2014 - Season (pre)Planning...

The past 2 winters - without a racecar - have been much different.  From 2009-2012 I was eagerly awaiting new classing rulesets to decide where to position the #929Evo, what mods to do or undo, what items to refresh and what would need done by my title sponsor (ECU Tuning, etc).  I would pull together all that information and eventually build my schedule.  The biggest pain of that process was scheduling the tuning/maintenance time with my title sponsors - AMS Performance or Buschur Racing.  The sponsors were great help - no issues there - but with them being between 3.5 hrs and 8 hrs away over the years, it provided schedule concerns, time off from work, issues with the weather, etc.  Some pics from years past:

The past 2 winters - without a racecar - have been much different!  No scheduling of long-distance trips, no pre-prep on the car, no figuring out mods, no ordering mods (UPS/Fedex guy probably misses me!), no time spent freezing in the garage during these cold months, etc.
So not owning a racecar isn't all bad news.  But I was extremely meticulous with my maintenance schedule and always strived to keep my racecar legal and in full advantage of the rules.

2014 Events Schedule to come...

#929Evo Projects - Pics and Press

Recently, I took some time putting together a group of pictures sort of detailing the 6+ years I had with the #929Evo.  As I purchased the car brand new, it went through quite a transformation to a weekend track car, to adding sponsors, to eventually being trailored and at the end being completely gutted and caged.  Below are the pics that work down from top-left.  It's a 16x20 framed photo.
Pics:

Project #2 was an effort to capture a magazine article for the #929Evo from mid-2012.  Many thanks to Evolution Magazine.  This was a long work in progress from the time the written interviews were taken until publishing over in Europe, then eventually I received a copy.  I eventually tracked down a few additional copies and was able to cut everything out and fancy it up with some additional pictures to round out the mount. 
Evolution Magazine article:

2012 Press --> #929Evo - (UK) Evolution Magazine

My apologies as I step back to 2012 to share some wicked-ass information!  I had some pretty rare overseas press on the #929Evo that recently went to print and eventually I was able to get my hands on a copy.  I'm just now getting around to scanning it in.

The story goes... a columnist from the Arizona area found me somehow and wanted to do a spread on me and the car for a new upstart British magazine. His job/goal was to share some stories about racing in the US to demonstrate that even though we're 1000's of miles apart we're not all that different. And to compare/contrast the availability of tracks, cars, competition, the racing ladder system, etc. We didn't have a lot of time (or any funds) to put together a photoshoot so I merely submitted pics that I had already. Enjoy.

Page #1:

 

Page #2:

 

Page #3:

Putnam Park - 5.13.2012 - Drifting into 1st place!

Saturday evening I rotated the tires; X'ing the front backwards. I figured the LF would be nearly bald - and it was. But the RF was worse! Sunday was going to be interesting with no grip in the rear, but I was thinking since the fronts looked ok that I'd at least be able to turn like I could early Sat.

(Pic):  Left side tires from Sat evening. Front on the left; rear on the right. I rotating the bald ones to the rear....

I made more suspension tweaks, rolling back the changes I made late Sat in hopes it would help the car grip more. I had some pulsing in the front end under braking on the out lap. I figured something was stuck to the rotor and/or the tires were flatspotted from sitting all night as I had reset my pressures to my normal morning starting pressures. It seemed to go away with some really hard jabs so I put it out of my mind and hit it hard. I ran 6 laps with a best of 1:18.2 which the car was no longer sliding, but rather drifting today! Jeff's Evo was behind me this session and got some good vid; check it out below.

