Great write ups Chong! It's one thing to drive the cars, but a whole other to be able to write a nice summary of the events. This information is just a taste of the experience and a great recap of teh weekend!
Well here is my review regarding the quick steering ratio column after driving the Black Mamba at BIR and the Green Machine at DCTC. And I will be candid about this because after having driven two different cars on two different tracks low and high speeds. I do not recommend this product to anyone who is novice or intermidiate. As my experience has been that even with more experienced drivers than myself, they still don't understand the meaning of steering slower or know how to. While driving both of these cars I always kept in the back of my mind it was equiped with a close ratio steering column with heavier feel. This requires a firmer grip on the steering wheel and because of it drivers will tend to muscle the car around and will likely end up losing it from over correcting. It's very similar to driving a spec racer, a kart or no power steering and the fact that we were running much wider and sticker tires didn't help soften the feel. So though this was a good idea I don't expect the Groupbuy to get off the ground as it may pose as a concern. Unless otherwise. "The BIGGER the RISK the HIGHER the GAIN." And another good one is, the higher the speed the slower you should steer. But your grip should always stay soft as possible.
Mike W. thnx for the response, I was begining to think no body reads this stuff. I was considering posting it in the Off-Topic. Okay I make bad joke! Anyway perhaps next time if we end up at an event together I'd like to get some pointers from you guys.
OKIES the little wagon made it to and back in one piece. I had a lot of fun even though I didn't drive. Just being there hearing the cars was great! I would like to thank ALL who helped me in this to get it going; Yang, Chimera Performance, Mushashi, my good friend Noah, my summer teacher over at Central Service station, ImportImageOnline, and a few others. If you've read over the forums, in the magazines, and what Best Motoring International have shown, the Impreza somewhat understeers due to its AWD nature. With this in mind, I had to set a benchmark. Instead of the 350Z, I choose the S2000. I wanted the car to handle or if possible, feel similar to the S2000. Possible for an AWD Subaru to handle like an S2000? The suspension and handling, as a base started out to be quite well. I have 8kg/mm springs front and back to keep the body roll to a minimal. I actually think this rather soft from ideal track springs; 10-14kg/mm. Holding the suspension from traveling independently are OEM WRX 20mm swaybars front and back with stock endlinks. The only bracing I have are the fender braces. No CORNER BALANCING at all. The alignment was never checked after the STi spindle/knuckles where installed. I tried my BEST to ZERO them in on camber and toe in the rear. The car just pulls a little tiny bit to the left. You can see there's a good amount of TOE OUT up front by just looking at it. The STi has a wider track. I'm assuming because my control arms are stock, this pulls the spindles in leaving the steering tie rods where they are. I may be wrong. The rears have possilbly close to ZERO toe, maybe toe IN on the driverside. The drivetain as some of you may know is a JDM STi DCCD 6spd. The rear diff is now the STi R180 with the standard 2way LSD. The transmission being DCCD puts out a default torque split of 35:65 front rear. I DON'T have a DCCD controller thus I can't control the LSD strength so the center diff runs like an OPEN diff. The REAR LSD is nice if you're ON THE THROTTLE. The LSD is NOT sensitive enough. I wished it had more initial bite and more LSD strength on throttle. The FRONT LSD also is crazy, it PULLS you into the turn. If you've ever powered out of a turn, the steering wheel like TURNS in almost. CRAZY! With all this tied together, you get something that is quite fun to drive. The toe OUT up front gives you that quick turn-in upon corner entry as well as the quick steering that's installed. Steady on the gas and let the car set itself. As you see the turn start to open up, roll onto the gas and the rear starts to step out as power builds. You get onto it WOT and the car tracks out with a hint of oversteer as you exit. The car DOES get tail happy if you get on the gas WOT in the middle of the turn. If you wanna powerslide through, you can no problem at all. You can pretty much rotate the car with the throttle on corner exit. We tamed the beast first by lowering the dampers in the rear. This helped a little but then as we hit bumps, the rear would get bouncy. We lowered the rear tire pressure by a few pounds. This helped a lot and we lowered it down some more after a couple more sessiosn out there to where it felt compfortable. We then raised the dampers again to 17/32 from 10/32 and that made the car more stable over the bumps. The front dampers where set at 30/32. Understeer??? There was not really much understeer unless you overcook the corner. The car felt light on its feet, good turn-in, and power oversteer. Only bad thing is it can get quite tail happy on throttle while exiting turns. I'll get corner balanced and aligned this Saturday and it should be quite the setup.
