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I'm not entirely convinced this is done yet, but I just now got the car on the ground to be able to do some driving testing. I just took the thickness of the OEM ducting, ordered a sheet of ABS and cut to size. Using some velcro (it's gonna fail) i attached it to the aluminum uprights, and then used some pop clips and a step bit affixed them to the bumper beam. I tried to plastic weld some 90 bends to bolt up to the frame, but they just ended up being waaaay too brittle. I maybe melted the plastic with too much temp, but gave up on the idea as the pop clips were good enough.
I am concerned about them flopping around, and obviously without any of the bends for increased stiffness like the OEM ducts, they are very flimsy.. but I really wanted them to be bendable and moveable for ease of dealing with the front bumper coming off and on often. My plan if they straight up don't work is to just make some L brackets and flush quarter turns like I had the old uprights on. Aint no thing.. we will see what we get away with.
Kinda hard to make a standalone post describing swapping springs, since I feel like I constantly want to swap them out.. and even these 8ks weren't what I wanted, but it's probably worth mentioning some bits and pieces about this.
So.. I had some Hyperco 6in 9k spring sitting in the box from October I had planned to swap in and run as the math said it was gonna be a better fit, and the dampers should be able to handle it (valved for an 8k, had a 7k on). I went to go swap them on and start to weigh the car to see how much I had pulled out, and to get it all setup and decided to just pull everything apart to inspect, clean, understand. I had bought the damper used and was planning to have upgraded them by now.. but they have been doing there job okay, and I've been learning the car more and more. I think this year will be a year of some 2 ways coming.. but I digress.
After getting everything all cleaned up, and setting the fronts to a baseline I did the same for the rears and noticed my ride height was terribly high. To be expected.. weight was taken out, and I upped the spring rate. The issue arose when I ran out of adjustment on the coilover. The height adjuster was bottomed out on the shock tube, and the perch had no more room for adjustment without have no preload at full droop and there was no room in sight for a helper spring. This issue led me down a rabbit hole I knew likely existed, but I had never been forced into dealing with it.. and such the path of least resistance always won. I was sitting at ~14.5in ride height in the rear (pre corner balance) which was about an inch (if not more) higher than I would have wanted. I did end up dropping the car down with no preload on the spring, and I was able to sorta get where I wanted, if not a tad high.. but I do drive on tracks where the rear WILL see full droop (yay jumps!) so having something with a bit of preload was needed. I PROBABLY would have been fine, but I am too much of an anxious mess to knowingly deal with with PROBABLY.
I started to look for some new springs.
Before I looked at springs, I did try to at least reach out to Fortune to ask what they suggested, and I basically got two wrong answers mixed in with a sales pitch. I was very confused and a bit annoyed. I was told they sold a longer damper, and a smaller shock body and that I could try that....but that wasn't a fix to the issue, so I was kinda confused at the answer. I asked if they sold 5in springs in a 9K and they sent me towards Swift... who didn't have that... so.. I don't know. Mid to low tier suspension company doing the things they do.
What I ended up with was a lot of springs that would bind before the bump stop, or didn't have the correct rates. I settled in on an 8k Swift spring that was 5in with enough travel to (in theory) not bind, and a decent spring rate that was close to what I wanted. I ended up pulling more weight out of the rear than expected as well, more on that in a bit, so I figured if I upped the front swaybar it would be okay. Ideally I don't want swaybars at all since I think they are really just bandaids for roll while having good ride quality, but I am working on fully understanding suspension stuff and really don't expect to sort this all out perfectly the first trip around the sun.
Tadaaa, springs. I did end up buying some helpers and couplers, but as of today I don't need them... still finishing up the balance and adjustments and alignments and all the things that are way to dynamic to make a post about. Looking at spreadsheets and such, I am satisfied with the choice... and I can always up the rates as time goes on. None of my math has taken aero into effect, because I don't really know how to, so it's all just an iterative game.
Everything fit perfect, etc etc etc. It's springs on a coilovers. Not much to it. I'm always happy to have spare ***** to turn on the car.
As far as weight, this is what I came up with after the reduction!
Super happy with that for the amount of effort it was. I know it could get lower, but then I risk taking a weight penalty in my class that would be greater than the few things I know I can lose. Balance. I did end up shifting the front distribution a bit higher, but that was to be expected and is almost ALWAYS the case. I barely did anything to take weight off the front.. but am working on that too, as well as unsprung mass.
RANDOM SIDEBAR
In case you wanted to know what a WRX swapped Outback with 16 wheel/tires in it looked like.
My friends are too gracious.
