Hello! The car and I have been accepted into the Ultimate Track Car Challenge again for 2015, and I thought people might find interest in my efforts to prepare for the race, so here I am. Lots has changed since last year's UTCC and we're poised to be much faster this year. I'm really excited to get back to Virginia International Raceway to do even better in the UTCC as well as NASA TT2.



NOTE: As I find pictures I'll edit this post and insert them.

Prologue
First a quick recap of where I was last year because I didn't post a follow-up. We went into last year's event with a fastest time of 2:09.5 with a lot of issues. I brought to that event many attempts at fixing these issues with a good amount of success:
Intake Manifold - the Venom intake manifold's head flange was curved! After having the #1 runner crack at the plenum over and over we found the flange curved, and it was likely pulling the runner when torqued to the head. Flattening the flange, and re-welding the runner while adding a bit of bracing there for good measure has solved this. Being a used manifold welding was very difficult due to contaminants, and even in the end one final pinhole had to be filled with JB Weld, but it's pretty solid no with no more cracking. I definitely noticed more power after this fix so it was definitely holding us back.

Ignition issues - I had dabbled in coil-on plug solutions with no CDI and just ecmlink, and this just proved unreliable with coils failing too often. The fix was zip-tying in place a new stock coil pack and using some NGK wires and ignition has been rock solid for some time now. Haven't given up on COP yet but it's taking a back burner to simplify changes and keep the car stable.
Random Knock - We would get knock randomly throughout driving, and to minimize this we had to go to pretty low AFRs (10.6-ish), but we got it relatively stable. This was even with a mix of 93/110 octane. Not entirely solved ideally at this point. More on this later.
Cracking brake rotors - With Carbotech XP20 pads I never had any issues, but when I stepped up to XP24 pads (the highest friction compound they offered, I started on their prototypes before they were released to the public) I started generating so much heat, and thus thermal stress, that I would develop cracks all the way through the edges of the rotors in one weekend. This is BAD. For this event we added some Porsche-style (or Evo-style) lower control arm air deflectors that route air directly to the center of the rotor. This dropped caliper temps (I measure temps with some Alcon stickers) by over 70-deg F, and GREATLY reduced the cracking, however I still saw troubling cracking (not all the way through this time, but possibly would be after another event) so this wasn't quite the entire solution. I didn't want to go back to the XP20 pads though because the XP24 pads are addicting (-1.5G braking!).

Undersprung suspension - I had been running on KW V3 coilovers with 500/600 lbs. springs, but still found myself compressing under high speed from the aero to the point where I was bouncing all over under braking due to being about at the bottom of the compression. Over the winter I had updated to 900/1000 lbs. spring with a experimental re-valving to give me enough rebound. Experimental in that I wasn't entirely sure it would work. Couldn't modify the compression due to KW's design (really lame, but they want you to pay up for the Clubsport versions). Well, while it's not entirely ideally damped it definitely worked and made everything handle much better, and no more bouncing during braking.
Intake Temps - Typically I had been seeing very very high intake temps, in the 140+ deg range at the MAF. When we noticed this we suspected this was related to the knock. I created an airbox to try to segregate the air filter from the engine bay, with a 3" air hose leading down to the tail end of the diffuser. This... didn't work that much. I think we still saw 120+ temps.

Failing alternators - The prior year we had killed two alternators at the UTCC alone. The speculated cause was heat, and/or using re-man'd alternators. For this year I fabricated a heat shield for the alternator and used a brand new one (not OEM, since you can't get new OEM ones anymore, but some other brand whose name escapes me at the moment). Knock on wood this has been rock solid ever since the change.


I had also added a roll cage and some weight reduction (no more AC/heating/stereo/interior and carbon fiber doors). No more driving to car events! I got a new trailer (using e-track to give clearance for the front splitter) and a Durango R/T for towing. I think the car with half a tank and me was weighing about 3275 lbs.? I can't remember exactly, but something like that (yes, still heavy!)




Well, we improved drastically. While VIR was widened in two turns which contributed certainly to the time improvement (people were estimating two seconds), we first ran a 2:05.7 in the UTCC on Friday, about four seconds faster. Netted us 17th. I was still learning the track and getting accustomed to the changes and knew there was more in the car. After UTCC we had NASA Time Trials both Saturday and Sunday. I ran a 2:04.5 giving me 3rd place on Saturday, and then on Sunday's first session I ran a 2:02.58 giving me second place. Really felt good, but still left some out there (I felt I could improve maybe 1 more second or so) and I wasn't on the same level of tires as everyone else (Nitto NT01 vs Hoosier A6). Car was rock solid though with no major issues other than our exhaust manifold heat shield bracket breaking from all the stress.

Here's some exterior footage shot by @snowborder714 (thanks!!):

Here's the fastest lap footage from in the car via a GoPro. Data is from my RaceCapture/Pro datalogger.

Here's the album for the event (feel free to friend me on Facebook, but my pictures are public so everyone can see them regardless):
https://www.facebook.com/john.freund.209/media_set?set=a.10202568526880935.1429266581&type=3

The 2:02.58 would have been good enough for 12th, faster than a 600+whp Neon SRT-4, and some twin-turbo Audi R8 (never saw hp numbers for it) in the UTCC had I been able to figure things out on Friday rather than Sunday So I gotta get back and try again!

