BriK’s Driver Mods and Car Mods

[BriK]

I’ve had my Project Thread on EvoMN for a little while now but, especially with the “season” starting soon, I figured I’d start the thread here as well. Since it’s been up there for a while, the intro posts will be even longer than they were before.
I’ve always liked Project Threads but never thought my car and my “journey” were worth a Project Thread; I’ve always thought my setup was pretty basic with only a few bolt-ons, and the mods have come month-by-month over the course of ownership, as opposed to one or two big builds at a time. That, and I didn’t really have specific goals for myself or the car other than to enjoy the car hobby and have some fun.

Well, I’ve talked to a few people lately about the car and mods and found myself not really remembering everything I have on it or the various changes I’ve gone through, and my goals are getting more specific, so I thought a Project Thread would be a great way to keep of track of my progress and the car’s progress, and maybe provide some useful info along the way.

I have some catching up to do since buying the car in 2009, so forgive the introductory novel.

Background and history
After looking at and driving over 12 different Evos, I bought the car in November of 2009; it’s a 2006 IX MR SE and I bought it with 26,000 miles on it and basically stock—it had tint, a bunch of stereo stuff, a stupid alarm, TBE, matte black MR BBS wheels, Rexpeed CF Type-C lip spoiler, maybe more I can’t remember right now. For all intents and purposes though, it was stock—stock intake, stock tune, suspension, clutch, etc.

When I bought it:





I started by fixing a couple of things I didn’t like-- debadged the rear, CF wrapped the front emblem, blacked out the front and rear sidemarkers, replaced the taillights with JDM VII’s and switched the loud, raspy Tanabe catback for a Perrin Stealth (which I think still is my favorite sounding exhaust for these cars). I put winter tires on the MR BBS wheels, then got new wheels and tires in Spring—I always loved the look of CE28’s but couldn’t afford them, so I went with 18x9.5 Rota DPT’s and Sumitomo HTR ZIII’s.

I eventually added some GTWorx lowering springs on the stock MR Bilsteins, a Nisei LICP, intake, and a conservative tune to 25psi.
Some pics from along the way:




Getting into autocross and progressing
I bought the LICP from Toothy who, at the time, was running autocross and doing extremely well, so I talked to him about getting into the sport. He encouraged me to come out to an event and said he would show me the ropes. I assumed since he was driving an Evo and doing so well, the same would happen for me, so I went to my first event in late 2011.

Before going, I wanted some lighter wheels and stickier tires so I sold the Rota DPT’s and picked up some MR BBS with 255 Star Specs on them. Since I modded the car before getting into autocross, a few of my mods vaulted me into BSP (Evos are now classed in ASP though) which is a very high class in terms of mods/ prep. I did well for my first event; I spun on one run but I finished lower-mid-pack for Raw time, even lower-mid-pack for Index time. I did one more event in 2011 and switched the MR BBS for 17x9 Rota Grids with 255 Star Specs since I wanted a slightly wider wheel. I had the same result as my first event—spun, finished lower-mid-pack in Raw time, and even lower-mid-pack in Index time.

I wasn’t sure how serious I wanted to get with autocross, I wanted to have a fun street car, and I was saving to buy a house so I just did a few more little mods in 2011 and planned to participate in more events in 2012.

Well, we had our first child in May, 2012 so it was hard to justify spending a whole day away from my wife and newborn, so I only got in 3 or 4 events in 2012. Over the year, I did a few more mods, got a little better as a driver, and generally had fun.

Highlights from 2012 include the custom aluminum catback (v-banded to be quiet for daily driving, louder and lighter for autocross), brakes, RSB, my first foray into lightweight batteries, my first foray into strut tower bars, and convincing s1lence to come to some autocross events.

When I started autocrossing, I really thought I needed a really fast car and I would be good just because I had an Evo which was apparently so easy to drive and made every driver look like a star. But as I progressed, I realized the car was much more talented than the driver and I couldn’t take advantage of all the car had.

I also realized I liked autocross but the competitive side of me struggled with not doing well—not even compared to others, but not doing as well as I thought I could. So I made it a 2013 goal to fix the nut behind the wheel.

