TOYBARU STX Build 2.0

[DocWalt]

Sport is barely an improvement... I've made the same mistake.

[Silverspeed]

For those of you that have read this thread start to finish, the mantra for this year was to run stiffer springs and less bar. As you also probably read in the last few posts that I didn't have much luck with the 10k springs in Lincoln. The car was just too loose off. In hindsight there were probably several other items I could have, and should have tried while I was there. I certainly had nothing to lose so I should have just used my runs for their educational benefits. One of the quick things I could have, and wish I had tried, was to disconnect the rear bar altogether.

On a positive note since I spent so much time on course, I think I got my money's worth from the event...

So I'm going back to my set up from last year since it worked pretty well. 400# front, 450# rear springs but slightly different bars, and of course the Racecomp T3's vs. the T2's I had last year. As noted early on in the thread I am running the 20mm Whiteline front bar and the stock rear bar. Last year I ran a much larger Hotchkis front bar and a WRX 16mm rear bar. That rear bar really seemed to be the hot set up for me last year. I tried the Hotchkis rear bar but even full soft was just too much rear bar for anything more than stockish spring rates. It was adjustable though which is something I really wanted. The WRX bar was great, and cheap! But while I have the WRX bar in the bullpen, right now Dave and I have decided the stock bar is probably best especially for the stock Torsen diff. And while swapping rear bars isn't too difficult, I do wish the stock rear bar was adjustable such that I could add a bit more rear bar for different surfaces/elevations-power levels very quickly. So I decided to build one.

I estimate this won't give me quite the same stiffness as the WRX bar, but close... And really cheap.

Stock Rear Bar Before


Stock Rear Bar During


Stock Rear Bar After

[yberther]

That's sweet! You can also run one on the outer hole and one on the inner for an effective "middle" position.

I'm running a 2012+ Impreza bar (16mm) and it feels better over the stock bar, albeit only mildly different.

[Silverspeed]

Originally Posted by yberther

That's sweet! You can also run one on the outer hole and one on the inner for an effective "middle" position.

Yes Sir. I've done that with my adjustable bars many times.

I thought about trying to add an outer hole to the WRX bar to allow to soften that one up, but I think that is more of a difficult proposition to weld the end of the bar adequately enough. I could make that into a blade bar but that will take a bit more planning. Maybe a project for later in the season.

[Silverspeed]

I haven't posted in a bit... I have attended a couple local events since my last post, a BMW club autocross and a SCCA event. My driving is starting to worry me a bit as I really seem to have fallen back into some bad old habits. I'm just not trusting the car. Probably a product of too many set-up changes. I just need to drive the car... Stop futsing with it.

And on that note here's what I did to the car since Spring Nats. Based on Dave and my struggles with putting power down in Lincoln I was forced to make one major change to the car. That was to go back to the set-up that I was more successful with the prior year, which was with softer rear springs. The 450# rear springs definitely allows the car to lay down power better, albeit with the potential for pushing on corner exit. Especially now with running the stock rear bar. As noted on a previous post I did modify the stock rear bar to make it adjustable and I am running it in the stiffest setting.

At the BMW event I co-drove with a friend, Mark Smith, who has 3 Solo National championships to his name. So he's a pretty decent driver. The softer rear springs had been installed and Mark requested softer front compression throughout the day. And he got quicker. Solostorm showed I could hang with him in some areas but he murdered me in the slalom/transitional stretches. Mark ended up 9th overall in PAX on a very fast course that rewarded power. A 911 GT3 took the took two spots. I was 23rd, or 15th of the non-BMW drivers. BMW's get a softer PAX for their events. Anyway, not a great driving day.Mark beat me by 2 seconds on a 60 second course! I really didn't love the way the car drove either. The full soft front compression just didn't work for me. It felt very sloppy.

The next event was a SCCA local autocross at an airport lot. Dave Santel was back driving with me for this event. I had the same soft set up in the car from the previous BMW event. Immediately Dave indicated that he felt the same that I did - the front was just way too soft. We set the front low-speed compression back to where we normally run it (3 clicks down from full hard) and the car felt great again. Not that I could hang with Dave... Again, Solostorm showed I was getting eaten up in the long transitional section on the backside of the course, and in a large right hand sweeper before the finish. Dave was able to drive much deeper there and mix in braking to get the car whoa'd up as the sweeper got tighter before the finish. The car felt fine, just not great driving on my part. I had a good run going on my 5th and last run of the day, but tried to get on the throttle a bit to early heading to the finish, pushed wide and clipped a cone. Dave finished with a 49.4, 6th in PAX, 1st in STX. I was 50.8, 28th and 4th in STX out of 8. Depressing. Dave had a 48.6 on his last run but coned it. That would have placed him 2nd in PAX.

I did find one issue with the car this week that I thought I'd pass along. Whiteline's no-grease bushings still need grease. My front bar was impossible to move by hand mounted on the car. Those bushings have been in the car for maybe 4 months? I realize the bar was still moving due to the greater forces the suspension can create, but it just shouldn't be so tight that you cannot move it by hand. After greasing the bushings, all is well again.