For S2 I bettered my time to a 1:18.1 but that's all I could get. The rear was drifting around so much that I had to do more than countersteer, I had to get out of the gas some which is a killer for times. This is the session I put the camera on the rear and had a Mustang 302 behind me. My overall times were better than his, but in this session I just couldn't get the power down and after drifting through T4 and getting out of the gas I simply pointed him around.
When done, I looked over my tires carefully to see how bald the rears were now and to verify nothing was corded. The tires passed inspection, but the LF rotor did not. Check it out:

While I had a spare, it was 12:30pm at this point and very hot. With basically 0 chance to improve my times and only to play around more, I decided to forgo the fix and just pack things in and go surprise visit my Mom with it being Mother's day and all. It'd only add about 45min to my overall trip. With all the crazy turmoil with my wife's family recently; I've been trying to take the extra effort with regards to visits and calls and whatnot. I was actually going to cancel this event but the wife told me to go and enjoy the distractions. So I watched the start of my friend's race after packing up and took off.

Overall the car did great. No mechanical issues, just the broken exhaust bracket which was no biggie, the broken rotor which is a wear item and my boost gauge is still broke (so no, I've no idea what boost I was running). Oh, and my time easily held up Sunday for first in TTA once again.

After looking deeper at all my GPS data, everything is pretty cut and dry.  An 8/10's lap from 2011 on wider A6's yielded a nearly identical laptime to this year's lap at nearly 10/10's on skinnier R6's. Nuff said.
Braking force with R6's is crap compared to an A6; I had data confirming this already. Cornering G's were about the same but that's the 8/10's vs the 10/10's thing to allow that. I was able to push my brakezones a bit which is good and the car rotated great w/o hardly any understeer given what front grip I had at least.

The 2012 setup vs the 2011 setup to me feels better with regards to power and rotation. I'm really happy with how smooth the car idles, and I don't even notice the Synapse BOV thx to Buschur's tune (he assured me it'd be smooth; he's right). The differences being a Buschur tune on the engine this year and an ACD-tuning update in the ACD unit. Also different on this track were taller tires and a taller 4th gear as compared to May/2011 - both of which hurt my laptimes as the car was previously geared incredibly well for Putnam. With less speed on corner entry from the ****tier tires and the gearing changes I was actually forced to downshift twice more per lap to keep the turbo spinning. So factor in all those changes and running 1.3 seconds behind my blitzing 2011 time of 1:15.7 and I'm feeling pretty good about the car.

Video's coming...

Putnam Park - 1st in TTA - 5-12-2012

After running the Enduro on Friday afternoon/evening, I awoke at 6:45am Saturday tired and sore.  I still had to unload, unpack the car, and do some prep but that was about it.  Our warmup wasn't until after 10am so it was relaxed.  For the warmup I lined up around grip spot #3 I think and after waiting 1 lap for things to come up to temp I put down an easy 1:17.9 to earn #2 in grid.  I then went to tech and got weighed since I still had no solid idea of what the car weighed post-cage.  It came in at 3198 lbs; which was about 50 lbs over what I was claiming for the day so I was pretty happy with that given the current fuel load. 

Session 2 was at noon and I made no changes and fired a 1:17.0 which slotted me first in class and first overall.  I hit traffic very quickly as there were 44 cars in TT on Putnam's 1.7 mile course.  Also someone nailed the hay bails in the final turn so we had a few sitting on the exit of T10 which was right in the line - and after 2 laps of that I seen the double yellow.  I was probably going 130mph when I seen it, closing in on 2 lower classed cars probably going 95-100mph but I made the passes safely before the flagstand and tucked in behind the traffic.  Oddly though that traffic was another car giving pointby's that was off pace.  By the time I realized it I'd been re-passed by a few cars - I think this confused some cars as other passing from other cars ensued and only 1 was called in for passing under double-yellow.

