It's been 18 months since this car has seen an auto-x event, and I was nervous that something was going to go wrong, given all that I've been through over the last year or so. Thankfully, the car was feeling great after getting my NIStune ECU tuned by JE Import Performance. It's time to race!

SCCA Solo Event #2, 4/26/15

The car was down with a bad axle seal the week prior, so it missed the first event, but with everything buttoned up, it was time to see how it would put down the extra power from the 3.5 swap. But first, some pics:

The Classic American Muscle class has some pretty sweet cars in it:


Look, another Infiniti! (I beat him by about 4 seconds)


S2000s as far as the eye could see


An awesome Exige next to the cleanest 1st gen RX7 I've ever seen....that also happens to have like 300 whp. It's fast!!


My Cobra competition in XP


These two are also in XP. The E36 has an old 5.0 swapped in (I beat him!)


One of the faster cars at the event is this E46 330i


Talk about adding lightness


It's back!








And a money shot


I noticed my Hoosier A6s had a bluish ring around their edges. They are from 2011 and have 70+ runs on them, and didn't get used at all last year. It sounds like the blue ring is an indication that they are heat-cycled out, and it's time to replace them. This was verified after the race by a buddy who tested them using his pyrometer. His Hoosiers were all around 45, while mine were around 65 (the higher the number, the harder the rubber). Yeah, it's time for new Hoosiers.

I set my tire pressures to 37f/43r, and the front coilovers to 15/30 and the rears to 30/30.

Sure enough, the car didn't have nearly as much grip as I remembered it having. The car understeered through the tight cornes, and the rear end swung out on every run at one corner (which was actually very nice). Still, the Quaife seemed to put the power down pretty well, and the extra power was immediately noticeable and awesome. I wasn't thrilled with my times, but I certainly beat some cars that should have trounced me. Here are the results from my class:



I was definitely rusty out the with FWD after doing so many events in the E28 rally car, but by the fourth run I was getting back in the swing of things.

Check out my video. The G35 sedan muffler is starting to sound a little raspy. I wonder if that's a sign that it's not flowing well enough. Either way, check out the rear end stepping out at 0:27 coming around the left hand sweeper.


I picked up 8 lightly used Hoosier A6s (245/40/17) for freaking $300! These are normally about $250 each, so I made out like a bandit. I'll be throwing these on before the next event, along with new ball joints (mine are destroyed) and brake fluid (3 years old). Hopefully that will get the car feeling a little better. If I can beat one Cobra, I'll be very happy!

 

Congrats on getting the build finished Nick! Let us know how things go after replacing the tires and brake fluid. With more grip and confidence I'm sure you can push harder and get those times down. I haven't gone up against John Vitamvas myself yet as I've been out of Solo for 3 years but he is fast.

 

I got some more pictures from the last auto-x!

 

Well, I didn't get a chance to install the new ball joints or replace the brake fluid, but I did get my new/used Hoosiers installed, and BOY did they make a huge difference!

I have a buddy who drives a pretty heavily-modified E36 M3 who is a very good driver, and I kind of use his times as a reference point as he's pretty consistent. At the Solo #2 event (first event with the I30 this year), I was some 4.5 seconds behind him. Granted, I was a little rusty, but most of that must have been the dead Hoosiers, as the front of the car just would not grip and I was fighting understeer all day. In 2013, I was usually about a second behind him. With the new/used tires on, I got within 0.1 second of him!



Video!!

All the drivers with NC next to their names were running for a second time in the PM session, and since they had already run the course in the morning, those NC times don't really count. If you get rid of those, it puts me in 9th place out of about 130 drivers! Granted, the guys who come to BMW events aren't nearly as hard core as the Solo guys, but still, that's pretty good! More importantly, the car/tires worked like they were supposed to, and the car just felt great!

I finally washed the car and took some pics before putting my magnets on.







A couple issues to note, however.

1. At one particular spot on the course, something made my windshield fluid spray. This happened at the same spot on my last two runs of the day, and can be seen in the video. All I can think is that it's a rough section, and the vibrations somehow activated the washer fluid system. It's never happened before, and it's rather distracting. I'm thinking I may just have to pull the fuse unless I can come up with an explanation since it's so annoying.

2. Even though I checked the trans fluid level before the race, and it was where it should be, it was still coming out of the overflow hose at a pretty good rate, and after 5 runs it looked like this:







Yeah, trans fluid on my front DS tire ain't exactly a good thing. I don't ever remember having this problem before. The only thing I changed in the trans was the addition of the Quaife, but I don't see how that could affect anything. Is it just that my overflow hose is too short?