Two more local events this weekend so another update is forthcoming...

[justinco]

Originally Posted by Silverspeed

... I just need to drive the car... Stop futsing with it...

That is kind of my approach, not sure how successful it is or if I could go quicker with finer tuning and more tinkering. I always like to get a couple days of seat time on a certain setup before I start changing it. But, generally I get the car where it is easy to drive and I have confidence in it. I will drive around any small issues and a lot of times those issues are just driver error or approach (my car still has slight push on corner exit).

That said, I just picked up my car from 3R today to have the setup/corner-balance re-done, hah. It was a bit out of wack from what it was set to earlier in the year, plus my (lower) sway-bar end links were really loose :o My sway-bar was not binding though, I'll be sure to check it again in a few months.

See you Sunday!

[Silverspeed]

I ran in two different event this past weekend... A Optima Ultimate Street Car Association and a local SCCA autocross.

I only did the one day version of the OUSCA event which included the autocross, speed stop, design and engineering judging and the road rally. Actually, I didn't do the rally as I wasn't in the running for the points anyway and had the SCCA event the following day. I really should have done both days as it was a pretty good deal, but they require a suit, neck brace, gloves for safety gear which I didn't have.

The autocross was fun. As I expected, it was a larger course with lots of space to choose different lines, or by design, easily fit a Corvette or 60's musclecar through... My run group received 8 runs on the course and it was fast and fun. My best was a 42.5 - the quickest run was a 39.4 by a 700+ hp ZO6. There was a solid 3rd gear stretch and a pretty fast sweeper before the finish that allowed for some safe tail-out driving. There were a couple guys running 41 sec runs and another 15 or so of us in the 42 sec bracket. I was trying to hang with a fellow CO driver who runs a BMW 1M. He ended up beating me with a 42.3. I was pretty sure I could get there, maybe even drop into the 41's based on looking at Solostorm data after my 8th run, but 8 was it. My only complaint about the event was the fact that some of the guys in the 2nd run group got 9 runs and that last run ended up being their quickest. It seems like we should all get the same number of runs - but minor complaint. I believe I was 13th out of the 55 drivers. Here is a link to a video of my quickest run:

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpuUXhEsACY"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpuUXhEsACY[/ame]

The speed stop was another matter. It started with a 1/8th mile straight so it was really about acceleration more than anything else - something my car just doesn't have. I took 5 or 6 runs and called it a day. The car was getting slower - my guess due to heat soak as it was high 90's that afternoon. Interesting event though. The stopping portion does test your nerve even though the box is just defined by cones. My brain kept telling me to hit the pedal well before I needed to. My first run was the best probably because I didn't know any better as to when to apply the brakes. In hindsight, for what it cost, I wouldn't run another one of these events in my car - at least not without forced induction.

The SCCA autocross was great. Another very hot day and Dave and I struggled with keeping the tires cool (BTW, watering tires at the OUSCA event was forbidden). The car handled great and we did nothing but adjust tire pressures. In some of the later runs, we actually saw pressures drop significantly due to heavy watering between runs. I've never seen that happen before, but both my and Dave's last runs were with less than optimal pressures (<28 #'s). Anyway, Dave was 1st in STX and 5th overall in PAX with a 43.6. I was 3rd in STX and 9th overall with a 44.3. Justin Metz (Justinco here) was 2nd and 7th with a 44.0. A good day for the STX twins. I ran a bit wide in the showcase LH sweeper mid run, put a bit too much wheel to it and the car just got a little lose and I had to catch it on my quickest run. Here are some videos of my quickest, Dave's quickest clean (he had a 43.5 dirty) and then a side-by-side of Dave and I. Enjoy...

My Quickest
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbElF_Kw6P8"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbElF_Kw6P8[/ame]


Dave's Quickest
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvoDdsUCD-I"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvoDdsUCD-I[/ame]


Greg vs. Dave
[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGaPNbt42Y"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NKGaPNbt42Y[/ame]

[renfield90]

I've seen 3-4 tenths slow down on 1/4 mile times due to heat soak, and this was on a cool evening (for Phoenix anyway). Let the car cool for 20 minutes and I was back at full pace. So yes, heat soak is real.

[Silverspeed]

I ran a BMW club event Saturday in 100 degree heat - sweating while sitting in the car just isn't fun. It was a very open and fast course. Some real 3rd gear action - I think I saw 68-69 MPH going into one of the turns. It's actually very unusual that we have a course like this at Front Range Airport as it's a pretty small venue. Chris Mayfield built the course like a miniature nationals course - albeit one that lasted 37 to 45 seconds. There were only two of us in STX and the other driver who is a good shoe was just on the process of building his GTI into an STX car so he was working on tuning more than driving. I ended up running a quickest time, but dirty, of 41.9, and a clean 42.4 for 26th out of 95ish. Since the BMW guys are given a softer PAX I think I would have at least been top 20 at an SCCA event. There were a couple of very fast ZO6's and a GT3 running in the 40's and high 39's. It's crazy to think I can raw time a GT3, which is what I need to do to out PAX them. The course was fun though. Very good flow. Not slam on the brakes kinks to worry about - just bring the power and hope you have enough. I didn't...


