It's been probably 10 years since I last ran with the South Jersey SCCA. I think the last event I did with the club was back at an event at Atco raceway in 2006! I've got nothing against the club but the events are usually a bit too far for me. With perfect weather in the forecast and so few events more local to me, I figured it would be worth a trip down to Bader Field in Atlantic City to get some valuable seat time anyway.
SJR SCCA - Bader Field, Atlantic City, NJ - 7-30-2017
This was my first event at this site and it was quite nice. There was ample paddock space and being right across the water from downtown Atlantic City was both strange and interesting. The venue, being a former airfield, had very abrasive surface with decent grip once the sand had been cleared off by the 1st heat drivers. I'd compare the grip level to Poconos Raceway but it is pretty brutal on tires so I'm glad to do this event on street tires and not more expensive Hoosiers. There's a fair bit of runoff if you spin but you will end up in the grass and travel a pretty far distance if you do. This scared me a bit despite the grass being dry since at least on the fast section, the other side of the grass was the Atlantic Ocean so I wasn't about to test the limits of my car and my skill over there.
Being used to the highly efficient northeast clubs of NNJR, Philly, DC and NER, the more lax feel of SJR takes a bit of getting used to. Things take a bit longer than usual; first car off wasn't until around 10:20am, we had lots of timing issues resulting in extremely long heats (3 hours...yep) and so many reruns but overall I still enjoyed driving there. Adopting a 3 heat system would help immensely but being that the course is what you expect from a runway venue featuring lots of slaloms and transitions, you need a lot of workers to cover the cones so that may not be feasible unless a lot more people show up. The half-height cones don't help either.
Lupa takes the STR win - 7-30-2017
My first run was strange. Despite fixing the alignment at SJF a few weeks ago, she was still feeling really loose. The rear would spring up too quickly during transitions. I increased rear rebound and that made a world of difference and now she would properly slide, squat then pull out of the corner. The front felt unpredictable though in a way that I couldn't describe. I decided to check the front rebound and was surprised that the left side was at the correct setting (nearly full stiff) but the right side was set to full soft. This explained the imbalance. I don't know how this happened. It's been a long time since I changed the settings. I don't know if someone turned the knob while my hood was up at some previous event as a joke but I'll definitely need to double check the settings going forward. I made them both equal again and finally Lupa was feeling like she should. I was able to push a bit harder and trust that the front would bite. I put down a good enough clean run to get the STR win and beating Hez for the first time (he ran his own car) but that's really just because he kept hitting cones and I was in a better prepped car so I definitely didn't outdrive him.
James was the real winner here taking FTD and top PAX in his STX BRZ so big kudos to him. While I did lose some time from backing off a bit in the sketchier parts of the course, most of the time lost was definitely from not taking smooth arcs and pinching myself too much in key corners. I'll need to work on this before Nats so I don't bleed off too much speed in these critical areas. This course really helped highlight that issue so that was a big lesson learned!
SJR SCCA Autox - 7-30-2017
The drive home was an insane 5 hours including a short stop for dinner thanks to summer beach traffic so I was exhausted but 5 hours enjoying some top down awesomeness in an S2000 and listening to music isn't too horrible in my book. It could definitely have been worse. I'm taking a pause with the next event not coming up for me for me until 3 weeks from now where I'll be doing some final testing of Bumblestook before heading out to Nationals. Really happy with how Lupa is feeling in general though. Hopefully I won't have to fiddle with the knobs much more at future events and I can just focus on improving my driving once more.
Nationals is only 6 weeks from now and this is the first time this season I've been able to take Bumblestook out for some home region testing with the NNJR SCCA at the Meadowlands. I asked Dave Corsaro to codrive with me for this event so he could help me quickly dial the car in. Although we had the threat of rain, first heat ran mostly without a hitch in the dry but then the skies suddenly opened up just before our heat.
NNJR SCCA - Meadowlands, NJ - 7-23-2017
Our first two runs were done completely in the wet and it was a pure exercise of car control as Bumblestook wanted to drift more than she wanted to go straight. The course started drying up by my third run but just as Dave was about to go for his first dry-ish lap, the skies opened up again, wetting the dried parts of the course once more. Thankfully though we got a break and it finally did stop raining and a combination of winds and hot conditions allowed us to take our final 2 runs in the dry.