Okay, this one was way too much work, totally not required, and I'm gonna need like 2 years before I consider doing it again. But boy howdy, it looks really nice and really added some fresh air to the car and fixed/improved a lot of small issues the thing had.
I don't remember how the thought came up, maybe just a late night conversation or a "it would be cool, but I don't feel like doing it" thought that finally broke through but I decided to wrap the car in an effort to recreate the "style" of the Mazda Team Joest DPi car. To me, it was the BEST looking modern Le Man Prototype cars, and with it being a Mazda and also someone coining Gridlife as "Dirtbag IMSA", it just had to be done. So because this is a story better told backwards, I give you the inspiration:
And the (almost done) result:
The path there, was actually started in January when I thought it was a good idea to start wrapping the front bumper first. I had never wrapped anything before in my life... and this bumper was gonna be a pain. With a Dunning-Kruger effect full of "this can't be THAT hard" I set out to get going after getting the wrap in.
It was that hard. And it looked bad. But it was a different color. Motivation stayed high.
It was during the 24 hours of Daytona I brought in the sideskirts and did a MUCH better job on them. Not to be sappy, but the joke/totally not a joke of copycatting a DPi car's style while watching DPi cars was really wonderful. Plus, it was still freezing outside, so what else was I gonna do?
The next item on the list was the trunk. Oh yeah! I got a new one! I had a friend mysteriously drop it off while I was away at our winter testing facility, and it was a wonderful surprise to come back it. Not damage, no holes, and I have to edit some words about the APR wing install above here in a second... but the spoiler dropped right on. When I closed the trunk, it seemed like it actually closed all the way and didn't deflect as much as my old one. Performance unlocked?? I hope so!
The wrap was a bit easier on the trunk... until the 90 degree bend... don't mind those wrinkles
Hood and roof were the next lowest handing fruit. For that I called upon the help of my equally unqualified friends. Beers were had, cars were wrapped, we all learned something about wrap...don't know what I would do without them. We were also able to clean up some of the rivets and vents a bit. Always nice to go back with better tools and do things past you couldn't.. or forgot to... let's go with that last one.
I randomly did the rear bumper once day after pulling it apart to clean up the rusty sides of the car. To do that was your standard issue sand, prep, sand. Didn't try super hard since repairing rust is a lost cause.. especially on body panels, and it was getting wrapped over. I also took this opportunity to paint the crusty body black in areas where it was shining through. Glad I did.
And yes, wrap backing makes for a great paint mask!
The dreaded fenders came next.. and booyyyyyy howdy were they tough. My friend and I knew they were gonna be hard, but we expected to do the whole rest of the car (or at least one side) that day, but all we did were fenders. Blegh. I think we did a pretty good job though.
Then.. feeling more motivated then ever, I decided to do the rest of the side of the car by myself one day. Magnets and tape helped.. but man it would have been nice to have a second person. 5/10 Doors were nice though!
I did the thing where I tired to not do individual doors and just cut them out from the full cut of wrap... don't do that. It's not the right way.
Handle area looked great though!
Motivated as hell, I went to do the other side and I noticed I didn't have enough wrap in one full sheet. Boy howdy.. no worries I can order more... except it's out of stock... and no one has it.. and I have a car with one side not wrapped. Not great. I did place an order with a retailer that said they had some in stock, however it was supposed to be delivered last week.. and I have yet to see it ship.
I decided to chop up the rest of the remaining stuff I had, which would only be 2 splice lines, and you wouldn't even be able to see them. REALLY glad I did, because it looks great, and I don't think that wrap existed anyways. My girlfriend helped me out with the larger pieces on the sides, and I was pretty thankful to have the extra set of hands, even if she doesn't know how to point the heat gun. It's like the kid with the flashlight, it's hard to communicate these things.
While putting the skideskirts on I also finally got the small repair done for the gaping hole in the skirt. Should work okay to keep the air out.
Icing on the cake was throwing a matte later on the splitter, and popping everything on.
Low light only photos, accentuates the blacks...
And this is all I have in sunlight for now:
I think the color perfectly captures the DPi car's color, and has really added some new energy into liking and wanting to go fast in this car! Now to get some damn number placards on it and drive the damn thing! I know I have a ton of stuff to debug. STOKED!
Cool update! Nice work and great job on the clean up imo.
And kudos on dropping down your curb weight. There's a very established long time FD owner on the 7club who's '94 R2 with weight reductions tips the scales at 2777 lbs. For some small gains, I see you still have your washer fluid reservoir under hood, you could definitely ditch that for a few pounds and could then relocate the coolant overflow tank behind the strut tower, etc. Subtle change but every little bit helps imo. May I also suggest ditching your front strut bar (it's the 2pt oem? There's been plenty of discussion regarding rx8 chassis rigidity vs the addition of bars, etc), I don't miss running mine and hasn't affected vehicle performance or driving style imo.
