The thread of discussing my stupid cars and how I waste my

[Drift]

dude, thats amazing! how did you get into cars? wish I had the money to do stuff like that.

[Mirage]

I've been looking through this thread from the first page now and many of the pictures are broken

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Hey drift, my family has always been into cars, so I just grew up with it. It's certainly not cheap, but the best suggestion I can make is to start by doing all the work you can yourself. Invest in tools and knowledge. You can also start with things like small autocross and gymkhana events where you can run your street car with very very minimal investment, or just volunteering. There's plenty of amateur race teams out there looking for a helping hand, and probably wouldn't mind showing you the ropes. Also the clubs themselves need volunteers constantly to run the flag stations, grid, tech shed, and other areas. We live and die by our workers! It can introduce you to the atmosphere and the events and let you see if it's really something you enjoy being around.

Sorry Mirage. I didn't think anyone really cared about going back through the thread, so I'm flattered. I think I fixed most of the links for you.

[Slothy]

smurf yeah, racing!

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Hey remember when I raced? Still do!

So here's a team update.

Back in the beginning of March we took dad's car to an event at Virginia International Raceway (VIR).

We'd spent the off months doing some more development on his car, and it was running quite strong. So we drug it up to the track, and on the first session out it started running poorly during the first lap.

So we packed it in and drove home. Turns out it was some sort of internal failure in the car's computer. So dad built the car a new computer, and we uploaded the turn for.....

...the next race at the end of March.

I'll just copy what I put on the ol' website.

The Friday test day proved to be a wise precaution, as the FProd provided a few more teething issues in the form have rain tire fitment problems and the development of a wiring short in the cranking circuit that resulted in it needing a new starter and new power supply wire.

Saturday qualifying went well for the ITA car, as Joe Bryan placed third in class. However, different tires were used during the race. Due to their age, the tires performed very poorly leaving Joe Bryan well off his pace set during qualifying. Eventually the front left tire developed a flat, and he retired early.

Saturday qualifying went well for Henry, but the new computer would only allow the engine to rev to around 6,500 rpm. This hurt Henry's qualifying performance, as the car is meant to be shifted at 8,000 rpm, so he was leaving plenty of power on the shelf. Before the race, the new ECU was removed and the hardware adjusted to allow the internal sensors to maintain/register the RPM signal up to the car's 8,000 rpm limit. With his car finally running well, Henry set a good pace and was working his way through the field when there was contact with a slower car he was passing. Both vehicle's received moderate suspension damage and finished the race off the pace.

The crew worked hard in the evening to replace the front brakes on the ITA car, and repair the suspension damage to the FProd.

For Sunday qualifying, the ITA car needed to bed in it's brand new brakes, but still managed to qualify a respectable 2nd. Joe Bryan had a great start to the race, and managed to catch the 1st place car in his field within the opening laps. From there, he drove it home for the class win.

Henry's FProd still had some minor alignment issues after the previous day's contact, and his qualifying time's were slower than desired. Adjustments were made to the car before the race, and the results showed. Henry set a good strong pace, and brought home the class win.

Unfortunately, the only video of the weekend is of the Saturday ITA qualifying session. Most of the time was spent heat cycling the tires, but you can still see the track. A big thank you goes out to Ashton Bourbonnais, George Cummings, and Schuyler Hidde, our invaluable crew for the event. They kept us on track, focused, and helped record valuable information in cold weather the whole weekend.

Like I said, the only video is a little bit of me qualifying. It just so happens to be at the same track we always seem to get video at. Sorry.



EDIT: I just noticed I had a picture of my tires. The one that finally went flat naturally decided to give out on me right as I was set up to enter a 95mph turn. I was fighting them the whole race, and it was hilariously bad. I would turn, but the car would just keep going straight.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

We're off to the Jim Stark Double SAARC at Roebling Road raceway.

This time it's just dad's car. We fixed the rest of the bent suspension issues from the last race, so let's hope for no more contact incidents and no more teething problems with car reliability.

Later folks!

