[6/03/2012] CSCS #1 (TMP)

Event: Canadian Sports Compact Series #1
Track: Toronto Motorsports Park, Cayuga
Weather Conditions: 13-16°C mix of rain and sunshine

With a last minute change to the 2012 CSCS rules I was scrambling to get some 200 treadwear tires for street class. Chris @ TougeTuning was able to hook me up with some 235/40/17 StarSpecs two days before the event and my buddy Ken helped me mount them the night before. Talk about last minute! Thanks guys!

Normally I stop by the Petro at Ancaster on Wilson & Fiddler's the morning of, but my friends wanted to meet somewhere "closer and on the way". I agreed to meet them at the Sunoco in Stoney Creek but to my demise it turned into a Husky. I told them it was a bad idea trying a new fuelling spot on the day of an event but they were convinced I'd be fine. So that kinda threw my morning off a bit, but luckily because of the poor morning weather it wasn't that busy. A spot in the paddock was actually easy to find, omg!

Open Lapping Practice
Lapping was staggered, 20 minutes experienced, 20 minutes novice. I was in the experienced group and and set off to find my tire pressures. I started at 36 PSI warm all around and ended up with them at 44 PSI hot. They felt really greasy on the track so I backed them down to 39 PSI hot for the day and eventually left them at that. This year is about driving more and worrying less about setups. I had my dampers set to +16 front/rear but I feel I could've used a bit more stiffness since the car was wobbling a bit through T1. Next time I'll try +20.

I did 4 practice sessions but missed a few because I wanted to take some time to check out the booths and catch up with some friends. It was raining during some of the runs so I opted to sit out for those runs to avoid an unforced disaster. I think I prefer SRTA's open lapping practice better, where you can take your time and go out whenever you're ready. Although with 50% more cars at CSCS I understand that this is done to regulate traffic. HANSON schools run this way anyway so I'm kind of used to it by now.

StE's forged rims paid off big time as the left chicain (T8) had a big pot hole in front of it. Most people, including myself, cut this chicaine really hard on the left. I believe AlmostHip blew a tire and KPower bent a rim because of this hole. On one run I hit the hole so hard my wiper switch turned itself on! I actually hit this hole twice so I'm really lucky I didn't damage anything.

Best lap times per practice session:
Session 1 - 1:25.24
Session 2 - 1:24.84
Session 3 - 1:24.60 
Session 4 - 1:24.47 


The brake ducts also worked extremely well. During session 1 I ran with the ducts covered up and noticed a bit of pad fade. But with the ducts open I never experienced any fade whatsoever. No smoking or burnign smells in the pits either. What a relief to have this hot braking issue finally sorted (although StE still thinks I brake too much lol). Thank you Can-Jam and Randy Zimmer! 


For lap timing I was using an AiM Solo DL that I picked up from the SRTA webstore (yes, they sell stuff now!). I love the AiM products because they are so straight forward to set up and use. All I had to do was stand by the start/finish line on the pit-wall and hit the "OK" button to set the GPS marker. The lap timer turns on with the car and once you drive by the market it starts the lap times. CSCS was using the MyLaps RFID system (same one as SRTA) and I found my lap times to be within a tenth of second all day long. The MyLaps system kept giving me the (slightly) faster lap times. 


This year CSCS has taken the hint and staged the heats for us. They had staff staging the cars from slowest to fastest in heats of 5. Live timing was supposed to be available on a TV but we never saw one during the day. Instead, they were made available on paper printouts for us to check, or through cell phones at www.livetiming.net/cscs if you managed to get data reception (which I didn't). Still, this is a tremendous improvement over last year, which pretty much made CSCS broken in my opinion. I'm really glad they fixed this and look foreward to more improvements for event #2 in Grand Bend.

Regarding the open lapping qualifying - talk about a close battle! KPower and I were duking it out all day long and we kept swapping positions. Final times were within a couple thousandths. Definitely tons of fun, Thanks Kyle! Did you notice I was taking messed up lines when you were behind me so as not to reveal anything? Lol j/k I didn't do that... or did I? ;)
Official Time Attack
The thing I like the most about the CSCS rules is the chance to put down 3 hot laps (unlike SRTA's 2 hot laps). That 3rd hot lap makes such a big difference because it usually takes at least that many laps to get tires up to temp. At SRTA before the timed runs you always hear people freaking out about changing tire pressures last minute, but at CSCS there's none of that. CSCS runs more cars and gives more laps. SRTA guys take note! A (rare) Kaizen opportunity!