Dave about to go out for his first lap in wet conditions- 7-23-2017
Dave identified a slight push in the car in our 5th runs and wanted some more front bite so we took out some front compression. I took my final run and the car felt much better. I dropped a good chunk of time and the course was now completely dry (well at least the racing line was). Dave finally got to drive Bumblestook at full speed for the first time and set a good raw time but nicked a cone in the slalom. Unfortunately that was the extent of our testing. The pace was definitely there to compete for the top spots but we ran out of runs. I may try to raise the rear bar a bit at the next event to get just slightly more rotation. It's tricky to tell based on today's data as the conditions were constantly changing. Overall though, I think it was a successful day. Her power delivery with the new tune was smooth, the new alignment seems to be balancing the car well and the handling is ballpark where we need it to be so it's just minor adjustments from here on out.
Bumblestook was already making good power but it was more towards the top end. In autocross you spend a lot more time in the midrange so the focus has always been to make a fatter, more usable torque curve from around 4000-7000rpm which is why I decided to swap from the PLM header to the Toda Torquie-Kun. In order to make sure Bumblestook would run optimally, I didn't want to take her out without first getting her on the dyno for a retune so I took her over to Evans Tuning today so Jeff could make sure she was running right.
Jeff Evans tuning Bumblestook - Evans Tuning - 7/15/2017
The tank was still full of E85 from Toledo which was ideal. We did a baseline run without making any changes to the old tune and it showed a massive 20+ ft-lb torque drop midrange. This would've been very noticeable (big time bog) if I had tried to run her without retuning. Turns out the VTEC crossover was too low for the way the Toda header flowed so he raised it a little and after a several pulls and adjustments to the fuel map Jeff was able to extract about 10 more ft-lbs of torque and 10-hp in the midrange over the old tune/setup.
Dyno Tune - Evans Tuning - 7/15/2017
It's important to note that comparing dynos over different days and conditions even of the same car isn't really worth doing so the increase is a data point but take it with a grain of salt. I think the important thing to note is that the power did indeed shift more towards the midrange (there's actually a noticeable bump in the graph that wasn't there in the old tune) at the cost of a slight loss of power at the top end. I think that's more than a fair trade off. I will note however that the previous tune was done during the winter and we're retuning in the middle of the summer so in theory the old tune should've produced better numbers to begin with so the fact that we're seeing gains while tuning at much warmer and humid conditions is very promising. We'll be testing her out next Sunday to see how all the changes work out.
I also stopped by SJF Performance so Steve could finally mount the fresh set of tires we'll be using for Nationals on my 2nd set of CCWs. Hopefully I'll be able to scrub these in some time in August before we head out for Lincoln.
I finally got a chance to go to SJF Performance after installing my Alcantara wrapped OEM steering wheel last month. Despite several attempts I never was able to get the wheel perfectly centered so I wanted an alignment to re-center it. I also wanted to see if something had slipped in the alignment causing the strange oversteering issues at the last event.
Up on the alignment rack - SJF Performance- 6/25/2017
Turns out that the rear toe seems to have slipped and I had a bit of toe out in the driver side rear. The camber hadn't changed much though which is good. I suspect I can thank NYC streets for the slippage. SJF quickly put it back to what I wanted but this time I opted to try a bit of toe out up front to help with turn in. Nothing big, but something similar to what we did with Bumblestook earlier in the week.
Alignment complete - SJF Performance - 6/25/2017
The new alignment numbers are:
Front: -3.3 camber 5.5 caster 0.02in total toe out
Rear: -2.3 camber 0.12in total toe in (1/8")
I then took her for a nice drive through some twisty roads in Northern NJ and she felt amazing again. Hopefully I'll get to take her to an autox soon despite our limited schedule.
The Toledo ProSolo is always rough on cars. Combine incredible grip with intense heat and you've got yourself a potential recipe for disaster but thankfully Bumblestook held together to take the win last week. However it was not without issue. I had trailer wiring issues and had no trailer brakes most of the way there and back and Bumblestook's handling felt a bit inconsistent so it was time to get her back on the lift to give her a good post big event maintenance at SJF Performance.
