TSiAWD666 said:

http://www.dsmtuners.com/threads/lets-talk-difs.400884/page-13#post-153510244

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Thanks for the link. Think I will stay clear of the Evo rear based on your findings. Sounds scary! Unless I am missing something.

Car has Chassis brace under front of car by RRE,front and rear solid strut tower bars by RRE ,RM rear sway bar, polyurethane bushings all around,17x8.5 rpf1s, Bobbies adjustable rear upper control arms,RE71s 245/45/17s, all I'm lacking right now are good coil overs then my alignment. with my present adjustable tokicos and eibach springs she handles well but I'm sure will be much better once I get the Feal coilovers.

I dunno what you mean, it's great and a must have for a track car. You just need to select the right number of discs and fluid composition based on your grip level.

TSiAWD666 said:

I dunno what you mean, it's great and a must have for a track car. You just need to select the right number of discs and fluid composition based on your grip level.

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Oh ok that's why I said maybe I misunderstood. Thanks yes I saw that comment

Doing the evo rear diff also. I have the diff already saving to send it to tre for a max-lock out conversion.

The Evo rear diff, or any other than stock, is a must have. You have no clue how bad our cars understeer, especially to a someone who might not have been exposed to performance driving and car control. It was more like plowing with the front and dragging the rear along until the viscious coupler decided to work. Trying to mimick this on the street just does not work. Dare I say impossible?

Black95TSIawd said:

The Evo rear diff, or any other than stock, is a must have. You have no clue how bad our cars understeer, especially to a someone who might not have been exposed to performance driving and car control. It was more like plowing with the front and dragging the rear along until the viscious coupler decided to work. Trying to mimick this on the street just does not work. Dare I say impossible?

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Will look into the rear in time. Never built the car for auto cross but I'm sure the diff would help for road racing. I've been autocrossing in other much higher end cars than Mitsubishi but never a DSM. I will try to get one of these diffs and talk to Jon from TRE. The car is pretty much there just these few essentials that appear very necessary. Thanks for the heads up.

chinola69 said:

Doing the evo rear diff also. I have the diff already saving to send it to tre for a max-lock out conversion.

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What are these diffs selling for and exactly which Evo rear diff do you have?

ceedawg said:

What are these diffs selling for and exactly which Evo rear diff do you have?

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I have the Evo 8 diff but I believe either 8/9 will work. Evo"s have a clutch type diff, so they just take it out and place it in our 2g case. You have to get the Evo inner axle cups too. They can go anywhere from 300 - 600 depending on year and mileage.

A little late with updates, but we're back in action now....

As you guys know, I lost a bit of negative camber when I raised my ride height to fit the new wheels/tires. Well, being that this is really the only option we have available right now, I picked up a set of the megan racing UCA's.





This brought my front camber back to where I wanted it to be. Negative 3 degrees plus.

I also changed my rear springs, increasing from 425lb to 550lb. (Sorry no pic)

And last, I drove up to Sam's place as he borrowed a set of corner weight scales and we corner balanced our cars.





Still porky. 3220lbs race weight. 3047lbs without me in it. Getting the corner weights in check nearly forced me to rid most of the front rake I had set up in the car. I had done this to help get the rear to rotate better. I was a bit skeptical to how the car was going to drive now, but to my surprise, ridding the rake and adding 550lb rear springs made the car easier to drive. The shocks are on their last leg and rebound is set to full stiff, but its driving better than before.

Sam had a camber gauge tool thingy so while I was able to set the camber, I pretty much had to eye ball the front toe. It was the night before the event and after 10pm when we finished so no chance in getting a real alignment. The car drove like ass on the way home, but another quick toe change in my driveway and she seemed to be ok. (at least in the dry)

MSNE event # 3 and SCCA NNJR event #2 were on the same day. I worked some magic where I could race with both clubs. (They are only separated by 2 lots at Metlife Stadium.) Early work assignment with one and late with the other and it worked out great. It just so happened that it was my best performance with both clubs to date.

MSNE: 2nd fastest Raw time and 1st in PAX. My best performance with any club, anywhere. Super stoked!




SCCA NNJR: 1st in class out of 11. Beat out a 400whp Evo X by only a 10th to take the top trophy spot. Sorry, no video. I've convinced my little brother to try autocross and he was in the other lot with MSNE and was using my Gopro.

SCCA NJ ProSolo

My first ProSolo and national event! Luckily, it was in my backyard so I didn't have to travel far. If you don't know what a ProSolo is, its a drag style autocross with two cars lined up next to each other running nearly mirror courses. You run both sides 6 times each over two days in hopes of qualifying for the elimination style Challenge round. For this event, I drove Sam's STX 95 talon. (same one I drove at the MSNE event.) I'm going to admit, I was nervous. Not just because this was my first national event, but because you have to try and put down a fast/clean run right off the bat. It always takes a few runs for me to set my stride. On top of that, every car in class was either a BRZ or an FRS. Sam and I were the only other make, riding pretty in an Eagle.