Some more pics:

[BriK]

2013
Sooooo, for 2013, I decided to de-mod my car for STU class (one rung below ASP), prep it as well as possible for the class, and really work on improving my driving skills. STU brought less power and smaller tires, which lowered the limits of the car and wouldn’t cover up my mistakes as much.

Prepping for STU brought a host of required changes—reverting to stock boost map, no boost control, skinnier tires (max of 245), adding a catalytic converter, stock LICP, etc. While I was at it though, I wanted to make the car as competitive as possible so I didn’t have car prep as an excuse. That brought along some un-required changes.

So, in 2013, I went a little bit more nuts than other years. I did all the mods to be legal for STU, I bought the coilovers Toothy had on his STU car, I bought the wheels and tires cdeutsch had on his STU car, went through a few different strut bar setups to land on the lightest possible, went through a few different battery setups to land on the lightest possible, did the rear diff mod, and a few other little things.

I also made it to a couple more events including an Intermediate Autocross School taught by some National Champions who regularly teach for the SoloPro school. That was the single biggest help—I knew and read all about driving techniques but this showed me and instructed me first-hand on how to actually put them into practice. I knew “slow in, fast out” for the longest time and thought I was putting it into practice but this school really showed me how to do it, how it helped, etc. After that school, I won STU class twice, and started finishing consistently in the top quarter of events as opposed to the middle, all while running on fairly old, worn, and generally considered sub-optimal (with all the hot new tires out) Z1 Star Specs. My best finish was MOWOG 5 where, out of 101 drivers, I finished 10th overall in Raw Time, 23rd on Index, and won STU.

2014
For driver mods, I took part in two GoKart leagues and fared pretty well in each. Both leagues had some tough competition but I was able to post respectable finishes, I got comfortable with passing, I got better at finding the driving line, better at looking ahead, and better at being smooth.

I’ve also started working out again and watching what I eat, so I’ve lost 20 pounds since just before Thanksgiving.

I got a 2012 Focus hatchback in the Titanium trim level as a Daily Driver, meaning the Evo can be louder and more uncomfortable, it’s been parked all Winter, and it means I don’t have deadlines for projects so I can do all my own work.

The coilovers have been sent to HVT (formerly AST USA) for a rebuild, where they’ll also receive new Vorshlag camber plates which add more caster, Torrington bearings, and longer rear springs with the same rate. When the coilovers come back I’ll put them and go for a slightly more aggressive alignment than what I ran last year.

While the coilovers are off, I added a front swaybar adjustment bracket and Whiteline endlinks, and replaced all the hardware with Titanium to minimize unsprung weight and resist corrosion. I also adjusted the rear swaybar to be a bit softer.

I sold my previous set of wheels to Spaz, which were Volk CE28 Time Attacks with Dunlop Z1 Star Specs, and replaced the setup with Volk CE28’s in Bronze, 17x9 +35, with Dunlop Z2’s. I’ve always loved Bronze CE28’s so I had to jump on them; if I was buying new I’d go with 17x9.5 to reduce tire sidewall flex, but the 9” wide wheels served me wheel last year so I’m not complaining.

I’ve also acquired rear bump steer correction bushings, some parts of the data acquisition setup I plan to run, and a different dash gauge pod.

Current setup

Engine
-3” AMSOil air filter
-Vibrant MAF adapter
-Samco intake hose
-Buschur ported and coated O2 housing
-3” downpipe with custom 100-cell cat
-Custom 3” aluminum catback with two aluminum mufflers, terminating at rear axle (has a v-band to connect an axle-back with a third muffler if I want)
-Lithium battery with custom mount
-Cusco Exhaust manifold heat shield with DEI heat shielding underneath
-Mishimoto radiator
-STU tune from RS Motors (stock boost tables)
-CBRE extreme ported and coated exhaust manifold (formerly Curt Brown’s own exhaust mani; to be installed)
-Hood dampers (totally worth putting on a mod list; love these things)

Drivetrain
-Rear Diff Mod by RS Motors
-Works clutch line
-Works shifter base bushings
-Torque Solutions underhood shifter bushings (to be installed)
-Blox Front Motor Mount (to be installed)