I qualified for the 8th heat of the day and everyone in my group was running 1:24's (including KPower). We were staged beside each other actually.

My runs went well. No drama and fairly clean laps. I didn't have any big screw ups but I didn't particularly feel overly satisfied with any of the laps either. Room for improvement definitely exists and looking over the footage I can already tell which areas need work. Still, I managed to pull out a new personal best of 1:24.038 and take home 1st place in a small Street AWD class.
I only managed to beat my previous personal best by 0.2 seconds after switching to a stickier street tire. I think this is the reason I felt only mildly satisfied with that new time. People have told me that the StarSpecs get grippier as the tread gets shaved so I hope they're right.

But overall I'm very happy with my results. Nothing broke, no major off-roading, new personal best and a trophy to boot. The only thing I really need to focus on now is driving better. Let's have more weekends like this please :)

See you at SRTA #2 at Mosport DDT this Sunday! Do I smell 1:08's? ;)

Roo Ducts Installed

28°C today and hot hot hot! Good thing I have working brake ducts now ;)

I had the specialists at Can-Jam Motorsports install my Roo Ducts for a guaranteed flush result. A bit of difficulty on the left side due to the placement of the washer bottle but they were able to figure that out by angling the roo duct a bit lower to accommodate. We used 3" rubber couplers in the fog light area for a "quick disconnect" between the covers. Works surprisingly well. Very happy with their work.

We also flushed the system with RBF660. I'm hoping that this is the nail in the coffin for my brake heat issues. Bring it on summer heat 8)

Battle mode:

Cruising mode:

[4/29/2012] Shakedown (TMP)

Event: Open Lapping Day 
Track: Toronto Motorsports Park, Cayuga
Weather: 5°C Sunny (morning), 14°C Sunny (afternoon)

Glad I had a shakedown day to figure things out. Weather was great! Sunny all day, high of 14°C and some slightly gusty winds.

There are some things that need to be adjusted or fixed before the next track day:
Coilover right rear seat adjuster rubbing on Oswald brace
CV boot (repair actually held up!)
Alignment

To bring next time:
Tools
Sunscreen! I'm a lobster

Driving Technique
I managed to bribe a very experienced driving instructor to come along with me and here were his comments on my driving:

1. I'm using too much brakes. Instead of slamming on them 100% and upsetting the car, quickly work up to 80% a little earlier and roll off the brakes while turning in to the apex. He said that even during qualifying he doesn't use as much brakes as me. If I were in a real race I would cook them for sure. 
2. Work on maintaining momentum through turns. By modulating the brakes better it should help reduce chopping too much entry speed.
3. Apply throttle sooner on exits and use fast pedal/steering inputs to make corrections. Need higher actions per minute with all my limbs... must play more StarCraft! 
4. Eyes need to be looking ahead to the apex ALL the time. Immediately after that start thinking about the next turn. Rinse and repeat. Never lose focus with the eyes, even if wonky shit is going on down below. Look at where you want to go and the car will follow. 
5. Stop using the cones as reference points. Some of them are just wrong and you need to think for yourself on what the best approach is. I also heard that the cones at TMP might not even apply to cars as they mostly host bike/SOAR track days. 
6. With my driving style I have a tendency to take too many late apexes (in general). Try to turn in shallower and use more of the curbing wherever possible. This will also help maintain momentum. Stop making up turns. Just because there's track width doesn't mean you have to use it. Try to keep going in a straight line with the biggest curves possible. 

Part Reviews
Oswald Subframe/Rear Triangle Braces
I had a lot more feedback through the steering wheel/seat while driving. I'm sure part of it is me becoming more in-tune with the car but more likely also due to the bracing. I can feel which end of the car is going to slide out a lot earlier than I used to and thus I'm able to make corrections sooner. I recovered from a pretty vicious AWD drift that was pretty surprising! Unfortunately the right rear strut top brace is contacting a small bur on my damper knob. Nobody had a file at the track to solve this stupid little issue! Wasted 30 minutes of track time figuring this out at the track. Gotta fix this one day.

Oswald/Antigravity Lightweight Stuff
Weight reduction makes a big difference. How big? Just by driving solo vs. with a 130 lb passenger I was able to cut 1 second off my lap time without changing my driving. I'm sure removing all that weight also made my brakes happier!