Well, I did much better than I anticipated and ended up taking the last trophy spot in 4th place! Wow, super excited about that, even as I'm typing this a few weeks later. There was only 7 hundredths of a second between 1st place and I on the left-side course. The 3rd fastest run was over two tenths away and if memory serves me correct, only 1st, 2nd, and 4th place drivers broke into the 37's on the left side. The right-side course was another story. I sucked, putting up the 6th fastest run. Luckily, my combined time helped me secure the last trophy position.



And my fastest runs...

The following week, the NEPA SCCA had an event that wasn't too far from my house so I decided to go. I've run at this venue before and it was fun. Well, if you remember from my post above, I still haven't gotten an alignment on my car. And, the heavens decided to open up and rain pretty hardcore for the day. I still went, despite my car driving like utter ass. The car felt fine in the dry, despite the toe being off, but was completely useless in the wet. I won my class (one other car, an STI), but completely sucked overall. I didn't even bother putting up the video on youtube.

Fast forward to last weekend, 5/27/2017, and NEPA had there next event. This time at Pocono raceway. I made sure to get an alignment for this one.



-3.4 degrees camber up front. -2 in the rear. Just a smidgen of toe-in in the back to pre-load the bushings, and .07 toe-out on each side up front.

Put up a respectable scratch time of 60.6, but did not have a single clean run. I think I finished 11th out of 13 due to all the cone penalties. Doh! The course was very tight and I hated it causing me to overdrive. Ah well. Will have to make up for this at the next event.





That's it for now. Still have a few more goodies to go on the car and possibly another double header this weekend. (if it doesn't rain)

Double header weekend. Great times. Update to come soon. Meanwhile, one of my fellow competitors were able to snag these great action shots.

6/4/2017 MSNE #4 AND SCCA NNJR Event #4

Between early and late work assignments, I was able to run with both clubs on the same day, albeit in different lots. (The NEPA event I did at Pocono was actually a joint effort with my local SCCA region and counted as event #3 for us.)


MSNE

83 drivers w/ 11 in my class. 1st in class, 2nd fastest overall time, and 3rd in PAX. Although my results are nothing to sneeze at, I do feel like there was more time to gain. I beat 2nd place, a 370z, by 1.1 seconds, but I was off FTD by about the same. My fastest run was only my 2nd, and despite 6 more runs thereafter, I could not get any faster than 42.723. The car really rips now and grip is up significantly. I was picking up tons of speeds as the tires warmed up, but never adjusted my braking points and would blow very key corners or transitions. Lesson learned.... squeeze the brake pedal earlier as speeds increase.



SCCA

This was a joint event with the NJ Porsche Club. 127 drivers w/ 6 in my class. 1st in class, 16th fastest overall time, and 18th in PAX. The course was f***ing awesome. Technical and high speed. One section just hit over 70mph and another about 65. Nothing too slow, which my car sucks at anyway. For those of you who do not autocross, thats fast. My Talon makes under 200whp. I could only imagine what speeds the "fast" cars were hitting. I finished nearly 2.5 seconds ahead of 2nd place in my class and my overall and pax results are the best i've ever done in our SCCA region. Stoked!





No more events until later in July. Time to give the car a break and do a once over to make sure everything is ok.

Really cool project! Sorry if I missed it, do you have specs for the these latest wheels? I see that you se 20mm spacer, but I didn't catch width and offset.

I know that autox tech inspection can be lax for this, but it is allowed to have Accusump inside passenger compartment? I can this being a bad idea, for the same reason they do not allow to use mechanical oil pressure gauges inside the car.

I have all the same reservation regarding cutting the rear quarter panels as you do! Amazing how easily some people cut-up their (sometimes) much more expensive cars!

GRNDSM said:

Really cool project! Sorry if I missed it, do you have specs for the these latest wheels? I see that you se 20mm spacer, but I didn't catch width and offset.

I know that autox tech inspection can be lax for this, but it is allowed to have Accusump inside passenger compartment? I can this being a bad idea, for the same reason they do not allow to use mechanical oil pressure gauges inside the car.

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I sold him the wheels, they are 18x9.5 35et, I was using 1" spacers, they worked and I didn't care about the amount of poke.

From the SCCA Street Mod rules:
Rear passenger seat(s), including restraints and associated hardware may
be removed. When rear seats are removed, the back of the front seats defines the end of the passenger compartment.

Hey I AutoX my GSX too in SM. What spring rates are you running? I am currently at 13k front and 6k in the back. Sorry if you said it somewhere and I missed it.

Does that mean that you can have an exposed fuel cell behind driver's seat?

GRNDSM said:

Really cool project! Sorry if I missed it, do you have specs for the these latest wheels? I see that you se 20mm spacer, but I didn't catch width and offset.

I know that autox tech inspection can be lax for this, but it is allowed to have Accusump inside passenger compartment? I can this being a bad idea, for the same reason they do not allow to use mechanical oil pressure gauges inside the car.

