Simon, Pat, Dom, Rob, and myself all hopped over to Bronte Go Station for the COMP Corvette Club's soloII event. The course had many fast portions, coupled with hard manouvering sections, making it one of the quickest courses, but also one that required you knew your car at higher speeds than previous events.
Today would be the day to see how Rob's 2 year autoX sabatical would affect his times, while Simon would look to shake down the Merkur in the hopes of getting it settled in for the rest of the season.
The focus canada crew continued with the arrival of Dom, and Pat, with Pat registering for the event late as he bowed to peer pressure to run his car despite minor running problems.
My car was going to run the day on it's tired stock tires, and 5200, MAF-limited redline.
By the end of the day, Rob would lead the focus crew with pat following less than 10 seconds behind. If I remember correctly, Simon ran similar times to Pat, with transmission problems hampering his times, and ultimately putting an end to his day.
Coming in towards the bottom of the focus canada pack, came myself and Dom. Dom was able to find the course a couple of times, and finished respectively, while my over-enthusiastic use of the supercharger burnt tire and slowed times, until one run was backed off just enough to keep the rubber to the ground and post a time only 2 seconds slower than Pat's...
Coming up in future AutoX's,
will work on the Merkur pay off with a sweet running and somewhat reliable autoX car?
With either a better running car, or an entirely new car, will pat's next appearance see a vehicle better suited to his driving skills?
Will Rob come back to teach us all a thing or two about autoX once again?
Will Dom find his way around the next course in 2 consecutive runs?
Tires? Low Redline? Poor driving skill? what's really holding Steve back?
stay tuned for more autox action as the season continues.
Rob, Pat, it was great meeting you guys this weekend... Simon, Dom, was great autoXing with you guys.. look forward to the next autox, and hope to see more folks out there!
how was everyone's car setup? sounds like you all had a good time!!!
the merkur is a high hp BEAST isn't it ?
your car has SC/brakes/suspension ?
pat's car is stock ?
p51's car has turbo and suspension ?
ugh.. i'm so jealous of you guys
exams own me right now
:(
Yeah it was a BLAST today... Nice meeting you to Steeve, and yes I beleive it was a culmination of the 5000 redline and the Firehawks that were holding you back B)
A good day was had by all (except maybe Simon ;) ) And Ive learned that my sportlines just dont cut it when it comes to real cornering... Im going to have to figure something out <_< that hopefully doesnt murder the budget.
My car had the usual bolt-ons, but I have some type of exhaust leak and the car feels sluggish as hell.... Also my car stalled twice on the way to the AutoX which was definitely not a good sign, but it made it through the day B)
-P@
WHAT I LEARNED!!!!..................DONT COME TO THE AUTO X EVENT WITH FIRESTONE FIREHAWKS!!!
s**t It felt no different then driving them in the snow!
Anyways I had fun meeting up with eveyone again and also meeting Rob for the first time, it was truley an awesome day today except for my damn tire frustrations but aside from that shooting the s**t with the guys is always good :D It was also nice to see what everyones car is looking like so far, Steves car is pretty much nothing like before, Simon is in a beast that showed it capabilities when he missed a pilon(the 360 was the s**t), Pat well he got a sweet new deck and Robs car is what im shooting for but in 5 seater version. Well I had a blast, hopefully we could do this at the next event and Rob your gonna have to make the trip up here again. By next time I hope to have some new rims and some better rubber. :)
I'll up the pics on the bucket site I took some but not many, but for now Im burnt and tired.
I don't know if you guys noticed but we were there watching you guys race around today. Sorry we didn't stay to say hi, but had the inlaws over and couldn't stay. Wanted to show the boy what it was all about. We will be ther in July, count us in. I thought it was funny seeing the $10000 Honda POS beat out the brand new vette. I was the big guy standing near the start line with the Maple Leafs shirt in grey. Son was in black.
See you in July!!!!!!!!!!
i've seen guys get very nice times with a mediocre car and crappy rubber.. you guys should just keep coming out with the setups you have already and make the best out it IMHO...
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
Well it was a good time every autoX is fun even with the small problems. :rolleyes:
My T9 died but I knew it was going to happen sooner or later it just can't deal with a 80% HP increase over stock.
I've got 2 weeks before my next event but I honestly don't see the car being ready since the T5 doesn't exactly bolt into the car.
I've also decided to remove my front sway bar and put the stock one back in. The corner exit push that the XR exhibits I believe is due to the massive front bar I'm running. Since the motor will be out for the tranny swap I'll be able to play with the larger master cylinder and try to fix some of the intercooler/rad brackets I fabricated last month. I need a really long weekend to get this work done.
Buying my trailer best money I've spent in the past two years. :lol:
Wow.....crazy stuff to say the least :)
6 70s runs for 35cdn
damn that is a great deal
Yo Simon, send me those pics when you get a chance (especially the ones of the rusty header ;) )
-P@