2013 year-end recap, status, and look forward

Interesting timing, it was 3 years ago today I bought the Camaro.  Even though it took a long time to get the car together and out to an autocross, there was a lot of frantic work there in the middle.  2.5 years is a pretty quick pace for a frame-off restoration, especially when you consider some of the special race fabrication elements that went into it.

Finally feel like I can relax a bit.  In the garage sits my dream car – sure, there are things more expensive, or exotic, but this is the car I’d rather have than any other.  And there’s still lots to do to make it better!

Let’s take stock of there things are now, starting with a more detailed rundown of how Nationals went, now that I’ve had a chance to look through the data.

{Nats Day 1 – EAST COURSE}

The below is a screen grab of the Motec data analysis software – still learning it, this is really the first time I’ve used it.  Here I’m displaying pretty much all the values I’m recording, with my first east course run (with no time) as the Main [M] run, and the run I ended up standing on, as the Overlay [O] run.  The Race-Technology software I’m used to allows you to overlay 4 or 5 runs simultaneously which is great for autocrossers, but the Motec software (at least the i2 Standard version I’m using, the “Pro” version is a $500+ upgrade) only allow for two.

What do we see here?  A few things, some encouraging, some a little concerning.  Let’s start with the positive-

The class winner Jeff Hurst ran a 78.2 on this course.  My best scored run was a 79.9.  But in actuality, my first run, which had a timer error, was a 79.3, 6 tenths faster.  That first run started out slow, but from roughly the 20-second mark through to the finish, my first run was a full one second faster than my second timed run, the one I’d stand on.

This sounds very woulda-coulda-shoulda, but the point is, the car as it was then had at least a 78.9 in it with me driving, and likely a bit more if the course were chopped up into a bit finer pieces.  With an even better, who knows…I didn’t drive my best, and am not a pro; seems like somebody really good could have done a 78.2.

The concerning things-

1. Why was the car so much faster on its first run?  Well, I spun on the second, which made me extra-cautious in the braking zones of later runs, which shows in the data.  Another thing is, the pushrod let go either on that run, or the one where I spun; sometime on that spin run is where I noticed the noise, which heavily distracted on the third and fourth runs.  Also, maybe the tires were too warm?  Was a single driver on Dunlops, but it was warm out, and the car is a bit heavy, maybe they got over-temp?

2. Oil pressure.  The car has a high-end Milodon roadrace oil pan, with three trap doors, dual lateral kick-outs, and it all fits perfectly in a just-barely-enough-room sort of way.  But if you look at the oil pressure graph, you can see it drops at times, sometimes into the teens (low of 14!) – and those drops correspond with braking events.  The harder and more extended the braking, the more the oil pressure drops.  In researching this, some have had this happen when the pickup comes loose from the pump; while that’s possible here, I don’t see it as too likely.  More likely there’s too much oil up in the heads and whatnot, the pickup is getting slightly uncovered under braking.

I added a bunch of oil for day 2, but the West course had fewer, shorter, and lighter braking zones, so it’s hard to tell if doing so helped any.

{Nats Day 2- WEST COURSE}

On this course, the story is overall less optimistic.  This was more of a handling course, not the sort of place I would expect to do comparatively well on.  Here, the class winner Hurst ran a 56.3; my best was again the first run, with a 59.2 – 3 seconds back.  My third run was a dirty 58.6, which is still about 2 seconds back.  Examining some sector times from this course shows I probably could have done a 58.1 if my own stars aligned, so a 57.x with a better driver in it.  Still quite a ways off.  The only thing that helps, is that I know my head wasn’t really in it this day, and a really good driver probably could have found a lot more time than I was able to.

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General observations from the data-

Looking at lateral acceleration – this is something I’m used to seeing from the DL1 in the 240sx and Viper days.  I remember the trip to Heartland Park Topeka in 2006, the first time we ran Nationals there.  Upon arrival, the 240sx was “only” good for about 1.05g in a corner, but as the surface got better, it was doing 1.25 during Nationals competition.  That was on asphalt.

The Camaro is making quite a bit less grip than this, even though the surface is better at Lincoln.  The data presented above is smoothed over 3 samples where is says f3 (so 3/25ths of a second average), and while it shows spikes around 1.25 in each direction, the more heavily smoothed values over the course of a corner are mostly right at 1.0.  While I haven’t seen others’ STX data yet, I would bet the RX8, FRS, and BMW are making 1.2+ where I am only making 1.0.  That matters A LOT.

