Doward's daily does it all: SCCA STX, NASA TT5, Gridlife ClubTR?

[doward]

Porky car is porky.

All four OEM seats removed and the Recaro SPG in on the PCI dual locking slider got it down to ~2560 at 1/4 tank.
That puts it near 2750 with my 200lb chiseled mass.
I'll need to run it pretty low on fuel to stay near that 2750, but these cars apparently fuel starve below 1/2 tank, so I'll have to be cognizant of that. I did not have any fuel starve at Nelson Ledges, but NL is a primarily right handed corner load, while Mid O T1 is a fast ~88mph left which is prime 86 fuel starve opportunity.

Regardless, its fat enough to keep the "small tires at 2750+" credit and that credit allows me to also eat the Splitter penalty and give up the BTM credit.


2750lbs
Declaring 183.33whp
-.1 for weight factor
+.3 for small tires at big weight
-.7 for A arms
-.5 for splitter

Obviously a real splitter and a real wing would be free speed on top of whatever I am able to run this weekend.

[jflogerzi]

Did you keep the OEM glass in the doors to get the weight?

[doward]

Originally Posted by jflogerzi

Did you keep the OEM glass in the doors to get the weight?

Yea, the interior is completely stock and intact except for removing the trunk junk, rear seat and passenger seat.

That is why is was 'only' able to get as light as ~2550 with 1/4 tank.

[doward]

Crazy mixed feelings this weekend.

I set high goals to win TT5 and even challenge the Club Course record in my stupid daily-driver-with-Hoosiers. Short version, that didn't happen. Feel free to look at the pics and scroll right past the rest.

Club Course day one: 1.39.798 2nd place by .023 to a 39.775. Both of us would have also won TT4.
Pro Course day two: 1.38.134 2nd place to a 37.214. Both of us would have also won TT4.

Starting with event prep, pads and tires. Nothing else.
Off came the Stoptech Sports "309" pads I street/AX and did one HPDE at Nelson Ledges on: Left front inner had some chunking. On went Hawk DTC60 square.



Day One: Club Course:
As I said in a previous post, the Pro Course record was set at 2019 Champs, so I knew it was way out of reach.
The Club record was set regionally by a customer, in a very similar FRS but with a wing. He never let me put all the camber in the car that I thought it wanted, so I hoped I could offset his wing/cage/development familiarity with a more aggressive setup and home track Sending It. The problem is that I used his now 2 year old scrub tires.

I ended up a second off the record and .02 off the win. Mid Atlantic fast guy Ricardo snuck it out on the last lap of the last session while following me. He drives a splitter/wing, cable throttle S2K on 255/40/17 RC1s2 on 17x10" wheels, with 20 mph WHP than me.

I turned knobs every session testing in pretty large 3 click increments on both sides of 'middle', was a pyro nerd the first two sessions to get the tires happy, looked over data with Tom O'Gorman. Did everything to try and get up to speed, but the car just never felt like I wanted it to.
I'm pretty sure I know what it needs but need to spend a day confirming stuff on the setup pad and maybe try again at an Autointerest HPDE next month.
Trying to be brief: The front axle is amazing. Front grip, turn-in, steering feel, etc are all amazing, sharp, exact, direct. The rear? The opposite, disconnected, dissimilar, numb. The car never tried to kill me, never did anything to catch me out, but was most definitely loose on entry, loose under braking, and loose at initial throttle input if it was anywhere near 90% lat grip.
I was able to save/catch/correct two BIG slides in T1 and stay on the pavement, but the difference between the axles was troubling. My 22/16mm whiteline bars are already full stiff front/full soft rear. My only tuning tool left was to just drop the rear ride height or remove camber from the front to make the front work worse. I had dropped the rear 4 turns after the AX as a prep and dropped it two more. It is nearly level now and that was as far as I took it.

Today I ordered a Mann Engineering rear bar which is step one.
Step two will be to install the Whiteline RUCA offset bushings I have at the shop for more rear camber.
I also know Emilio is going to read all this and say "well duh, you used ancient brick tires for new setup testing, of course it handled like crap"


Looking at the data, it was clear my rustiness was the major culprit. I had an AIM theoretical of a 38.252 on day one. two different places I could have saved quarter seconds.
It was not a small failure on my part. I ran only two laps sub 40, but 11 laps in the 40s and several more in the 41s. Two Bs and a bunch of Cs got a degree(podium) but it wasn't what I hoped for.

Anyways, all that to explain day two:
Slept on it and made it my Day 2 goal to be as smooth as possible with turn-in steering inputs and much much softer with brake release in order to clean up/prevent all the small wiggles and mistakes that clouded all of day one's laps.
Keynote: These DTC60s are terrible and I now vividly remember why I love my GLoc R16/12 setup so much.
A big chunk of my rust was knocked off and day two went much better.

Session two I threw a CEL after 4 really hard back to back flyers and decided to park it for the day. I had also burned through all of my e85 and another full session probably would have resulted in a min weight DQ for the day.