I didn't race any more after July as the rest of the year was getting married, going on a honeymoon, then the holidays. So the car sat pretty idle for quite some time until around late March.

2015
My plan for this year was still light, as I had to pay off the wedding/honeymoon over the winter. I didn't start thinking about racing until March. Now that the car was becoming fairly reliable I could focus on some final steps to leveling the playing field and putting me in reach of not only class time trial wins, but also track records. I scheduled one event at Summit Point before the UTCC to shake out any cobwebs and kinks in the plans and then it would be off to UTCC and VIR.

Here's what was changed before that shakedown event:
Wheels - I run 315/30/18 tires on the car, but have been using Enkei RPF1s in 18x10.5" wide rims. The sidewalls were having to bow inwards with my Nitto NT01, and I wanted to change tires to notoriously wider Hoosiers that would be even worse. I wasn't making good use of the contact patch and probably driving what was effectively a 295 tire. I wanted something very strong, custom made to my exact specifications so I could eliminate spacers where possible, and as light as possible. I also had a relatively short timeframe for custom wheels, and was a bit picky on styling.

I had originally planned on getting custom made Forgestar F14 wheels. I knew two time trial cars that had raced on these rims without issue and they reeeeally look good in the deep concave versions. Forgestar has supply chain issues and they actually deferred me to Getyourwheels.com. Eric@Getyourhweels said he could do the kind of offset I wanted (originally I was looking at a +6mm offset) and claimed, in mid-March, that they could deliver a custom set to me in four weeks. Beginning of May rolls around and they're still telling me the blanks for my wheels will be there the following week. While I do believe that the problem is with Forgestar not being honest with Eric in when materials will arrive, I was tired of this runaround and gave up. Was sad because...$1600 for a custom set of 18x12 rims is a steal.

After more investigating I landed at Finspeed, a company that does forged monoblock wheels for street cars, for GT Cup cars, all the way up to Le Mans. The lowest offset they could go was +16mm for me, but they understood I had a race to get to soon and promised I would have my wheels in under a month. They were hands down awesome to work with and bumped me in front of a ton of other customers and got me the wheels in time. I purchased from them a set of F110 wheels ( a model not even listed on their website, primarily used by their Porsche GT customers) which they said was their lightest and strongest wheel they made, and we included every lightening option they offered which includes lots of extra machine time. What's really sad here is I forgot to weigh them when we rushed to get them mounted with the new tires, but I'll do that next time.

These are Finspeed F110-RT Ultra, 73mm centerbore (giving me the option of hubcentric spacers), +16mm offset (how will they fit? read on...) with a silver powdercoat and clear coat. Here are some pictures.

This closeup shows some of the lightening from their Ultra option. The edges are curved, and the spokes are carved out. Also shows how nicely concave they are which is pretty cool :


Pad area carved out. The hub area is machined as much as possible but leaves the lip for the center cap (I like center caps as I find the axle nuts rather ugly), the pad is machined out, and holes are drilled all for weight savings:

Full Album:
https://www.facebook.com/john.freun...0204541370680797.1073741836.1429266581&type=3

Tires - I've been running 315/30/18 Nitto NT01 for a few years now. I chose these because I knew they worked somewhat well as Andrew Brilliant had used them when he was racing in the US. They're great tires to learn on when making the transition from street tires to R-compounds as well as while developing the rest of the car, they last a really long time, don't seem to mind heat cycles, and can reasonably be used on the street (which I still do sometimes when taking the car to a shop or a car show to avoid the hassle of of the trailer). However, they don't hold a candle to Hooser A6 tires which are the defacto standard for Time Trials, at least in my region. The A6 being an autocross tire is unbelievably sticky (like a pencil eraser almost), heats up instantly, and if you want to win you must be on it. I wasn't, and I was losing, but I felt I had caught up enough that if I just had these tires I could match or beat the other cars and even class records, so it was time to go for it. So I bought the above wheels to properly fit a set of A6 tires.



Yeah, these are HUGE. I think they're almost .25" wider than the Nittos in the contact patch area. I had test fitted them on the Enkei's (the tires had arrived well before the wheels) and found that on those rims I would need about 2mm more clearance with the uprights. Enkei's were +15mm, and on the rear I was using a +7mm spacer already, meaning I would need +8mm - 2mm meaning a +6mm net offset. If my Finspeed are +16mm... how could I fit these without spacers?? Enter Bobby Gould in the UK, aka ec17pse here on the site.

JDM Galant Knuckles, Modified - In order to fit the new wheels at tires up front without having to deal with spacers AND to pull them out of the airflow (my old wheels/tires were already slightly sticking out which is bad for drag, and the new set would be wider) I needed a solution. Andrew Brilliant had clued me in to a trick with modifying the uprights for more clearance by grinding on the inside of the upright, and then welding a strip of metal to the backside for reinforcement. Bobby offered to sponsor the car and set me up with a pair of the JDM Galant front knuckles WITH the abs sensors, modify them terrifically, and personally fly them over from the UK to me in VA. Yes, he is insane, but also amazing He did a phenomenal job with the work. He gave me 10mm clearance in board like I'd asked for. If you have any qualms about purchasing from him because he's overseas, please don't as he is the nicest fellow and delivers.



