13/14 July 2013 Nebraskhana and Solo event - Lincoln Air Park

Time for another Project Tilty Update!

This weekend was a two day weekend for autocross joy. Saturday was our "Nebraskhana" event which is a lot like Mirrorkhana or "Amerikhana" (Not allowed to use that name since it's supposedly trade marked by the Kansas region or Salina or, I don't know)... The second day was a regular solo event.

Car setup got changed a touch, the rear end of the car was dropped down a touch over a half inch to level out the car. Basically at autocross weight the car sits level (it's an eighth of an inch higher in the rear with no driver) now as apposed to the massive rake I had before. I will be the first to admit that with NO rebound dialed into the shocks/struts the car feels stupid weird. Daily driving it had this weird rubber band like effect but with everything turned up it was not noticed anywhere except a little more reluctance to slaloming (a touch more rear rebound helped here) and a near complete removal of wheel HOP on launch but still copious amounts of wheel SPIN. A 2000 RPM launch without a good feather resulted in instant spinning of the tires...

Anyway, the event recaps:

13 July 2013 - Nebraskhana

If you are not familiar with the Mirrorkhana concept, you basically set up one course with two start lines in it. Imagine having two start lines on a roadcourse but in an autocross size. The goal is to get back to your start line before the other guy does. There are NO timers for two cars running head to head on course, just a line judge. Thankfully all of the decision making process was pretty straight forward. The cars that were the closest usually had some "error" that made one win. Such is the challenge of Mirrorkhana! When/if a two driver car ends up facing each other the victor is determined by times. Our Nebraskhana was a double elimination bracket style. If you lose you fight your way up from the losers bracket and if you win you go through that bracket. There were also practice runs the morning of and the competition happens in the afternoon. The other crazy thing is that you were allowed 3 free cones but if you hit a fourth or had a course error DNF, you DNFed your run. Of course it is possible that both drivers could DNF, then it was "they who had DNFed less bad".

The course ran clockwise from either of the two starting locations and had plenty of places to hit cones.
1 is a two cone wallom
2 is just the apex to a 360º turn around (well it turns and comes back onto itself, no loop around the cones)
3 is the chicane before the start 2 straight
4 is a 3 cone slalom start with eyebrows following it
5 is the chicane before the start 1 straight

STX had like 4 cars IIRC. An E30 BMW (not prepped to the limits, yet) an Integra Type R (prepped to the rules but in need of wider tires), myself, and my co-driver. That's right, someone was actually stupid enough to volunteer to co-drive my car. My Co-Driver is a local instructor and obviously no slouch as a driver. He's been to Nationals several times and is currently running a SN95 Cobra (mid 90's, with the live axle but with the 4.6L 4V) in ESP with that car's owner. He was upper mid pack at Spring Nationals this year in that car and is no stranger to Mustangs.

Run #1 I was up against the E30 BMW. Why is beyond me since the Integra Type R and I are ALWAYS back and fourth on times. By virtue of tires alone I had to really screw up to not win. The driver is a nice enough guy but I'm not sure he was all that up to snuff on driving that car (used to Miatas) and it isn't very far along in the STX prep level. He's getting there and I look forward to his competition at a later date but the end of this first match up was "obvious" to everyone. I won by about 6 car lengths.

Wins: 1, Losses: 0

Run #2 I ran against an STR S2000 on Star Specs. The only mods I'm aware of that he had were swaybars and I think CAI/Exhaust/Tune. This was a little more concerning to me as the S2000 is a pretty capable car in stock form and being that the driver was no slouch and the car is very capable he represented the first true competitor I had to face. If there was one thing going for me it was that there was a rather long 200' straight mid way through the course and another 100' long straight at the start and finish. I will admit that this was far closer than I was comfortable so it took some solid driving to prevail. After talking with him after the run was over he said he had some mistakes that really caught him up. I don't remember having too many mistakes. I ended up crossing the line about 3 car lengths ahead of him which was plenty close for comfort!!!

Wins: 2, Losses: 0

Sadly, no run #2 video... I forgot to turn it on...

Run #3 I ran against the Integra Type R with whom I have gone back and fourth all year with. The driver had fought his way up from the losers bracket (losing to my co-driver then beating the E30) to face me in the winners bracket. This was going to be a serious challenge that could have NO errors on my part. Coming through the halfway point (his start/finish line) we were neck and neck at the start of our respective straights. Coming through the second part of the course though he made a grievous error and scrubbed off a ton of speed in the most critical corner for him right before the straight. I managed to win by 2 car lengths... About half way through this run though the "50 miles till empty warning" came up on the display and by the end of the run it was at 45 miles till empty.

