SCCA CAM-C Thread

[kz]

I hear the CAMS winner didn't have headlights nor taillights, which is disappointing because nobody protested it, and its literally the second bullet point on the CAM/X rule sheet. Sure sure he made weight and I suppose that's the main advantage of not having headlights or taillights I guess. Still WTF man, CAM is supposed to be road worthy cars, and no lights ain't road worthy. This isn't a trailer queen class. Yes he was fast and that's not why he won, but still...

Jamie is local to me although we rarely talk - I never paid attention to his lights to be honest but has has variety of cars and puts absolute tons of money in them (sequential trans, some built engine from Lingelfelter and so on). As for the trailer queen, he travels in Volvo semi with gigantic stacker trailer

Protests come with stigma (which is really messed up), protests in CAM come with twice the stigma of regular class protest. Not sure if you followed the drama in Club Spec Mustang (that actually involves your TX people), it was mind boggling.

I had close local friend run DSL and after looking at Pro Finale results, I was pretty sure Kasey will take the win. Only watched day one but she did great.

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[kz]

Interesting discussion on DSC. I don't have anything to add at the monent other than I finally started looking closer at changing calibrations - I always doubt myself before I start doubting the car so for months I just thought I drove really bad (even though I won some national trophies - probably more by accident than anything else). Tim being banned - he has more experience with suspension tuning than most people here all together and I didn't need to go too deep into this thread to now which GT500 owner you were all talking about.

Also, most recent Fast Track opens calibrations for adaptive dampers in street classes (previously SS only). General consensus on a different forum is that the way DSC works is shit and I think there is some credibility to this.

 

[kz]

Quick Nats recap - about a week before leaving for Lincoln went for one last alignment check and my intent was to park the car and not touch it. Instead found out my rear wheel bearing was absolutely shot and given amount of play, must have been for probably a year at least.

I stupidly never found it since I always have e-brake on when jacking the car up (or generally turning it off, habit from driving manuals since I was 18). Ordered two new hubs from a local Ford dealer (had no time to order from Levittown but will order a spare from them) and then off to alignment.

Did some more DSC changes after off line discussion with Tim and that definitely moved the car in the right direction, took a set of old Yoks I bought last year at Nats for $700 and relatively fresh set of Bridgestones.

Ran CAM Invitational on Yoks - went off in the round of 8 (was 3rd in the round of 16). Also, Al Unser Jr. ran a Cobra in CAM-S.

Nats itself were mostly a disaster - day one on the West (on Stones) first two runs I did not drive a tight line like everyone told me to (it's concrete with a lot of grip, I shouldn't have to slow down that much, right ? Yeah, no - off into marbles I went - we ran 5th heat). Last run was trying to salvage something and was just slow - not sure if OPR or anything else. Was 15th after day 1 (out of 40 total).

Day 2 east course - visuals were crap, got lost on run 1, overdrove a corner in run 2 and knew I could put much faster time. Run 3 was decent but not decent enough. 14th and three spots out of trophies.
I did not drive well, did not put enough work during the season to be ready for Nats (only two event on concrete were Peru and local asphalt lot could not be more different than Lincoln) and mostly ignored car thinking it's fine and I should drive faster (it was fine for the most part).

Will be back next year, hopefully will use lessons learned (but probably won't ) however event overall was a blast and I recommend to anyone to go at least once.

 

[NightmareMoon]

I didnt get all the details on the drama in CSM but I did talk to David cause hes a good dude. I know it kind of ruined Chrissy’s day. I know he used to have an illegal intake but changed it before nats. He’s dumb fast in a muscle car, they just suit him. Sounds like they were out to get him?

as for James, if he’s got that kind of money, he can afford to put on headlights for Nats, or codrive a car. I dont think it was the difference between 1st and 2nd but some guy didnt get a trophy at the bottom and at least one or two other guys sweated about bringing a legal car to nats and james broke literally the first and second rules on our short list of rules. CAMS people were very generous to him, I hope he returns the favors.

here I am stirring up drama and I didnt even go :/

 

[kz]

I didnt get all the details on the drama in CSM but I did talk to David cause hes a good dude. I know it kind of ruined Chrissy’s day. I know he used to have an illegal intake but changed it before nats. He’s dumb fast in a muscle car, they just suit him. Sounds like they were out to get him?

as for James, if he’s got that kind of money, he can afford to put on headlights for Nats, or codrive a car. I dont think it was the difference between 1st and 2nd but some guy didnt get a trophy at the bottom and at least one or two other guys sweated about bringing a legal car to nats and james broke literally the first and second rules on our short list of rules. CAMS people were very generous to him, I hope he returns the favors.

here I am stirring up drama and I didnt even go :/

Agree that if he really didn't have lights, no brainer to put them in, even if non fuctional. He once showed up on a local with Hedricks Motorsports (once in NC) built tub (as zero of an interior as it is remotely possible) Camaro with a wing and ran it in CAM-T btw.
We can have a chat about all these characters next year maybe Crissy is ex-local to us as well. And we had more than enough of a local drama recently with our solo chair being suspended from SCCA for a year.