Modified 2gb rear uprights - Since I had the front modified for more clearance and I didn't want to have a staggered offset on the car (mainly because I am not experienced enough to understand the effects) I chose to ask RRT, my main sponsor shop, modify the rears like Bobby did the front. They did a good job but unfortunately they had to work with my Enkei rims and NT01 tires as a guide, and this didn't end up working so well (more on this later). It did clear the enke/nt01 combo though. Note how it's more scalloped than one continuous smooth curve, and recall how I mentioned the NT01 tires curve inwards on the sidewall due to being too wide for the Enkei 10.5" wide rims. This... bit me in the ass later


Evo X Front Brakes - You might have asked yourself earlier why I went with JDM Galant knuckles when I could have just modified my stock ones. Well, remember my brake rotor cracking problems? I had limited cooling solutions available because I have no where to source cold air from without severely impacting aero (straight from Andrew Brilliant's mouth). He has no issues running tiny Evo 9 brakes because his car is super light (like 2400 lbs vs my 3250). Per suggestion of Carbotech, my brake pad sponsor, I went the other route of adding more thermal mass to the system. My Stoptech brakes were 328x28mm rotors. I upgraded to an Evo X front brake system which uses 350x32mm rotors, and increase of about 1" in diameter and 4mm in thickness. I secured a sponsorship with Girodisc and am using their wonderful two-piece rotors along with their titanium shims. These things are HUGE and the pictures don't really do them justice. The calipers are from Detective Coating, also a new sponsor (thanks Justin!!), rebuilt with high-temp silicone boot seals and powder coated black and they looked terrific.


Tubular rear toe arms - Paul Volk, aka 99gst_racer here on tuners, produced a set of his tubular rear toe arms. I got these because last year while doing my alignment the tech told me he felt the rear was a bit to "mushy" for his liking and suspected bushings (all of which are OEM rubber in my suspension). These here are out of the box sphericals and can help stiffen up the toe control in the rear, plus they are lighter, so I picked them up. I am using rubber boots to help protect the bearings that Paul offers as an option.


RaceCapture/Pro Mk2 - Autosport Labs is a sponsor of mine and they make this kick ass little data logger with tons of features. I have been using version 1 of their crowd-funded data logger (was a kickstarter a few years ago) and loved it. The coolest feature is that it gives me a live display of data on my phone which I chose to use for live timing as I drive, very critical for a Time Trial guy trying to set fast laps to know how he is doing. It also will automatically stream my telemetry to their website for Live, yes LIVE, as well as historical analysis. Love this thing. Well, since I'm one of their big contributors (I wrote some code that converts their logs to a format that GEMS Data Analysis, a SUPER bit of racing analysis software) they upgraded me to their Mk2 model for free which includes various enhancements.

Cold Air Intake - This has been an item I've stayed away from because like with brake cooling, Andrew insisted I be very careful with pulling air from the front of the car because of its impact elsewhere as he had been very tight in his design of the front aero and cooling systems. Well, I was tired of high intake temps and had a sneaking suspicion they were part of my random knock issues, and figured I'm running WAY less hp than Andrew (380whp vs 680whp), so I came up with this. I feed a small duct, made of ABS, in the mouth of the car and sloping upwards inside the top of the radiator ductwork, that is equivalent to 3" circular, to a NACA duct that then feeds a 3" brake line (single ply so it doesn't collapse itself) which then feeds an inlet to a sealed airbox. I had RRT do the front intake work where I did the rest. It looks "cool" to me Keep in mind this won't work for 99% of you exactly as it is because I can only clear that hose and naca duct outlet because of how bulbous Andrew's hood design is as it affords me huge amounts of clearance. Something similar could be made though with some creativity no doubt for OEM-shaped hoods.



I didn't show any pics of the inside of the box for a reason. I had rushed this setup. I had two walls to the box already and hastily made two additional walls (not shown) with some lexan from Home Depot Racing and assembled with aluminum duct sealing tape. Seemed rather sturdy. Well, it... well read later for the results from Summit Point

Minor weight loss - This is arguable as I got fat over the winter from needing to slack off from my pre-wedding starvation/dieting, but I did pull some weight from the car at least to balance it. Lost the front windshield wiper system (this must weight like 15lbs.!!!), and gutting a set of headlights (I think this reduced a 5 lbs 10 oz headlight to about 1 lbs). I forgot to take pics of this, but you can use your imagination. Gutting the headlights cleared a bit of the radiator ducting pathing as the headlights previously intruded into the area in an ugly way and I had to use tons of aluminum tape to seal around them (I blame Piper Motorsports for being idiots and not going around my headlights entirely like I had instructed them) which may help cooling a bit.

Since I'm limited in how many photos I can include per post, I'm putting Summit Point results in a follow-up post in this thread.

Summit Point - June 6/7 2015, NASA Time Trials
With all the above changes I headed to Summit Point Raceway to go for a win and a record in NASA Time Trials TT2, bringing along my great friend WillRaceForBeer for tuning and mechanical support. The primary goal was to learn how to drive on Hoosier A6 tires, test all the changes, and if all goes well kick some ass!

