I'm not leaving my setting based on a slick lot. I was referring to rebound which will remain the same at every course unless it's overly bumpy. I'll use compression to tune for grip at different lots. Rebound is being used for bump control and it has alittle to do with weight transfer but I'm doing compression based shock tuning. Set rebound in the range it should be and use compression to balance the car based on grip of the front and rear tires. All rebound needs to be used as, is to as quickly return the wheel to it's resting level without overshot or jacking down, no more, I have 2 other knobs to fix everything else. Now granted if we ran on a really bumpy lot and it was causing jacking down then yea take out alittle rebound but most of the tours are going to be smooth.

The pad I'll prolly be on the same settings but at kyr events I'll have to add some compression because it's a higher grip lot.

My spring change comment was a result of lossing grip on a grippy lot with the setting 3<, such as Blytheville. I'd like to have more of a adjustment range then 3 clicks between a grippy lot and a slick one. By dropping to spring rate 50-100 lbs I could then use more settings. Theoretically. Although honestly shocks only come into play during transitions and corner entry/exit. Steady state cornering relys on the spring and bar. My car in Blytheville (grippy lot) was losing grip around the big sweeper (steady state corner) which means "hey if you go alittle softer you'll have more grip there." ofcourse swaybars and toe setting and camber all are in that mix but you get what I'm saying. Not many people are over 850 in the front.

 

Has anyone figured out hankook water spraying yet? I have a codriver at every event, and we're honestly finding that if we don't keep them "easy to hold your hand on the tire" temperature they get really greasy and the car gets really loose. At the last couple events, which the temperature has been in the 90s, that means basically after we've each taken one run (so before the 3rd run) we need to spray. At the toledo tour I noticed other people were spraying less than I was though. I need to start using my pyrometer and actually get numbers, but has anyone done any good testing on how much to spray the hankooks?

 

Before we started getting in the temps being in the upper 80's, we never needed to water the Kooks. However, at the Blytheville and Toledo Tours, we've had to water the kooks between the 3 or 4th run. If we saw in the upper 130's or low 140's (cheap touchless gauge), we watered. It might be a bit premature, but I'd rather error on the conservative side as it grips good below that temp.

-D

 

Here is a list of 60 ft times from the pro solo. When James posts his report, we will see if there is a correlation between weight, and 60 ft. time. Note that James was driving Robert Thorne's car, and Chris was driving Michael Melchior's car. Also note the Miata kicked our butts. Finally, anticipating the weigh-in, my car is at least 150 lbs. heavier than Robert's. Must be all that experience on Woodward Ave. in the 60s.

Driver
average
60ft time (11 or 12 runs).

Robert Thorne
2.465
James Yom
2.442
Chris Mayfield
2.501
Mike Melchior
2.550
Michael Carpenter
2.437
Boyd Burbank
2.512
John Huft
2.443
Stan Whitney (Miata)
2.277

John

 

Thanks Dave, now are you saying you watered them between the 3rd and 4th run, and then didn't water them again? Or you're still watering them every run or two from that point on?

Since we aren't using a trailer right now, and I was operating under the assumption we wouldn't need to do much watering, I just had a couple spray bottles like you'd use for windex. So we can't get much water volume on the tires. So recently we've been starting watering usually on the 3rd run and watering every run after that, although we only use maybe 8 oz of water total for all 4 tires each run, so for example our autocross yesterday where we got 4 runs each we only used about 3/8 of a gallon of water at the end of the day. I think we need more water to really make a dent in it so right now I'm trying to find a relatively small real garden sprayer.

I definitely feel like, with what we've been doing, I have the best grip on my 1st run...and on the subsequent runs my grip is better for the 1st half then it trails off. That wasn't true when it was colder, but still it seems to go against what people are saying about these tires needing heat.

 

At Toledo/day2, we never watered the tires until after the runs were over. They were hot, but they still had plenty of grip. The set we ran was from the first batch of RS3s set over (approx 1.5 years old?). I wonder if the compound has any changes since then?

-Marc

 

At Toledo/day2, we never watered the tires until after the runs were over. They were hot, but they still had plenty of grip. The set we ran was from the first batch of RS3s set over (approx 1.5 years old?). I wonder if the compound has any changes since then?

-Marc
[/quote]

That is crazy to me...maybe they really are different. Did you feel like grip was getting better or worse or not really changing as your runs went on? Did you happen to put a hand on your tires at all?

I'm wondering if a) there's a hump where grip goes down as it gets hotter then once it reaches a certain point it gets better again or b) we're just massively overdriving the tires and heating them up faster than other people

 

That's about right... we do the hand touch test after that point. It seems that it needed watering every run or two after that... just to stay in front of it.

I'm with you on that too. However, the extreme temps we were seeing at Blytheville/Toledo where the surface temps were 118-120'ish F, the tires seemed to need the water. I do know that I totally soak the tires when watering them, so your bottles would not be enough for my liberal spraying. The way I see it... read gut/non-scientific, at these surface temps, it doesn't take long for them to get to the needed temps for very good grip.

As of the water bottles, I got mine from Harbor Freights (orange colored). I got one tall one and one small one and keep one on each side. Plus, us it makes sure I don't run out of water. I even put insulation around one to help attempt to block/reflect the sun from getting the water too hot, but it can still make the water warm. I just pour in water from the cooler and throw in some of the ice.

From my perspective, I saw a big degrade by the 4th or 5th run and it is very dicey/exciting runs when it happens.

-Dave

 

I put my car on our scales here:
LF 698, RF 691
LR 611, RR 682
total 2680

It was never weighed stock. I was too busy and don't car since the car isn't a variable in my build.

Similar cars weighed on these scales:
stock 1995 M3 3100
stock 1999 M3 3200
stock 2003 M3 3400
STU 1999 M3 2950
STU 2003 M3 3250
STU 2006 STI 3050

Details:
2006 S2000
J's front ball joints
17x9 949 6ULR, 255 Hankook RS3 5/32
Moton Clubsport with OE Honda shock tops, 7"x2.5" springs, tenders, perches
Gendron 1.25"x0.25" bar with bearing mounts, stock rear bar
T1R 70R-EM
Odyssey PC680 battery
Full tank of gas

 

At Toledo/day2, we never watered the tires until after the runs were over. They were hot, but they still had plenty of grip. The set we ran was from the first batch of RS3s set over (approx 1.5 years old?). I wonder if the compound has any changes since then?

-Marc
[/quote]

This. Blytheville was 100 degrees, and we didn't spray until last runs, after Josh (hi josh!) lit up the rears on a go-for-broke run. Other than that, I've never sprayed an RS3.

And, as a data point, we ran some of the new Falkens on a Z06, 70-degree day, cool pavement ... and got two runs before spraying.