Suspension
-AST 5200 double adjustable coilovers
-Vorshlag Camber Plates (to be installed with rebuild)
-Custom alignment
-DC Sports Titanium front strut tower bar
-DC Sports Titanium rear strut tower bar
-RS Trunk Bar
-Whiteline 24mm adjustable rear swaybar
-Perrin adjustable rear endlinks
-Prototype CiroDesign Racing front swaybar brackets
-Whiteline front endlinks

Brakes
-Baer Eradispeed 2-piece rotors front
-GiroDisc slotted 1-piece rotors rear
-Hawk HPS pads
-Grimmspeed Brake Master cylinder brace (pre-production version)

Interior
-TWM Big Type R weighted shift knob
-Binary seat lowering brackets (driver’s side only)
-Custom Alcantara shift boot with red stitching
-Schroth Rallye4 harness (only used for autocross)
-Broadfield Customs 52mm Dash gauge pod (to be installed)
-A couple Prosport Premium Gauges (to be sold and replaced with Defi)
-Buddy Club Low Down seat rails with extra welds to reinforce weak points (to be installed)

Exterior
-Wingless trunk
-JDM Evo VII Tail lights
-CF front emblem
-Debadged rear except for “Evolution MR”
-Blacked out side markers & rear reflectors/ turn signals
-Tint all around (not sure what percent)
-Mini Antenna

Wheels & Tires
-17x9 +35 Volk CE28N
-245 Dunlop Direzza Z2
-Stock MR BBS painted flat black with Continental DWS(winter/ roller setup)

Most current pics I have, which show the old wheels:



2014 Plans
General plans for 2014 are to suck less as a driver, prep the car even more competitively for STU, and drop weight. More specific plans:

Driver mods
-Seat time anywhere I can get it
-As many local autocross events as possible
-Data acquisition and video
-A regional SCCA Solo event and/or SCCA Nationals in Fall

Definite Car mods
-Install parts left to be installed

Possible Car mods
-Front swaybar
-Lighter driver’s seat (looking at Recaro Profi or Recaro Pole Position)

[goodhart]

Since this is a 6 speed, I would hold off on the underhood shifter bushings. The 6 speed cables tend to bind and break (Ask Toothy or myself ) the rubber seems to give them just enough give to not bind as bad. I had them on mine and when I took them out it made it feel so much nicer. They just gave it a notchy feel, felt much smoother once I took them out.

[BriK]

Originally Posted by goodhart

Since this is a 6 speed, I would hold off on the underhood shifter bushings. The 6 speed cables tend to bind and break (Ask Toothy or myself ) the rubber seems to give them just enough give to not bind as bad. I had them on mine and when I took them out it made it feel so much nicer. They just gave it a notchy feel, felt much smoother once I took them out.

Thanks for the tip! I was in no rush or felt no huge need to install them anyway so now I may just let them go.

[BriK]

The car is all back together and ready for the road. I just need to get an oil change and an alignment before I can give it hell.

For alignment, I'm thinking of trying -3.5 front camber, -1.8 rear camber, 1/16" of toe-out in the front, zero toe in the rear; I was at -3.0/ -1.8 and zero toe all around last year. The additional caster from the Vorshlag camber plates will minimize camber gain in corners, so I wouldn't be surprised if I end up with less front camber eventually. I bought some tire marking pens/ crayons and I'll have access to a tire pyrometer so I'll be able to monitor how the tires are responding in addition to going by feel.

I'm going to get the most camber possible from the eccentric bolts, then make up the rest with the camber plates, which should help with caster.

I set the front swaybar bracket to one position stiffer than stock which is 16% stiffer and still uses the stock endlink length (which is 2.75" from center-to-center of each end, BTW). I wanted to and tried to go another position stiffer, which would be 33%, but I couldn't get the endlink into the mounting hole; I justified the softer setting by thinking I didn't really feel like going through the whole process of determining what length the endlink needed to be to reach without preload. We'll see how this feels and go from there.

The "soft-medium" setting I have for the rear swaybar should be 31% stiffer than stock (full soft on the Whiteline is 19% stiffer, medium is 42%, so 31% is the average of the two) so I'm anxious to see how the balance feels.