Longitudinal acceleration is a bit happier tale 🙂

Exiting the last big left-hand sweeper on the West course, the car goes from 35 to 55mph in exactly 2 seconds, even though there was some lateral acceleration in there to create drag.  In other places, longitudinal spikes over .6 when lateral is minimized.  When the car was running right, it was pulling quite strong.

Below is a g-g diagram showing the car’s “performance envelope” as it existed on its first east course run.

For comparison, below is a similar chart (from different software) from an STR MX5 at a BFG Rival vs. Dunlop Direzza Z2 tire test earlier in the year, on crummy asphalt (San Diego’ Qualcomm stadium southeast lot):

Note how the “top” of the MX5’s envelope seems so flat – that’s the car spending a good bit of time at its power limit, even on a poor surface.  In comparison, the more powerful Camaro’s is more oval-shaped, showing how it is able to work the tires to their limit in all directions.

“Okay, all that data was tl;dr, what did I miss?”

1. The car would have trophied if I just drove better.

2. With a superhero at the wheel, it might have got a top 10 (at least 2.3 lower total time)

3. A win (4.6 lower total time) was waaay out of reach.

Why was the car not competitive for a win in STX?

Will get to why that’s a past-tense question in a bit.  But here’s the reasons, with the biggest ones first:

1. The car is not producing enough peak lateral grip, and it is difficult to maintain the limit it does have

2. On equal-height f:r tires, there is still too much rearward brake bias, making the car difficult to trail-brake

3. The valvetrain has not been reliable and is costing time either as lost power, a distraction, or both

What can be done about it?

Here’s what the car needs for its ST future.  Start by addressing the lateral grip problem with:

1. Ride height changes.

The car is too damn high! I know this was just posted, but look at it again, and look at all the daylight you can see *under* the front splitter.

In the front, the car has yet to bottom out, even over the big bump we had at Farmington.  Lowering the front will make a big difference on CG height, and even helps the camber curve.  To get the car lower I’ll have to cut the springs a bit which will up spring rate, but that is probably ok, the car is still a bit loose, and I can back off on front swaybar stiffness if needed.  Not sure how much lower it can go – probably at least 1/2″, maybe 1″.  Will start to look a little funny with the tire tucked up in there so far, but that’s not important!

In the rear, the car was raised about 1.25″ before the start of the Pro Finale, spacer blocks removed to combat the axle-moving-all-over problem.  The rear needs to be brought down at least that much, if not more; it too wasn’t bottoming at Farmington over the jump, can maybe go 2″ here.

Unfortunately this isn’t just a shorter spring or twisting a spring perch – this is going to require complete re-engineering of the rear end.  In order to retain the leafs and good axle location, the springs will have to be run below the watts link plate on the driver side, which will necessitate fabricating some kind of extended perch to hold the spring.

If the CG can be lowered 1.5″, I believe that’s close to 10%, meaning 10% less load transfer, which I’m optimistically hoping is 5-7% more lateral grip potential, changing the 1.0g to 1.05 or 1.07.  Those numbers are all very optimistic, half that is more realistic.

2. Spring wind-up was a problem, not just in first gear at launch, but also under heavy roll-on throttle in second gear.  That wind-up makes for annoying hop when going straight, but in a corner, it feels like it works to jeopardize grip.  The solution then is a setup that controls torque reaction better than just the leaf springs, while not introducing bind or other undesirable handling characteristics.  Torque arms are such devices, as are 3-links.

3. Overall the rear of the car felt not compliant enough.  Even though the ride frequency and static weight is much lower than the front, the rear tires were much hotter when coming in from a run than the fronts (and this wasn’t caused entirely by overzealous throttle).  Rear suspension compliance will be addressed in a number of ways simultaneously.

3a. First is to have the rear shocks revalved with less bump damping.  Even though these have the fancy regressive curves, they’re valved too stiffly; basically, they are at the soft end of what was run on a heavy, race-tired, FWD, roadrace car…a place where you can get away with a lot more bump damping than a street tired RWD dinosaur.  Will probably have the new baseline be half to 1/3 the current bump values.

3b. Next will be addressing the bushing situation on the front leafs, perhaps in conjunction with #2 above.  Right now the leaf springs have to twist as the suspension moves, and that twisting is another spring effect in roll.  If the setup could allow for the springs to have to twist less, or to lessen the bushing resistance to that twist, it should make the rear more compliant.

