SCCA CAM-C Thread

[TeeLew]

$20,000 shocks he found in the dumpster behind the paddock from the Cadillac prototype team.

Kidding...

My father would have referred to something like that by saying, "I beat a guy staying awake for it."

Let it sink in...

Sponsored

 

[strengthrehab]

Interesting. Custom tuning via DSC controller?

 

[TeeLew]

Ya, exactly. The reason to use the GT350R strut is because they have about twice the damping force range of the standard Eco/GT/GT350 version.

 

[strengthrehab]

Posted elsewhere, but finally got the car corner weighted and aligned after installing the MCS doubles a while ago. Car felt fine after install so I didn't rush an alignment, but it was off a little for my last event (where I had my best driving probably).

Car was 3940# with my weight equivalent in the driver seat making it 3680# without me and with 5/8ths tank of gas. This was with my autocross wheels and tires. Full interior minus the back seat (bottom cushion is intact). Initially car was at 53% cross weighted, now is 50%.

Alignment was set with max adjustment at spindle and then fine-tuned at the strut via Vorshlag plates resulting in -4 deg camber with plates maxed and spindle "maxed". That was then backed off to -3 degrees with the plate basically in the middle of the strut tower.

Plan is to run the rest of this year and most of next season on the RE71's I got on closeout then swap to 295/35/19 Yokohama A052. This will raise the car about 1/2 inches in ride height, but it will also give me some revs for higher speed courses. If money was no object, I'd go 18x11 or try 18x12's and 315/30/18's, but I have the 19's so I'll use them.

The next calendar year, I'm going to focus on 2 things...being at 100% throttle more during my runs (when appropriate) and working on the mental side of the game to try to optimize my times in the first 3 runs. No double runs (my region allows 2x the runs for extra 20 bucks...I routinely get better at the end of the doubles, but it doesn't count for class).

Plan is to attend 2022 Solo Nats and test the waters with the big boys. In the meantime, hopefully we will have another Texas Tours and SW Divisional prior to nationals to prepare.

 

[samstrano]

I just recently changed from mag Ride to a set of non-Magride dampers. It took a little doing, and to test it I went with a set of proven Koni Sports. I can report to you that it is a much better auto cross car than it was with the OEM setup mag ride .

Keep in mind that my car is still in B Street form, and the reason is if they do move them to F Street I want to have that option. But I've also run it in cam, like I did at the cam challenge. So I think it's relevant here. If I was only running cam I could put a DSC controller in it. And that's certainly not a bad option especially if you have a desire to tune them and play around with how they work. I think there are some advantages to them for instance launching the car I would actually want to put a bunch more compression damping in the rear to try and help wheel hop in cars that maybe don't have other bits and pieces but then have that go away once at say, 10mph.

But here's the thing a passive damper is still easier to tune. You feel it you make a change the damper can't make any decisions on its own which computers can and that's the complex part about a shock controller. It's even more to complex considering most people who work on shocks have no idea exactly how crazy the transition rates in autocross can get.

I just got back from Ford Fest. They were a bunch of s550s there and a whole bunch of ones and clearly not lacking power or modifications. I won The autocross segments in total. I think I would have been pretty high in speed stop except the rains came. Even still I was second it's just that nobody else got a really good shot at it.

I'm working on trying to get a few videos out just to show how the car is working very unfortunately real life gets in the way. But it is marketably better than it was at the cam challenge in Peru back in August. And that is down to tires and dampers. Those are the only two things that have changed. And it wasn't really bad then.

 

[SteveW]

Had a little fun in the rain Saturday at a small local event. Had done 6-7 drying runs in the morning session on A052s so had the course down. During lunch it started to rain and since I'd always wanted to test my GoodYear Exhilarate UHP A/S street tires against 200TW Extremes in the cold and wet I took opportunity to do that.

I started off the afternoon with 3 runs with the A052s and felt like I got a solid effort in by the 3rd so, switched to the GYs.

Mid-50s degree temps, wet airport asphalt surface, 50-60 run 295/35/18 Yokohama A052s on 18x11 3rd run:


Mid-50s degree temp, wet airport asphalt surface, year old/lightly used 275/35/19 GY Eagle Exhilarate UHP A/S on 19x10 3rd run:


My A052s are well worn but still awesome in the dry. Neat to see the GYs being slightly faster in the wet than those and I think they would hang real close with fresh, full tread A052s.

 

[shogun32]

My A052s are well worn but still awesome in the dry. Neat to see the GYs being slightly faster in the wet than those and I think they would hang real close with fresh, full tread A052s.

so a test on stone-cold tires and in the case of A052 even more massively outside their optimal operating range? Aren't there any auto-cross courses that take a few minutes to run? Kinda like that BBC show with some extra complexity thrown in?

 

[SteveW]

so a test on stone-cold tires and in the case of A052 even more massively outside their optimal operating range? Aren't there any auto-cross courses that take a few minutes to run? Kinda like that BBC show with some extra complexity thrown in?

This is how autox is. You make a 60ish sec run then back in grid for a few mins. These times I sent were 3rd runs so about as warned up as the tires were going to get that day anyway. It's important to know in those particular conditions, which are common in the pnw what is a good setup.

The conventional wisdom is PS4S is king maybe along with the A052 in the wet. I saw that this GY had a similar Tire Rack wet track test time as PS4S but not in the same test. I needed a tire that I could drive in freezing weather but also hoped it would be alright in early season autox when it's in the 30s or low 40s and wet/damp and bought the GY.

 

[shogun32]

I appreciate the research and reporting. It just struck me that the course (and others I've seen on YT) were totally uninteresting, and entirely too short. For some reason I thought Auto-X was like RallyCross just with less dirt.

 

[SteveW]

I appreciate the research and reporting. It just struck me that the course (and others I've seen on YT) were totally uninteresting, and entirely too short. For some reason I thought Auto-X was like RallyCross just with less dirt.

Most of us are stuck with postage stamp lots and tight courses unfortunately. This lot can support a more open course design but the club that conducted this event does very tight courses. It's was ok though. Some key elements in the course highlighted setup things to fix earlier in the day, which was helpful and fun.

The course designer was worried about the rain and slick conditions so had some very tight elements in there for safety sake. Like the very narrow weave before the finish that kept speeds down and reduced the risk of spinning out into the concrete barriers off to the left.

I will often travel very long distances just to get seat time on epic lots and courses. Crows Landing in CA is like the best autox place on the west coast. Packwood is another awesome place to make runs.

 

[Dana Pants]

Tire test stuff.

So where are the blooper reels throwing the Mustang at course workers? It’s not a valid rain test without at least one person running for their life.

 

[SteveW]

So where are the blooper reels throwing the Mustang at course workers? It’s not a valid rain test without at least one person running for their life.

Yes, I had a few of those but it may be best to not publish that, lol.

 

[Dana Pants]

Yes, I had a few of those but it may be best to not publish that, lol.

In FS we throw our cars into the grass at 60 mph as our forefathers intended.

 

[SteveW]

Thankfully last Sat all I had were some moments of throttle induced oversteer as I probed the limits of grip in earlier runs. I let a friend make a couple runs in my car to experience my setup and he spun it in the middle of the lot. His S550 is much softer sprung/damped but s/c.

 

[TeeLew]

In FS we throw our cars into the grass at 60 mph as our forefathers intended.

Still too much understeer, I see.

Sponsored