The OTHER Stranoparts STX FR-S - build thread

[Sam Strano]

Originally Posted by jdrxb9

Since I appear in these videos, I feel the need to reply and post slightly OT

For additional video posts (two more 86's and others), results link, etc from this event, see this thread: http://www.racepa.com/content/index.php?topic=9891.40

the more the merrier, not like you don't have my bar and some Strano Performance supplied Koni's on there, right?

[neurokinetik]

Originally Posted by Sam Strano

Andrew Pallotta and I got together yesterday at a Steel Cities SCCA Event to do a little tire testing and such. For now here are two runs from my car on Dunlop Z2's:

Me, 41.1:
Andrew, 41.5 (though it was his first run in my car did run a non-recorded 41.0 later:
Andrew has other video from his car on the Hankooks, he ran a bunch of 40.9's and I ran a 40.89 something in his car.

As a Hankook driver, I like these results!

[SubiePig]

Thought I would bump this thread for hope of an after nationals update. Congrats on the great results!

[Simmons]

Originally Posted by SubiePig

Thought I would bump this thread for hope of an after nationals update. Congrats on the great results!

I think it is For Sale.




Simmons

[Sam Strano]

Yeah Andrew.. how about an update? BTW, it's "kind of" for sale.... not officially and he doesn't want to part it out.

[apexaddict]

I am still working on an update. The TLDR of Nationals for me was that the car was awesome, but the pressure and anxiety of day 2 did me in.

More details to come.

[feldy]

Originally Posted by apexaddict

I am still working on an update. The TLDR of Nationals for me was that the car was awesome, but the pressure and anxiety of day 2 did me in.

More details to come.

Ahh details never came?

[Sam Strano]

I sent Mr. Pallotta a gentle reminder.

[apexaddict]

I should probably update this now.



Right then, Nationals. It's the most important event of the year, and going into it, I had to make sure that I was getting the most out of the car. A couple of weeks beforehand, Sam and I installed a Perrin CAI, Perrin resonated catback exhaust, an FA20Club equal-length catless header, and a retune from Mike @ Moto-East. These were the last critical components in the build, and I wanted to squeeze them in before it mattered.

And I have to say, the results were pretty staggering - the car was completely transformed with the EL header + E85. It was significantly faster in the mid-range and had a lot more torque - enough that power-down was becoming an issue for the first time all year, even on Lincoln concrete. This was first apparent at the ProSolo Finale.



But at least I got to start out running with J-Rho's Camaro, which was cool.

Anyway, the Pro was fairly tough. I suck at ProSolos, and there was a particular element in each course that I had a hard time seeing correctly. Despite having the day 1 lead, I ended up giving it away to Bryan Heitkotter by having to chase the tail of the car so much. Still, there's no shame in losing to Bryan, and in the end, I still won the overall ProSolo Championship for STX. But there was still a long way to go to get the car settled down for the main event.



After the Pro, I mounted up a fresh set of RS3s and spent a lot of time on the test course during the next week. It was fairly obvious from the Pro that the setup that was perfect during Spring Nationals was going to need some tweaking. And tweak we did.



By the end of the week, with plenty of knob-turning and choice advice from Sam, the car was just about perfect. Sam is absolutely the most knowledgeable and practical person I know when it comes to setting up a car, and he knows more about what I want a car to do than *I* do. If I tell him I want the car to do X, or that the car *isn't* doing Y, he has always made the right suggestion on what to change to get the car working. This time was no different, and I went into Day 1 pretty confident in the car.

We started on the East course, which was designed by Sam. And it was the hardest autocross course I've ever driven. It's pretty typical for Sam to design courses that make you think, and he gives you plenty of places to hang yourself. This time, you would hang yourself if you didn't know how to slow the car down. Nationals courses of the past years have traditionally been fairly fast and transition-heavy, and Sam's course was the exact opposite - there were places where you had to *slow down* and you had to slow down a lot. The people who mastered would be the fastest - go slow to go fast, as they say.