Oh, forgot to mention I added some racing tear offs to my helmet visors because I was tired of buying new lenses (at $50+ a pop!) when they were scratched by not so careful people. Pretty cool things, don't really impact vision at all, and easy to install. Just sharing in case any other track goers can use the info:


Last year my best at Summit Point had been a 1:20.3. Wasn't as fast as I felt I could go, but with the NT01 tires I thought the car maybe had another 1.5 seconds at most in it. The class record was a 1:17.9 set by a very fast C6 Z06 Corvette on Hoosier A6 tires. That had been my target and I really felt I could hit that time with the right tires. I was excited to give it a go with all the enhancements to the car but... just before the event I learned a new Z06, one I'd never heard of and that had not been racing with us at all prior, reset the record to a 1:17.6 in March! Ugh, THAT was a time I wasn't so sure about. Here's the Vette, 442 whp and 3447 lbs (full interior I think), traps a 155mph at the end of the front straight vs my 142mph:


Arrived nice and early, around 6am. New tire rack I had made worked out very well, though it just BARELY fits all four new wheels/tires (they are 53" wide, vs the 48.5" with the nt01/enkei).


We ran the first session on the Enkei/NT01 combo to get shake down the car and bed in the new brake rotors and pads. Everything went terrifically and I think we were running in the 1:20s already without really trying, which got me very excited at the prospects for the weekend. I was loving the brakes and how the car handled so much I wanted to stay out the entire session but came in after five laps so as not to let the rotors/pads finish bedding.

Since everything went well I decided to not bother setting a time with the NT01 and go straight to the Hoosiers. The front went on perfectly with no spacers. VERY happy there.


The rear was not so simple! Remember I mentioned the curvature of the nt01 tires and how the rear uprights were clearanced around that curve? The new tires with the 18x12 rims actually bow OUTWARD ever so much, so not only is there no inward curve but it's overall wider than the widest spot of the NT01 setup. When we tried to fit the tires with no spacers in the rear, we immediately hit something, and that ended up being the lower point left in the upright. Ugh. My friend was not so enthused and wanted to give up on the set, but I looked at it and thought we could clearance things with a bit of grinding. A nearby racer had one so we plugged in and went to town. Even after grinding down the lower point of the curve we still needed one of my old 7mm spacers to get enough clearance. We ill have to re-visit this later perhaps, but it got the wheels and tires on.

I think they looked quite good being on the car for the first time. What do you think?


Car looks clean thanks to Meguiar's car care products. They are again sponsoring the car in 2015. Thanks Meguiar's!! Try their unfreakingbelievable Ultimate Wash & Wax Anywhere product. It really does work without scratching paint, though only use it on a lightly dirtied car.

Very deep and concave:


WillRaceForBeer exhausted from the grinding. As he puts it "It wouldn't be a track day without working on your f'ing car!":


With all the grinding we missed the first time session. Went out for the second timed session. My god. BRAKES: GOOD. TIRES: GOOD. POWER: GOOOOOOD. Everything felt SO good! So I started testing out the amazing new grip I had. I drove absolutely TERRIBLY though. I was so rusty, braking way too early, turning in at the wrong spots, almost dog-tailing myself off the track after a bit of drifting... Yet, n the second session we ran a 1:19.578, .8 seconds faster than last year with downright awful driving. This is looking good!

So we came in. WillRaceForBeer smartly checks the rear. No issues on the driver's rear. However not so good on the passenger rear! Something carved a nice 1mm trough in the sidewall. What could it have been?

This picture is after grinding on the driver's rear, but you can see how the Hoosier bows outward and and can infer where we grinded on the upright it:


The driver's side is clear. Well, here's a picture of the passenger rear. Can you guess what was cutting the sidewall?


You can see where the grinding happened here (didn't want to spoil it from earlier and it's the only pic I had of it). Yes, the lower perch of the suspension was cutting, and even the spring was rubbing on compression. How we missed this I'm not sure, but I'm guessing we didn't closely check the passenger side when the driver's side had no clearance issues. I also don't think the perch really hits unless the car is lowered to the ground and we only checked things while up on the jack. What happened here is the perch on the rear passenger sits much lower due to the corner balancing of the car. It just happens to be where it sits with my spring combo and weight balance. Sucks! Well, we didn't have a real fix for this via more grinding. I had an idea though, I asked the fellows that had the grinder if they had any spacers and sure enough, they had some 2mm universal spacers! I fit them under the 7mm spacers and voila, fitting wheels!

The last session unfortunately got cancelled as someone in the prior session had gone off so hard into a jersey barrier that they cracked it beyond repair in the short time before my session, so no more runs that day. I got 3rd place in my class sadly when I knew we had lots more time out there. So I had to get pumped for Sunday.

On Sunday, I was on my own as WillRaceForBeer had fiance' duties to attend to. I got there nice and early and mentally prepped. I went out in the first timed session... and ran a 1:17.836. Holy shitballs. I broke last year's record and improved 1.5 seconds from yesterday. I was finally starting to use these tires (and if I haven't said it enough Hoosier A6 tires are GODLY) as well as the astounding new brakes (Thanks Detective Coating and Girodisc!!). However, I knew there was more in the car. I was excited... until I learned that the black Z06 had beaten his own record, resetting it to 1:17.374. Oof, I wasn't sure I had .5 seconds in me, and was not feeling great about my prospects.

I went out in timed session 2 but only ran a 1:17.9. A car had broken down on the first hot lap and we had to actually sit on track for a long while before that cleared. Then I just hit traffic and never got a good clean hot lap.

At this point I was feeling pretty nervous. I really wasn't sure where I could gain .5 seconds as I felt I was driving pretty fast. I had debated calling it because I had made my original goal of beating the 1:17.9 record from last year, and that I might have to drive at 10/10ths to take .5 seconds off which puts you in dangerous territory (other track drivers will understand). However something was eating at me telling me to at least give it a shot, as the practice alone won't hurt. Also, while sitting in the Durango for a bit to cool off the song "Galvanize" came on. The lyric "Put apprehension on the back burner" really woke me up and got me pumped. So I said "F it, let's go for it." I went back out in Timed session 3.