You'll have to share some driving impressions when you get back out on track.
Thanks! I think it'll look great on the track. Really excited.
Originally Posted by Federighi
Cool update! Nice work and great job on the clean up imo.
And kudos on dropping down your curb weight. There's a very established long time FD owner on the 7club who's '94 R2 with weight reductions tips the scales at 2777 lbs. For some small gains, I see you still have your washer fluid reservoir under hood, you could definitely ditch that for a few pounds and could then relocate the coolant overflow tank behind the strut tower, etc. Subtle change but every little bit helps imo. May I also suggest ditching your front strut bar (it's the 2pt oem? There's been plenty of discussion regarding rx8 chassis rigidity vs the addition of bars, etc), I don't miss running mine and hasn't affected vehicle performance or driving style imo.
You'll have to share some driving impressions when you get back out on track.
Yeah, I haven't done much in the front aside from add weight at all. I've driven without the bar and it's really inconsequential for sure. I was hoping to be able to have time to pull the whole front subframe out with the engine on it and go to work, but I just don't think it's in the timeline right now to go through it all. The washer bottle should go though lol....
Easy peasy swaybar addition with the addition of the stiffer rear springs. Doing the math, I really wanted the Hotchkis front 33mm bar, but they were on backorder until the end of July so I grabbed this one that was juuuust a little bit underspecc'd compared to my math. It'll be better than the OEM one that's for sure.
Only comments are that fitment was typical of off the shelf aftermarket stuff. Fits like **** and was hitting the wheelspeed sensor brackets, but it sorted just bent itself into place. Little bit more design effort on the brackets would have been nice. Maybe I am just being picky building stuff with OEM CAD at work.. but... meh. Do better.
I did option the 95A bushings, because why not. We'll see how she do.
As I have mentioned before, the original brake ducts I had were pretty much useless. With the addition of the Mazdaspeed bumper, from the get go the prospect of using the fog light brackets and ducting holes was in the back of my mind and I even did a little bit of prototyping when the bumper went in. With everything finally in it's final resting place, I was able to finally make some modifications, get the brackets printed out in ASA, so they won't melt, and get the tubing in and routed.
The requirements for the mounts were obviously such that they needed to route air from the front of the bumper, through a duct, to the brake dust shields. They also were required to be accessed either when the bumper comes off, or after the bumper is on as the bumper was a required removable piece. This was a bit trickier of a requirement (read that word enough yet?) as access in that area of the car sorta just sucks in general, especially when on the ground. I modified my design a tad to add a downward taper on the bracket in order to aid the ducting coming on/off as needed. The smallest things do matter.
The next small challenge to get over what printing the brackets out in a material that would be able to withstand being next to a quite hot oil cool. I originally went for ABS, but had never tried to print much with ASA. With a LITTLE bit better heat resistance, and similar, if not maybe better impact resistance than ABS I decided to give it a shot. Printing out the parts was a bit of a bear as nothing wanted to stick to the build plate.. but I attributed this to a vastly out of level bed as I had it off recently when I fixed the bed temperature sensor on the printer. After I redid that, it printed much better. I did still have some warping issues and some bad adhering... but it was good enough. Tolerances are cool when they can be wide as hell!
I am definitely concerned that the plastic pieces being so thin, and basically used in the same way bent steel would... without being steel.. will lead to the brackets cracking under vibrations or any good whack of the front end. I can always beef up the design with some ribs, but until then.. send it.
Ducting was simple, cut enough so the it reaches.. and make sure there is a bit of "preload" on the ducting mount so that it doesn't fall off with air movement. I chose to not add fasteners to the duct to mount in the front in an effort to keep them easily removable. I tested their ability to hold with a leaf blower and even with the blower fully up to the mount, the ducting didn't blow off. Good enough for me... will monitor as time goes on.
Not worth of a standalone post, but got her aligned finally! Was able to gain about a degree of caster with the offset bushings which brought me to ~ -7.6 deg on each side. Should be cool!
Camber in the rear is lacking, but to be expected with a bit higher ride height. We will see how she do!
Also, finally found a use for those 12in fluorescent tubes that you keep in your garage because you are too lazy to recycle them properly. Only managed to break 1 in the process... just make sure it's a well vented area..
Gridlife Midwest Rev Up - Gingerman Raceway - May 20-21 , 2023
Oh boy, I am well behind on updating all of this, so let's get everything down on paper almost a month later..