This lack of compliance I feel is driving the need for a lot of the steering corrections you see me make, and even on the relatively smooth Lincoln surface, contribute to a loss of time.  The 1:15 mark of this East course video is indicative; instead of a nice run into the slalom, the rear end gets bounced, and I have to give up any chance to accelerate further-

Improving the compliance should up the limits a little further, and making holding the limit easier over surface imperfections.

4. The rear roll center is probably still too high.  This will be mitigated somewhat when I lower the rear of the car, as the watts center pivot is based off chassis height.  At Nationals this year I had a chance to speak to both Mike Maier and Mark Madarash, two of the very best drivers and tuners of live axle RWD autocross cars on the planet.  While I generally prefer to figure things out on my own, I couldn’t overlook that after peeking under the back of the car they both (in separate conversations on different days) very quickly told me the rear RC was probably too high, and that a height closer to the bottom of the diff (maybe 4-5″ lower than it is at present) is a place they’ve found to work well.  The current watts arrangement is a bit against my own ethos, in that I don’t like having an adjustable component always at the edge of its adjustment range, especially if adjusting “more” in that direction could be helpful.  I’ve got it as low as possible, but clearly, lower still is worth investigating, even after I bring the chassis down.

That means going back to a customized rear axle lateral locating device…either an altered watts center frame, going back to a panhard, or even looking seriously at a Mumford link.  All of these choices mean welding, which probably means pulling the gas tank…all of this, a big project.  One that should probably be tackled in conjunction with the axle torque management project of #2.

5. More basic tuning.  Still in the early days of looking at photos of the car from Nationals, to see how the outside tires look when loaded up.  Have more learning to do about pressures, and have yet to scientifically take temps.  I am curious to try the car with a bit less static negative camber (around -6.5 at present) but more caster, to see if that allows for better use of the inside front.  Made the first rear shock change, adding a little bit of rear rebound after the ProSolo.  I think things could be better with even more rear rebound, but I need to be able to soften bump (already at full soft) and do other things to increase rear end compliance, before trying it.

Instability under braking is perhaps a bit easier, and should be made better simply by switching back to the 1″ taller 40-series rear tires.  As Dunlop doesn’t make a 265/40-18, that means Hankook.  Given how heavy the car is and how effortlessly it generated heat in the rear tires, this should be ok.  To some extent the taller sidewall should also help with rear end compliance over bumps, with the taller sidewall functioning as a slightly taller and softer spring.  Unfortunately this runs counter to the CG height lowering efforts but I think will have a very positive effect on overall driveability.

The Valvetrain is due for a thorough inspection, and some other changes to work it a bit less hard.  It’s possible the occasional low oil pressure condition is a contributing factor, but I tend to believe it’s a high RPM thing. The rev limiter was lowered to 6900 for Nationals, which was barely enough really.  Going to the taller rear tire will add about 2.5mph of top end, and the other change I’m considering is going from a 4.88 final drive, to an only-slightly-less-insane 4.56.  Together these would bring 2nd gear’s speed limit to 70, from just under 63mph now.  Unfortunately these changes would also reduce the potential 2nd gear thrust by about 10%, but if it meant the throttle was easier to use, might not be so bad, as I spend so little time matted today anyway.

To test the valvesprings to ensure they’re still ok and not cracked means pulling the heads, which probably means pulling the motor, which would also give a chance to review the dinged #2 cylinder from the compression test oopsie.  Ugg, another big project.  That one can probably wait a bit though.

##

All of those changes added up, I think will make a significant difference in the car’s ultimate potential, and in its driveability.  It is difficult to predict a time quantity, but my feeling is the above changes, with another year of practice, makes the car a solid trophy-capable STX car at Nationals.  As it was, the car earned a trophy at the ProSolo Finale, which has a generally more die-hard group of competitors than the regular Solo Championships.  At the ProSolo the planets of favorable courses, favorable conditions, and halfway decent (for me) driving aligned to benefit the car so early in its development.  Another year of tuning and advancement would be seriously beneficial to a car that has now only run 5 events.

Unfortunately

I was lucky to get that trophy because it looks like the days of this Camaro, or any Camaro, in STX are over.  The SEB (Solo Events Board) have recommended to the BOD (SCCA’s Board of Directors) to move all ponycars (GM’s F-bodies, and the Ford Mustangs) to the STU class, at the behest of the membership.