StopTech ST-40 Big Brake Kit / KFP Gold Pads
Lots of braking force up front. Their marketing states that the foreward bias is the same as stock but I feel that may not be true anymore after using them. The front gets a bit squirmy under hard braking but that's likely due to my technique as well (see above). Consistency is significantly improved. I now have confidence that I'll actually have brakes for the next turn! With the heavy braking due to my technique I was still only able to fade my KFP Gold pads just a little after about 4+ hot laps. Maybe I lost about 25% braking force but never more than that. The fade came on gradually and never caught me off guard like it did with my 4-pots, where it would just drop off a cliff. I just had to adjust my braking points a little and the fade would subside after a cool down Lap. Mind you this is on less grippy street tires vs. R-compounds last year, and on a 13°C day. I think the Roo Ducts would be the cherry on the top for braking consistency. I'm looking forward to reviewing them at my next TMP day.

JDM Spec-C V9 Seats
Way more bolstering than the stock WRX seats! My left leg didn't have any signs of cramping like it did last year and it's evident from my interior GoPro footage that the seat hugs my frame way better! The biggest downside to these seats, as with any other OEM seat, is the weight. They weigh around 50-60 lbs which is a TON compared to aftermarket buckets that weigh 10-15 lbs each. Although you do lose adjustability and side airbags which is pretty huge for a daily driver. Driving all day in them didn't tire out my back or legs like my old seats did. The 2.5 hour commute each way to TMP was much more bearable.


Falken FK-452 Tires (225/45/17)
Driving on my street tires was actually a lot of fun and I was able to learn a lot! Despite having less overall grip, the audible feedback was nice to have and they broke traction in a more gradual fashion than R-comps which tend to let go without much warning. The FK-452's performed much better than I was expecting. Sure they got a little greasy but only when pushing them really hard like 5+ laps. They didn't look melted afterwards like most street tires either! The downside is the howl like a banshee during regular driving now (mostly during braking). 


Other Comments 

• I spent zero time playing with settings today. Dampers were +12F/R and tire pressures 38/33 psi F/R. The focus was on learning the line and practicing certain sections of the track one session at a time.
• I noticed I was much more calm about driving this year. This is evident from my in-car footage. Last year I had a death grip on the steering wheel! This year I look a bit more relaxed. 
• Putting in brake pads the day before and not having to swap tires at the track makes the day way more enjoyable! I think the minor wear from the commute is worth the hassle at the track.

Lap Times 

• My best time last year was 1:28.44 on RA-1's 
• Best lap times throughout sessions were: 1:28.45, 1:27.07, 1:26.95, 1:25.98, 1:25.28, and a new personal best of 1:24.21 on my final run without any passengers (see video) 

 TITTYWOV

I'm looking forward to at least one more practice session before my first time attack. We'll see if I can get some laps in at SRTA #1 or maybe another regular open lapping day @ TMP.

Whiteline RCK & NV Auto Alignment

Whiteline Roll Center Adjustment Kit

This weekend I had my friend Ken help me install the Whiteline Roll Center Adjustment Kit on my car which I picked up from Touge Tuning a while back.

The roll center is an imaginary point in space around which the chassis rolls. This point is usually a couple inches off the ground on a stock car. Lowering the car on lowering springs or coilovers moves this roll center closer to the ground, or sometimes even beneath it (it's just an imaginary point in space, remember).

Having such a low roll center has the negative side effect of adding more body roll (think of a larger lever) and adding bump steer. Bump steer means that when the suspension is compressed and the wheels move upward, they will have a tendency to steer themselves outward (toe out). In other words it adds rolling understeer.

As you can see from the diagram above, the roll center is determined by the angles at which the lower control arms sit. The Whiteline RCK corrects this angle closer to the factory setting by providing longer ball joints and tie rod ends that force the control arm back into a parallel position to the ground.

After installing it the car will need an alignment. We tried to do one ourselves but failed miserably due to some seized bolts. With shakedown this weekend at TMP that meant I needed an alignment ASAP. My local shop, CanJam, was out all week testing so I decided to ask NV Auto considering their solid reputation.

Alignment 

Dov @ NV Auto was able to help me out and get me an alignment in less than 24 hours! I'm glad I found another reputable shop I can count on when I need something done. It was a bit of a drive out from east Markham but worth it in the end.

I decided to go with -3° front camber due to not having enough last year at -2°. I knew I didn't have enough -'ve camber by how my front tires were wearing relative to the rear. The outsides would wear down at a much faster rate than the inside of the tire, and I had to keep swapping them to the rear for the next track day. Tire temps also confirmed this by the outside of the tire consistently being 4-6° hotter than the inside after cool down lap. Finally, in some of my GoPro footage you can see the tire rolling over (and this was after installing 24mm front/rear swaybars).