So for session 4 I hoped into a buddies ST6 car for a TT6 rip. Those four laps were good for the TT6 win and the fastest ST or TT6 miata lap of the entire weekend. I was home.


So anyways, 86 make alot of sense but mine definitely needs more development. Hopefully it never gets said development because my K24 swapped Miata racecar should be on track somewhere before the end of the year... hopefully.

[doward]

Ricardo's full aero, 255/10" RC1s2 S2K:
He had 20 more WHP, only weighed 50lbs more and had actual aero.
I was taking the same aero penalties, but couldn't get my car any lighter, nor had any power to add, so I ran with a giant handicap.

I had -4.9* static on the front axle and the pyro said the whole left side wanted more. Looking at my LF tire in this loaded up right hander shot is a good explanation of why.

[doward]

NASA Great Lakes
Mid Ohio Sportscar Course, Club Course layout w/chicane.
August 27, 2022

Second place lap by .023 seconds.
Second place again Sunday, but no video.

2013 BRZ Limited
193.66 peak, 161.8 ftlb

Prepped for SCCA STX:
JDL 421 EL header
JDL UltraQuiet catted front/overpipe combo
Tanabe Medallion catback
TRD intake
OpenFlash Tablet tune
500/500lb 949 Racing Xida coilovers
Whiteline 22/16mm swaybars
Stock RLCA to avoid NASA penalty
17x9 +40mm 949 Racing 6UL wheels
225/40/17 Hoosier R7

ST/TT build:
2750lb min weight, 2763 lowest actual weight.
183 NASA Average WHP claimed, 180.2 actual.
-.7 for A-arms
-.1 for weight factor
-.5 for "splitter"(STI front lip counts, since it is not BTM)
+.3 credit for small tires over 2749lbs
No BTM credit since Limited trim rear spoiler and STI front lip.
No BBK, no RLCA, no ELBJ.
Total mod factors: -1.0

Several 1:40 laps on Saturday, only 2 sub 40. 1.38.252 was the "theoretical" from AIM.
Definitely lots of opportunities for cleanup and improvement, most of them annotated.

No video from Sunday due to SD card corruption, so not much to talk about there.

[949 Racing]

Still on junk tires? Flying either way. You allowed final drive changes? Sorry for dumb questions.

Front RCA will reduce roll a bit, which reduces need for camber. 86 still needs a bunch, but RCA mitigate that. I presume you don't have points for them though. Key ingredient of Blub's setup.

[doward]

Originally Posted by 949 Racing

Still on junk tires? Flying either way. You allowed final drive changes? Sorry for dumb questions.

Front RCA will reduce roll a bit, which reduces need for camber. 86 still needs a bunch, but RCA mitigate that. I presume you don't have points for them though. Key ingredient of Blub's setup.

Yea, using handmedown R7 scrubs.

Trying to balance both rulesets, I am allowed an adjustable RLCA in STX, but penalized for it in TT5.
Lots of stuff 'free' or allowed and penalized in TT5 is illegal in STX(final drive, RCA respectively)
So there is no RCA or final drive change planned, as the car's primary usage is STX AX.

However, Whiteline offset RUCA bushings and a Mann Engineering rear bar are in hand, just need installed. Both will be big improvements for balance.

Then I can make a tire decision between buying new 225/40 R7s or buying bigger 255/40/17 RR/RC1s2/etc, and I am very much leaning toward the latter since this is not a dedicated TT car. I have the k24 Miata for NASA stuff.

[doward]

In a perfect mix of exact science, procrastination, bigger priorities and regular life, I have managed to make only one change at a time. So, even though I knew the parts combo was "wrong" I waited until yesterday to put the correct rear swaybar on the car...

https://www.mann-engineering.com/pro...stable-swaybar
Its basically a Supermiata rear bar but for the 86 chassis. OE level stiffness, adjustable to softer. It is the hot ticket for most autocrossers that don't do dual speedway style Karcepts bars front and rear.
I gambled on the middle setting, a step softer than OEM since the hot formula I am trying to emulate requires front roll center correction I am not allowed to have, so I erred on the side of caution. It was perfect.

Losses by .059 and .016 to the local STX fastguy have now been countered with last night's victory by .236

Pictured with my buddy's vette. He was FTD and I was #1 PAX.

[doward]

[IMG]https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.miataturbo.net-vbulletin/1300x867/2cb792b9_cde8_48c2_b474_14db7b4e66f6_2af2303916148 f34***ea981f5207e922b45cfd0.jpeg[/IMG]

[doward]

Building on the theme of "exact science, procrastination, bigger priorities and regular life" I have now finally made one more change to the backup TT5 BRZ: Installing the Whiteline RUCA offset bushings for more negative camber.
Between my purchase of these bushings and their install, NASA has since allowed us a "free" non-penalized arm per axle for the express purpose of camber generation. So, if I were starting from scratch today, I would just do an STX legal RLCA instead and save myself a days work of pressing bushings and swapping RUCAs. RLCAs are soooo much easier.
Other rule changes since last time out include ST5/TT5 dropping down .5lb/hp to 14.5:1, from 14:1. This actually helps my particular car, but also makes all previous records that much harder to approach/reset. A-arm penalty is now a bit smaller, .5 instead of .7. This technically helps claw back 'some' of the overall class slowing, but not a huge change by itself.