I set the ride height so the front fender lip is just over 25" from the ground and the rear fender lip is just under 25" from the ground. I tried to set the rear even lower but the adjustment collar was hitting the upper arm at full droop. I never measured but I found that stock height is 26.5" in front and 26" in back, so I'm really close to that same balance/ rake. I also found that some of the last 9's in the European market were slightly lower in the rear at 25.8" which is part of the reason I wanted to go even lower in the rear. I think I'd need to go another full 0.5" lower to clear the rear upper arm, which seems like it'd tuck the rear wheel, so once again we'll see how feels and go from there.

A quick pic with the new wheels and ride height.

[goodhart]

New wheels look pimp!

[BriK]

Some longer updates and edu-ma-cational stuff this time. Bear with me or choose to ignore.

First, I've been dealing with high oil temperatures for a while now-- at least a year and a half-- and I've tried numerous things to solve it but I'm 99.9% positive it's fixed now. The temp wasn't crazy, scary high, but the behavior changed which was my concern. Originally, it took some serious beating to get the temp over 70 C on the stock gauge but that changed at some point and it was going over 70 C with ease-- easily hitting 80 or 90 with just easy, city driving on hot days. I'd noticed some oil and dirt on the valve cover around the oil cap so I replaced the oil cap with a $17 unit from eBay, only intending to fix that little annoyance but that's what ended up fixing the oil temp too! My guess is the seal on the original stocker was broken and was causing a lean condition, affecting oil pressure, or some other wizardry-- I don't really care as long as it's fixed! I didn't make any other changes to change the behavior so it could have only been the oil cap. I never would've guessed, obviously.

Second, I got the car aligned at MAP and I gotta say I'm very pleased and would go there again without hesitance. I wasn't sure about going there at first, but I figured they've very likely aligned a few racecars and done numerous other cars to be well-practiced, plus they're only 20 minutes from my house, and I like going to a shop where I can connect to Wifi and get some work done, as opposed to taking a half-day of vacation just for an alignment-- I'll pay a bit more for things like that.

The experience was impressive; more impressive and detailed than I've had at other shops. They asked how much I weigh and added that weight to the driver's seat area (I've never had that asked or done before), they even asked what tire pressures I usually run to consider that factor as well. The printout of my results is below and this shows their detail as well: every measurement is carried to the hundredth (showing just to the tenth can make things look better) and, even so, those hundredths are very, very close-- I couldn't really ask for any closer. The greatest difference (which is still less than a tenth) is in the caster which isn't "directly" adjustable anyway; all others are within three-hundredths.



The top number is caster which shows I gained 1.5 degrees over stock with the Vorshlag plates. I know I've mentioned caster a few times in this thread but never explained it, so a really quick explanation is that, on the Evo, more positive caster is more better. To get to the point where too much caster is a bad thing on these cars, you have to do some cutting of the strut mount area. Mitsu built in another degree of positive caster on the 10's which shows some validity to adding more-- the 10's come from the factory with 4.5 degrees of caster compared to 3.5 degrees on 8's and 9's.

Vorshlag plates add caster without allowing adjustment of it. Ciro Design Racing plates are adjustable to add caster and are compatible with most struts (I wanna say even stock struts) and coilovers; Rick, the owner, will work with you identify compatibility and what's needed. I believe K-Mac also offer adjustable caster but are spendy, hard to find, and I've heard of reliability issues. I believe Whiteline had some plates (at some point, not sure if they still do) which added caster; not sure of others off the top of my head.

Okay, some progressively more techy explanations (as I understand them; anyone can feel free to jump in and adjust, correct, or clarify). On McPherson strut front suspensions like the Evo, caster is the angle from the top of the front strut mounting point through the lower ball joint, down to the ground. I mostly mention that because the Vorshlag plates add more caster by moving the top of the strut further back (closer to the windshield/cabin). Additional positive caster improves traction throughout the whole turn, improves turn-in, gives a bit more weight to the steering, and causes a centering effect which improves straight-line stability. The reason for better traction through the whole turn, which is my main goal, is that caster causes the outside wheel to gain camber (go more negative) in a turn, which is when you need camber most. If that wasn't techy enough, McPherson strut suspensions don't gain camber (go more negative) in a turn-- and I want to say some designs might even go more positive but I'm not sure-- so, to a point, front camber is essentially aiming to match/ compensate for roll angle. For an illustrative example, not necessarily exact numbers, -3.0 degrees of static camber (which is how the car is aligned) could result in a "flat" tire contact patch (0 degrees of dynamic camber; the wheel and tire are straight up and down) when the roll angle is 3 degrees in a turn. As the car rolls more than 3 degrees, the dynamic camber continues to go more positive and therefore make the contact patch smaller (in this example, 4 degrees of roll would result in +1 degree of dynamic camber, meaning the inside of the tire isn't making contact). Adding caster and therefore causing camber gain, changes that equation.

