Dude, that was the "old" James, of two weeks ago. The "new" James of a week ago does not drive the car like that anymore

I agree with Dave, I think the push had to do with unexpectedly running almost an inch of toe-in in the front! That's what happens when you're making crazy changes to the car in the parking lot of the hotel the night before competition til 1:00am! Oh no, did we just give out the secret recipe alignment specs?

 

Well Mark Wortham co-driving my car won the ST shootout at the National Street Tire Challenge this Saturday at Mineral Wells. I would have been 2nd or 3rd had I been able to focus and get a clean run, but cones seem to be an issue of mine as of late and my clean run was a full second slower dropping me to 6th. The car felt the best it ever has now with the Gendron bar on.

Setup was Gendron .25 hollow Bar on full stiff 6/6 and Moton Clubsports 800F 600R. I essentially just took a guess on shock settings in the morning based on my notes and the car felt so great we did not want to touch a thing. Neither of us were even expecting to be close to the top with the brand new part on the car, but things just came together.

Mark's driving was just in a league of his own on what was one of the busiest, brutal and lengthy course I have even driven. His fastest time was a 95.2 clean and I had a 96.1+1 (fastest raw time).

Here is a video of my run
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwKraFXBx_U[/media]

Mark got to take home a great prize of $500 in Tire Rack cash for his hard work.

 

I'm going with (A). 14.8.B gives an allowance. 14.8.I.1 which applies only to dual A-arm cars (S2000 included) does not place a restriction on 14.8.B. 14.8.I.2, which places a restriction on 14.8.B, only applies to strut cars.

By the way, Jason Rhoades seems to agree with that interpretation, because he is using custom upper arms and offset bushings for the lower arms on his STX Camaro project.

 

what would even be the reason for wanting to run more then one form of adjuster to allow more camber? The only way I see this as a "good I can now do this" is if it some how ment I could use the J's racing rear roll center adjusters to match the roll center of the front. The "RCA's" do add camber, I think. Although wouldn't that mess up the toe in under compression thing because of the angle of the a-arm?

 

What is your limiter set to? Any power mods or tuning? I ask because I never came into the limiter like you did at the far corner going into the slalom across the back. I have mine set to 8500 RPM with a 5500 RPM VTEC.

Your ride height looked a little higher than mine, your tires newer, your suspension is similar, your exhaust obviously lighter than my stock one... I started with the softer compression from the Houston tour but increased it evenly over lunch to account for the high level of grip. My car felt really good.

Here was my setup for the NSTC:
Moton Clubsports
compression F/R: 4/3 from soft
rebound F/R: 3/3 from soft
anti-roll bars F/R: Gendron bearing 1.25"x0.25" @6/stock
ride-height F/R: 13.0"/12.9"
springs F/R: 850#/750#, 7"x2.5" + helpers
toe F/R: 0"/1/4"
camber F/R: -2.4*/-2.2*
17x9 6ULR w/ 255 Hankooks @36psi
intake stock, exhaust stock
VTEC 5500RPM, REV LIMITER 8400RPM, timing altered for lower VTEC engagement

The STU STI I've driven this past two months did funny things to how I was driving my S2000, but I felt mostly recovered by the 3rd run. The STI can't put down power nearly as early as the S2000, nor turn as well at speed, so I was hitting the brakes too hard, not taking advantage of the front grip to turn, and not getting on the gas early enough. That course was extremely brutal with the choppy offsets thrown in here and there, with little room to explore different lines. Through the afternoon I braked less to carry more speed into the corners and hit the gas earlier and earlier coming out but very little showed on the clocks. There was something out there I was missing. Normally I have my camera recording, but it was recovering from a trip to Lincoln last weekend.

Somewhat anecdotal, I just switched back Hankooks, for the first time since September. Their heat tolerance is amazing, but they feel so imprecise and slidey. My steering and throttle inputs had to be much earlier to account for the turn, slide, set nature of the Hankooks. They like a lot of slip compared to the Dunlops. With that said, I think the Hankook heat tolerance was necessary with the 95*F ambient temperature, the 97sec course, and the 130*F surface temperature.

 

I think your tire pressure may be to high, but that is tricky. On my previous set of RS3s they liked 35 psi for optimal grip. This latest set likes it all the way down to 28-29psi.
Car has no power mods other then k&n fink and no tune with the stock rev limit. Car weighed 2740 at divs with little more then half a tank and the Saner bar.

In the morning I was a bit quicker then Mark in the slaloms and offsets but he easily had me in the few sweepers. In the afternoon he just kept putting it all together and really brought it home. My fastest clean 97.1 would have easily been in the 95s to low 96s if I had not almost had a huge tank slapper in the back section where I almost had to be at a full stop to just keep the car from spinning.

Setup wise we are both very close. I need to go out to the car just to verify the shock settings, but we drove it with this alignment.
-2.8 f/ -2.6r
0 f/ 1/4 in rear

The shock settings were purely a guess based on notes cause I had never driven the car with the gendron yet.
Gendron 6/6 full stiff
I count shock clicks by turning all the way to full soft then count up so 1 click positive = shock setting of 1
Front R 3 C 6
Rear R 4 C 4

 

I've run the Hankooks from 32-38psi and saw similar times, albeit different feel. The lower the pressure the easier they were to work the slip angles without going too far. I varied my pressures from 34 to 36psi during the event, but haven't had a chance to re-evaluate pressures with the suspension as it is now. I'm pretty sure the Hankooks can use another -.2* camber compared to the Dunlops.

I haven't ever weighed my car nor had the chance to corner balance yet. Some day, maybe... I'm sure it is heavy.

My co-driver likes starting at the softest as "1" so add 1 to my settings or subtract 1 from yours. Are you running the rear bar?

I'm pretty sure my time lost was not carrying the throttle quite as hard for as long as I should have. Your video doesn't look much different from what I was doing aside from a few spots I can see your better throttle application. There were places that looked like I carried more speed, but through the back I was trying to be tidy and, no doubt, losing my time there.

 

Yeah I run the rear bar. I really need to corner balance the car, now that I like my ride height. I daily the car so I have to keep it a little higher. I do agree on the more camber being better for the Hankooks. I have not driven the S on star specs, but when I had the GTI the Hankooks still liked more camber. I swapped wheels last night and saw that wear on the tires was pretty even. Inside is tiny bit lower then the outside but not by much. Rear tires did wear more then the fronts as expected though.

 

I'm looking into shocks/springs to replace my stock suspension. I've tried waiting for used Moton Clubsports to pop up on s2ki but no luck over the past 6+ months. I'm now looking at AST 5100 or 5220s. I can either buy the 5100s now and use those for a year before upgrading them to 5220s or I can wait until next year saving up for the 5220s. I've only been autocrossing for 2.5 years so I don't expect to be finishing in the podiums any time soon in STR but are double adjustables the current standard for top rated suspension or can single adjustables work just fine?

 

Single adjustable can work fine, if you know how much bump you need, and get it valved that way. But, this won't work well if you ever travel to lots with different levels of grip.