My first few laps were screwed up thanks to a jackass in a GT3 BMW M3. He doesn't time trial but I think he was in our session to test things. The clown, who already had been running a slower time than me, comes up on grid and pulls in FRONT of me. ? I was pissed already and sure enough, his dumb ass held me up in the first couple laps. I was so annoyed with the clown I came in hot into turn 1 (he refused to let me by nicely and get off line, despite me riding his ass down the straight) and just passed him like I was doing wheel to wheel. After I calmed down on the remainder of that lap I knew I had maybe one hot lap before I caught up and lapped the tail end of the Time Trial group. Well, I crossed the line and my timer said 1:17.288. Da heck?! Wow. I didn't even get a good run onto the straight at the start and yet I really did cut the .5 sec off my time. I was shocked, excited, nervous, thrilled... couldn't believe it. I know though that gps-based timing sometimes can be off by a tenth or even more so I reserved celebration until the official timing came in.

The asshole:


I pulled in and waited patiently under my tent. The vette owner came by after a while and said "Congratulations!" which had me really confused. He then followed up with "I can't believe it was only a few thousandths, better luck next time!" What? Yeah. Official timing had me at a 1:17.377 vs his 1:17.374. AAAAAAAAAAAARGH. He was nice enough and wished me luck in the fourth and final session, saying he was done and that if I ended up winning then so be it. Knowing I had a bad run onto the front straight to start the session (data later showed I trapped at 136mph, but could have trapped at 142mph plus) I KNEW I had him. I KNEW it. I was really nervous now but really looking forward to the final session, hoping temps didn't go up much and the A6 tires weren't going to fall off in traction like everyone warned me they would.

First hot lap of the fourth and final session, half way through, I shift to 4th gear and the engine just revs. I lost 2nd and 4th (and reverse I later found out). How? One of the shifter cable clips on the transmission decided:

Yeah. I have never ever heard of those coming out and it cost me the record and 1st. AAAAAARGH. So angry still just thinking about it. Believe me that little bastard is zip tied now, and I recommend everyone else do the same!

Here's a video of the 1:17.377. You can see I carry a lot more speed at the end of the lap onto the front straight than I do at the start of the lap, which means if I just do that on both ends of the lap I can gain a ton of time. Data comes from my RaceCapture/Pro 2 and overlay is via RaceRender.


Thanks to Liam Dwyer for all the tips which taught me some new things and reminded me of some old things and got me faster. If you folks don't know Liam, he's an awesome guy and great friend, retired Marine that lost his leg in Afghanistan, and a driver for Mazda, and you might have seen him on tv:


Quick rundown of how the new mods worked:
Brakes - AWESOME. holy crap, it was like hitting a brick wall. I did not expect that much change in the braking. Data later showed I was hitting a peak of -1.6G braking, versus -1.5G from past events on the same pads but smaller rotors. Just killer, what a great unexpected upgrade. Oh, and NO cracking whatsoever which is FANTASTIC.
Air Intake System- AWESOME. We were logging ambient temps. AMBIENT. That's as good as you can get. Glad I didn't listen to all the naysayers about my design With that said... the internals of the box exploded/imploded haha. The two walls I added, with just the aluminum tape as structural support, tore themselves apart and were just sitting loose. So I was just getting cold air blowing over the air filter along with other air like from the passenger fender and probably some from the radiator, but still getting ambient temps. The escaping air pressure probably didn't help my aero though.
RaceCapture/Pro Mk2 - Worked like a charm. The 50hz GPS wasn't quite working right and I had to step down to a 10hz data rate, but after that things worked very well. Added a transmission temperature sensor and was seeing almost 280 deg F peak, so it might be time for a transmission cooling solution.
Front modified JDM Galant Knuckles - Terrific. Zero clearance issues with no spacers on the +16mm 18x12 rims and huge 315/30/18 hoosier tires. Ec17pse (Bobby Gould) did a wonderful job. Inspected them afterwards and no sign of cracking anywhere. Haven't re-checked alignment as an indication of bending, but will before VIR but I expect no changes.
Rear modified knuckles - Yeah... these didn't quite work out as planned Need more clearancing and reinforcement, or I just have to accept I need to run some spacers in the back.


Overall, I have to count this as a successful weekend. I just missed the newly set track record by thousandths, but at least we had no major mechanical failures and learned how to address another potential one for the future. We also know via data that I CAN beat that record and fairly easily at that! I think the car is really ready for VIR and going to kick some ass! The new TT2 track record there is a 1:58.8 set by a turbo'd Toyota FRS driven by an experienced Time Trial driver, but I think I beat that. Won't know until I get there though!

Ultimate Track Car Challenge and NASA Time Trials are July 17-19 at Virginia International Raceway. If you're nearby come join us! It's always a blast!

Great write up, John! I love all the detail you go into and showing what has works and not worked for you. Looking forward to UTCC again this year and helping get the car ready for you to kick some ass!

Absolutely amazing. You have one of the best DSM's, ever. Your build and your posts are an inspiration. I'm glad I don't live near you as I would go broke trying to keep up.