Toda header installed - SJF Performance - 6/20/2017
First though, her win gave Bumblestook dibs on the new Jet Hot ceramic coated Toda Torquie-Kun Header. While I purchased this header for Lupa, it made more sense to put her in Bumblestook where I can hopefully use it to get even more usable midrange torque as well as keep the engine bay a bit cooler.
New header gaskets - SJF Performance - 6/20/2017
New header gaskets - SJF Performance - 6/20/2017
Installation was pretty smooth. The runners go out a bit further than the PLM header so we had to insert the header from the engine bay but fitment was excellent. Of course, new gaskets were put in for a proper seal.
Toda header installed - SJF Performance - 6/20/2017
SJF then flushed the diff fluid. The Toledo ProSolo was only the second event on the new ATS Spec III Type DD diff so it's just basically broken in but the diff fluid coming out was extra dirty. Hopefully it's just break-in carbon from the clutch plates but the diff itself seems to be having well and I'm not hearing of feeling anything unusual so I'm not too concerned. Once all that was sorted, she was put onto the alignment rack. The alignment had definitely shifted quite a bit and after talking to SJF, we decided to try a pretty different and perhaps more aggressive alignment this time around just to see how it would change things. We went with much more camber up front and a hair of toe out for slightly faster turn in. In the rear, we reduced the camber a smidge but still kept the 1/16" total toe in for stability.
Got Camber? - SJF Performance - 6/20/2017
The new alignments specs are:
Front: -3.7 camber 5.4 caster 0.04in total toe out
Rear: -2.3 camber 0.06in total toe in
When we went to reset my sway bars back to meadowlands settings SJF noticed that the nut on my front sway bar was missing. The bar was definitely connected on Saturday in Toledo so somehow between Saturday and Sunday of the event the nut vibrated loose. The funny thing is I was struggling with understeer up until then so it's almost like Bumblestook just fixed herself for me by disconnecting her own sway bar haha. We reconnected it and dialed the front bar down from 5/6 to 3/6 and set the rear bar back to full soft from 5/7.
I'm not sure if it's the new header or the fact that some stuff shifted but the exhaust tip was touching the rear bumper. To move it back into position, SJF welded an additional hanger onto the exhaust to pull it back towards the driver side so now there's no more play left and right. That was it for all the Bumblestook upgrades and fixes. The final thing to fix was the wiring/overload issues with the trailer. I suspected the issue was related to the trailer connector so that was replaced with a beefier heavy duty one and so far the trailer seems to be operating correctly again.
We don't have any events until the end of July so Bumblestook will be off to Evans Tuning next month to get a quick retune for the new header to make sure she's 100% when we go to Nationals.
With only one day of testing this season, it was time for Bumblestook to go to her first big event this year, the Toledo ProSolo. The Poconos event a few week ago was a good test to make sure she was generally working well but I didn't really get a chance to do any suspension tuning so it was unclear how she'd behave on the high grip concrete at Toledo. Before leaving, I swung by SJF Performance to drain out all the pump gas so I could switch to E85.
Some last minute work at SJF Performance - 6/8/2017
My plan was to just run pump gas in Toledo since I didn't have time to get any C85 (my preferred E85 blend) but thankfully Billy told me about a Speedway in Waterville, OH just 15 minutes from the hotel that had E85 at the pump. Unfortunately with pump E85 the ethanol content can vary from 70% all the way to 90% but having a Flex Fuel sensor on the car, the tune can compensate for any amount of ethanol so I took the chance. Turns out this particular station had the same ethanol percentage as C85 and she seemed to run ok so I was happy with that.
Filling up on corn juice - Watterville, OH - 6/8/2017
The next day I arrived on site early to get a good spot in paddock and it started pouring. This is pretty typical of Toledo but I'd rather it rain all day on a Friday than during the competition days in the weekend. Since I had no baseline to go against I just did what I always do when I get on concrete which is to up the rear swaybar setting going from full soft to 5/7 on the new Karcepts rear bar. I used to go full stiff with the Ankeny rear bar but the Karcepts bar can go stiffer than the Ankeny bar so I didn't want to max it out just yet. It eventually stopped raining and we got to do practice starts in the dry which she was able to get done with no problems. Unfortunately Kirk's BSP 240Z destroyed a drive shaft u-joint and sheered the transmission output shaft during their practice starts so to keep class numbers, I took on Kirk as a codriver and Lee took on Mike.