For S3 I made a few small tweaks and ran a best of 1:17.2 but the car was really starting to slide at this point.  Wasn't sure if it was the heat - sunny and around 85 - or the tires giving up.  I figured a bit of both.  I know I was starting to drop 1-2 tires into the dirt in multiple corners on exit as the car just wouldn't hold and would slide.  It made 'catching' the slides a bit interesting and fun but I knew this wasn't going to be faster.  I was also given the pleasure of the 'meatball' flag and when I came in was told my exhaust was rubbing and throwing sparks.  This shocked me as there was no audible difference.  When I got back to my paddock spot I seen the brace by the rear axle had broken and it was hanging low and would need a bandaid!  I recently had another bracket re-welded and perhaps with that being tighter, me dropping tires and that rear brace being rewelded back in 2009 - the extra pressure caused it to break again.  Either way I had 2 hours to fix it, and with my idea and some help from a friend it was pretty simple.  (see pic)

For S4 I adjusted the suspension a touch to try and aid rotation/grip assuming things would be worse if the tires were the problem.  I had my answer in the first lap; it was the tires!  I ran 3 hard laps right around 1:18.3 until I hit traffic, then I played for another 1-2 and drifted.  I actually had a few people ask who left the drift marks in certain turns as I was at least having fun!  At this point I new the tires were shot, having 12-16 Heatcycles each.  Also good news was that our exhaust fixed had held up just fine.  My time from S2 would hold to land me 1st place in TTA by about 3 seconds - but I was 1.3 seconds off my record from 2011 when I was on wider stickier rubber.  But considering the tires I came with I thought the car did very well - running times right where I thought we would.  Power was smooth and rotation was great with no understeer; just an overall lack of grip especially at turn-in from the worn tires. 
Vid from Sat; A lap each from Sessions 2 & 3 from different angles:

4.22.12 - NASA TTS @ Autobahn

After the brake caliper failure on Saturday, I switched the car to run Time Trials on Sunday to do some testing with the brake setup.  As for changes, I swapped out the leaking RF caliper with another that I had (always bring extras) and did a quick bleed of the brakes.  The odd thing was besides being a bit low of brake fluid, there really wasn't any air bubbles or darker fluid that came out of the system.

Having no time in TT from the previous day, I gridded in the rear and clawed my way through the traffic to find a descent lap while trying to be nice.  I ended up with a respectable 1:34x, similar to what I was running in the race the previous day - on the same setup.
Session #2 I bolted up my better 255 A6's that were leftover from 2011 and laid down a personal best 1:31.9, running just 3 quick laps.  Everything felt great including the brakes and things seemed to be back to normal overall although the car was rotating more that usual with the more aggressive ACD map from ACD-Tuning.  By this time it was lunch, so I popped out the front brakepads to check for wear assuming I'd need to drop in a new set.  But, they did not look any worse so I left them in. 
Session #3 I was lined up behind another Evo and we turned some good fun laps, nearly identical laps all right around the 1:32x range until he had an OFF and we both came in.  Overall, no better.
Session #4 I stayed out and ran 6 hard laps; which coincidentally was all the further I got in the race!  These turned out to be my best laps as I was pushing the car pretty hard - a bit too hard probably for the tires - through some of the tighter turns.  I had multiple laps in the 1:31x range.

At the end of the day, we ended up 2nd out of 5 cars in class; besting 2 TTS Evo's with front/rear aero and set a personal best of 1:31.666.  Keep in mind we were actually running in legal TTA form (but in TTS for competition) and this would have set a new TTA lap record with that time.  Huge thanks to Buschur Racing, AMSOIL and ACD-Tuning for their 2012 support.
The video below is from S4; enjoy:

2011 Season Recap!

2011 NASA Midwest Region TTA Champion
2011 NASA Great Lakes Region TTA Champion
2011 NASA Nationals 3rd place TTA (out of 14 competitors)
2011 TT Most Improved - Midwest Region
2011 TT Perseverance - Great Lakes Region

16 Regional Events

• 10 1st place finishes
• 5 2nd place finishes
• 1 3rd place finish

5 track records in 2011

My last 38 NASA events dating back to 2009:

• 29 wins
• 12 track records

25,000 miles and 83 track days in total on the car, all with the stock motor, cams, turbo, bottom-end, etc. 
As always a huge thanks to AMS Performance, AMSOIL, Forgeline, Hoosier, Hawk, Boostin Performance and Buschur Racing.

Road America - 147.2 mph!