As a bit of background, there are a lot of folks with newer Mustangs, especially the 400+hp 5.0 Coyote model, that would like a better place to run in ST, than STX.  Their cars start out over 3500 pounds, which is a lot to make work on STX’s 265mm tire, 9″ wheel limit, even after working hard to get the weight in the low-to-mid 33xx’s.

They figured with the unlimited width wheels and 285mm tires in STU, the cars would be much better, and asked to be moved there.

Certainly, I think pretty much all of the ponycars (with the possible exception of the early Mustangs, which nobody runs in ST) can benefit from tires wider than 265, and wheels wider than 9″.  The immediate problem though, is STU is generally a much faster class than STX – it is the place of the Mitsubishi Evo and the BMW M3.

As far off of the STX winner as I was, the STU winner was a full three seconds ahead of that.  As undertired as the ponycars are, it is difficult to see how 20mm of otherwise identical tire, and 1-2″ of wheel width, are worth 3 seconds over the 2 days.

To make matters worse, in conjunction with the move of ponycars to STU, the C5 Corvette (non-Z06) is also being suggested for STU inclusion.

Without going through the entire Comparative Vehicle Dynamics series I authored, suffice it to say, the ponycars have no chance against a C5 in anything resembling an autocross.  There is simply no point running against a C5 in a Camaro, Mustang, or Firebird.  Something like an E36 M3 can pray for a course of nothing but slaloms, and the Evo/Sti boost buggies still have advantages in launch, early corner exit, and inclement conditions; enough to keep them in it for a while.

What I hope to see happen is rapid realization of this fact in the ponycar community, and a show of unity and support for the notion of a ponycar-specific ST class.  Today, the only remaining successful Street Prepared category class is ESP – the one catering to ponycars – and if an equivalent ST class were available, I think it could be a good success for the category, the club, and the membership.  In addition, it would provide a more appropriate place for me to run the Camaro.

Where does it go from here?

The path forward is not clear.  One thing for certain, is I am not going to run it in STU against the C5.  San Diego is just too far from Lincoln for that kind of nonsense.  The car’s continued participation in the Street Touring category hinges upon it either being kept in STX, or included in “STP” – what I hope will eventually be an ST category class for Mustangs, Camaros, Firebirds, Chargers, Challengers.  I’d like to see it keep the older and lighter stuff on smaller wheels/tires, and allow the heavier/newer stuff more.  If the class is built to make a newer Coyote 5.0 Mustang the “Car to Have”, its numbers should be very good.  I’d also love to see the SCCA work to allow certain Pro-Touring cars into this class so long as they started off as an allowed car and then met certain weight and size requirements.

So, if the SEB’s suggestions go through, the car will be sitting it out in 2014.  There are some Pro-Touring type events I’d like to run, maybe a local event or something.  Willing to keep the car tucked away for a while and see whether there is interest in the STP concept, for which I would bring it back out to support.  Gives me more time to get some things done on it at a relaxed pace.  The past 3 years building the car, I always had the feeling time was running out on STX as it had existed since 2004, and I got it done just enough, just in time, to snag a trophy in Lincoln.

If the worst happens and there is no future for the car in ST, then some years down the road I may consider making it into an even truer Penske/Donohue clone in CP trim.  I’d probably try the light and narrow approach, 10″ wheels and and under 5.1 motor @2700lbs.  But I really don’t want to think about that too much, because it means redoing almost everything, and turning the car into a kind of monster I’m just not that interested in right now.  Really hoping we can find a way to make STP work.

Signing off for now,

J-Rho

Pre-Nats thrash

Never plan to have it go like this, but it always seems to…

Last Saturday (8/18) brought the car out to run at a little test ‘n tune.  Since Farmington, I’d changed out the alternator and voltage regulator, as the car was discharging and heating up the alternator when off.  Also did some leaf spring tweaks I’ll talk about later.

Had it on new shaved 265/35-18 Dunlop Direzza Z2’s on some new wheels, also had a new set of shaved Hankook RS3’s on the Jongbloeds, with the idea being to scrub both sets in and do a little compare/contrast.  Up to that point had been running a 265/40-18 rear tire, about 1 inch taller.

The course was pretty fast, and on the second lap, something “happened” just after a particularly fast/high-revving section. Felt like the engine was on 7 cylinders. The car had been cutting out at strange times, so I was hoping the problem was electrical.