All of that is why my current -3.5 degrees of static front camber will behave differently than the -3.0 degrees I had last year with less caster. With more caster, you can run less static camber but have the same amount of dynamic camber in a turn which is why I'll test and tune.

Some more in-depth, but techy, resources on caster:
http://mitsubishi-club.ge/topic701.html
http://www.motoiq.com/MagazineArticl...and-Scrub.aspx

[BriK]

Okay, that update was long enough on its own so I'll do a separate one for events.

Friday Night Drives/ RS Motors Evo Day
I was an instructor for the first Friday Night Drive and was really excited to get back into action. I've found instructing to be really rewarding, giving little tips and tricks, seeing people get better and gain confidence. But it also helps remind me of techniques and forces me to simplify and prioritize things for myself so I can explain them to others.

I took some motion sickness medicine but was still only able to get in 3 ride-alongs before feeling woozy. I rode with EvoforStevo/ 6'2"250 my first and third time out and he did really well; didn't push past his limits or comfort, was pretty smooth and composed with inputs, started getting the lines down, and his timing kept improving. After his first time out, I gave him a ride in my car to show rather than tell and I hope it helped; it seemed to. I was only able to push in a few spots before catching up to traffic, but I noticed differences the next time I rode with him..

I hadn't adjusted anything so I made some initial car adjustments before I took my car out. First thing I noticed was my Rebound adjustment went from 12 clicks before the rebuild to 10 after; odd but I don't really mind. I wanted to try things a bit softer than last year and go stiffer if called for so I tried:

Tire Pressures: 36 f, 36r cold
Compression: 6/12 f, 10/12 r
Rebound: 5/10 f, 8/10r

I wanted to try the settings and scrub in my new tires a bit so I went out when there was space in running groups and took Spaz out with me. I only went about 7/10ths due to new tires and catching traffic, but I attacked the slalom every time. The concrete on that slalom is really, really grippy and I've been working on slaloms, so I pushed harder and harder each lap, while focusing on rhythm and staying smooth; the car just ate it up. While we're here, keys to slaloms are initiating the turn before the cone, keeping a consistent rhythm and keeping the steering wheel moving smoothly like a pendulum; the natural tendency is to turn right at the cone, quickly "lock" into a steering position, get to the next cone, then quickly turn the other way and lock into that steering position. I hope the ride-along helped Spaz too; he said he get some notes/ ideas on driving line.

I headed home a bit early to get some rest for MOWOG 1 the next morning; sorry I didn't stay and help tear down!

MOWOG 1
Got there a bit late so I only got in 3 course walks so I was fuzzy on one part of the course.

Tire Pressures: 38 f, 38r cold
Compression: 6/12 f, 10/12 r
Rebound: 5/10 f, 8/10r

Run 1-- I just wanted to get the first run out of the way, look at the course, wipe off the cobwebs, get over the nerve factor, and focus more on technique than time. I did well with looking ahead, staying smooth with all inputs and being composed. The looking ahead helped especially since I could not remember one full section of the course. Time: 45.9, no cones.

Run 2-- I wanted to follow the same good habits as the first run but go faster this time. I was a little sloppy early in the course and I had a big mistake coming out of the slalom-- I tried to crank it hard right while still hard on the brakes, causing huge push which took me way off line-- but still some positive takeaways and I ran a bit faster. Time: 44.8, one cone.

Run 3-- I tried tire pressures of 39/39 in attempt to get more responsiveness, I knew some places I could make up time, and I saw others in the class going faster, so I pushed it. Well, I pushed too hard, I wasn't focused, and I was too aggressive so I overdrove. I wanted to push in the slalom, which I did, but I wasn't smooth so I spun coming out of it. I recovered and finished the run. Time: 49.9, no cones.