Good luck at the UTCC and crack some skulls!

Congrats on getting married, btw. I got married nearly 2 years ago and unfortunately am in the middle of a divorce. It was fun though!

I was planning on coming out to watch you run over that weekend but wasn't able to make it. Definately an awesome piece of DSM racing history being made right here.
Hope to make it out next time you're at Summit.

Congratulations, you have to keep working on that weight, did you also replace rear hatch and glass.?

Excellent write up, i just keep reading over it ends

Its exiting to know there are active DSM in racing

Have you thought about putting more power at it? You certainly have the goods for more power.

That RaceCapture/Pro Mk2 is a really cool addition to the car. I can only imagine the value of adding something like that when you're chasing 10ths of a second. Thanks for the writeup, it was a great read!

Good luck at VIR!!!

Awesome write-up. Been following this car for a while now (even bought the Modified magazine that featured your car) and it is a huge inspiration to me. Love the Andrew Brilliant Aero and how everything is functional and race inspired. Beautiful car and good luck in July!

Thanks guys for the support!

arrowhead said:

Congratulations, you have to keep working on that weight, did you also replace rear hatch and glass.?

Click to expand...

So in NASA TT2 at my current weight, with the 315 tires, and being AWD I'm limited to an 8.3 weight/hp ratio, and I'm almost there, so drastic weight measures aren't needed. Well, they aren't high priority though I think long term lowering weight (and unfortunately HP to keep the ratio) will net overall lap time improvements even by staying in this class. The hatch would result in a lot of changes to the rear that are very expensive, and it's all weight on the side of the car that is too light already, so there is very little return for very high cost. It would necessitate the following expensive changes if/when I do go through with it:

- moving the wing supports to a chassis mounted solution (as opposed to hatch mounted like I have now),
- developing a latching system because with the wing chassis mounted I can't just have it lift upwards like a stock hatch
- having it fitted by a body shop, because no fiberglass or "carbon fiber" piece I can get commercially will ever arrive and fit perfectly
- having it painted
- having new glass or lexan put in (though this is arguably moot per what I'm about to say)

I don't have the budget for that mess with the new wheels/tires and the suspension/brake mods I did.

So one of the things I've wanted to do was put in Lexan to replace the heavy glass. Glass is like 30 lbs. front and 30 lbs. rear, and Lexan should be half or less each. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone that made the front. So I just put this on the back burner. However thanks to Tim Zimmer (AKA TMZ Performance) I learned about Optic Armor and they DO produce a front windshield, along with door windows too (would have saved me some money when I had to make my own!), in addition to the rear hatch and quarter panel glass. So...


Optic Armor is sponsoring the car (http://www.opticarmorwindows.com/)!!! We were rushing to get me a full set of glass (minus the doors) with their anti-fog coating on the interior before Summit Point. Unfortunately they had issues with my set of windows as they had problems with the coating, so we didn't make that cutoff. I'm currently waiting for the set of windows (they shipped last Friday) and hoping to have them on the car for VIR. Losing 30+ lbs. up high on the car should help overall with handling. I'll also be adding some tear-offs to the front because I didn't want to deal with it being damaged by rocks and other debris that inevitably get thrown from other cars, and I'll post pictures and weight info as I can.

TMZ Performance should now be a vendor for Optic Armor products so reach out to Tim if you need some weight loss.

Black95TSIawd said:

Have you thought about putting more power at it? You certainly have the goods for more power.

Click to expand...

This is complicated. I can't seem to get any more power out of this turbo (FP3150) despite everything else being built for pretty high HP. Even if I did get more HP though... as I mentioned above I'm almost at my class limit. If anything lower hp will be called for as I continue lightening the car. So HP increasing doesn't lend much to me unless I want to change classes, and I would have to go up drastically in HP for the TT1 class moving to a 5.3 weight/hp ratio (at my current weight that's a 608whp limit!). With that much HP comes HUGE reliability issues mainly in the transmission but also in the engine, per Tim as well as Andrew Brilliant. I don't have the budget for replacing transmissions and engines constantly. So increasing HP has been a very low priority overall.

However... I have a pretty piss poor torque curve AND HP curve. I think peak torque measures around 350? Peak HP is 380-ish but is at like 6500 rpm, which leaves me 1500rpm (my redline I chose is 8000rpm) where my power drops off. Wouldn't it be great if my torque and hp curves were nicely full and flat yet keeping me within my class limits? I read once a story about Audi testing their LMP1 cars at Circuit de la Sarthe and playing with choosing a higher peak hp or a higher peak torque (it was mutually exclusive for them for reasons I can't recall) and through testing they found that maximizing torque down low resulted in better lap times than higher hp up high. Corvette's don't have the low torque and high peak hp "issue" that turbo cars with small displacement have, and I think that's a big advantage (amongst many) I'd like to reduce. What I'm thinking about doing is going to a much more efficient and higher performing turbo that is already proven in road racing, either the HTA3582R or GTX3576R turbo, and then using RPM and possibly Gear based boost control so that my boost will taper off in order to ultimately give me a flatter torque and hp curve up around the 380whp range. I think this in tandem with the massive traction that I already have thanks to AWD will give me a huge boost over the competition. That's the theory anyway. So in order to do this I would need:

- new turbo system (that means exhaust manifold, shielding, custom o2 housing/downpipe with recirculated wastegate)
- transmission cooling pump and cooler (I'm already at 270+ deg F peak trans temps after 5 laps and Tim doesn't like that, and with more torque across the board this will likely be worse)
- boost control system capable of rpm/gear based control

So the first thing is really expensive, and my budget doesn't fit it, at least not for a number of months. The second item is pretty easy to do, and I think regardless it will go in over the winter. The last item... I actually have.