[Mirage]

were you actually bumping that guy in the rear in that video? it looked that way

[Pumpkin]

I think they do that to give each other a push or something but I could be wrong

[sharkythesharkdogg]

were you actually bumping that guy in the rear in that video? it looked that way

I think I bumped him once or twice.

If you have speed, but not enough speed to get around the person, you give it to that person. They go faster, they pull you along in the draft. It actually helps with lap times a good bit.

Especially since it's qualifying, I'm not going to try to pass him unless I know it won't slow me down. I can probably help both our lap times by just pushing him along.

[Mirage]

How gentlemanny of you. But doesn't it scratch your paint off?!

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Paint isn't really a huge concern. If the car is too shiny you're too worried about messing up how it looks to get in there and race hard.

Last week I spent part of the afternoon using old gas to get melted tire rubber off the sides of the car that was left there after other cars "leaned" on me in corners.

EDIT: Totally forgot. Took dad's car down for testing on Friday, and it broke during the fourth practice session. This was a driver error, so at least the car seems to finally getting be getting reliable on it's own. It also showed good speed potential.

We'll get the motor torn down and see what all is bent up.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Paint isn't really a huge concern. If the car is too shiny you're too worried about messing up how it looks to get in there and race hard.

Last week I spent part of the afternoon using old gas to get melted tire rubber off the sides of the car that was left there after other cars "leaned" on me in corners.

EDIT: Totally forgot. Took dad's car down for testing on Friday, and it broke during the fourth practice session. This was a driver error, so at least the car seems to finally getting be getting reliable on it's own. It also showed good speed potential.

We'll get the motor torn down and see what all is bent up.

We've been busy with shop related things, but an update!

We figured out what went wrong with dad's car, and it appears it wasn't driver error after all. There's a weak point in the car's throttle that doesn't show up under normal driving conditions. The part had failed a few times in the past, and we created a modified part. It lasted much longer than the factory design, but also eventually failed. So now we've come up with redesign 2.0.

When you start to push the car past the original limits of its design things like this come up.

We didn't quite get dad's car running again before the most recent event, so we only took my car. It handled terribly.

I couldn't get the car to stop sliding around all weekend. If you're sliding, you're not able to get back on the gas transiting through and exiting out of corners. Less time spent accelerating per lap means going that much slower. I qualified third for my first race on Saturday, but I was annoyed because I was around 2-3 seconds a lap slower than I felt I should have been. During the race the car continued to handle worse and worse. I finished fifth in my class and a disappointing 6 seconds a lap off of my typical pace.

No amount of adjustments seemed to get the issue under control, so for the Sunday race I convinced dad to use the car. His was broken, I was tired of fighting with mine, and that way he could have some fun. He had fun, but I could see that the car wasn't doing much better for him. He likes a more nuetral slip angle in a car than I do, so if I didn't like it I knew he wouldn't.

He agrees my car is handling terribly, so it's time to tear into it and see what the hell is wrong. It's very frustrating to work up to a certain pace at tracks only to have unknown variables work against that. We'll get my car sorted out again, it'll just take some work. I don't have to win every time, but I do like to see my personal best get faster. I don't like seeing get much, much slower.

At least his car is running again, and it should be pretty quick. We're dialing his car in.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

Hey this thread still exists.

Here's some shots of the new car we're building. It's about 90% there.

IMG_8963 by Joe Payne, on Flickr

IMG_5524 by Joe Payne, on Flickr

IMG_3738 by Joe Payne, on Flickr

IMG_3737 by Joe Payne, on Flickr

[Slothy]

If only there was any way I could fit in one.

[sharkythesharkdogg]

RX-7s and 3rd gen Miatas have more space, but you'd probably be surprised how much room opens up once you pull everything out of the way and only have a thin racing seat mounted to the floor. Especially once you combine that with the removable steering wheel, and no roof.


EDIT: I forgot we're getting this old warhorse ready to go back out and fight for a customer.

IMG_3023 by Joe Payne, on Flickr