First event of 2023 with a very different car, and still rocking roached tires. The goal for the weekend was to feel out the new car and see what adjustments need to be made to try and go fast at Midwest Festival just two weeks later. With this goalset in mind, I had no intentions of breaking a fastest time, and really just needed to get back into driving after a long winter. This was easier said than done, as the plan for the weekend already started to deviate before we had left.
I was bringing along a bunch of friends to their first Gridlife events, and had another friend of mine offer to tow the car while I drove his Outback to the track for him to use in HPDE. We had planned to have a whole caravan leaving my place around 6pm on Friday, and my friend with the truck and outback had yet to get his car ready to drive at 4pm. I told the other crew to get going without me, and I would sort out my other friend and meet them there late at night, or early on Saturday morning. 8PM rolled around, friend still not sorted with the car a combination of wrong parts delivered and just bad timing on a lot of things will always put a damper on things. Either way, I have no reason to not wait for him.
10PM comes around, looks like we are leaving tomorrow morning. I told my friend to just meet me at my house whenever he was sorted and to just come in and crash until we had to be up at 5:30 to get rolling to the track. He was planning on being there around 1-2am. My alarm wakes me up at 5am so I look out into my driveway... still no car. Oh boy.
I get a phone call at 5:30 "just finished the car, headed to the track, you just go and I'll meet you there". Ohhhhh boy, that's a long night.
We got going to the track in the Mazda.
After an hour and a half or so nice drive, we were at the small road outside of Gingerman and it started to rain. Awesome. We were already running late and likely were going to miss the first session, it was way colder than expected and all my efforts to keep the heater box in the car left me with a messed up blend door so I still didn't have heat. What a start to a test and tune!
We got to the track, unloaded the car real quick, got registered and all that and off we went on the track at 9am! Despite them not having any Club TR door cards, and no number 2s for the side of the car, showing up late didn't really seem to be an issue.
I have no idea what my time was, but I could already feel a few things out:
-Car was WAY more stable at speed
-Car had a TON of grip, but tires were limiting (a known)
-Having a hans and race suit on in the car made me feel a LOT safer
-Brake ducts allowed for a much more consistent brake temp and pedal feel
-Acceleration was way better with less weight
We were off to a great start, despite a bit worse weather and a bit more cold. Good news, is that race suits are fairly warm.
The weather started to clear up, and it was basically perfect conditions for lap records. Unfortunately the tires were really holding me back and everywhere my data showed that the car was faster except where ultimate grip from tires was the limiting factor. I picked up a TON of speed in 8/9 where the car felt a ton more stable in the high speed sweepers and I was limited by driver mod still, not tires.
I wasn't really able to get the car to rotate much, but I think the tire situation combined with a quick change of plans and having to drive the car back home after my friend's Outback blew out an exhaust gasket and broke a manifold stud held me back.
After all the sessions I was able to put down a 1:46.66 which was about a second off pace, while data was still showing outright speed of the car should be faster. I was a tad disappointed with the time, but keeping in line with my goals at the start of the weekend I knew I had some adjustments to do in order to dial out the slight bit of understeer was extremely happy with stability of the car. Being able to drive the car home was also a big success.
Ended up pretty down in the pack, and I still don't understand how the new scoring works.. but it was to be expected running quite slow:
Gridlife Midwest Festival - Gingerman Raceway - June 1-4 , 2023
Midwest fest. The big one! The largest conglomeration of all my friends, cars and partying wrapped up in 4 days. I say it every time, but it well and truly is the best place to be if you love cars and motorsports and sharing that passion with friends old and new.
At this point we've gotten into the rhythm of loading the car up in the trailer and planning out how to exist for 4 days pack into a track like sardines. However, as usual doing this as "just a bunch of dudes" has it's struggles.
The before struggle was that I had 2 sets of 18in wheels that were supposed to be here before this event, however we knew it was going to be tight. Lady luck decided to fall on the opposite side of the fence as desired and I was stuck with no wheels a few days before we needed to have the car in the trailer. After having a lack of tire at the event two weeks prior, I REALLY didn't want to use an old set of tires, and I also REALLY didn't want to buy a new set of tires for 17in wheels. Luckily I have amazing friends, and I was able to borrow of a set of 18in wheels that would fit the bill. Enter stage left, Motegi Track Lights, or as I like to call them, Track Heavies. My friend had an 18x9 set that fit and I bought a set of new tires. My friend mounted em up and we threw em on the car. Unfortunately, the lug nuts I had didn't clear.. so I overnighted a set of Motegi lugs. They fit, but juuuust barely. The clearance of the wheel to a 17mm chrome socket (not the adapter the lugs came with) was barely enough to torque the lugs properly. Whatever, we were already on the struggle bus, so we may as well buckle up.
