pump stuff, which I had from doing the wing).

Splitter mocked up.

First, I put the wear rails (skateboard grind rails) on. These will be more than just rub rails - the intent is to also prevent it from ever stalling.

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The rear retained the previous mounting system - angle iron with notches that slide onto a bar welded onto the sub frame. Redid the front mounts to be just inside the eventual air dam. I think I might replace these with struts. John, if you're reading this, could you link what you used? Are they something from McMaster, or some random hood strut?

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...ff9e3699_c.jpg

Adjustable fender braces, it's a circle track part. Got them from Speedway I think. The normally have set screws so you'll need to go to the hardware store or mcmaster and buy thumb screws if you want to make install tool-less.

You're gonna blow through those delrin rub strips in like 2 events, unless your splitter is higher than mine was.

Any reason to chose those over the collapsible gas struts?

Lighter. Less likely to fail. Cheaper replacements, the only part thats going to break on them is the delrin rod and a piece of 1/4" delrin rod is cheap.

Have a cheaper source? https://www.joesracing.com/product/j...der-brace-kit/

No, swear they used to be cheaper though.

Few dollars cheaper on summit, but definitely seem to be more than a random gas strut.

Except this is a complete package, just rivet the mounts to your splitter and screw the other side into your bumper. WIth the gas struts you got to grab them at 2x $15 + 4x clevis $6 + designing your own mount. ($54 total + mounts). And then the gas struts are going to HATE this loading and probably break in a couple seasons and need to be replaced. If you just want to do the front mounts cheap cheap use cables like the road race guys.

Yeah, actually i like the cable idea now. These are just providing vertical and some side to side support.

Made the airdam

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9b967e03_b.jpg

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Need to order some fender braces to support it a little bit as there's no connection between it and the splitter.

I think splitter support rods are the most over engineered solution Autocrossers obsess over.

I went to ACE hardware, picked up a 4' section of 3/8" all thread which I cut to length, and 4x female threaded 3/8" heim joints. Total cost was less than $20. They have been on my car since 2012.

Pretty much done at this point.

Corner balanced with me in it:
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw...-no?authuser=0

Taking it for alignment today. First event the 28th.

Still to do: make the splitter mounting better. Also still need to make spats to cover the tires.

Been a bit eventful since the last post. Fought a bunch of overheating issues, which ended up seeming to be air in the system. Installed two SPAL fans to replace the single OEM fan I was running, which seemed to help a lot yesterday.


Car feels really good. That was FTD with cords showing on 2016 date code A7's that I haven't run since 2016. Handling wise, this is the best the car has ever been I think. There's still room for improvement, though. It definitely has a push, especially in lower speed stuff. Was hoping to switch to softer front springs, but I don't think I have the ones I wanted to use anymore.

You have the magical yellow Lisle funnel for burping coolant correct? I jack my front up as high as I can. I then put on the magic funnel and run the car. Generally I let the fans turn on 3 or 4 times to make sure all air is burped out.

Yeah, that's what ended up solving it. I didn't have one before, and turned out it was needed, especially after lowering the radiator a few inches, and adding a different fill location.

Whats funny is he has this same thread on another forum and I almost word for word made this post over there.

And that's how I did it after fucking it up /shrug.