Here was my quickest run...


[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShpODvTyu00"]BMW #4 FRA 72316 - YouTube[/ame]


BTW... The car is for sale. I've decided to get something a bit more practical. Or at least that's the plan for the moment. It's only listed on our local SCCA forums at the moment. I may list it here if I don't get any local bites.


https://www.rmsolo.org/forums/showthread.php?t=16065

[justinco]

Woof, 100* heat...glad I decided to take the day off at the last minute

Good run, 3rd gear at FRA is unheard of :o I wouldn't even get to 3rd gear in my 10 AE 6spd Miata there back in the day haha (it has very short gears).

Sad to see your car go

[Silverspeed]

The Colorado Champ Tour is this weekend. Not a huge turn out with only 150 registered drivers. I believe STX is the largest class though at 11.

Follow along at:

http://sololive.scca.com/CT/index.php

[Silverspeed]

I had 3R check the alignment again as I has recently changed the front swaybar links (from Hotchkis to Whiteline), then determined I didn't like how the new set up fit and went back to the old links. In the process I also wanted to add some front camber (more negative) as the front tire wear seemed more aggressive than I was used to. I ran 3.5 degrees last year and was at 3.1ish this year. So I tried to set up the camber at home with my smart level. When 3R checked it and surprise, surprise... It was dead nuts on.

[Silverspeed]

So another SCCA National Tour event... And another very odd weekend. Dave Santel co-drove with me again. The only change to the car was the rear bar. I have been using a set of adjustable rear links that came with a Hotchkis bar I no longer use. Those links were made for a blade style bar, not the curvy stock bar. Essentially, the links were binding on the bar and actually pinching the bar as the suspension compressed. Long story short, after trying to go back to the stock links and not having any adjustment to unbind the bar, I purchased the needed hardware to make the links vertical again when using the stock bar (pic below). This also eliminated some noise I was getting from the rear of the car. This would have changed the rate of the bar somewhat - making softer I would imagine. And that is what we experienced - a bit of a push during the event.

The first day at the SCCA Colorado Tour event at PPIR saw Justin Metz lay down a 56.7 on his first run so we were all chasing him. Dave also had a 56.7 but dirty. Dave's 2nd run was a great 56.4 but dirty again. I decided after my abomination of a 1st run to calm down and just get one in the books - a safe but clean 57.6 had me in 4th after 2nd runs. Dave slowed down but was dirty on his 3rd run. Justin also slowed down but our competition from NM didn't with Andrew McGibbon netting a 56.6. After a shock adjustment to try to net some additional front grip I ran a 56.9 moving to 3rd and .3 out of 1st at the end of day 1.

And then my car took a poop. Going to dinner I started to hear a popping noise from the front of the car. After checking out the front suspension which was where I thought the noise was coming from, with some help from friends we determined that the noise was coming from the motor. A quick Google search revealed it was DI seals. The car was done for the weekend. Dave reached out to Justin to set up a co-drive for day to for me. He decided to stay home after covering his work assignment.

So day two would be different for me. I had never driven anyone's car before. Justin's car is set up similar to mine albeit with Racecomp Tarmac 2's vs. my Tarmac 3's. Andrew and Justin ran low 56's on their 1st runs to stay very close. I took what I thought was a very conservative run but still mangled one of the large sweepers by getting in too hot and ran a 57.5. Justin picked up to a 55.8 on run two, but unfortunately the leader dropped to 55.3. I got a bit more aggressive and ran 56.7. The owner of the lead car, Shea, dropped to 56.1 to move into 3rd. On last runs Justin slowed to 55.9, Andrew improved to 55.1 to make a clear statement that he had the win. I was able to push harder to see a 55.7 to squeak by Shea for 3rd even though he also improved to 55.7.

Overall it was a fun weekend of racing. Many thanks to Justin for allowing to drive his car on Sunday. I really wish I could have run my own car but I'm not sure I could have changed the results - but I think I could! The results are shown below. Now I'm working on how to get these seals replaced. I'm being quoted $950 for the job. That's pricey enough for me to want to do it myself. Either way the car is out of action for at least a couple weeks.

SCCA Colorado Tour STX Results



New Hardware On Hotchkis Rear Links - With Stock Swaybar

[justinco]

Bit of a crazy weekend!

Hopefully the car is back up and running strong soon. Happy to have you along for the partial co-drive Glad to see you go quick in it after just a few runs!

Myself, I need to learn how to close out my days with good 3rd runs...sitting on 1st run and 2nd run times is no bueno I did the same thing at Lincoln Spring Tour (and lost 3rd place) and the ProSolo (losing the last trophy spot), argh.