My BRZ ST* Autocross build

[Simmons]

Well, how is the test and tune going?

What tires do you like better?

Simmons

[Scooby South]

Wheeeew...Long day...but VERY informative...got about 35 runs in the car today.. the good news is.. The CAR is Setup correctly...and its going to be a VERY COMPETITIVE event... there is No Overdog.. and the folks that say this car is not STX needs to seriously consider another Hobby. Even during test and tune, I let Jason Ruggles[/URL] drive the car and Mike King drove Jasons car.. both were within a couple of tenths of each other.. and both said the neither car has a clear advantage over the other. so IT IS classed correctly for the doubters. moving on.. Didn't adjust anything on the car but Air Pressures all day.. which is good.. because that means the car is pretty much dialed in suspension and Handling wise...The new front Bar didn't really change much on the dynamics on the car but settled it down tremendously so you don't have to overdrive the car to get it to do what you want. Steering is precise and I got a HUGE compliment on how the car is setup from Mike Junior Johnson saying the car is there...now its up to the driver. I agree... the Tune and power mods/header is spot on...and look forward to Nameless Performance Inc revision when its available.. 8k revlimiter is about as far as I want to go on the stock internals. that nets a 64.4 MPH 2nd gear run... which I actually hit more than a few times on course today.. So very happy with the way the car responded to the tune.. Very positive results... I also got about 31.5 mpg on my way down here.. oh and this is on 93.
Tires... Ran the Z2's about 3/4 of the time to get them Good and scrubbed in...then in the afternoon switched to the RS3's... the Dunlops felt Stickier than the RS3's. The Dunlops felt grippier the RS3's.. We found a sweet spot on the Tire pressures..the basically allowed the car to everything well.. 38/34 seemed to work best for my setup... We never watered them down once today...Tire temps never got above 115 degrees today and thats after beating the living crap out of the car.. I did the EVO School this morning just to knock some rust off my driving.. tons of runs.. ... about mid way thru the Test and tune...we switched out to the RS3's.. Didn't loose any time... but really didn't pick up any time either.. We(Collectively) decided we are going to stay on the Hankooks just for the Contingency money thats offered from them vs. the Dunlops. The Hankooks put a push in the car a bit on off corner throttle.. so we chasing that out by putting more pressure in the rear.. to balance the car out.. Hilary Ann Anderson runs in the first Run Group first thing.. and the rest of STX runs in the last run group of the day so thats another reason we decided to stay on the Kooks... as the ambient temp will be pushing 80... and since we are going to cycle the RS3's for the last run group.. we probably won't have to water those down either.. All in all a great day.. good to see some familiar faces.. its been a while..
for those that want to follow along live heres the website:
http://sololive.scca.com/

[GTB/ZR-1]

Car looks good & planted out there today--congrats on the prep, Bill--WELL DONE.

Looks like this is gonna be a test-n-tune kind of weekend for us. The rear of the car will not take a set & is waaaay too loose (although the front is GOOD!). I was lucky to get a 25.4 on the practice course today--a full second off the top STX car... Still gonna have fun, though!

[Scooby South]

Ahhhhhh Yaaaaay...Day one Match tour in the books..Lots of updates..Well The car is definitely STX. Made some HUGE Changes to the setup for the car with 2 runs left today. Rear end was skating all over on the Hankooks...Finally was able to get some decent temperature in them the last 2 runs from me and Mike. We collectively decided to disconnect the rear bar completely and take the compression and rebound out of the rear. We ended up adding 2 click of rebound into the rear and it made a HUGE difference on how the car drove on that surface at South Georgia Motorsports Park(SGMP) in Adel Ga. Car is very competitive so far...no big runaway like people were thinking. Pretty happy with its debut, Learned alot about how you could spend months on a setup...refine everytime you drive and then all of a sudden HUGE changes are done to try to get ahead of the car. only to realize you might be taking what you have done and pitching it out the window to try and make it better.. that was me today. With the Changes done to the car, it actually got better and was able to actually understand how its sometimes necessary to make those big changes and not be afraid to do it. Knocked off 3/10ths off my fastest time and the car was begging for more.. sooo tomorrow we make one more big change and hopefully the car is perfect and we can get into the super challenge.

Results:


Results for day one...class was seperated by 2.6 seconds from first to last..so extremely close..the car ended up in 4th and 11th in class...which I think is a decent debut for my car..we go to last chance qualifier with 2 more runs tomorrow fo a chance to get into the showdown..

[neurokinetik]

So the car wasn't too tight without the rear bar, then? Was this still with the springs swapped front-to-rear (7k in front and 6k in the rear) on the KWs?