BRZ is being thrust into TT duty once again as my kswap, while physically in the miata, has not yet run/started. So, Mid Ohio in the spring, here we go!
Gone are my 2019 DOT scrub 225/40/17 R7s, and arrived have a set of 2022 DOT RE71RS. I still have the second/fresher set of 2022 AO52s as well.

Changes since last Mid O:
A bit higher ride height, the rear swaybar, and an alignment tweak. The height and bar were done last year and showed good results in autocross, alignment tweak happened yesterday.
Alignment is now:
-5.2 front (up from -4.9)
-2.8 rear (up from -2.2 with the whiteline bushings maxed out for most possible negative)

[doward]

Since I was here in August(best lap on Pro course at that event was a 1:38.1), the class has had a few changes in the rules.
-Down to 14.5:1 from 14:1.
-A-arm penalty down from .7 to .5
-One free control arm PER WHEEL for camber correction, plus an additional toe link in the rear are now free.

My car's min weight went up enough that I either simply ate the extra weight or now had to remove the front lip I currently take the "splitter" penalty for. I chose to eat the weight in the form of not swapping to my light weight single exit exhaust, which might also cost me a horsepower or two.
I also elected to run on 245/40/17 RE71RS and AO52 tires instead of the same set of 225/40/17 Hoosier R7s scrubs that now even older with even more untold heat cycles.

Rain all night Friday and most of Saturday. One dry session before lunch before it rained again and dried again for the 5:30pm TT#4 session.

I ran the 71RS Saturday and moved to the AO52 for Sunday.
Best lap Saturday was 1:38.4 on the 245/40 71RS.
Best lap Sunday was 1:38.7 on the 245/40 AOs.
Reference 2022 lap 1:38.1 on 225/40 Hoosier R7

This was my first time track driving on modern super 200s and they definitely move around a lot under braking compared to Hoosier R7s.
Car felt way better on track lifted up off the bump stops, and the rear bar change was also a great improvement. I really dont have any balance quibbles at all anymore.

Its taken alot of time to get here, but the car actually lets me adjust line in T1 and carousel with throttle modulation and finally felt like an intuitive, connected, single vehicle. Gone was the disconnected front axle/rear axle sensation it had last time out on track. It has always felt good at AX, even on the Teins, but now it also feels great at track pace.
I actually had fun just doing laps all weekend in wet/drying/damp/mixed/snow/sleet/whatever conditions. Its just a bigger 194whp Miata now.

So, full rundown for my own notes and anybody wishing to replicate:
949 Racing Xida 500/500lb
949 Racing front swaybar links
Whiteline 22mm front bar
Mann Engineering 13mm adjustable rear bar
Whiteline rear swaybar links
Whiteline offset RUCA bushings
Whiteline rear diff mount bushings
-5.2* front
-2.8* rear
zero toe front
~1/8" toe in rear (not sure what slipped from my zero setting, as I was super ---- about making sure the RUCAs were symmetrical going in)

Hardware changes if I was building one today:
RLCA for camber adjustment(instead of the RUCA offset bushings) now that NASA gives one free arm. SCCA requires the bushing to be rubber/urethane, and only allows one rear arm to be swapped, so again a Whiteline or SuperPro variant works here.




Competitively?
I was 1 second Saturday and 1.4 seconds Sunday off Nick Dugdale in his 2550lb FRS with a wing, splitter and 255 RC1s2. His ACE header and CSG/ECUtek tune make a few less horsies than my JDL/OpenFlash combo but he gets all that weight reduction allowance from the tire credit.
I was still claiming Hoosier R7s and the same aero as him, even though I ran a "lesser category" tire and only have OEM/STI lip/spoilers. My car can't easily get any lighter, nor can either of us easily make any more power. I need to add a wing and HoHos to put up a fight, but both are outside the scope of what my backup trackcar should be doing...
Neither of us had anything for the cable-throttle S2000s that both set new records.

[949 Racing]

Checked with Tractive, internal shaft diameter on strut is 16mm, so not subject to NASA points penalty

[doward]

Back to SCCA STX duty. Interior back in, 93oct back in, stickers off.

This weekends course was very power-friendly, and I got raw timed by a handful of things, including this Focus RS, an STU Cayman and my buddy Nick in his STR ND2.
I won STX, was 4th in PAX and 3rd in our regional "ST-all" group.

Car was great. Tires got greasy. This will be the last competitive outing for these 2021 AO52s. Time for them to go away.