i spent the weekend auto xing!

i had a blast at the scca autocross this weekend. saturday was a practice day and sunday was a competition day. so the changes i made from last time to this time were, a 15-1 steering ratio box from a 20-1 box, swapped the 1 1/8" front sway bar back to the 7/8s sway bar and took off the rear 3/4' swaybar. so first run out on saturday i got out and going pretty good then spun out going into a turn. then i gathered it back up and got going. at about half way through the couse is a really hard section. it was the one place that i could get some really good speed up then have to brake hard and take an off camber turn. well i spun out going into that turn also. the rest of the lap was good.
after that lap i sat in the car and replayed in my head what all happened. i felt that when i stood on the brakes then released and entered the turn, the car was still unsettled with the rear end being unloaded. so on the rest of the runs i really paid attention to the car feel after braking and that was the consistent feeling.
so the rest of the laps were pretty good. i was able to shave my time down most of the laps. a few more spin outs happened but over all it was very good.
so on my last lap (lap 9) i was feeling pretty wore out and that i had done all i could it pull in to the pits and get out of the car. i hear a hissing coming from left rear tire area. i go look and my valve stem i broken! i had hit a cone and it must have broke the valve stem! the nice people around helped me with tools and loned me a truck so i could go get the valve stem changed.


so i went home and decided that i need to adjust the 2 way adustable shocks all the way around to get the car to settle faster after braking. i adjusted the rears to have more resistance on extension and less resistance on compression, and the opposite for the fronts.
today at the competition i only get 4 laps. so my first lap i took it a little gingerly till the end when i goosed it to much through the finish and spun out!
the shock adjustment were effective. the car was settled after braking and would enter the turns alot better.
my next 3 runs were good. no spin outs or cones hit. my times got faster each lap so im going the right direction.
my plan for changes to the car for the next autocross is alignment, bleed the brakes (the pedal is still squishy), and try to build a pan hard bar for it.
i got some videos with a go pro. its a pain to load them to the net. ive got one loaded. its the first practice run with 2 spin outs in it.

 

I forgot you had TPMS on that car. Kinda weird it would snap the thread like that.

 

the tpms has been dead for over a year now. it was something for the silver state classic. when i do the sscc again ill get a new system. till then regular valve stems will be put in when the tires are changed.

 

heres video of my second practice run

 

sure looks like a lot of fun!

...and the nice weather makes me jealous while my car is stored indoors as it's snowing

 

Hope to have mine ready for good guys Kissimmee on Apr.

 

Great vid! Looks like a lot of fun.

What gear are you running with your T5?

 

i have the g force close ration gears in my t5 1st is a 2.42 and second is 1.53. i have 4.10s in the rear end right now. the gearing works out perfectly for the autocross to stay in 2nd the whole time and for the 1/4 mile its well into 4th. im may have to step down a ratio in the rear if i put the nitrous on for the 1/4.

 

What 15:1 steer gear box did u replace the 20:1 with? How much difference did it make thru the coarse?

 

Looks fun. I've got 5 weeks till my next event.

 

its just the box that is used on power steering mavericks. i just use the manual pitman arm with it.
it made a HUGE difference. with the old box it was crazy amount of work on turning the wheel around far enough to make the turns. with the 15-1 it was just fine. i didnt even notice it. i do need to get more caster into my alignment. i expect to run out of adjustment before it get as much as i suspect i need, but still expect the steering effort to go up. at that point ill look into doing the electric power steering conversion.

 

here are two runs from sunday competition. these are run 2 and 3. after i had done run 2 i felt that i had screwed up and did a section wrong but couldnt specifically identify what i missed. watching the video i saw that i went on the wrong side of one of the cones on the solemn section. you can see it at the 45 sec mark. the cones that are laid over are pointing at what side your susposed to go around the standing cone on. the course workers didnt see it. if they had that would have disqualified that run. it wasnt my fastest so no big deal.


heres run #3. it was a good run.


i had forgotten to push record on the gopro for the first and last run. its a shame to. the first run i had a huge spin out going through the finish line and the last run was my fastest.

 

You running a i6 in that thing or what? ITS TOO QUIET!!! LOL. Are you left foot breaking? Its hard to tell from the video but it looks like you could be on the gas earlier. Maybe its your GoPro but I heard absolutely "O" tire squeal. You could push it harder.

 

lol. im still new and the car is still far from being properly set up. my front alignment is really screwed up. my front tires show a lot of wear on the outer 50% but the inner half looks new. i had it aligned locally but they obviously sucked. im doing my own alignment in the next week or 2. the car is full of sound deadener, so it is pretty quiet inside. the g force gears in the t5 is the noisiest thing about the car. i promise more tire squealing next time!
so im in cam s class. they have a minimum weight of 2600lbs! my car with me in it is over 3000lbs! so im really considering scraping all the sound deadner out of the car. thats going to suck but i suspect about 100 lbs of deadner is in this car! im going to swap the front accessory drive which has a ac compresser in it out for my other motors set up which is a electric water pump and alternator only. that should dump around 20 lbs off the nose of the motor. my seat mounts are steel. im considering remaking them about aluminum. i estimate about 15lbs of weight reduction their. after that i dont have a lot that i can inexpensively reduce.

 

oh and im right foot braking. the car is still a bit unpredictable when applying power so i am gingerly sneaking up on it. ill get my later in the day videos posted from saturday soon.