Arrived on site - Toledo ProSolo - 6/9/2017
Saturday morning rolled in and it was time for the first set of competition runs. It did not go well. She was extremely pushy everywhere. It didn't matter if it was under braking, under power or just transitioning. Bumblestook did not drive like an S2000 and I was a bit worried. I needed to make some big shock changes to get her front end to bite better. The Moton tripples have 5 settings for low speed compression and it was set to full stiff in the front. I decided to dial it back 2 clicks and that transformed her completely for the afternoon runs. She started to drive as expected and I was able to regain confidence to push her a bit harder. She was rotating nicely under power with just enough slip angle to slide the rear around but it would still set and the diff could put the power down as needed.
Ready for morning runs - Toledo ProSolo - 6/10/2017
Unfortunately I was still having difficulty getting my timing right and was hitting cones in most of my runs so I found myself at the end of day 1 in 2nd sitting 0.7 seconds back from Lee. I reviewed the video and data of the runs overnight and knew that if I could just stay off the cones I could pick up some time in other sections now that I was more willing to chuck her into a corner and let her stick. I also felt that the front didn't have enough rebound so I added a click of rebound to control the front a bit more.
In grid for day 2 - Toledo ProSolo - 6/11/2017
I needed a good left side run and thankfully being 2nd I was starting off day 2 on the right so I took the first run as a recon run and get the tires and brakes heated up. When I got to the left side I was able to finally get in a clean run by being a bit safe and taking slightly wider lines and still finding 0.8 seconds to take the lead by about 0.1. I went back to the right side and put in a much faster run now that I was in the lead and tried to find her limits more. I was able to find another 0.7 seconds but coned the slalom so no improvement there. Back to my final run on the left, I pushed a little harder but the tires were starting to feel a little greasy and she was sliding a little more. I still managed to find some more time and seal the win with a 0.3 second lead.
Toledo ProSolo - Left Side
Toledo ProSolo - Right Side
I definitely lost some time in the launches. There was so much grip with the concrete and Hoosiers that even launching at 8800rpm I was bogging hard. Not having torque was not helping me here. I think she definitely had a lot more pace out there. I need to work on finding out how much space I need to give to clear the cones especially on right hand turns. The cone troubles are going to bite me hard at nationals if I don't figure it out. The Toda Racing Torquie-Kun header that I had ceramic coated for Lupa will have to be given up to Bumblestook I think as she has a greater need for a better mid-range torque curve so I'll have to find time to get her back on the Dyno. That will probably be the final change for the season.
Toledo ProSolo 2017 - 6/11/2017
I'm really happy with the changes for this year and it was great that I now have a working concrete setup for her. She didn't break and helped me secure the win defending her win at Toledo from last year. Going racing on my birthday was a treat. Winning was icing on the cake. We've got a little more work to do but good job Bumblestook!
I was planning on taking Bumblestook out to today's NNJR SCCA/PCA joint autocross at the Meadowlands but the potentially bad weather forecast made me less inclined to get up at 4:30am just to deal with trailering in the rain so I took Lupa instead. The morning turned out to be great weather and we got to run first heat so all our runs were in the dry.
NNJR SCCA/PCA Joint Autocross - 6/4/2017
For some odd reason, the setup I ran quite well in Warminster was undrivable today. Lupa felt extremely loose and not very confidence inspiring. I lowered rear compression a click and front rebound a click to help soften her up as well as run a 3psi difference from to rear (I usually just run 2psi) and that helped tame her a little but it was still hard to get on the throttle early without the rear kicking out. Her new header is arriving soon so I'll get her alignment checked after we install it since the steering wheel is also a bit crooked after replacing it a few week ago.
NNJR SCCA/PCA Autocross - 6/4/2017
I also got to try the new mount for Solostorm and was happy that it worked well and didn't get in the way of my field of vision. It's basically the same mount I run on Bumblestook but with a suction cup instead of being bolted onto the body. I also figured out what was going on with the shift beeper I installed yesterday. Turns out one of the spade connectors I received wasn't crimped properly. I redid the wiring and voila, nice loud beeps again as we approach redline...such a comforting sound.