3. I also noticed another possible result of my speed bump incident:




What do you guys think, does that warrant replacement?

 

Doesn't look too bad IMO but then again anything to do with brakes...

 

It's long overdue, but here's my little recap for the third Solo event of the year.

There was nothing much new with the car for this race, so let's get to the pictures.





This is Gabe's 3rd gen, the original DC area Maxima auto-xer! It's still alive, but relegated to beater status.


This is the fastest Cobra. He built 12" wide front wheels and put Avons on them, and shaved like 2 seconds off his times.




Mike's RX7 grew a wing


These two Evos are very fast




Ahh, the coupe (but I'm faster than the co-driver of this car!)


And here's my usual video:

I ended up coming in 5th out of 12, which ain't half bad in the unlimited class.


More maintenance to come....

 

I did quite a bit of maintenance (see build thread) on the car before this event, including a new rear caliper, fresh ATE racing brake fluid, and new ball joints. Overall, the car felt great, except that every time I turned left hard I heard a clunk-grrrrr come from the front of the car. I wasn't sure what to make of it, but it didn't get worse, so I kept racing. When I was reinstalling my street tires I noticed my ES poly control arm bushings had failed and were the source of the noise.







Even with the control arms flopping all over the place, I managed to come in 13th overall, out of something like 90 cars (I'm not including the non-comp/NC runs, as those are people running in their second session of the day).



Here's my buddy's Cherokee on some fat Hoosier A6s. It's faster than it has any right to be. Then again, it's now a 4.6L motor...


This car is owned by the guy who designs most of the courses we run on. It's one of the fastest cars there.


This car actually auto-xed!


I was there too


I just detailed the car the day before the event, so it was nice and shiny


Even with the mangled control arm bushings, the car felt really good, and I was excited to see what it would do with fresh ones.

Video!

 

The fourth Solo event of the year was on one of the hottest days of the DC summer, with temps well into the 90s. Josh decided to come out in his rally-x E30, because why not? I was feeling pretty good after installing new poly ES control arm bushings, confidant I had solved the weird clunking/grinding noise. While I waited around for what felt like hours for my run group, I was at least comfortable in my nicely air conditioned luxury automobile. As were three of my competitors, whose cars lacked that essential feature.

Mike's crazy RX7 again



This 240z is new to the group, and it's pretty much a full race car. So it's very fast.



Others...





Rally car



The morning sun made for some nice pics











Results for XP, 5th place



Not a great showing, but I do have a pretty good excuse: That awful noise was still present in the front end when I made hard left turns, and I think I felt it through the steering wheel. More on that to come.

 

"I set my tire pressures to 37f/43r"

Have you tried lower pressures?

 

Yup, any lower in the front and the Hoosiers start to roll over. I run the rears that high to help rotation.

 

Well, I'm about 5 months late, but with 2 feet of snow outside, I'm quickly running out of things to do, so I figured I should wrap up my 2015 results thread!

I missed the fifth event of the Solo season due to a back injury, but I was back for the sixth. I naturally don't remember any details of the event at this point, so I'll just leave it at the rather pathetic results:



I somehow was about half a second behind the white C4 Corvette, which almost never happens. I'll attribute this to not having a clean run all day, which is very rare for me. Oh well.

At least the pictures turned out okay! Here are my competitors:



An R32 showed up...I beat him by 8+ seconds.



Mike's RX7 just keeps sprouting more and more aero...





Beauty shot



I trickle charged my battery before the event and apparently it attracts ants. I left it on over night, and came out to find the car covered in ants from the front bumper to the rear. It was the strangest thing I've ever seen.





Video time!

 

The temperature dropped pretty low for the final event of the season, and my Hoosiers struggled to find grip. This led to me having lots of fun with the rear end trying to come around on me in the first few corners, and one rather awesome FWD drift, as shown in the video below! The damn oversized Moog ball joint was still rubbing on the brake rotor, which you will hear during hard left turns. All in all it was a pretty fun day!

Well the results aren't that impressive, but who cares?



The 240Z is pretty wicked







IIRC, this Fox body Mustang has fully independent suspension and is very highly prepared. He only beat me by 0.5 second!





Why he chooses to have his exhaust route through the car, I will never know.



I love S2000s with hard tops



Hard tops make everything look better!



This NSX has a nice blower on it!



Aero!















This video is longer than usual. The first run was my fastest, and the runs that follow are the ones where the car rotated quite nicely

 

So just the oversteer and crunching noises messing with your concentration. You had a handful going on!

 

95maxrider
you still have the maxima?

 

I sure do, but I haven't taken it to an auto-x in a few years, even though I have two sets of Hoosiers laying around just waiting to be used!