SIRHC Labs (https://sirhclabs.com/) is sponsoring the car!!! They have provided me with one of their new Cortex EBC which provide rpm/gear based boost control (and even TPS though I'm not sure I will use that). I haven't gotten around to installing it because I can't yet take advantage of it (current setup needs no limiting), but I'll likely be giving it a shot once the rest of the system is upgraded. About all I can show is what's included in the box. It looks pretty nice though!

Hi John
Although I understand your concern about the wing placement, I have to disagree, I think the benefits of removing the 68# from the hatch would be a benefit.
1- Weight would be removed from above door line, which anything above that is not good, weight as needed could be added where ever you wanted so as not to affect your class.

2-Cant see where your wing brackets go, but maybe they could be moved outboard to the edge of the hatch where it sits on the edge of the quarter panel and a small slit cut there, and attach it to that lip of quarter panel, or the other option is to bring it straight down, as that edge lines up with the
frame rail, that way you can still remove hatch by lifting it by side and pulling it out.

3-I have never been a fan of placing wings on hatches or trunks, as that much pressure on and off wing causes deflection on wing making it loose the proper angle.

4-If you like and not wanting to step on anyones toes, I would be willing to make you a hatch free of charge and do it with black gelcoat so wont have to be painted, I have 2 that I have to make here soon, you pay the freight, and also I could get you the lexan or plexiglas which I get at a good price and have cut for you.
If it does not fit properly or to your standard, you could give it away, cut it up, throw it away do whatever you please with it.
That would be my small contribution to your effort.

Mandy

arrowhead said:

Hi John
Although I understand your concern about the wing placement, I have to disagree, I think the benefits of removing the 68# from the hatch would be a benefit.
1- Weight would be removed from above door line, which anything above that is not good, weight as needed could be added where ever you wanted so as not to affect your class.

2-Cant see where your wing brackets go, but maybe they could be moved outboard to the edge of the hatch where it sits on the edge of the quarter panel and a small slit cut there, and attach it to that lip of quarter panel, or the other option is to bring it straight down, as that edge lines up with the
frame rail, that way you can still remove hatch by lifting it by side and pulling it out.

3-I have never been a fan of placing wings on hatches or trunks, as that much pressure on and off wing causes deflection on wing making it loose the proper angle.

4-If you like and not wanting to step on anyones toes, I would be willing to make you a hatch free of charge and do it with black gelcoat so wont have to be painted, I have 2 that I have to make here soon, you pay the freight, and also I could get you the lexan or plexiglas which I get at a good price and have cut for you.
If it does not fit properly or to your standard, you could give it away, cut it up, throw it away do whatever you please with it.
That would be my small contribution to your effort.

Mandy

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Wow, thanks Mandy! We'll chat privately.

https://www.facebook.com/DSMtuners

Here are some updates on car preparation:

is now a sponsor!!! I've been using their 300v 15w50 Competition oil in the engine, MoCool radiator additive in the coolant, and RBF600 brake fluid in the brake system for 3+ years of racing and haven't had a single issue with any of them and they have performed terrifically. Zero engine issues (major concern with my lateral Gs, but oil reports are clean), cooling working as needed (and as everyone knows cooling with a big fmic is a PITA on these cars), and zero brake fluid boiling. I'm very excited to have them working with me and the car as I've loved the Motul brand for quite some time now and getting to partner with them is very exciting! The sponsorship is what they call a B Rider sponsorship, which is their lowest level, but I'll now have the chance to prove myself and move up in the ranks.

Airbox - With the airbox's self-destruction at Summit I took to re-making it with actual structure and sealing. Please keep in mind I am probably the worst fabricator there is. I just thought others might like to see what can be done with simple tools and little skill haha. What I've done here is added internal structure using Lexan from Home Depot Racing (cut by using a lexan scoring tool and just snapping into pieces by hand), 90-deg aluminum angle as corner bracing riveted into place, and then sealed with some clear silicone RTV. Using 1/8" Lexan might bite me in the rear as it's fairly brittle and flimsy, and this box will likely vibrate a lot, but it was cheap and readily available (I bought scrap pieces from HDR), and easy to work with as well. The upper seal was some rubber seal from McMaster-Carr that I had laying around from when I sealed parts of the FMIC to its ducting. For the hole where the intake enters I epoxied some neoprene rubber in place on the lower and upper halves. The airbox is held into place by an M6 bolt and an M8 bolt on the bottom (I think these were probably used by the stock air box, but I haven't had one since 1998 so who knows!). The M6 bolt is directly underneath of the lexan bottom panel, so I left a hole in the lexan so the bolt was accessible and just seal it up with aluminum tape once installed (it's the best I could think off).