Funny enough, the car actually looked really nice with the wheels, despite them being not the desired outcome for the event:
While I was under the car, I also dialed the front swaybar back to try to get rid of some understeer, and decided to leave the rear height alone and just adjust the dampers a tad.
Now for the race weekend to begin.
Right off the hop, we struggled to get the trailer out from behind my barn due to a ton of bush/tree/etc growth given the fact it's summer here in Michigan, and we moved the trailer back behind the barn in September. What should have been a 5 minute trailer pull ended up taking hour a few hours and cost me 1 gutter on the side of my barn. It's not that we were stupid, it's just that we are dumb. We got the trailer just a bit wedged trying to clear the tight space on the side of the barn, and the trailer top was hitting my gutter where the bottom of the trailer had tons of room. We ended up being really dumb and using some ramps on one side of the trailer to bring it up to get the top away from the building. Later on we'd come to realize we should have put the load leveling bars on to keep the trailer level instead of trying to be lazy and dragging it the 50 feet. Either way, we had it out and ready to load up the car, and if anyone ever asks us what happened that night... hopefully they don't ever read this journal post.
We had some time in the morning as we didn't need to be in line, to wait in line, to wait in another line at the track until ~10am. Drive was leisurely and nice with the only downside being I didn't use the bathroom before we left, so the culmination of night before beer, and morning Red Bull left me limping to a Walmart bathroom after having to pee quite bad for an hour. These are the struggles no one ever thinks racing ever brings... or maybe that one is just me.
The weather for the weekend was basically just HOT, and we were already experiencing that after doing the whole jazz routine of getting our wrist bands and being sent to a spot on grid. It was already 85 F or so out, and was only going to be hotter as the weekend went on. We did luck out and get the most amazing spot right at the top of grid with all of our friends next to us. Not something that is typical at at Festival. We got the new number cards (not shown in photo) and lots of contingency stickers and my crew (read: friends) got to work putting them on the car. It was WAY too hot for the soft vinyl and was a real bear to put on.. but anything would look better than my sharpie #2 job.
Next we played the waiting game as it was ~12 and we didn't race until 4:45 or so.
First session out was kind of a mixed bag as it was the first time with the new competition format, as well as half of the cars not there yet. I ended up sitting on grid for ~45 minutes suited up in 90 F weather. I was hot. Getting on track with the new tires, the car immediately had SO much more grip. I threw down a 1:45.543, righto on pace with my fastest time ever. I was really excited to see what the rest of the weekend would bring, however also a bit suspect because once the drift cars start to throw everything on to the track the next day it was a crapshoot as to what the surface would feel like.
With the new format, these were also Practice sessions. No times counted towards competition points, though it was set your place on grid for Qualifying sessions.
We ran again a dusk, I don't know what the times were.. but I knew that everything has HOT. I needed a beer and food. We got the grill going, and set up some lights around our little campsite.
It being Thursday night meant that a lot of the festival GA people weren't around, so we didn't explore a whole lot. I think we did one walk around GA and to my surprise it was quite full for it being Thursday. The entire group seemed to stay around the firepit we had brought, though unsurprisingly no one wanted to light up. Luckily, we found a new use for it. Without anything inside of it, the firepit made a very satisfying DING sound when you threw an empty beer can at it upon finishing it. New game found. As the night went on, the clear night was beautiful to look at, and in between the sounds of old BMWs trying to idle, pit bikes, and firepit DINGs we blathered on for a while before calling it an early night.
I was awoken bright and early at 7am to a very loud Hyundai marketing video blarring from their big booth. I don't know about you, but 7am is too early for "DRIVING INNOVATION AND PASSION WITH EVERY BOLT" or whatever Hydunai says they do.
Friday was the same same, lots of racing, drift cars ruining the circuit, sweating through entire shirts and staying at my pace of ~1:45. I was going a lot faster in some places, but cars kept blowing up and oiling the track down or sliding off the track causing black flags. Normal festival stuff. Friday is also where GA started to show up, and LOTS of people were there. We got to do the Gridlife Drift/Grip sessions where you get to see how close you can get to the drift cars, and just in general have a TON of fun.
We also started out qualifying sessions and were lined up racing by class. First time only Club TR cars were on the track, and it was a TON of fun. Usually you are just gridded up next to someone close to your lap time, but if that car is in a different class is likely that the way they make the lap time is different than you. A Street class Impreza making 400hp is going to run a 1:45 in a completely different way than a 200hp RX-8. Being on track with on Club TR cars made the laps feel WAY more quality as we were all making our lap times in the same manner. So much fun dancing with BRZs, S2000s and a GR Corolla who's oil drain bolt couldn't manage to stay on.