After morning runs, I had to stand on my clean 45.9 (cones are 2 seconds each so my 44.8 registered as 46.8) which put me fifth in class out of seven. The class leader ran a 44.0. I noticed some mid-corner push in the morning runs so I turned up front rebound; the higher tire pressures seemed to be more twitchy so I kept those at 38. I might try lower next event, but I left them there to see how the additional rebound affected things.

Tire Pressures: 38 f, 38r cold
Compression: 6/12 f, 10/12 r
Rebound: 6/10 f, 8/10r

Run 4-- I knew the places where I could find time, I just needed to stay focused and smooth. I also picked up some ideas on driving line from watching others, so I tried those. The run went well, I used less brake in one early element, braked earlier in a couple places, modified my line in a couple places, focused on staying fast, tight, and composed in the sweeper, and staying on throttle through the finish. It worked better and the additional rebound seemed to have helped. Time: 44.8, no cones.

Run 5-- I had confidence from the previous run, I was gunning for the leader, and knew I could do even better in the same focus areas as my previous run. It worked. Time: 43.8, no cones. I was unashamedly screaming "Yes!," pumping my fists, and doing some congratulatory helmet "smacks" after the run.

Run 6-- There was no live timing to see my competitors' times, but I was confident I was in the class lead, but I knew there was more time to find and I wanted to make sure I had the class lead. I pushed harder but made the same big mistake as run 2. I also hit a cone right before the finish. Still, I was pleased with how I drove besides the mistake. Even with the mistake, I ran another 43.8, but one cone, so I had to stand on Run 5. The mistake cost at least a half second, likely more, so I coulda, woulda, shoulda broken into the 42's.

No times were posted at the end of the event but I talked to the leader from the morning and he said he never did better than 44.0, so I think I won the class for this event. We'll see when results are posted-- should be soon. The fastest cars were down into the low 41's so I still have room to improve beforeo challenging the top dogs, but I know the car has the ability and I'm confident I'll get there with more patience, practice, seat time, and focus.

Overall, I'm very pleased with how I did for the first event of the year and I look forward to improving more throughout the season.

[BriK]

Okay, this is going to be another long one, but it's been a while, I've had another autocross event, and there are a few things worth mentioning. So once again, bear with me or choose to ignore.


Driver mods
I've been thinking about Shawn's comment about my confidence; while I did have a certain level of confidence, I got to thinking that I might be doubting myself too much and holding myself back. the mental game is something I've been focusing on the least and I think I underestimate just how much it comes into play. I've caught myself thinking "I'm okay but X person is faster and better, so I don't plan to do better than that person"-- I even said nearly that exact phrase when talking to Brandon about a new competitor in STU this year. As soon as I said it, I thought to myself I should have more confidence in myself.

There've been a couple more Friday Night Drives/ Evo Days at DCTC; I've been instructing and have helped setup the course at the last couple. Instructing has been good and I'm finding a groove of where to focus my direction, but I'm still trying to figure out the right balance of talking before, during, and after sessions, and I'm working on how to explain things, especially in situations where I need to start with the very basics.

Course setup has helped me with course walks in autocross. Things are drastically different when walking a course than when driving a car at speed, so setting up the course has given me a better sense for space, speed, etc. which, in turn, has helped me develop a better and more realistic plan during course walks.

Andy Smedegard rode along with me at the second DCTC event and, besides me absolutely destroying a few cones, his only feedback was to shift less. Being that I've only done autocross and have yet to do road courses, I can't heel-toe downshift, and I tend to think I need to downshift when I really don't. So I've added heel-toe downshifts to my "practice" on the streets-- I don't go fast or anything, I just practice looking ahead and now heel-toeing.

It's kind of a car mod, but intended to mod the driver, but I now have my complete data acquisition setup. I have a 7" Android Tablet with reasonably good specs, a 32gb microSD card with fast read rate (for HD video), a bluetooth OBD2 reader (PLX Kiwi), a bluetooth GPS device (Qstarz 10hz, which refreshes 10x faster than the tablet's internal GPS), a suction cup mount for the tablet, and the software I run is SoloStorm (www.PetrelData.com). SoloStorm is specifically designed for autocross, and it can integrate OBD2 data, GPS, and video so I can review exactly what I'm doing on course. I can review the data immediately to help me at an event, but I can also review everything later to analyze and improve my driving habits and driving style.