[MTCRX]

Nice job Scoob! Great placing for first time out against some of the toughest competition. Sometimes competition is the only way to learn and sort things out. All those frs/brzs so well placed shows you are knocking on the door to a win before too long. Make sure you take good notes to let us all know your changes and setups

Good luck today!

[Scooby South]

Wheew...What a great weekend. Here is pretty much the full write-up for the event as I saw it and how it unfolded for me(us) Enjoy..sorry for the long read.. but just my thoughts on how it went.. I had 2 other drivers in the car this weekend. Hilary Anderson in L3 and my codriver Mike King, who was the 2009 National STS Champion..both know a thing or two on driving and setup... Thanks for helping

I think it was more the surface than anything... according to Russ Clark, the course is very temperature dependent. A 5 degree track temp difference in the track could render it loose or tight depending on your setup. Friday on the practice course (which is about 1/2 of the Real course) I really didn't have any issues.. the car was a bit loose...but not uncontrollable. We dialed most of it out with airpressure. We were on the Z2's for the morning up until about We were done with the Evo school.. then we Switched out to the RS3's.. I didn't drive on them, But Mike and Hilary did and reported that the car just felt Numb. We Elected to stay on the Hankooks for the main Race, which reflecting back, We should have put Hilary on the Dunlops for her heat as there wasn't much temperature in the AM (started off at about 47 Degrees) And she skated all over the place for here first 3 Runs... *Sorry Hil* She finally got a decent run in...netting her a 4th place finish...just out of the trophy's..


Mike and I ran in the last heat..which further enhanced our decision to run the RS3's as it was also into the heat of the day.. *ambient temp about 81* From the morning runs. We knew that we had to generate as much heat in the tires as possible for them to be affective. I ran first.. and ran a decent opening lap and generated about 110 degree Tire temp.. Oh for Hiliary's early run, the best *probed Temp was about 86 Degrees..thats all the heat we could get into them in the AM. the Dunlops perform MUCH better in a cooler environment, they were more confidence inspiring to me and my car setup.

First off, Thanks to Mike and Hilary for trying to get the car Setup for both of your driving styles. Mike is a left foot braker, using the brake to set the car for various situations, Slalom, offsets etc. so he kinda drags the brakes to help drive the car, other wise known as the 'pedal dance' With that, Mike experieced the Brakes Going into *ICE MODE* and the brakes for him wouldn't perform the way he wanted. With that said, Him and Hilary both said the car was loose to them. So we began to Adjust the car to more Hilary's and Mike's Liking.

Mike improved his time by a couple of 10's but still was experience "ice mode" on the brakes, so he felt he wasn't getting everything out of the car. I am a Right foot braker and I never experienced the brake issue that Mike had. Supposedly its a characteristic of the EBD system. and it can can be Defeated by using something similar to Gaming Cheat codes.
*pull the handbrake up 3 times
*push the brake pedel 3 times
Etc...Never got it to work but it might require more digging to see if this is an actual issue or not.

If the car would have been under us like it was in practice. we might have faired better in the standings. For Day 2, since contingency was out the window, we opted to put the Dunlops on for the day for a couple of reasons.
- would be better temp suited for Hilary's early runs, which it did as she improved her Scratch time by 4/10's. which would have put her into the challenge on the first day and she would have trophy'd in 3rd. With all the changes to the car and her vast improvement in time. Mike and I were excited to see if we could duplicate her almost 1/2 sec improvement.

With a new setup on the rear of the car to help with its loose condition, I had the first shot of improvement for the day in open STX. 3 of my competitors had already made the challenge.. so I went out to get that .5 bit of time to try to become part of the elite. Well that didn't work out like I thought it would. Went out really aggressive and in Spectacular fashion for everyone to see.. SPUN HARD coming into first 3rd of the course. I had unweighted the car going into the offset get right before the big long sweeper section. Full throttle, 60mph Full smokey 360 Hard spin.. the good news is the car is ok.. the bad news...I lost all confidence in the car at that point, Mike went out.. and was still having brake issues for his style of driving... at that point we didn't know what to do to fix that issue that and the car was not confidence inspiring. My last run I went thru motions as I was just mentally done for the day.

Mike's last run, He was on fire.. dancing flawlessly thru the cones.. He finally looked like he found the grove in the car. Car looked settled. It stepped out like it was 'supposed' to.. I was excited.. Mike was going to lite it up this run, I thought. Then Dennis Sparks Spun at the Finish and people ran to get the finish set back up...to late....RED FLAG for Mike. Mike came back in a little more excited/angry than I remember ever seeing him before. He said he nailed everything just about as perfect as he could...the turnaround, the brake issue for him...all came together on this particular run. and NO CONES...that was the important part...