Off the track, hanging out with fellow RX-8 enjoyers was really, really quality (literally always a good time with ya Dallas!)
Had some more friends show up, and we had a proper tent city going on..
And I don't know what we were doing in this photo, but I sure look goofy after a short downpour...
Friday night was filled with more parting, GA filled to the brim, and some sort of robot toilet sound music on stage. I think some moonshine was involved, but who's really to say?
Saturday morning came around and there were only 2 session for the day unless I was able to make it to the top 5 for the shootout. I wasn't planning on it. I ended up running the fastest time ever in the car Friday morning at a 1:45.492.. which was only my best by a hundredth. The track was super greasy, tons of drift debris on it, and it was HOT out. Not ideal, but I was finally able to get the car to hit that perfect slip angle where max grip was had and could dial the direction with the throttle. Best place to be, even if the surface wasn't cooperating.
Saturday also brought some friends coming in just to hang out with us. I was able to take a buddy out for a ride in the Taxi sessions and he was able to experience the RX-8 on track. I also go to throw my other friend (who was driving the GC Impreza) in the passenger seat for similar fun. For the love of motorsports, you really need to attend a Gridlife Festival!
Towards the end of the day I got to watch the Top 5 shootout and see Dallas take 2nd place after some stuggle. Super stoked for him, super stoked for my time, super stoked for taking friends out for rides, we all gathered around the grill, made some burgers and chicken and drank some shandies. My buddy then arranged to get the RX-8 on the Gridlife dyno for me, something I had been trying to do for a while but never could find the time at an event. We pulled the bumper off and drove it over to the dyno. After the first initial pull to 10k RPM, we had gathered a bit of a crowd... lots of GA brohiems asking if they could get their car dyno'd and the guys running the dyno giving them the "yeah, but also no" answer. Either way, car made the expected power and confirmed the known that I was down ~30hp compared to other cars in the class.
First time I ever had a car on a dyno too, always a fun experience!
Saturday night we did our usual track walk while all the balloon lickers rocked out listening to music. The stage and lights makes for a really pretty site on top of the hill exiting turn 3. Then we went back to the GA area to play beer pong, only have a terrible interaction with the awwful RTR drift guys which ended in them flipping out table and telling my friend "it was cool here's money for it". Dickbags, the lot of them.
Got to see so many friends and chat about racing and aliens and everything in between. I think we went to bed at 3am... no regrets.
The morning came once again with the sounds of "BUILT BY PASSION, FOR PASSION" from Hyundai and this time it took a little longer to wake up. We had one last dash session in the morning for us to try to improve from places 6 and below. I ran pretty okay, but the track was so oily it was tough to gain speed. The session ended abruptly and with some adrenaline built up after a BRZ smashed the wall in T11 a car and a half ahead of me. I had to dodge the Cayman that was right in from of me panic braking, as well as the slew of debris thrown across the race track while the BRZ rebounded from the wall into the grass on the opposite side of the track. You never want to see it, and the driver was okay, but it was a great sign to throw the car in the trailer and go aid my friends getting started on their HPDE sessions for the weekend.
Helped my friend gain some confidence in taking his MR2 out on the track for the first time, and watched some other friends put down more laps. We loaded up and were on the way back home by 4:30. Amazing Midwest for sure. Probably the most fun I've had at an event to date.
After debouncing, getting some rest and finally getting the car on the lift almost a WEEK after the event, I was extremely happy with tire wear, brake pad wear, and just the stability of the car in general. Bushings and a good alignment really made this car easy to drive... now I just need to get more driver mod. I think I was muscle memoried into the pace.. need a big shakeup to break that mold and go faster.
I did end up 16th, so straight dead midpack.. which is where I have always sort of ended up. Adding a bit of time and being in the same spot is a win.. but I'd really like to see me get further up in the midpack. There's time to be had, and I know I can find it. My complacency with being in the mid pack is what is holding me back from being faster, but is also what is making doing all of this fun. Trying to maintain that fun level while going faster is critical to me. We will see what the future brings.
entirely sincere comment even though I may be potentially judged and labeled the same ; it’s really a matter of priorities.
If you’re serious about improving then you might consider not staying up all night playing beer pong and instead laying off the booze and going to bed early for a good nights sleep before race day. I’ve been guilty of same myself and it was only after taking some time away that it became clear to me. Occasionally you’ll meet someone who can pull it off; there are always exceptions, but not most people and it only limits their potential.