Optic Armor replacement glass - The polycarbonate replacements for the front/rear/quarter arrived. They look terrific! I stupidly took no pics as I was in a rush when I stopped in at RRT to take a look. The rear and quarter pieces have a nice ~40% tint as requested. The pieces are 1" oversized so they must be trimmed to size, and they don't have the blackout trim yet like stock glass so that must be created too. Unfortunately, RRT is now too busy to take on the prep/install in time for VIR so I've had to scramble to find someone else to do it. Fortunately this morning Mr. Spoiler called back and said they should be able to take my car in tomorrow or Wednesday and knock this out this week. PHEW. Afterwards I'll take the car to RRT for a corner balance and alignment and the car should be good to go. I'll make sure to take pictures of the before and after for those that are interested.

Oil pressure sensor - For some time now my oil pressure sensor, a VDO 100psi, hasn't read much pressure. I had known it was likely due to vibration from the engine (mine is mounted directly off the oil filter housing) and sure enough... when I took it off the car it rattled like a baby's toy. The internals were shot to hell So that's replaced with a new one. I stupidly forgot to order the relocation line so I'll just have to knock that out after VIR. For those of you that have yours direct mounted to the engine, consider relocating and adding some cushioning to get longer life out of your sensors! Mine lasted about 2.5 years of racing.

Your airbox looks great so I wouldn't go knocking your fab skills.
Motul is great to have as a sponsor. Congrats!

Thanks man. I only hope it doesn't fall apart

Motul schwag arrived today, pretty cool to be working with them. Sadly they are out of banners and tents this late in the season but maybe I'll get them next year.



Optic Armor is being installed now and car should be ready for pickup on Thursday. We couldn't save the gaskets on the rear quarter panel glass and are sizing the panels to take up the space. Hopefully it turns out well.

Any thoughts of getting rid of the MAS and going speed density?

Black95TSIawd said:

Any thoughts of getting rid of the MAS and going speed density?

Click to expand...

Yes, I have. The engine overruns the MAS now at higher RPMs though not by much, but with the clamping that Ecmlink can do it runs well enough past the theoretically limit and gets me a peak hp just under my class limit so SD became a lower priority. I have yet to see much concrete proof of any real improvement from going to SD when only just over the MAS' airflow reading limit while using clamping. There might be some proof there are gains in this specific scenario, but I just haven't seen it. So without a reasonable expectation of a gain in my power curve (one that doesn't raise the hp much, but rather brings up the lower parts of the curve) and the fact that I didn't want to go through all the trouble of re-tuning as the car got closer to lap records, I put it off.

With that said, I have a pipe and plug/play harness for SD that I'm bringing to the track. I had brought it to Summit but since I was so close to the record I decided to keep things the same and just drive faster. At VIR I will keep the MAF until I set a new record, or decide I can't quite yet, after which if any session(s) remain then I will throw on the SD system for testing/tuning and data gathering. We only have a base SD tune on hand cruising around town with the car once so it will need refinement on track. If you have any experience with both drag and road racing you probably know that tuning for road course duty is a lot more complicated as you have a lot more load cells in use, and other factors come into play requiring generally lower limits on fuel/timing.

The big reason for me now to try SD is because other things are working and relatively stable, and that it is actually a weight loss for me off the front of the car. Small, but I'm at the point of doing small things that add up. My existing pipe is pretty heavy (it's steel), the MAS weighs some, and the apexi filter has a block of cast aluminum to adapt the filter to the MAS. The new pipe is a lightweight 3" aluminum piece with just a small silicone connector and a very lightweight/thin 3" to apexi filter adapter. If I get bored I might do a weight comparison though it's not likely THAT much of a difference. Designed to work with the airbox.

Not that you're not resourceful enough to induce this yourself, but you can use a grease gun line to remotely mount your oil pressure sensor. I just figured since you're so busy and always on a deadline I would bring it up some it's just a quick trip to Walmart, 7 dollars, and a 5 minute install away.

Interesting tip. I didn't know they were 1/8" npt. They're female on one end and male on the other? I have a grease gun here but it's all packed up somewhere in my closet. I'd be concerned though about longevity with 280+ deg F oil inside constantly though and seeing as the life of my engine is on the line, and possibly mine if it failed in the wrong spot on the track, I don't think I'd risk trying the hack. I did a quick search and could only find one line but no temp tolerances published, just max psi. It's not a big deal, it will easily survive the weekend being where it is, and if not it's not a critical sensor.

TSiAWD666 said:

Interesting tip. I didn't know they were 1/8" npt. They're female on one end and male on the other? I have a grease gun here but it's all packed up somewhere in my closet. I'd be concerned though about longevity with 280+ deg F oil inside constantly though and seeing as the life of my engine is on the line, and possibly mine if it failed in the wrong spot on the track, I don't think I'd risk trying the hack. I did a quick search and could only find one line but no temp tolerances published, just max psi. It's not a big deal, it will easily survive the weekend being where it is, and if not it's not a critical sensor.

Click to expand...

Completely understandable. If I could get my hands on one of Andrews kits i'd have a hard time justifying buying anything less than the best also. Fwiw if anyone else is interested, sae apparently rates hydraulic hoses to be safe to 100*c due to the fact that that is water's boiling point. Petroleum based products are generally safe to 50 ish *c higher under the same conditions assuming less than 10% of the maximum rated pressure is present so in theory they should be safe to at least 300*F.

edit: found this on Parker hose's website.

Running SD would require a new tune, especially if you are targeting a specific max HP. Better intake pipe, filter, and removal of the restriction of the actual MAS should gain power at all RPM's. You can effectively make the same power at lower boost levels and move efficiency up a little bit. I can't wait to switch to SD on my own setup even if I still have such a tiny turbo.