July 19 & 20 Street Survival and CCC at DCTC Event Alright boy and girls it time for another opportunity for you to show me and the Northstar BMW's a few things about your driving. Registration is open for the Teen Street Survival on July 19 and Advance Car Control Clinic at DCTC on July 20. I will be there for both events and will be looking forward to learning something from you. This will be a great opportunity to sharpen your skills for the new 2.5 mile Short Track at BIR this fall. The atmosphere is great, lots of very nice people and qualified Instructors to help you achieve your goals for the weekend. Lunch will be provided as part of your fee as well as unlimited refreshments through out the day. We are always looking for volunteers or course workers to help out. Your lunch is also included as will your shotgun in just about any Instructor's car available out there that day. http://www.streetsurvival.org/Driving school for teenage drivers. Location: Dakota County Technical College Starts: 8:30AM Ends: 4:00PM $60 (no membership required) --------------------------- 2008 Summer Advanced Car Control Clinic Location: Dakota County Technical College (Map) 1300 145th Street East Rosemount, MN 55068 Starts: 8:00AM Ends: 5:00PM One Full day with an assigned instructor in the car to coach you. $100 (plus $40 annual membership fee) **Sign up soon as there is only 32 seats available and they tend to be sold out very quickly.**
a couple of years ago, there was a 05 sti that did 2:01's at BIR with Nordstern at our spring fling, Was that someone on here?
Melissa signed Derek up to work the teen driving event if they need him. He is scheduled to be at BIR on Monday next week.
Thats is awsome, why not both days if possible, glad to have him as part of the team. These programs would not be possible without volunteers and we have been kinda short on Instructors which limits how many entrants we can allow into the event. Send an email to Dave Miller Chief Instructor [email protected] tell you're good friends with me, not that it will make the water recede back to the rivers, but it will at least get a familar name from the club, thats if they don't already know you boys already. :biggrin:
If it was Mr. Utecht I can assure you it would be much less than 2:01. I was doing 2:03 back when I was still a spring chicken in an Honda GSR Vtec, brother. LOL
Hmmm, I didn't know what the lap time there is. Just know that Mark made those tires on the STi scream like a school girl! Hahaha.
Just for you my friend, dial back a few pages and there you'll find some interesting facts. http://www.mnsubaru.com/forums/showpost.php?p=462251&postcount=55 Enjoy! C
I believe the track record is held by Rob Jensen. He ran a 1:38 this year on his GSXR 1000 during the April CRA event. Speaking of BIR, 4 CRA members got first crack at the short course this past race weekend. Here's what one had to say.
Spidy-I appreciate the insight, very good info. How do you think this will translate to four wheel track rats? Do you think cars will have simular concerns? I agree with his comments regard T10, I don't use it, and I wish they hadn't pave it, it really ruins the whole ideal of T10.
I think the transition from old to new pavement might not be such an issue for cars given the greater contact patch and weight distribution. Their safety concerns however I think apply to everyone. The tightness of the track shouldn't be an issue for driving course days since you typically pass only on straights but it'll also give less room to correct for errors, IE avoid hard objects. I found his comments on the speeds of T2 interesting. Most thought the short track would really slow things down.