Nope:

 

That’s the intake rocker on cylinder 6.  Totally kafluie, bummer.  Could tell as soon as I pulled the valve cover, it was sitting in there sideways.  Am thankful it was an intake and not an exhaust rocker, as I hear bad things can happen to the carburetor when the exhaust valves don’t open.

Upon further inspection the neighboring areas looked ok; the pushrod was ok, as was the top of the valve.  In the rocker’s destruction it didn’t send big shrapnel everywhere, and on a gram scale, its weight is in line with a brand new rocker.

Of course, I couldn’t determine this until getting some new rockers.  New rocker arms, for an engine built in 1967, that are legal for ST.  In a week.

eBay to the rescue!  If you checked Monday, you’d find they were sold out of ST legal rockers for a ’67 Z28 clone. 🙂

The above picture is one batch – a set of 11 NOS rockers with a part number that supercedes (http://www.gmpartswiki.com/getpage?pageid=85941) what was originally put on the cars.

The look, feel, and smell of the boxes brought me back to a time…technically before I was born, I suppose!  A real treat.

The other batch was for a complete set of 16 used factory “o” rocker arms – a long story.  Wasn’t comfortable in the health of any of the rockers on the car, so all got changed – all exhausts are new, and 5 intakes got used “o” rockers.  The #6 exhaust rocker was showing signs it was on its way to suffering a similar failure, glad I changed them all out.

To keep this from happening again, will be lowering the rev limiter on the car to 6900 or 7000.  This will take away a few mph on the top end, which is already being further reduced by the shorter rear tire I’ve moved to. Because of this I will likely switch to 4.56 gears next year from the current 4.88.  As it is with the /35 out back, the car should be good for about 65mph in second, which is good enough for most Nationals courses.

If it runs that is, will find out tomorrow.  Did a totally boneheaded move while diagnosing/examining things – threaded in the compression tester too far while testing the first cylinder (#2).

Far enough, the piston hit the tester when I turned the key…was able to get the tester back out, but it boogered up the spark plug threads a little in the process.

So in addition to the rocker arms, ordered a tap kit for spark plug threads, and an digital endoscope for examining the cylinders.  Figured I could use it to look inside cylinder #6 also, where the rocker failed, to ensure it wasn’t caused by any sort of piston-valve contact.

It was a fun tool, for only like $37 on Amazon – a lot cheaper than the standalone units I’d seen for sale.  Being USB attached, made it easy to share pictures of my ineptitude like this:

Going to try running it like this, though I know sharp edges can cause all kinds of problems.  If it’s no good, I won’t be making the haul to Nebraska.

…

If this is where you are 4 days before you plan to leave for Nationals, you might have a problem:

What else…

Full oil/filter change, along with a 6 quart “clean oil flush” to try to get out anything bad that might have been in the pan, without pulling the pan.

Have some minor exterior/appearance changes that I think really work, people can see them in Nebraska assuming I make it.

Put in a cold air intake – I’d noticed at Farmington, the car was unhappy for Saturday morning runs when it was hottest out.  While more power isn’t really what the car needs, this should at least make it more consistent.  I also plan to have it help with splashing-fuel management which I’ll explain later.

After Farmington I’d noticed some rubbing in the left rear – the wheel had traveled to places in relationship to the body, it shouldn’t have been able to.  As it was, the left side of the axle was sitting about 1/2″ further forward in relation to the springs, than it should have been.

I deduced this was due to the spacer blocks I’d been using – they have a little post that comes out the top, to keep them aligned with the upper portion of the leaf spring pad.  As supplied, the post was too long, and I had to cut them down to fit up against the axle.  That was fine at first, but I later decided to add an additional spacer that adjusted pinion angle downwards; the thing consumed the post height, leaving no post from the main (1.5″) spacer block to engage directly with the axle.

Well that’s no good!  So, new spacer blocks ordered and installed, with full height posts, to keep engaged to axle even with pinion angle adjuster.

All of this leads to my latest thinking on leaf springs – that they’re really not that bad.  The problem is nobody makes the right leaf springs so everything ends up a bad compromise.

You don’t want to have to run a spacer block – they separate the parts that are there to help control the axle (the springs, and in my case, the driver-side watts mount) from the thing they are trying to control.  This increases the leverage things like hard acceleration and big lateral forces have on the components.

But to have no spacer block, you have to have a spring that has the right resulting shape/height at your ride height.  In the world of coil springs this is a piece of cake, because there is big selection on spring rates and free lengths, then you can almost always change your perch heights.  With those things, you can account for a lot of variation in sprung weight, desired ride height, and desired spring rate, to get just what you want.