Here's a sample video for reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PfsM9e4y68


Car mods
After the first Friday Night Drive and MOWOG 1, I noticed an intermittent clunk/ping coming from the front-passenger side. It turns out the nut on the bottom of the endlink was pushed well down the arm, so I assume there was so much pressure that it pushed or loosened the nut, and the ping was caused by the endlink sliding. I did some reading and came to conclude the clunks were the endlinks binding due to insufficient articulation. Some more reading showed adding a spacer would give a better angle for the endlink, so I just used a nut on both sides of the endlink arm-- much like the picture below but where there's a large, straight spacer, I just used a normal nut. I haven't had any more issues after two more Friday Nights Drives and a MOWOG, so it seems to have worked.



In other news, I installed new spark plugs and installed Kracka Vents I've had for quite a while now. Also, I thought my oil temp "issue" was fixed and while it's a WHOLE lot better, it's not completely back to the way it used to be. I found a product called RMI-25 which cleans the coolant system as it circulates-- it's not exclusive for doing a flush. I've been using that for a couple weeks now and it seems to be helping a bit. I'll do a flush soon to remove any gunk, and then I'm thinking I'll change the coolant mixture to run more water-- more like a 70/30 mix instead of 50/50. We'll see though.


MOWOG 3
As mentioned in my intro paragraph that you may remember reading a couple hours ago, there's an experienced driver who's a new competitor of mine in STU and this was his first event in the class. He's got a few more years of experience than I do, done many more events than I have, he's a MAC instructor, and he has a 350Z with massive 285's front and back (read: car should be very competitive). I made my goal for this event to beat him, and told myself I could do it. If he's reading this, I'm sure he's not surprised.

I had a co-driver for the first time. I've been hesitant to have one previously, partially because of my oil temp, and partially since I used to get "performance anxiety" when someone rode with me. But I figured it'd help me pick up some tips and ideas, and with data acquisition, I could do some more studying on both of our driving. Well, I need some more practice with the data acquisition since I had some trouble correctly logging and analyzing everything, but I did learn some things from the data. I liked having a co-driver and it helped more than I expected, so I'll probably do it at least once more this year.

Setup: Same as MOWOG 1, and no changes throughout the whole event.

I let my co-driver run first so I could get a look at the course, get the brakes and tires warm, etc.

1st run-- I'm not used to changing drivers and everything so I was a bit frantic before my first run, so I didn't spray the tires (to cool them down and avoid them getting greasy) or check pressures, so the tire pressures were probably very high and made the car really loose. The back sweeper at DCTC had a fairly big kink in the middle that I struggled with all day-- you pretty much had to brake while turning, but I ended up braking too hard, I plowed into a a couple cones and had a big slow-down as I corrected. Still, I was pleased with how I did for my first run since I'm usually really, really slow but I was fairly fast this time. 62.3 +2 cones

2nd run-- I rode with my co-driver again, I knew some places to clean up, especially the back sweeper, and some places I could be more aggressive. I focused on braking less into the kink and it went better but not great; room to improve next time. 61.3 no cones.

3rd run-- Rode with my co-driver on his third run and he had a re-run, so I'd had 6 looks at the course by my third run. I had even more places to clean up and I was focusing on the kink/ back sweeper, carrying more speed through the transition, and going faster through the slaloms while keeping a smooth rhythm. 60.3 + 1 cone, though I swear I didn't hit one and I have no idea where I did.

At the end of morning runs, I was in the middle of 11 cars in STU because I was resting on my clean 61.3.

4th run-- I looked at data during my break and didn't learn a ton, but I did notice my co-driver was getting better starts than I was which was translating to 0.5 second or so. Overall, the run went okay but I got behind in the big concrete slalom and had to do a big brake check towards the end, and I knew a couple more places to clean up and find more time. 60.2 clean.