Well Mike ended up getting a rerun... and with his heightened level of anxiety and the adrenaline rush/disappointment of the run he had just got off. I tried to get him refocused on what he had to do.. But Mike went out and looked good...but then had the brake issue again on the bottom and that was it...We were done..

Great Debut for George and my cars...a combination of Setup, Surface and driving, we still managed a respectable finish in one of the tightest classes out there. Sure the Twins need a bit more development, but at least they are competitive ...and I couldn't ask for more than that..

I learned a few things, as well:
- Apparently I'm not ready for uber driver setup quite yet and will continue to work on my driving and setup to try and be competitive within the ranks.

Next thing I learned is to have a strategy. Dunlops vs. Hankook... Mike Preferred the Hankooks over the Dunlops.. as he felt they had more grip. Durometer test put Both tires about the same spot, hence why there wasn't much time difference except where temperature plays a part...what time of day are you running..ect...

Setup is very much a personal thing... what works for some doesn't work for others..Yes the car has to be there, but you have to allow room for driver development also..

All in all a great event... Knocked some rust off my driving and saw many friends that I haven't seen in very long while. The important part is the car nor the drivers embarrassed itself out there. It looks very Well classed at this point and there is no magic Gotcha, OMG thing the car does better than whats already out there. The important thing to me is that is has a chance....and that's all you can ask for...

The Nameless Performance Tune/Header combo Performed flawlessly as well as the Kartboy Shifter bushings, pully and other goodies. The car is there for sure, just have to learn to adjust it to make it faster, which is a relative term. At What point does one throw caution out the window just for that extra couple of 10'ths... I guess that depends on how serious you want your own build to become..

thanks for putting up with my non-paragraph, runon sentence jibber jabber.. I am actually trying to be a better writer...showing what my College education is doing for me..

If you guys have ANY questions at all LMK. Videos are still being processed, as I have other priorities at this point..

Again thanks for the support

Bill

[Simmons]

I have "Ice Mode" Every time that I AutoX this car, it is Very frustrating to say the least. The Only way to deal with it is have Fast reactions to let off the brake and turn, that works 85% of the time. I am a left foot braker as well.

I really hope there is a way to fix this in the future, I can see me loosing a good run at a Big event because of it.

Lucky my Co-driver has the same feel for the car, so setup should be very similar.

Simmons

[Simmons]

Plus just because the car worked at home for you doesn't meen it will work everywhere. You Always have to make adjustments for each course.

Simmons

[feldy]

Do you think you would have picked up any more time with the e85 tune?

[2superblus]

Originally Posted by Simmons

Plus just because the car worked at home for you doesn't meen it will work everywhere. You Always have to make adjustments for each course.

Simmons

Yes you may need to fine tune a bit but wholesale changes are never a good thing to do (unless it is raining/soaking puddles wet). You are better off altering how you are driving the car to get it right. Honestly I find that with most drivers the more they tweak the car the more they question the setup vs the driver.

[Simmons]

Originally Posted by 2superblus

Yes you may need to fine tune a bit but wholesale changes are never a good thing to do (unless it is raining/soaking puddles wet). You are better off altering how you are driving the car to get it right. Honestly I find that with most drivers the more they tweak the car the more they question the setup vs the driver.

I have to disagree, I think every big event last year I was making big changes for the surface and course design. And it helped. I still work on driving every run also.

Just my opinion.

Simmons

[MTCRX]

First big event, first big weekend with a new car, that is a lot of pressure. I find every event is a learning experience in some ways. Many asphalt courses behave so much differently with temperature changes. Maybe the car didn't handle like you expected, but now you know what doesn't work for you. Great write-up, I took some notes from it. Get the car back to setting you like and keep picking away at refinements until you get it where you like it. One thing I learned on hard (cold) asphalt and in wet is soften up the suspension, especially the rear (just like road racers) the car digs in a little more on the outside tires and the softer sway bars and shocks help transfer the weight instead of skidding out from under you. After you run some more events and get your confidence back you will be back on track. I still think you had a very good showing considering the competition.

I am still 1-1/2 months from our first event, so I love reading these reports and watching the video. Did Mr. Strano come around to see your group run at all?

As for the E85 post, I doubt more power would solve much of the handling issues, momentum.....

[Scooby South]

Originally Posted by feldy

Do you think you would have picked up any more time with the e85 tune?

no not really... maybe a tenth or 2.. power wasn't the issue.. it was the handling...particularly the ass-end..We couldn't apply the power we had...power is nothing without traction...

Bill