Which is the only reason I bother to mention it. Which not everyone handles an elevated alcohol level the same either. Some cry, some sing, some are cool, and some get angry easily and do stupid stuff as a result. All of which might be the complete opposite of who they are when sober. Their actions at the moment might reflect the words used, but not necessarily the person(s) their self.
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Hey, I ran into you at Midwest! I just got my RX8 and had come by your paddock and we talked for a bit (not sure if you remember),but was glad to find your thread here after I started to dig into the forums. Glad to see this one isn't dead.
Hey, I ran into you at Midwest! I just got my RX8 and had come by your paddock and we talked for a bit (not sure if you remember),but was glad to find your thread here after I started to dig into the forums. Glad to see this one isn't dead.
While I had no complaints about the RPF1s and a cheaper tire budget, moving to a bit smaller sidewall and wider wheel with more brake clearance seemed to be the best move. My order for these had been in with a friend's wholesale business startup since March and got delivered with a day to spare before racing.. more on that in a sec..
Goals with wheels: stiffer sidewall, little more tire "stretch", and a lot more brake clearance. I'd say the goals were achieved.
The weight addition should be able to be reduced with brake component to come... eventually. I didn't have time to weigh wheel/tires before they went on the car but I will update when I get out to the garage a bit later and weigh em.
Another fun fact: While driving up on the way to get the tires swapped on to the wheels the day before the car went on a trailer, I was able to secure a deposit on a GR Corolla Circuit (at MSRP)
ASM Test and Tune - Autobahn Country Club - June 23, 2023
Test and tune day in prep for the Gridlife Chicago event. My buddy and I dual drove the car for a total of 10 sessions during the day. It was hot, >80 for most of the day, and the car did fantastically. It was really nice to be able to dial in dampers and tire pressures before competition sessions, as well as take passengers out for proper runs in the RX8. I think almost everyone in our crew managed to cycle in and out of the car with various drivers.
My best time for the day was a 1:38.8, which was already faster than I've ever run there before, and this was with passengers! My buddy did manage almost a second gap on me in the cooler morning weather running the car without a passenger at a 1:37.3. Looked amazing for some solid improvement in timed sessions in the coming weekend. It was also really nice to have an outside perspective on the car on track, and seeing what it did. We both seemed to be dealing with some on brake understeer, and we tried upping rear tire pressure to get the front end to rotate more as we were out of swaybar adjustment on each. It didn't really seem to help.
Looking at our data next to each other, friend' line in orange, it was OBVIOUS the car had a ton of time in it, but had to be able to string it all together myself in the coming days. I did see a 1:36.9 on my AIM one session, however I was being plagued with the same fuel cutting issues I ran into at the track last year. We were able to figure out what fuel % the car needed to be at for it not to happen, which was unfortunately ~25% more than I typically run. Best to get these things sorted when you're not being officially timed.
No video since my GoPro decided it wanted to be a GoPro and not record much, and trying to keep a car prepped for multiple drivers with 20 minutes in between.. I managed to take like 2 photos:
Because my friend hauled the car out there, and had a full vehicle, I was able to drive my Mini out to the track behind it! Super useful to have a random car for everyone to use at the track. No having to mess about with the tow vehicle.
Gridlife Chicago - Autobahn Country Club - June 24 - 25, 2023
Rolling right into the Gridlife event from the ASM day had its benefits, and also its downsides. Being a little bit worn out from already running the car hard in the hot only to do it again in hotter weather was doing to be a slight challenge, but on the plus side I was already full of water and Gatorade along with a liberal coating of sunscreen. With temperatures looking to be in the mid to high 90s ambient, the Saturday and Sunday morning sessions were going to be the fastest of the weekend, and everyone knew it.
Hopped in the car for the normally chaotic first session while everyone figured out there pace, and I did just that. Ran a 1:38.6, which was great for gridding me up with other similarly paced cars. In the next session though, I did notice my outright pace was much faster than those in front, with the exception of the straight sections.. this lead to the annoying ping pong of being in traffic, but then also not being in traffic... and watching the mirror, but then not getting passed. Worst place to be in during time attack sessions because the only way you can get out of that rhythm is to scrub 2 laps worth of time to get space. No worries, we dropped another 3 tenths to a 1:38.307.
Last session out on Saturday, the IAT reading was reading anywhere from 35C to 40C and it was what felt like the longest TA session I've ever had in my life. I gave the car 100% and there was just not time to be had. Managed to match my last session time, but trying to run a lot laps only for the entire car to get hot and the tires to grease up was near impossible.
