July 7th Autocross and MaxQdata Logger

Last Sunday was the 2nd race of Oahu's 2007 Autocross season and it was a virtual Miata Lovefest - with the most Miatas I've ever seen in one place. They were so many in all classes every which way you looked!!!

(thanks jon&erin for the action pics)

And...I finally got to use my MaxQdata logger "for real"...for the first time. Although it would sometimes register 40 to 60 mph without even moving...blue tooth problems???...it pretty much ran well enough to my satisfaction. Here is the plot of my final and fastest run of the day:

If you asked me what 1 lateral G felt like before, I would have no idea...but now I know. On this right hand sweeper my brother's eunos (the small red "x") was pulling almost 1 G (0.97Gs actually) steady state at almost 33mph. According to the data, the fastest speed I hit during the run was 40mph...which is surprising cause it feels a lot faster when your actually driving. The slowest speed was 22mph at 0.93Gs at the tight right hand U-turn at the bottom of the course. One some of the transitional turns, I got up to 1.05Gs, but these are not really steady state.At almost 1G on that first right hand sweeper, the G force actually makes shifting difficult as your totally slammed against the door the second you take your hand off the steering wheel to make the 1st to 2nd shift!!!

Since the data is only logging at 5 times per second (60 hertz?), it's pretty difficult to see differences of less than 0.2 seconds...although, larger difference are very easy to see. In this plot, I overlayed my fastest run and my slowest run and this was the difference in the end:

32.945 (the blue "x") was my fastest run, versus my slowest at 34.218 (the red "x")...as you can see, I forgot to look ahead far enough ahead on the run down to the U-turn and really "altered" my line...and ran over a cone...

At the end of the day, I also did 2 fun runs in the eunos and could not better my 32.9 run...BUT, I did accomplish something I wasn't sure I could really do...I went back down to 1st gear in the bottom U-turn using the heel-toe downshift technique. I must say that doing that stuff at race speeds is MUCH easier than trying to practice at pedestrian driving speeds...I guess the synchros just don't mesh well at non-racing speeds...

During the fun runs, I also got to run my brothers 6-wagon with the data logger. With his all-season tires and stock suspension, the most Gs I could pull were 0.75 in steady state and 0.83 in the transitions, with a top speed of 36.5mph and a low speed of 20mph.

One thing good about fun runs is it gives you more seat time...and although I couldn't improve my fastest time, my brother finally got "it" on his last fun run. What he got was the looking ahead part...and he bettered his best time by over 1 second!!! Good habits to have for the next race...

RESULTS: As far as placing goes, I got dusted again by in CSP by a good 2.5 seconds by the same M3 and a MR2 that beat me last time...Results http://www.sccahawaii.org/7-1-07.pdf I'm guessing I shouldn't feel THAT bad getting beat though... since they did have the 2nd and 3rd fastest times OVERALL!!! I'll need to track how close I can get to those guys in future races...

Eunos Arc Intake and 2007 SCCA Autocross Season

Arc Intake: In addition to adding the very very slightly more? negative camber to my bimmer on Friday, I spent last Sunday installing this brand new "used" Arc Magic intake bought off of Yahoo.jp - courtesy of http://www.tetsuyagarage.com/. The install was really easy with the new part just slipping in. The challenging part was getting the old intake piping out without having to remove the top radiator hose.

At first I tried to jack up the passenger side of the car to see if I could "move" all of the coolant to the driver's side to remove the top hose. But that wasn't working...so, I just ended up playing Rubik's cube with the intake piping till I finally shimmied out. Surprisingly, although the right side looks more open, the piping came out on the left side of the hose!

Took it out for a quick spin and I guess??? it does pull a little stronger in the midrange. But who knows??? Should have actually done some "scientific" testing (3rd gear pulls from 2k to 6k) with my datalogger...but...with the gusty winds this past weekend, the data would have easily been flawed. Oh well...at least it looks better!