5th run-- I rode with my co-driver before my last run and noticed some places where I thought the car would slide but instead it just hunkered down and gripped. So, more than usual, I had a very specific plan in my head for the entire course, instead of just thinking about cleaning up a section here or there. Without getting into too much detail (who me?) I had spots to brake less, spots to just lift instead of brake, and spots to apply more throttle and do so earlier. I also thought about HOW I'd be braking-- hard, hard, hard at first (where I needed to) with a smooth but fast transition back to throttle. As you can see, the general theme of my plan was to stay smooth but go faster and trust/ understand that the car will grip. I followed my plan very well which resulted in a clean 59.6 and, like the last event, I pounded my helmet and did some self-congratulating screams.

I ended up accomplishing my goal and doing pretty well overall. I beat my target competitor (my 59.6 was faster than any of his times, not taking cones into account), I took third in STU behind a co-driven M3 (which may be my new target), and my time was good for 25th fastest Raw time and 35th fastest Index time out of 147 drivers. Beyond how I compared to others, I feel like I made important steps in my mental game, gaining confidence in myself and my control of the car, but also gaining a ton of confidence in the car itself. I'm very pleased with my progress and look forward to even more.

[scheides]

Woot! Looking good dude! That datalogger setup is fantastic! Will it log timing, knock, boost, afr, etc or is it really just about driver input/spacial awareness?

Love reading your posts, just think--go fast!

So side question, do you think that adding the spacer to the front sway bar mount may have negated some of the plusses running your cusco (or cusco -style) bracket (not pictured) in rigidity/pretension or is it simply just helping the geometry? I'm still noodling that whole setup so curious on your entire experience installing that bracket, adjusting it, and how it affected the car.

[BriK]

Originally Posted by scheides

Woot! Looking good dude! That datalogger setup is fantastic! Will it log timing, knock, boost, afr, etc or is it really just about driver input/spacial awareness?

Love reading your posts, just think--go fast!

So side question, do you think that adding the spacer to the front sway bar mount may have negated some of the plusses running your cusco (or cusco -style) bracket (not pictured) in rigidity/pretension or is it simply just helping the geometry? I'm still noodling that whole setup so curious on your entire experience installing that bracket, adjusting it, and how it affected the car.

Thanks man!

The data setup doesn't log the things you've mentioned, as it is geared towards driver/ run analysis, but I also have Torque with the MUT plugin on my Android Tablet so I can log all of those things at a different time if I want. There are some other track data setups more geared towards road courses which can log the things you mentioned-- Traqmate comes to mind.

And yeah, my current mental game is to trust that there will be grip but maybe another, better way to say it is I'm learning to trust in myself, and trust that I'll be able to find and maintain the grip. When I started, all my inputs-- steering, brake, throttle, etc-- were like on-off switches so my narrow mindset of "go fast" led me to overdrive. I've learned a lot and gotten more seat time, so now I'm learning and feeling more comfortable with where, when, and how to go fast, and getting a feel for how to have smooth but fast inputs. And since I was overdriving before and not getting the most grip possible, I'm not always used to the car gripping.

I'm fairly certain the endlink spacer won't affect the stiffness. Thinking about it, the endlink may articulate more easily since the attachment is now further down the endlink's arms (longer lever), but the range of articulation isn't changed. And I didn't need to change the length of the endlinks so pre-load should be the same too. My main concern regarding the spacer was finding one which was a small enough diameter to not limit articulation. The one I posted a picture of is fairly wide/ big and could run into the bracket and/or endlink; I used a small lock nut with rounded edges to try to avoid that.

As for the bracket itself, I love it and would recommend it to anyone. It's cheap, easy to install (removing the endlinks was the toughest part), and the adjustability means you're not stuck with any single setting if you don't like it-- you can set it softer than stock, stock, or stiffer than stock. I have mine 16% stiffer than stock which is the first adjustment, and I really like it. Turn-in is crisp, I don't notice any additional understeer, and on McPherson strut suspension like the Evos have up front, stiffer front swaybars help minimize camber loss in a corner, meaning better contact patch. The only thing is, I have Whiteline endlinks which have longer arms, and I'm not sure if the arms of stock endlinks' arms are long enough to accommodate a spacer, and therefore allow adjustment stiffer than stock.