Good call! At a minimum, I would wait until you can actually get some heat in the tires. From the way it looks, we will have that at Dixie.

 

Ha! You are one of those that were in my mind regarding setups. There were 2 others that are not the norm...care to guess? (There are likely others, they are just people I konw.)

 

Rocket,

Do you have a tune on the car, and have you lowered the VTEC engagement point to 4500rpm or there/thereabouts? On the AP1, this is a MEGA factor in performance for the AP1/F20 in STR trim. Without it, I would have easily been 1-1.5 seconds slower, per course, at nationals, and I am not exxagerating. The power in the middle of the rev range needs to be opened up for the AP1 to compete. Without it, I wouldn't even bother with the AP1.

Nick

 

Holy crap! You mean I could have won by almost 3 seconds if I had altered my VTEC point?

 

Yeah my AP2, is tuned and I think VTEC is at 4100 but don't quote me. I took it to Top Speed in Atlanta over the winter.

 

Ha!! I do have an idea as to who are the others. Funny that we are all so close in proximity, too.

With that being said... You were a passenger in my car at the test and tune, so you can testify that my car is certainly not a push pig that people think it would be. You can tell me if you think it is my driving style that enables this setup to work or not.

I honestly believe the AP1 and AP2 are that different when it comes to handling characteristics. I think Matt has mentioned several times how his AP2 just didn't work for him and almost immediately loved his AP1.

-Dave

 

...no "almost" about it.

 

LOL. Did you downshift at all? I didn't downshift/don't downshift unless it's a dog slow corner. If I was at stock power levels, and stock power band, there is no doubt it in my mind I would have been seconds slower in total time. I can think of 4 occurences on course one where the car dipped well below 6k in 2nd gear. The car bogged slightly out of all of them. I wonder how much quicker I could have been with a fat AP2, tuned torque curve....

If you did not downshift at all, and were running a 6K vtec engagement point, then I feel bad for the competition next year.

 

I was running an untuned AP1 last year as well, but I do lots of down shifting and likely will continue after the tune. It's just in my subconscious to do it when going slow enough. I also like working harder than everyone else to achieve the same thing.

Looking forward to a diff to go along with that tune.

 

I don't recall if I downshifted or not. I've found that it's usually slower than just making sure the car is on line... unless there is a big acceleration zone after the hairpin.