Wins: 3, Losses: 0

Sadly, no run #3 video... the GoPro shut off shortly after starting for this run... no idea why? Enjoy a pretty picture instead:

Run #4 complicated things. Having come from 3 solid victories and having a co-driver who also came from 3 solid victories meant that we were facing off against the clock. At this point the other positions had been filled and the STX lineup hinged on my co-driver and I competing for 2nd and 1st. This run would be a bit of an eye opener for me as my co-driver laid down a SMOKING run. My run was 1 full second off his pace, a 58.8XX IIRC). By the time we were done the fuel warning came down to 32 miles till empty.

Wins: 3, Losses: 1

Sadly, no run #4 video. At this point we were hot lapping the car so video took a back seat to swapping drivers.

Run #5 was the "do or die" run as failure to win on this round meant I was done for the day and would get second place in STX. I wasn't about to let my co-driver get the best of me so I ran out there and really hammered out a solid run. I ended up running a very fast run. This run was 0.4 seconds faster than my co-driver's previous run so I felt extremely pleased with the time but fully expected to lose this round. Turns out my co-driver didn't improve his time! I won this one but had to do it again the next time to secure first place. 18 miles till empty...

Wins: 4, Losses: 1

The sixth and final run would determine who was first and who was second and really meant working to earn the spot! This is the type of competition I love as it makes for a good challenge. I would run first, the co-driver would run second. I came in with a run I felt was pretty good. 11 miles till empty... I stood by and cheered my co-driver on in the spirit of competition and listened for the cone calls, 1... then right at the end 2 and 3. As he came in from the run the announcer proclaimed over the speakers "And it looks like Chris has won STX!" <awkward pause> "Ohh, looks like I was wrong, Jon (co-driver) took the win by, it looks like six tenths of a second!" 5 miles till empty...

Wins: 4, Losses: 2...

Through a hard fought fight I managed to get beat my Co-Driver in a close battle. Looking at the raw times from our 6 runs against each other, my fastest raw time was actually faster than his fastest raw time it's just the way the Nebraskhana works I didn't beat him because he ran faster than me on his other two runs... That was the reason for the confusion on who won STX.

While victory would have been nice there are a few things that are important gleaned from this entire experience:

First: Driver check. While it is easy to "compare" myself through PAX to other top drivers it is far clearer than to put someone fast in your own car. Either my car is hard to drive fast (unlikely judging by what my co-driver was saying to me), my co-driver isn't as fast as he seems, or I'm a better driver than I originally thought. I don't like tooting my own horn so I'll let the conclusions be drawn by others.

Second: Car setup check. This goes hand in hand with the first point simply because it is difficult for me to judge where the car is setup wise when I'm the only one driving it. Jon was very straight forward with his response on the car setup. The car is reasonably neutral. It will push if you gently apply throttle but it will step out if you are more aggressive with the throttle. Kinda how the car should be setup. He was very adamant that the car was "too soft" and while I would agree with him that it might need a bit more spring rate, I'm hesitant to add spring rate to the car as the car is nearly out of rebound adjustment on the dampers and I don't want to give up what streetability is left on the car. Maybe when I have a second car and this one can be a "dedicated" autocross car that only gets driven to and from events, but right now, I'm not overly interested in running some higher spring rates without a better set of dampers to make the ride tolerable for daily driving. I would probably bump the rates up to 550 front and 275 rear. That is up from 440 front and 200 rear. He also mentioned that the shocks could probably use a bit more compression as well.

The photos that I took of Jon driving show that -3.0º of camber is pretty close to spot on. There is still some negative camber fully loaded up in a corner but I'm willing to bet that a touch more would really make the tires work better.

The body roll is there but it's not noticeable from the driver's seat, or at least from my perspective it isn't noticeable or a detriment. Of course stiffer springs with better dampers would guarantee a more aggressive direction changing. I don't know... I could always take the front swaybar all the way stiff... I think paired up with Sam's rear bar it would be possible to keep the car balanced with a little more roll stiffness. I should probably call Sam (finally... lol) and get replacement bushings so I can reinstall it. The watts link can't go up any higher...

14 July 2013 – Regular Solo Event

This started off like any normal solo event. Nothing out of the ordinary in terms of car setup.. More fuel obviously.  I left everything as it was since it felt so good on Saturday and that turned out to simplify things greatly.

