Weight Reduction and Rear Suspension Changes

It's been three weeks off from racing so far and I'm starting to get the itch again (that's a good thing). I've been taking advantage of the down time to get some adjustments made to her before Toledo. While she was at the shop the past few weeks, we also finally got a chance to show off all the incredible amount of work put into the car during the Evans Tuning 2014 S2000 Meet. There were 70 S2000s and over 100 people in attendance.We put her on the dyno without an exhaust (since that hadn't been completed yet) for show just because she sounds so mean.

Evans Tuning 2014 S2000 Meet - Mt Bethel, PA

Video By: Steguis (Me) for Evans Tuning

While she was at the shop, she underwent some weight reduction. They found we still left over a gallon of washer fluid in the car (argh) so that got drained. They pulled out the head unit and speakers and lastly, the last half of the exhaust was removed and replaced with a simple Vibrant resonator and downturn terminating behind the driver to the maximum specifications of the rules. She's definitely louder now but I think still within the sound limits of the SCCA. In total, I'd approximate about 22-25lbs of unsprung weight was removed. Lastly, I also asked to add a simple battery kill switch just to prevent parasitic drain on the battery when I'm towing her long distances or leaving her in paddock overnight.

Previous exhaust section - 5/24/2014

New shorter exhaust section - 5/24/2014

Battery kill switch - 5/24/2014

I also asked Jeff to retune her just to make sure everything was still perfect with the shorter exhaust as well as with the higher ambient temps this time of year. Nothing really major changed with the power. It's still the very awesome, wide, smooth, usable power band it was before with incredible throttle response.

Retune for new exhaust - 5/23/2014
Sooooo many farting unicorns!

On the suspension side of things. The rear springs were replaced with the Hypercoil 900lb springs I brought with the car when I dropped her off. The bumpy trailer ride from the shop to SJF performance would be a good way to get he springs to settle (they had already been on the car for well over a week at this point) for alignment #2 for the season. 

Hypercoil 900lb rear springs installed - 5/24/2014

We hadn't touched the caster during the first alignment since Steve wasn't really trusting the caster numbers from the new machine but now he does so he made sure they were both nice and even. Unclear why I can't get as much caster as I want but the left side is basically maxed out and the right side was brought down to match. Steve thinks its due to the forward rake of the car. Either way, the alignment is dead on perfect again thanks to Steve's meticulous work. Steve never settles for "good enough", those numbers are precise.

Alignment #2 - 5/24/2014 - SJF Performance

The final alignment settings are:

Front:
-3.3 Camber
4.6 Caster
0 Toe

Rear:
-2.4 Camber
1/16" (0.06) total toe in

Another two more weeks of downtime and it'll be back to back testing days again at the meadowlands with NNJR SCCA and MSNE to make adjustments for the new suspension setup. I expect to have more rear grip due to the softer rear springs and I'll be able to increase the rear sway bar stiffness and shock settings up from full soft to have some room for adjustment again. I'll also be doing some low fuel testing. Fuel in her is now below half a tank and I'm going to probably run it until she hits E or until I hit fuel starve. I'm hoping to be able to run with a quarter tank of fuel shaving off another 6 gallons of E85 weight off the car from when she was last corner balanced. Now I just have to convince Perry to put in a giant slalom with a long left hand sweeper at the next event's course to be able to test for the worst case fuel starve scenario.