With some quick strings and eyeballs I determined I need a leaf that is roughly flat with the car at ride height.  How to get there?

The first choice to make in leafs is steel or composite.  Steel has been around forever and it’s fairly commonly known how to get the rate you want.  The problem is they are heavy, ridiculously heavy!

In the above photo, the composite leaf weighs less than 10 pounds, the steel weighs over 50!  Guess which one is stiffer?  You’d be right if you guess the composite.

The problem with composite springs is they aren’t designed to go over-center, or flat.  There are varying levels of cloth set in there in different directions, and everything goes backwards when the spring goes from a “U” shape to an “n”shape (or from a smile to a frown, when seen from the side).

Steel should be able to do it, if the springs are designed for it.  The steels pictured are the lowest ones Global West sells, which they say lower the car 2″ from stock.  Whose car?  Those sorts of statements bake in an assumption about what the car weighs – and my car is quite a bit lighter than most, especially in the back.

The steel springs have 1” more “free arch” than the composite pictured, which is already 1.5″ too much free arch.  Can maybe have the Global West springs de-arched (a trait unique to steel) but  it will take time, won’t be able to do it until after Nats.

 

Higher res videos from Farmington ProSolo 2013

Stuff on Youtube usually looks a bit crummy, please feel free to download these if you have a decent internet connection.

Left side run (45MB):
jrho_farmington2013_left

Right side run (42MB):
jrho_farmington2013_right

Farmington ProSolo 2013

Got back late Sunday night from the 2013 ProSolo held in Farmington, New Mexico.  Lots of firsts for this event.

Starting with the trip there – it was the first time I’d ever driven through a sandstorm.  Didn’t look too bad on approach, but turned out to be about 35 miles of 40-50mph winds 90 degrees to the road path.

Truck and trailer took it like champs, and got a few pictures at a couple spots where things calmed down a bit.

Unfortunately the winds blew open the rooftop vents on the trailer, causing a lot of dirt and sand to make it down onto the car.

Yuck!  Dirtiest it’s ever been.  Fortunately the first few runs got a lot of the dirt knocked off.

To recap from previous events, the car arrived with new rear calipers to reduce rear bias,  a bunch more low speed bump damping in front, the rear lowered 1/2″, and a new ignition system.

All these changes were good ones, the car was much better than El Toro.

Another first, was in the reliability area – the car completed all three competition heats (two on Saturday, one on Sunday) without an issue.  I didn’t really need to do anything to it all weekend, and could focus on driving and getting a feel for the car.

For those not familiar with ProSolo, it involves a pair of courses constructed in mirror image.  Two drivers start from a drag race tree and complete their course, then cross over and run the other side.  In each heat you run each (left and right) course two times, for a total of six runs on each course each weekend.

After the first group of drivers ran Saturday morning, I had the quickest time on the right side course!  While that is just about the least meaningful thing one could hope to have accomplished in a ProSolo weekend, it felt like a pretty good start, especially since STX had a decent class with 9 entrants, many of whom are trophy contenders at Nationals in the class.

Of course once the second drivers ran thing returned to looking more bleak, especially with Steve O’Blenes’ fantastic performance on the left-side course.

The town of Farmington is a lot like most small towns we autocrossers visit.  The people there aren’t accustomed to seeing fancy Corvettes and Vipers and old Camaros, and it was a kick to see them getting a kick out of our cars.  The grizzly biker above stopped in the traffic lane to take a cell phone pic while the car was in grid for Saturday afternoon’s runs.

The second set of runs went better, and the last right-side run in that heat was maybe the first halfway decent run I’d put together in the car.  It was still a ways off the pace (about .5 on a 36 second course) it only had a bunch of small mistakes, nothing major.

Received many nice observations from folks afterwards, the car seemed to be working better. The “your car appears to be working ok” compliments sounds similar to “your car looks cool” but are a lot more valuable, and this is the first time I’d heard anything like them for this car.

Sunday morning brought cooler weather and a chance to move up.  Here are two videos from the morning, my best clean left and right side runs.  Still a bunch of mistakes, and overall not very good driving – but that can be improved with practice.

Left side:

Right side:

Have some thoughts on the next round of tuning changes, will put those together in a future post.

This was a good solid weekend and a nice job by the region in putting on a solid event. A bit further than what was my favorite event of the year (Wendover) but Farmington served up some of the transit drama and pleasure Wendover was known for.