I have all the same reservation regarding cutting the rear quarter panels as you do! Amazing how easily some people cut-up their (sometimes) much more expensive cars!

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Thank you!

As mentioned, 18x9.5 +45 offset. 25mm spacer in rear and 23mm spacer in front. I had to go with a shorter spacer up front as my brake rotor hats are a hair thicker than stock and I didn't have enough exposed wheel stud threads. Next set of wheels will atleast be 10in wide, if not 10.5 with a low offset.

96dsmftw said:

Hey I AutoX my GSX too in SM. What spring rates are you running? I am currently at 13k front and 6k in the back. Sorry if you said it somewhere and I missed it.

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800lb front and 550lb rear. Works out to about 14.5k front and 10k rear. I plan on going up in rate when I get some big boy shocks. Atleast in the rear.

Shortly after my last events (double header on June 4th), my motor started to develop a rather destructing sound. It almost sounded like there were some loose marbles under the valve cover. The sound was very faint at first, but slowly got worse to the point that I was afraid to turn the motor over. I had a few buddies come by and listen to it idle and help diagnose. One said bearings, the other said timing components, and I was assuming it was something in the head. Now here is the weird part.... My mind was going a million mph and I pretty much wrote this motor off at this point. So, what do I do....? Grab the throttle and rev the crap out of it. Over and over for about 5-6 seconds, even hitting the 2-step which is set to 6000rpm. What happens after that? The sound disappears. The motor is running smooth, as if nothing ever happened. !?!?

Pulled the valve cover and visually, everything looked fine. Cams were in there place and the rocker arms will still tight. Hmm.. What the hell could that have been? Threw the valve cover back on and did a compression test. Just about ~180psi across all four. Great, so the valves are still fine. Bottom end sounds fine. The timing belt and components were inspected and it turned out to be ok. Again, what the hell could that god awful sound have been? The only thing I can assume is one of the lifters were stuck closed and bouncing around under the rocker arm. As I free revved the motor, the increased oil pressure forced it unstuck. But, here is the kicker. I have a Kiggly HLA. Oil pressure to the HLA's is regulated to 15psi. I couldn't think of anything else so I replaced the lifters anyway. Picked up whatever set extremepsi is selling. (I think ITM?) I also poured some seafoam into the lifter galleys just in case something was crudded up in there and limiting the flow of oil to the lifters.



Started the motor and the sound was still present. But, I was expecting some type of sound as I just installed new, unfilled lifters. It takes a bit for them to quiet down after a dry start. A few minutes later, everything seemed golden. Took the car for a spin and it seemed fine. Put about 100 miles on it over that weekend and everything seemed fine. Phew! That was a good bullet to dodge. If I had more serious motor issues, my season would have been more or less done for.

Since the car was down, I took the time to flush the brakes and clutch with new fluid. (Pentosin Super DOT 4. 500 degree dry boiling point.) I figured the power steering system had probably never been touched since the car was new so I flushed it out as well. Old brake fluid showed a tiny amount of air in the system so this was perfecting timing. Brake pedal tightened up a hair afterwards. The steering seems to be a bit more stable on the highway, but no difference felt while autocrossing.

Luckily, the next event wasn't until July 23rd. So this gave me a good 7 weeks to get done and I needed almost all of it. Summer time fun, plus hot, muggy garage means I'm not spending too much time in there lately.

SCCA NNJR 7/23/2017

As I mentioned above... its been about 7 weeks since my last event. I was a bit anxious and nervous. You could tell in my driving as well as my first 4 runs were good, but nothing spectacular. By the 5th run, a guy in a 370z put 5 thousandths on me and snatched first place away for the time being. Luckily, I was able to put 6 tenths on him by my next run and then a further 5 tenths on my last run. Cleared him by 1.1 seconds and took the class win. Ended up finishing with a 46.7, 12th fastest RAW time out of 144 drivers. 26th in PAX.

I KNOW the car has more in it. I'm still learning as a driver and will keep trying to break into the top 10 sometime soon in both overall RAW and PAX at an SCCA event.


I forgot to turn the camera on for my fastest run, but here is a 47.2.





All in all a good weekend. The motor survived and a class win. Next event is this coming Friday with MSNE.

MSNE Autox #5 7/28/2017


This was a PM autocross following MSNE's autocross school in the morning. I didn't attend the school as I had to be in the office for the morning, but the afternoon competition was a good way to end the week. Honestly, I wasn't a huge fan of the course. Correction... I wasn't a fan of the last 3rd of the course. Too tight and slow. With an open front diff, those tight turns feel painful. On top of that, I couldn't stay clean worth a damn on my fast runs. Ran multiple 47.4 sec runs, which would have put me 2nd in PAX, but had to settle for a clean 48.0. 2nd in class. 7th fastest raw Time. 9th in PAX.

Quick comparison video. Me vs my buddy Chris in his Evo X. It is in SCCA STU class, but same class as I under the MSNE rule set. He set FTD and top PAX for the day.