Hi, Guest
05-18-2004, 01:41 AM
The autocross on Sunday was a good solid day. Surprisingly the Vettes were outnumbered 10-1, but the ones that were there were beautiful and MEAN. I wish I'd looked at the mods, because they were all pretty strong. There were no monster MOD cars like you get in Detroit. Got 6 70 second runs, which is pretty decent for $35CDN. Way better value than in Detroit, and a more enjoyable day overall, too bad it's so far. My re-learning curve was pretty steep, I ran a 73 then 71 then a bunch of 69's. I was the third fastest FWD car overall, only behind a gutted and caged, coilovered 90's Civic with an H20 engine swap and a ITR transmission, and a stockish Saturn with only Konis, coilovers and Kumho V700's, he turned a 68 something, I really wanted to beat him but couldn't, amazing driver for sure.
My car obviously did pretty well, but clearly wasn't optimized for autocross. I set the rear shocks at full stiff, and forgot to adjust the fronts, which resulted in a pretty fun first run. Then I set the fronts to medium stiffness which kept it straighter. Turn in was great, but the mid-corner attitude was a little understeery. But what really confused me was I was spinning the inside front, which I didn't expect with the Quaife. I think I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities:
First, I'm running the 25mm rear Eibach bar, and the 22mm front Eibach bar. Given the car felt a little understeery in mid-corner, I think it's got too much front bar, which is lifting the inside front.
Second, I think overall I had the damping too stiff for the conditions. As I drove more, I started to realize the inside front was only slipping over the bumpier sections. I think the rebound damping was not allowing the inside front to fall into the "valleys".
I think both factors combined to lift the inside front practically right off the ground on bumpy ground, and the Quaife can only do so much. So, I had a lot of power, but couldn't get it down well. Overall, the turbo felt awesome. I was a little worried that the "time warp" that happens when you're on an autocross course would make it feel really laggy. But it wasn't at all. The only time where I felt it was a problem was on long 270-plus degree skidpad turns, there was a little on-off lag as I was trying to modulate the throttle and the RPM low at 3000 so not as much exhaust velocity. It didn't cause much of a problem though, and only gave up just a little to a NA car. Once out of the corner, 205 crank ft-lbs at 2600rpm REALLY gets the car moving again. There was only one corner which was very very tight which had me below the boost threshold (2000rpm exit), and even then it was no big deal, I tried going for first once, and didn't feel it helped at all. It only took about 50 feet to get back into boost if I left it in second..
If I wanted to compete in autocross, I'd likely put on the stock front swaybar, or even the smaller SPI bar. But won't do that until I've had it on track, the primary role of the car is trackdays, not autocross. I will try lighter dampening next time.
The Vettes mostly ran 66's, with an FTD of 65 something. So my 69 is not too bad compared to those things, and the track was really wide open, tailor made for a Vette. All the other FWD cars were between 70-85 seconds. There were a few well prepped Miatas and Mustang/Camarobirds in the 67-70's, and lots of other RWD cars in the 70's-80's as well. A monster MOD car from the US probably would have been in the low 60's.
So, overall a very good weekend. Good shakedown run for the car, I'm very confident in it now. Drove home 3 hours with no problems. The suspension is very comfortable on the 401, no problems, but it is very very loud. Lots of road noise
My car obviously did pretty well, but clearly wasn't optimized for autocross. I set the rear shocks at full stiff, and forgot to adjust the fronts, which resulted in a pretty fun first run. Then I set the fronts to medium stiffness which kept it straighter. Turn in was great, but the mid-corner attitude was a little understeery. But what really confused me was I was spinning the inside front, which I didn't expect with the Quaife. I think I've narrowed it down to a few possibilities:
First, I'm running the 25mm rear Eibach bar, and the 22mm front Eibach bar. Given the car felt a little understeery in mid-corner, I think it's got too much front bar, which is lifting the inside front.
Second, I think overall I had the damping too stiff for the conditions. As I drove more, I started to realize the inside front was only slipping over the bumpier sections. I think the rebound damping was not allowing the inside front to fall into the "valleys".
I think both factors combined to lift the inside front practically right off the ground on bumpy ground, and the Quaife can only do so much. So, I had a lot of power, but couldn't get it down well. Overall, the turbo felt awesome. I was a little worried that the "time warp" that happens when you're on an autocross course would make it feel really laggy. But it wasn't at all. The only time where I felt it was a problem was on long 270-plus degree skidpad turns, there was a little on-off lag as I was trying to modulate the throttle and the RPM low at 3000 so not as much exhaust velocity. It didn't cause much of a problem though, and only gave up just a little to a NA car. Once out of the corner, 205 crank ft-lbs at 2600rpm REALLY gets the car moving again. There was only one corner which was very very tight which had me below the boost threshold (2000rpm exit), and even then it was no big deal, I tried going for first once, and didn't feel it helped at all. It only took about 50 feet to get back into boost if I left it in second..
If I wanted to compete in autocross, I'd likely put on the stock front swaybar, or even the smaller SPI bar. But won't do that until I've had it on track, the primary role of the car is trackdays, not autocross. I will try lighter dampening next time.
The Vettes mostly ran 66's, with an FTD of 65 something. So my 69 is not too bad compared to those things, and the track was really wide open, tailor made for a Vette. All the other FWD cars were between 70-85 seconds. There were a few well prepped Miatas and Mustang/Camarobirds in the 67-70's, and lots of other RWD cars in the 70's-80's as well. A monster MOD car from the US probably would have been in the low 60's.
So, overall a very good weekend. Good shakedown run for the car, I'm very confident in it now. Drove home 3 hours with no problems. The suspension is very comfortable on the 401, no problems, but it is very very loud. Lots of road noise