One downside I can see is that the new intake will be VERY GOOD at taking all the heat from the radiator and dumping it into the intake charge - as the aluminum is a terrible insulator. At least the stock plastic parts transferred less heat! I think I'll be going down to home depot tomorrow to look for some insulating sheets or something!


2007 SCCA Autocross: This coming Sunday will be the 2nd race of Oahu's 2007 SCCA Autocross season. Even though I put the new top-of-the-line RE-01 rubbers on my bimmer, for now, I've decided against racing that car in STS for lack of having enough negative camber. I figure, no sense in destroying those brand new tires. Instead, I'll run my brother's car again in CSP but this time with the new Arc Intake .

At the last race, in CSP, there was an E30 M3 that smoked me by 2 and 1/2 seconds!!!!! So no matter what help the intake might add, I don't think it will make up for THAT much time (lol). Plus that, this guy must be an awesome driver since he took 2nd FTD! Oh well....(again) My brother's eunos is actually THE car to have in STS2. In CSP, the 1.8 eunos is a better match up to the M3...

BUT...all is not lost...since the books I'm reading have really helped in teaching how to better "read" a course, and along with the datalogger, hopefully he doesn't put 2-1/2 seconds on me again...we'll see...

E46 and DIY Negative Camber:

After much contemplation on whether to "touch" the stock suspension or not...I bit the bullet and decided to add whatever "free factory approved" negative camber I could to my bimmer. No sense in rounding off the shoulder on my brand new set of RE-01s.

Since I didn't want to remove the stock shocks to get at the strut hats, I took a dremel and a small punch to the stock alignment pins and shoved my shock towers in a WHOLE.....4mm!!! Not that I DIDN'T know the amount of camber would be so minimal based on how much room there was to move the strut...but what the heck...

Based on some geometry, the 4mm would gain me about...say... POINT 4 degrees (0.4 degrees) of negative camber...Whooopppiiiieee!!!!!

tan@ = 4mm/(21in x 25.4mm)

Therefore: tan@ = 0.0075

tan @ 0.25 = .0044 <--more than .25 degrees
tan @ 0.50 = .0087 <--little less than .5 degrees
tan @ 0.75 = .0130
tan @ 1.00 = .0175
tan @ 1.25 = .0218
tan @ 1.50 = .0262

Oh well.....any little bit helps as I definitely don't want my new rubber to end up looking like this...although...truthfully...better driving (ie. NO PLOWING) would have helped in avoiding my old tires getting this bad...

Yoshi!!!

Spent this afternoon putting on my new treads.

At first I wasn't sure how it would look on the car...but now that I got them on, WOW....looks really good to my eyes!

Really tends to lighten up the look of the car. With the stock Bimmer wheels, the car looks a lot more chunky and heavier.

Out with the "old," but still pretty darn good lookin BMW stock wheels.

Difference in height looks to be only due to the difference in depth of thread.

Stock BMW 16" Type 45 wheels with 205x55x16 Bridgestone Turanza weighs in at a lighter 42 pounds, versus the new wheels at 46ish pounds.

Can't wait to get these wider treads on the autocross course...BUT, I definetly need to add some negative camber first as I definetly DON"T want the shoulders of these new 140 treadwear rated wheels to look the the shoulders of my Turanzas...

So...how should I add the negative camber??? Coilovers anyone???

4 Pizzas 4 Me!!!

4 of these pies were waiting for me when I got home today...

Just had one...46#...20.5 rim + 25.5 rubber...

German Car + South Korean Wheels + Japan Tires = Some Kine of Hapa...

Not bad looking and it looked a lot better in the natural sunlight...had an option of going with the gloss black spokes and was this close --> <-- to going with black...but decided those would not stand the test of time as plain old silver for this rim style...

Hope to get em on tomorrow...

2006 SCCA Awards Banquet & New Shoes!!!

2006 SCCA Annual Awards Banquet

Last Saturday, June 9th, I attended the SCCA Hawaii Region 2006 Awards Banquet and luckily came home with some hardware...and as you can see by the top pic...practically everyone else did too!!! Awards were given to the Points winners as well as the Championship Runoff winners. Thank goodness I got those driving books which really helped in the runoffs...