 

[NightmareMoon]

Al Unser Jr, did anybody get his times? I dont see them listed.

 

[kz]

My rear bearing week before Nats. Don't be me, check your bearings.

 

[Aluehrs11]

My rear bearing week before Nats. Don't be me, check your bearings.

Yikes. That's a lot worn haha. Check axle nut too. Those loosening up will cause bearing failure. Speaking from experience haha

 

[kz]

Al Unser Jr, did anybody get his times? I dont see them listed.

I could probably recover them after some work (ran timing on Invitational - it was SVR region computer so David Feighner should have them). They also should get posted eventually on event page. He was fastest in CAM-S running Cobra replica but not overly so (and with not a whole lot of competition).
Dinner later in the museum (which is super cool btw - I didn't go last year), he spoke a bit of his career in Indy and it was interesting to listen to him.

 

[NightmareMoon]

My rear bearing week before Nats. Don't be me, check your bearings.

you, uh, have any big spins lately that you couldnt quite explain? Im gonna have to keep that clip handy to explain bad bearings to the noobs here.

 

[NightmareMoon]

I could probably recover them after some work (ran timing on Invitational - it was SVR region computer so David Feighner should have them). They also should get posted eventually on event page. He was fastest in CAM-S running Cobra replica but not overly so (and with not a whole lot of competition).
Dinner later in the museum (which is super cool btw - I didn't go last year), he spoke a bit of his career in Indy and it was interesting to listen to him.

oh ok, he just ran the invitational

 

[mavisky]

and yet Tom/DSC will NOT explain WTH they are doing. Which is a lot of nerve, frankly. Esp to insult a guy with TL's background. TL can buy and sell DSC a hundred times over with his annual budget.

Considering the price commanded, "give them the source code" (well almost) should be de rigueur. You look at what PCMtec is letting people do for a VERY modest asking price, DSC should be ashamed of themselves IMO. When you hand customers what amounts to an unfinished recipe, the customer shouldn't have to blindly stab in the dark, nor be baffled what the inputs/knobs do since the output is not deterministic, nor does it correlate.

is not how you keep savvy customers happy. Esp in light of "odd" behavior.

Couldn't agree more. I am on revision 4 or 5 at this point on my DSC after sending the Steeda/DSC unit back to DSC and paying even more money to them to restore it back to the unlocked DSC unit. I've abandoned the "G Comfort" settings entirely (I mean this isn't a Cadillac at this point) and while it feels good in the corners for the most part it still can get super floaty when the steering wheel is pointed straight.

If the datalogging was worth a damn I could potentially track it down, but it's just not. It almost feels like the unit would work best in a scenario where the dampers are strong enough to be critically damped at next to zero voltage out of the gate and then the DSC would be dialing in changes above and beyond that to suit handling balance. Our factory GT350 dampers seem to need about 450mv to even be somewhat operational at doing their job.

It's possible the issue may be related to the high speed compression adjustments I've made where I've pulled some damping force out to try and keep it gripped up in corners, and that when hitting those sorts of values in a straight line your base voltage is too low already and the negative affects of the high speed compression decrease makes it worse.

 

[shogun32]

Our factory GT350 dampers

If you're not running gt500/machl/R dampers especially up front. Sell your kidney and get them

 

[kz]

you, uh, have any big spins lately that you couldnt quite explain? Im gonna have to keep that clip handy to explain bad bearings to the noobs here.

In Peru CAM Challenge in June I had a big enough of a spin after getting on throttle that ended up doing a bit of lawn mowing.
But then placed 2nd in Cleveland Pro and 6th in Bristol Pro (but 0.6 seconds from the first, Ward and Whitworth were there so definitely a good competition) - somehow.

 

[mavisky]

If you're not running gt500/machl/R dampers especially up front. Sell your kidney and get them

That is being targeted for the offseason.

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