The topic of T2 had crossed my mind when I first toured the new track. And with the new reconstruction of correcting exit into T1. ( They rounded the entrance into T1). This will definately allow some serious build up of speed into T2. Because upon enterance into T1 your still on a banked surface so essentially I would think most drivers will be going WOT and just letting it drift wide letting the banking do its job. People are going to start seeing the horizon very quickly. LOL
As I suggested I would, I'll give an update on the M3 vs STi comparo after my MAM event. First off, Fast Friday's at MAM are awesome. Track opens at 9 and closes at 7...with a 1 hour break. More track time than you can shake a stick at. Oh, and there were only 10 cars there (maybe a few more...but when the GT3 went into the swamp, he and his buddy were done for the day). So, if I were to write this comparison in the morning sessions, I'd say give me my STi back. Again, I'm on RA1's, HT10 (front) and HP Plus (rear). In the morning the car was not braking well into turn 1. I couldn't figure it out because it was doing fine in all of the other turns. Yes, 1 is the highest speed turn, but I should have had just as much braking power in 1 as I did in turn 3 up at BIR a month ago...and that just wasn't the case. I would get on the brakes hard, and they just weren't reacting as they were a month ago. In the afternoon I was getting a little more braking power out of them, but to be honest I never really felt too terribly comfortable going into 1. Now, for the good news, I beat my previous best at MAM by 2 seconds. I had a 1:48.6 (only timing in one session)...so not sure if that was my best of the day or not). My friend with a 911 rode with me in one session and said "I wouldn't be able to do that in my car", referring to being able to toss the car around without fear of total chaos. I felt really comfortable in the car in the afternoon. The high speed handling of this car is amazing and given that nothing has been done to the suspension yet, it handles the turns quite well. I would like to maybe get some swaybars to get rid of some of the body roll in the car and some more front camber to save my front tires...but overall it's a really trackable car as is. The brake issue is kind of annoying and I'll be sure to work on that...going to talk to Orr this week to see if he can help diagnose. I'll try to post up a few pics of the weekend. I have one of the GT3 after being pulled from the swamp and one of a really nice STi swapped RS. Mike
That's incredible Mike, sounds like you need room for two more spare sets of track tires in the BMW. How do you feel you did on the course, where they any corners you had difficulty with this time out? Sounds like you found more traction than before and was the DSC on or off? Did you change the brake fluids prior to MAM after BIR? I bet the M3 felt pretty good in those In/Decreasing turns as you squeeze the power on. Sounds like your friend was describing a hint of sideway action there. So what's next, RA?
FYi Back when we went up to Donnybroke to see Can-Am, I think the fast times by the McLarens were right around 1:27 or so. It was a great party and racing spectacle hearing the big block engines roar!
DSC off and I did change brake fluid a few days before the event. By the end of the day the only turns that I was really struggling with were 1 and 15. 1 because of braking and 15 because I still haven't figured out the right way to hit that turn. There is certainly room for improvement though.
Fast street cars are in low 1:40's or high 1:30's. Porsche GT3 and Lotus Exige S (modified) in 1:41's
Those are must be some serious street cars. When we at BIR in May I was talking with Chris Orr and their GT3 was putting down 1:43 when they were trying to get it dialed in. Well badger I will be at the BMW DCTC event on July 20, and guess who else is going to be there? The Ghost Geo Prizm, do you car to tango my friend. LOL :laugh: Obviously the outcome will not be the same if you did, but you never know unless you show up. Oh and the new car should be there too, its expected to arrive early next week. And what about BIR in Oct, you coming? :biggrin:
**Update** The July 19 Teen Street Survival is officially full! We can always use some volunteers at our events, feel free to stopby and catch some sun and catch a ride, there will be a diverse varity to choose from. Currently the Advance CCC looks to still have a few openings left. I will be there along with Mt Fuji and the Black Mamba for more R&D in anticipation for 2008 BIR round 2 on the 2.5 circuit. It will be lots of fun.
**UPDATE** 2008 Summer Advanced Car Control Clinic Full Waiting list available! Hope to see some of you guys there and if not more fun for us. LOL Today Nuked Peformance Tuning stopped over and helped crank up the boost just a tad on the Red Head, so we'll see what she's got for this weekend. She is getting an alignment tomorrow morning.
I have invited a few friends for this weekends event and if they all show up we'll have some serious fun. I will hopefully be able to provide the second part of my review of the 08 STi along with a few others as we continue to do more R&D. Looking forward to catching a front row seat with the Wagner's, Idget Sweet & Shine, Mt Fuji Industries, Nuked Performance Tuning and the President might even show up too, no not Bush, someone potentially better, Jason-ReadyMix. I'll try and remember to bring an camera to record this occassion.
Diff and swaybar are in ready to rock:biggthumpup: I'm gonna bust out a stringline Fri night to get it in the ballpark...
lol, I'm sure you've pushed that envelope plenty. There should be plenty of excitement this weekend! I regret not being able to make it Saturday, but really look forward to Sunday.
Saturday is a lock, but Friday is out due to business at work and Sun is dependent on if my roommate can come down and move stuff.
With my craptastic tires? I roasted them yesterday lettin this nasty clutch out rather urgently. The rear bar is amazing. I seriously didn't know what I was missing. She wants to wag her tail now, and that's on the stock 18/18mm bars.