The awesome events committee made all the drivers these cool "car name tags" which were actually ice box magnets. Good for identifying people as I know most people by there cars...not the drivers...

New Shoes!!! Just ordered these today from Tirerack...

New 17" x 7-1/2" ASA wheels...these rims are relatively light (about 20.5 pounds), for their size and cost. I would have liked to go with some of the lighter and sweeter looking 17 x 8 wheels...but SCCA's STS rules limit rims to 7.5" wide.

With new 225 x 45 x 17 Bridgestone RE-01 Rubbers...from what I've read, these new Bridgestones are the "hot ticket" in STS.

MaxQData Logger

I just ordered this MaxQData Logger http://www.maxqdata.com/ last week and I expect to receive it anyday now. You need to use it in conjunction with a Pocket PC w/ bluetooth so I'm glad I already have my HP 2495 ppc which should be perfect for the interface.

Although it costs $300 its suppose to be one of the best "tools" available to improve your autocross driving as several national champions were using this gps data logger to analyze their driving BETWEEN runs at the past SCCA nationals!

According to the experts, this data logger should have the same impact to better driving as what R-compounds have to better grip!

Here is a SCCA Forum thread that I have been following that discusses the pros of using this data logger: http://sccaforums.com/forums/thread/227266.aspx

Hopefully, it should help in whatever car I use.

April 8th Autocross - New Season

Sequence into the last section of last Sunday's autocross.

Coming out of a fast right hand sweeper...
Into a quick right, then left...
Then a quick right...
Heading to the hairpin turn...
Setting up for the hairpin...
Turn in point for the hairpin...
In the middle of the hairpin ...
And a short burst to the finish...

August 8th was the first race of the 2007-2008 Oahu SCCA Autocross season.

Instead of racing my Bimmer wagon, I decided to run my brother's dropped Eunos on R-compounds in the CSP class. I did OK, considering, this car is totally underpowered (1.6) and under-tired (185 x 60) for the class.

Not to finger only the car, as I figure I probably left a good 1/2 second out on the course due to one very difficult decreasing radius turn that I NEVER got right...even in the 5 fun runs I took at the end of the day.

Check the position of my car, versus the M3 in the same hairpin. I apexed WAY too early and had to swing really wide for the next turns...thank goodness for the R compounds as I would have probably never made the turns with the ES100s.

Notice the properly positioned M3 much farther from the outside cones and already lining up for the next right hander. Not reading this turn right cost me big time - I think!

Here's me on the second run in the same decreasing radius turn where I got all crossed up in the turn...drifting away time...

Settings:
My brothers car has adjustable shocks and on one run I set it up with only a one-click difference between front and back...at that setting the car was practically undrivable do to the back end breaking loose on every turn.

On this day, I found the ideal setting to be the front at the stiffist setting and the back at 3 clicks out. Adjusted this way, the back end obediently followed the front with not much understeering at all. Tires were good at 31 front / 29 back, but I'm not sure if lower would have given more grip...chalk those tires for roll-over next time!

CSP Times:
Ken Van O BMW M3 33.898 33.090 35.771 33.328 33.090 2
Jason T Toyota MR2 39.400 34.484 36.137 34.226 34.226 10
Steven S Mazda Miata 38.530 36.735 35.577 35.481 35.481 26
Leila J Mazda Miata 38.499 39.028 39.990 38.055 38.055 56
Ross C Mazda Miata 39.093 39.978 38.903 38.234 38.234 61
Roland A Toyota MR2 DNF 39.512 DNF DNF 39.512 80

That BMW M3 in the picture is the same M3 that took 1st place in CSP - with the second fastest raw time on the day! Looks like the competition will be really tough in CSP especially since my brother's Eunos is not prepped at all for CSP...guess I just need to improve my driving a LOT MORE!!!

Here's a great write up of the action at SCCA Hawaii: SCCA Hawaii April Autocross.