They had to use camber bolts in the front to achieve the -3° because my camber plates were installed diagonally for the sake of caster. +6° caster ftw.

In the rear, I decided to stick with -1.5 degrees because tire wear and tire temps were even. Zero toe all around because I daily drive my car. 


Bdon's Track Tip: If you're trying to sort out your suspension, try to record as much information as you can after every session on the track. I wouldn't have known what alignment settings to start out with this year if I hadn't taken notes last year. Even if you don't have a tire pyrometer you can use GoPro footage or just visual cues from the wear marks. I've heard using chalk to mark the sides of the tires is also a good indicator. I'll upload my track data template for anyone to use once I find it... (EDIT: uploaded it!) 


Corner Weights

NV Auto threw my car on their scales just for the hell of it. I didn't have my car corner balanced there, just a regular alignment. Although I did have the car previously corner balanced at CanJam in 2010. The corner weights looked really good. The 3.2 lb Antigravity battery really helped even out the LF.

Total weight was 2987 lbs without driver, 3/8 fuel tank, full washer fluid, all the interior bits and my street wheels! I'm guessing without the back seats and my forged track rims on will be another ~50 lbs in savings. I secretly wanted my car to be under 3000 lbs this year with 1/2 tank of gas and in track trim, so I think I've definitely exceeded that goal! :D

[4/21/2012] HANSON School (DDT)

Stopped by Mosport this morning to say hi to a few friends at the Hanson school. It makes me really happy to see Suby attendance WAY up this year!!! Good stuff guys, and gal :) I'm no longer the only one who wants to become a better driver!

Unfortunately some car problems for Razlin and my buddy Mike :( It's always heart breaking to see it happen, especially on Subys. Best of luck to you guys in fixing your cars and let me know if there's anything I can do to help.

Oswald Rear Bumper Beam

Jenny Craig on my Suby continued tonight with installation of the Oswald Rear Bumper Beam.

This install was a bit more of a PITA. The main annoyance was the charcoal canister getting in the way of one of the 17mm bumper bolts and having to undo a ton of things like the tail lamps, license plate harness, etc. There are even some rivets you need to drill out but "luckily" my rear end got smashed a few years ago and the idiot truck driver actually saved me some work; none of the rivets were left on my car lol.

The rear bumper beam weighs 7 lbs vs. the stock 28 lbs. I also got another dirty little piercing to match the front one I also went ahead and ditched the spare tire and jack for another good 31 lbs (comes out at the track anyway).

Removal of the 60+ lbs from the front end really made a huge difference driving around today. Since most of the weight was at the part of the car with the highest polar moment of inertia, the effects were immediately noticed even during regular cornering. There is less push/understeer/dive and the car feels more "point and shoot". Even acceleration and braking seems to have improved by a noticeable amount. I noticed it especially just rolling around between stop signs.

I'm now glad I did these mods despite their somewhat high price. I wouldn't place them ahead of things like swaybars or Stage 2, but they're definitely something to consider when trying to go faster. I would take weight reduction over HP any day because it helps with side to side as well as braking.

Now the outstanding problem is my damper setup. The BC's harsh ride are becoming more apparent due to the weight reduction. Less weight = higher natural frequency = uncomfortable. I'm also hoping I didn't make the rear end too light so that it becomes twitchy, but I guess I'll find out tomorrow.

Weight reduction so far:
- Lightweight battery 28 lbs
- Subframe 14 lbs
- Front bumper beam 22 lbs
- Rear bumper beam 21 lbs
- StopTech BBK ?? lbs (lighter than 4-pots)
- Forged track wheels 15-20 lbs
TOTAL: 100+ lbs

Oswald Front Bumper Beam

Weather was good today so put on the Oswald Front Bumper Beam.

Another straight forward install of re & re bumper beam. Stock weighs 28 lbs, new one weighs 6 lbs. Also got a nice nose ring too ;)

Didn't have time to test drive but will feel it out tomorrow morning and report back.

The 40 lbs of weight I shed this weekend was very noticeable on my commute to/from work. The front end recovers from bumps quicker and I'm getting a lot more feedback from the steering wheel during cornering. Since I haven't changed damper settings I even noticed a slight increase in the amount of rebound from the reduced front end mass.