The course was the same course as we ran for the Nebraskhana but in reverse and with a few changes to accomidate a dedicated start and finish line. The ending became extremely tight and rather annoying considering how the rest of the course felt but it was necessary to keep speeds down as the end ran right in line with the start and we needed to be shut down to avoid hitting cars coming on course. There was 6 STX drivers, the E30 and the Type R from the Nebraskhana and myself obviously. There was also an E36 BMW an E46 330i, and a Cobalt SS.

We received 4 runs and I will admit that it was not as much fun this direction as it was the other direction and the added tightness into the finish really ruined what was otherwise a fun course. It was challenging and challenging is GOOD in the long run. You'll never know how you'd do on these "challenging" courses otherwise.

1 is a chicane

2 is the eyebrows (the 3 cone triangle near the top should be another eyebrow in this case, that was a change they made)

3 is a chicane

4 is that turn around

5 is the back wallom which has the line drawn through it the opposite of what it should be (lazyness FTW!)

My first run involved a bit of "learning" the good ole hard way... it involved 3, very, very ugly cones at the kink going into the finish that I... erm... "hit on purpose" <cough*understeered into*cough> thinking we got 3 for free... a 62.897 but with 3 cones it came out to a 68.897. Somehow this was good for first place still. I don't believe that was possible and I don't think my 3 cones got called in despite clearly plowing them. It wouldn't be my fastest run anyway.

My second run involved cleaning up my act. I ran a good and solid 62.XXX without much fuss. The car was rotating beautifully under power and would just follow your commands like a well trained dog. This was just fast enough to put me into first place and keep me there.

The third run WAS going well up until the final kink. Coming out of the slalom as I was setting up for the turn around I noticed a corner working wearing a green shirt standing at the three cones I plowed on my other runs. I mean litterally at the edge of the course in a place where cars were known to go off. He wasn't even a foot off those cones. I slammed on the brakes and got stopped before running him down (I probably wouldn't have anyway but just in case). He had a very perplexed look on his face and after finishing up slowly I was given a re-run for managing to stop before someone got KILLED. No red flag, NOTHING. Needless to say he found a different place to stand after that incident and I hope he learned his lesson. He was still in a bad spot but better than where he was.

My fourth run was the re-run and to be honest I don't think (or remember) I improved any on this run. I was so close to a 61 second time that I was shooting for that but didn't quite get it. I was still in first place after this run so the next run needed to be faster or I needed to rely on luck to keep the others from improving enough to kick me out of first! :)

My fifth and final run I decided to try a little different tactic. It's quite easy to go out there and run balls to the wall and really hammer out good runs but it's a little more difficult to tighten the line up so I tried to do that while still being fast. It was just enough to break into the 61 seconds mark. It ended up being a 61.976 or just barely into the 61's. It was enough to retain the lead as no one improved and it was enough to accomplish my goal! I ended up taking first place again.

In terms of benchmarks, there was really only one of my benchmarks there and he was the guy in the Type R. In the last event he clobbered my times and that really peaked my curiosity since I added wider wheels and tires which should have turned our constant back and forth into a slam dunk win for me. Our time differential this time was close to .8 seconds off from each other which is about what I'd expect when adding 20mm of tire per corner, half inch of wheel width and dropping 35lbs of unsprung (and total) weight.

I did get to add another benchmark for this event though. Doug Hitchcock's old E30 STX BMW was purchased by a Nebraska Region member and resident ALIEN and was playing in the STX Pro PAX. It's a damn good thing he was in the Pro Pax because he completely destroyed my times. His fastest run was in the 58's... Fifty fucking eights... He straight timed one of our local CP drivers who is a mid packer in CP at Nationals... seriously, what... the... hell... Anyway, OUCH! Time to find some time and channel my inner alien and stop sucking!

Alright, what's next for Project Tilty? Well, August 5 I sign for my house and can purcahse the new differential (and all the associated material to completely rebuild the rear end of the car except axles) which will be a Torsen T2R. I will also be ordering the Torque Arm. With the exception of poly bushings everywhere, that will complete the suspension components on the car. The Watts link will need rebuilt (rod ends are loosening up enough to cause some minor noise) but will otherwise remain unchanged in its adjustment.

Aside from that the next event is the Midwest Divisional Championship here in Lincoln. Two more days, 6 more runs to get some seat time. Hopefully the Torsen and Torque arm will be in by then (if not we will have problems) to give me seat time for Nats. We then have our solo event on the 25^th. There is a test'n'tune on the 24^th that I can't go to (well, am choosing not to go to) and then we have the Evo Test'n'Tune during Nationals and then Nationals itself. The last 3 weeks of August is a huge amount of runs and it will all hopefully be worth it! :)

Anyway, I'll post any pictures I find online as well as the results when they are officially posted.