October 20, 2013 – Lincoln Air Park Nationals Site

Well, time for that final update for the season on the last event for the year.  Winter weather is quick on the heels of this event so I'm glad we got it out of the way before bad weather ruined all hope of a decent event!  There were a few setup changes so I'll outline them below in traditional form:

-Ground Control Coilovers – 440lbs*in front/200lbs*in rear -3.0º camber, -0.10º toe and +7.0º Caster
-Fays2 Watts link – Top bolt hole
-Strano 35mm front bar – FULL STIFF from the middle position
-Strano 25mm rear bar – Middle Position instead of the stock swaybar
-Cortex Racing Torque Arm
-Modified stock lower control arms with Modified Prothane Poly Bushings
-Hankook RS3's in 265/40/18 at 36 PSI front and rear
-Enkei PF01 in 18x9 ET45

If you can't tell the changes, they are the addition of the Strano 25mm rear swaybar in the middle position, the moving of the front sway bar to the full stiff position and the addition of some modified rear lower control arms with Prothane Poly Bushings.

The process was quite laborious to make the modifications... it involved flames, lots of them, and a hammer, and a drill and maybe even a dremel!

The final product turned out quite nice:

Anyway, the changes were done to make the car work a little better.  One thing that plagued the car during the autocross marathon at the end of August and start of September was a powerful on power push.  The car had so much rear grip it was almost impossible to drive the car fast because it would just reward you with push and more push and more push.  The ratio of front to rear wheel rate was increased slightly with this change.  The overall addition to spring rate should help at the front end too.  It was a bit of a gamble to be honest.  I knew the end goal, but was a bit "paralyzed" as to the correct direction to take.  I was also unaware how far the poly bushings would push the balance of the car towards oversteer.  I knew the bar would move it pretty far.  THANKFULLY the balance didn't go TOO far to the oversteer direction.

The course will look familiar to those who payed attention to the Nationals update as it is the West Course from Nationals this year.  The perfect opportunity to see if any impact was made on the driver mod front and on the car prep front!

The course:

The course was completely unchanged from Nationals... same cone markers and the whole nine yards so this would be a good measure in the land of could have, should have, would have, what the changes to the car would have done for me at Nationals and there would also be fun runs!  Of course the advantage of fun runs means that I can get the resident aliens to drive the car and get their opinion too!  Tons of win to be had in this event!

Run #1 – After discussing with my co-driver how the car was behaving I went out and gave it a run.  He said it wasn't overly loose but there were portions of the course where the car was power on loose.  Considering the temperature outside (mid 60's) and the colder pavement, I was sure this was almost entirely due to the RS3's absolute LOVE for cold temperatures (not!).  Car felt pretty damn good to me!  Having a tire warmer sure helped out in my opinion! ;)  The car was a touch loose in quick transitions, probably due a shock setting but it was totally controllable and not over bearing.  It felt "just about right" to me.
The first run ended with a 60.593 which was three and a half tenths quicker than I ran at Nationals (60.9XXX).  A good sign considering the tires were still pretty cool after my co-driver's first run.

Run #2 – I didn't make a change to the car at all.  I was actually enjoying the way the car felt in it's current state and it seems that the car was working the best it has ever been.  Maybe channeling Toilet Duck while washing my car the night before was working! ;)  Unfortunately the entire run I ended up coming in too close to the car in front of me and set off a chain reaction of timing issues.  I got a re-run and took it a few minutes after coming back to my grid spot.  This re-run actually felt better than other run and the time showed it.  The time fell to a 60.274 which was about seven tenths faster than my fastest run at Nationals!  At this point and time I set out to break into the 59's.

Run #3 – Still no changes made to the car, not even pressure checks.  The tires were not getting warm enough at all to really build up pressures anyway and the car was still pretty well balanced after the last run.  Again, maybe a touch loose under power but not loose enough to be uncontrollable.  This run came in as a 59.548 and was originally believed to have been coned.  My co-driver confirmed that I hit a cone but the results do not indicate a cone so... I'll take it! ;)

Run #4 – Ok, I'll stop telling you if I made changes to the car, because I didn't, for the next runs I didn't change a dang thing on the car, not pressures, not shock settings, nothing.  I just drove the car.  This run would end up getting a re-run because I stopped for a ton of downed cones and workers on the course.  No red flag on course for it them though?  One thing I'm noticing is that the corner workers are paying LESS attention than normal.  I'm not sure why.  Anyway, the re-run actually went better all the way until the end.  I lunched a cone by trying to carry a slide wide when the car stuck.  The scratch time was fast at 59.568 but with the cone it became a 61.568.