I was satisfied with the times that session, however about halfway through the final cooldown lap before pit in, I could feel my body turning into white noise TV static, and my vision getting tunneled. Hurray, I am heat exhausted! I've passed out from heat exhaustion before, but I was positive I would be able to make it back to the pits. My goal was to just ditch the car in hot pits and get the hell out of this fire suit and go from there. Pulling into hot pits I think I was able to reject some heat and figured I'd make it back to my paddock spot. Glad I did because I was greeted by my friends and they are all asking how the session was.. but the only thing I could manage to get out was "NEED WATER". I slithered out of my seat in the car and ripped off my firesuit and such and sat in a chair under my easy up for a good 30 minutes slowly adding water to myself.
I had really, really forgotten about the human factor in racing that last session out. Car can be great, but if the driver isn't... it's gonna be a problem. I am glad the situation didn't escalate.
Feeling like a human again we grabbed some dinner, and decided to venture off to the karting track that was running arrive and drive sessions. I had never done the karts at Autobahn and I glad someone suggested them. Loads of fun, and you can launch yourself over a curb, catch some air, and litter the whole track with dirt debris so that right turns in that section literally don't happen... allegedly. I think we had 8 people in our group, and we shared the track for a few with others. Set a number 9 top time for the week, yeehaw.
10/10 would use a karting track as a post racing activity, especially if it is 400 feet down the road.
During the night, we had a pretty gnarly storm blow through. I was worried it would still be wet for the morning session on Sunday, but as it would turn out the only thing left that was wet was my sleep pad in my tent. Good thing this was the last overnight...
Temps had dropped to ~80F ambient in the morning and sessions started at 8:30am. I figured this would be the fastest session, I so went out and ran a 1:37.8. Super satisfied with this time, and I was just going to run one more session to see if we could improve.. but not expecting to as ambient temps rose again by 11. I ended up just running some laps trying some new things, trying to trailbrake more than I usually would into some places to try to fight the on brake understeer I was still dealing with, and it was a really good learning experience for myself. I wasn't going faster, but was pretty much on pace.. and it's a good thing I didn't run faster because I ended the last lap with a pretty nonchalant 4 off after a big slide into T1 trailbraking and coming in a bit too hot. Per the new TA rules, a 4 off would invalidate my previous laps. and this being the last lap before checkered meant that I had no more time to put a lap down. No big deal, but things to consider.
Loaded the car up, went home without much sacrifice on day 2 and the car (and driver) lives to race another day.
Will post up results when I see them online.. I managed another solid midpack placement as per usual.
hate to bring it up again knowing it’s a sore point for you, but going to again suggest that you extend the outer sides of the rear bumper cover down with proper supporting rather than it being completely open like that
rear diffusers are effective for a reason … chaotic airflow is never good regardless of who else is doing it. It can even be the difference between losing the rear end at speed … or not.
hate to bring it up again knowing it’s a sore point for you, but going to again suggest that you extend the outer sides of the rear bumper cover down with proper supporting rather than it being completely open like that
rear diffusers are effective for a reason … chaotic airflow is never good regardless of who else is doing it. It can even be the difference between losing the rear end at speed … or not.
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What you're seeing is an attempt to reduce pressure under the rear of the car, and stop the bumper itself from being a 'parachute'. In a class where you're not allowed to ADD things to the car except wing and splitter but are allowed to cut the bumper, it's an effective modification.
More about drag reduction than rear downforce.
Last edited by Tacit.Blue82; 07-03-2023 at 07:48 AM.
you didn’t fully grasp my reason, focus on the last sentence. It’s not so much downforce, but how the body surface can be used to help control the chassis under certain conditions. Dirt circle track sprint cars use large end plates on the RH side of the wing not so much as an end plate, but to help catch the chassis after they pitch it into the LH turn relative to the air flow moving past that side of the chassis. There are subtleties involved beyond what I’m stating that possibly aren’t being fully considered …. which again, the reference is the sides of the rear bumper, not the center part
I had posted a pic of it way back in this thread; center part removed (the section contributing drag) with the sides still in place and supported against flexure.
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Ah understood. I do agree there there is some benefit to that side force in stability, but I don't think it has the magnitude of effect that you're really describing here.
There is benefit to evacuating air behind the wheels as well so it's a give and take.
I'll rest here and let the man have his thread back.
sometimes, trapping the air and creating a bubble is better for flow. like in a truck tailgate open vs closed. so you really cant say for sure what cutting rear bumper would do unless you do CFD analysis.
i hacked my bumper but didn't go that crazy. it's about eye level with the chassis (anything above the chassis you wont gain much unless you cut the chassis), and the way it curves up, less disruptive air flow.
04-21-2023, 06:21 PM
; it’s really a matter of priorities.