Thankfully, that person turned out to be me - I led STX on Day 1 by about half a second. It would all go wrong on Day 2, however.

The West course was much more traditional - higher-speed, transitional, and very straight-forward in its design. It should have favored the smaller and more nimble FRS over the other cars in the class. In fact, a lot of things were in my favor. But I got nervous - very nervous.

Up until Nationals, I had only hit one cone in the car all year - a few weeks earlier at the Wilmington Tour. On run 1 of Day 2, I hit *three*. This put me outside of my comfort zone, and I had to fight to get back the confidence in myself to drive well. That moment never came, and I ended up finishing 2nd by two tenths of a second. The car was *absolutely* faster than that - but at that moment, on that day, it wasn't happening.

It is what it is. I walked away disappointed, but I couldn't be happier with how the rest of the year went.

At least I've never come back from Nationals without a trophy yet.



As of last week, I've sold the car outright to a close friend of mine, and he will continue to campaign the car next year in STX. I had a lot of fun with the car, but I have a 60-mile roundtrip commute to work now, and a prepped STX car was starting to wear on me as a daily driver.

So, I bought a Focus ST. I'll be codriving a C5 Z06 next year in SS, so I figured a nice hatchback with some torque and heated leather seats would be a nicer every-day kind of car.



Also, I have to thank Stranoparts again for all the support this year. It wouldn't have been possible without a *lot* of late nights with Sam, working on and tweaking the car. He put just as much (if not more) time into the car than I did, and Sam is absolutely the reason that the year went so well. I'm thankful for the friendship we've put together through this project, and I look forward to having his support (and vice-versa) in all my future autocross endeavors.

[ButtDyno]

Originally Posted by apexaddict

As of last week, I've sold the car outright to a close friend of mine, and he will continue to campaign the car next year in STX.

You're giving Danny *wayyy* too much credit here

[Sam Strano]

Now, finally... I get to thank Andrew for the opportunity to have setup the car. He trusted me, and stuck with me on the setup stuff and in the world of "internet knowledge" that's not all that common anymore. I'm glad he gave me the chance to prove you don't need to do off the deep end with a million and one different schemes.

To have the fastest 86's in both STX and RTR come out of my shop, both using my 22mm hollow front bar makes me extremely happy.

There were some ups and downs that sucked this year, mostly with some crabby people not knowing the ProSolo rules, which resulted in some bitching and empty threats, and that sucked for both Andrew and I. I switched cars @ the Lincoln Spring Nat's Pro to see what the E85 was worth. Completely legal to do btw, and had those people known that it sure would have saved a lot of angst. Then there were the ups, watching Andrew and Shelly both rock it at the NJ Pro and take STX and L3 wins there. There were the days we tested tires back to back and found out what didn't work!

Anyway, I'm still around and still supporting the cars. Andrew has sold his, and I have sold mine.... Both ended up in the DC area, and will be run in STX next year.

[raul]

Originally Posted by apexaddict

I have also heard good things about the RE11A, but there is even less data available for those. They aren't really on my radar yet.

Remember, though, just because a tire is new, doesn't automatically make it faster.

I'm running RE-11As, and I wish I could provide some decent feedback, but I haven't tried Rivals, ZIIs or RS3s yet, but if anyone in South Florida wants to swap wheels/tires for one session for the sake of comparison let me know! So far I do like the RE-11As communicative behavior. Is there any data I can record so I can share with the forum?

[G_Ride]

Originally Posted by raul

I'm running RE-11As, and I wish I could provide some decent feedback, but I haven't tried Rivals, ZIIs or RS3s yet, but if anyone in South Florida wants to swap wheels/tires for one session for the sake of comparison let me know! So far I do like the RE-11As communicative behavior. Is there any data I can record so I can share with the forum?

I know someone in my region that's pretty fast tried the RE11A on his STR S2k. He said they were pretty good, but could use a little more dry grip. I think he preferred the RS3.

[Rexpelagi]

RE-11A's? Well, they ride well and are quiet, and the wet should be good...