Run #5 – I was unaware during this run that Run #3 was going to be counted as clean so I went out again to try and recreate it and maybe attempt to better it.  Unfortunately it would not be so.  I ended up running a 60.087 which was still faster than my Nationals runs and what I thought would be my fastest run of the day.

My runs would be fast enough to win the class for the day and ninth overall which I think, not 100% sure of, maybe even STX for the year in the Nebraska Region.  More interesting is in the land of would have, could have and should have and how if we take out the cones on day 1 and use these new times on the West course I could have ran a 140.606 combined time which would have placed me in 41 of 59 drivers.  Not that I'm complaining about my position but it just goes to show there is a lot of time left in car prep and obviously A LOT left for the driver mod!  The confidence gained from a car that is actually working feels great.  I think the rush to get the car ready for the Mid Divs and Nationals may have needed a little more direction and guidance.  I had a test'n'tune to actually test these issues and I think lazyness got the better of me and I didn't flesh out all the potential options for a properly set up car and that hindered performance at Nationals some.

Enjoy a photo from nationals since there wont be any photos from this event:

To add to that, I had our resident alien drive my car during the fun runs... I figured since he won CSP at Nationals he'd be a worth while driver to show me how it's done! ;)  And show he did!  He managed to pull two back to back 58.5XX second runs...  He even said he made a few mistakes and made a recommendation for a little less rear swaybar or something that would preserve the turn in but allow better power down.  Not a horrible run, consistent with cars in the 20-30 positions.  Who knows what advantages he could have taken with the added power over other cars in the class on Sam's course.  We probably will never know since this car may never run that course in STX trim again let alone in similar conditions.  It is ALREADY a stretch to compare times from today to Nationals in September so it's nothing more than a mental exercise!

That said I now have the "data" necessary to keep this balance in the car, and there is sufficient "room" to alter the car tighter, both through RC height adjustments and swaybar adjustments if necessary.  I should also be able to take this information and get newer spring rates too if time permits.  Unfortunately though... My brand new GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition decided it would "eat" its fully charged battery after being shut off, Wi-Fi off after getting it "setup"... Horray... I guess I'll just pull the damn battery from now on and maybe get some aftermarket ones such as the WASABI ones.  Anyone used them?  I was hoping to recreate my front and rear suspension videos in an autocross setting to which I obviously failed at because of the dead battery...

Planning for next year:
Next year is going to be a bit hard to plan for.  I received a call earlier this month from a local Police Department and they have extended an offer to me to join their department and I have accepted.  I start on November 4.  My academy start date isn't until April and goes for 16 weeks.  That would mean that I would be missing Spring Nationals AND potentially missing Nationals.  While it may "suck" from the perspective of autocross, this is the start of a career and that will always take priority over hobbies!

The original plan was to buy A6's and go play in ESP until such time that STP gets created but it seems both unlikely that I'll have the time to participate either Nationally or locally, but it would also be entirely silly to buy a set of Hoosier A6's and then use them in the maybe 2 or 3 local events I would be able to attend.  I'm also not 100% sure I want to do that.  For right now, "changes" are on hold to the car.  Obviously I will try my hardest to continue to be active in autocross but it may be a full year before I have enough "stability" in my work hours to begin participating.  I have yet to decide what direction I will take the car.  There is a bad thought in my mind about building this car into a "CP" car Nationally and SM locally since the local SM contingent runs street tires only.  Since ESP and CP run similar times, the freedom of the CP rules seem to be a bit more fitting of my desires for this car.

Of course there is one issue with this and that comes in the form of the 2015 Mustangs.  That is a certain "unknown" right now due to the sparse details but from the sounds of the Turbo 4 Cylinder's power/torque and weight make it appealing, and of course the reduction in NVH from not having to resort to extreme measures to make the car work correctly (read: No Watts Link and no Torque Arm noises! Yay!).  The lower weight and IRS should certainly make for a better ST car, maybe even fit into the existing ST framework without special considerations...

So I guess that concludes Project Tilty then?  It seems awfully strange that it has already been two years in STX, and three in autocross and that in three years the car has come so far.  Fascinating how far it really has come since last year even!  It is also sad that I will be leaving the National autocross scene for a year as I'm sure I'll greatly miss my new found friends from across the US that travel to Lincoln every May and September.