147.2 mph was the top speed for the #929 Evo at Road America this past weekend!  I think that's pretty good for a little 2.0 four-banger tuned by AMS Performance!  We had a best lap of 2:29.2 which reached my personal goal of a sub 2:30 lap.  It's a fun track and pretty easy to pick up; with mostly the need to figure out your braking zones as you're going about 140mph in 3 sections on this track!

I'll have a writeup with some on-track pics shortly.  For now, I'll leave you with one from the paddock area!

2011 NASA National Championships - Sept 8-11th

It's here!  The primary goal for this year and the culmination of the entire year's worth of effort.  The 2011 NASA National Championships kick off at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course on Thursday Sept 8th and flow for 4 days.  For the Time Trials groups, we get 1 practice and 8 timed sessions scattered over those 4 days to set our fastest lap.  It's not a great deal of tracktime, so prepping the car with the right setup is critical.

The #929 Evo is currently loaded up and ready to rock. As the forecast shows chances for rain daily, part in thanks to Tropical Storm 'Lee', we decided to leave the rain/street tires on in prep for our first session Thursday @ 11am. I figure I have plenty of time to (happily) switch to Hoosiers if the weather is good. BUT, if it's wet, I need to throwdown an official lap to start working the grid strategy. My group consists of my class (TTA) and the 3 classes above me, TTS, TTU, & TTR respectively. Should be around 30-35 of us including 13 in my class!

I hope to make some pretty regular updates on the blog.  Possibly nightly even!  But I promise lots of small updates via twitter:  http://twitter.com/#!/boomn29
I'll leave you with one of my favorite pictures of 2011...

Sat 8.13.11 Mid Ohio -1st in TTA & Track Record!

After nearly 600 miles 10.5 hrs of driving on Friday (to Ohio via Chicago)...
Sat warmup was pretty early! I did very little to prep the car, having not even started it since I left Mid Ohio in July! After unpacking it, I adjusted the tire temps a little, slapped on the camera and that's about it! I ran about 6 laps, each a little quicker than the last and qualified with a 1:35.0 - which was nearly as fast as I went in July; so I was excited.
I was sitting 9th in grid and 2nd in class; squeezed tightly by 2 C5 Vettes.

I reset the tire temps for S2, made a few suspension tweaks and knew I'd need to push hard as the morning session would be the fastest - plus there was rain forecasted later. I pushed pretty hard, but safe, and ran a 1:33.2 which was a personal best! It landed me in 1st place and broke the TTA track record by a few tenths.

We had a 2+ hr break until S3. I ate, rotated some tires, reset pressures, moved the camera, put in some fuel, tweaked the suspension - all really quick/minor stuff as the car felt pretty good and was rotating well to my liking. I ran some 1:34's but I didn't better my time. Nobody really improved actually. Same story for S4 (which I sat out). S5 was like 5:30 and I was hoping for better conditions with less sun. The car felt good, but not great. I ran a few 1:34's but no improvement.

My time held up and I finished 1st out of 8 in class, taking the Pro Course TTA Track Record (to go along with the Club Course record I set in April)! The car felt really good all day, neutral, able to rotate a bit under hard throttle thanks to the Shep rear diff. AMS tuned power was good; although the Vettes still walk me on the straights - they've got to be right on the class power/weight ratio!

Prepping for Aug Mid Ohio Event!

With the knowledge from our trip to Mid Ohio in July, we're prepping the car a bit differently for the next trip!  We'll be back at Mid Ohio for an important NASA MW/GL crossover event, which means double points, bigger fields, more competition, etc.  It's also another chance to improve at Mid Ohio for the National event in September.

So currently the car has the stock wing on it, and it will remain that way!  I really like the Kognition wing and it obviously produces rear downforce as advertised.  However the lack of front downforce produces lift and results in a 'push' especially mid-corner under power.

Therefore we're going to use those 'mod pts' elsewhere on the car.  The fancy AMS FMIC will be going back on the car.  I think the additional power, throttle response and larger powerband will be a welcome addition for the longer Mid Ohio straights!  It should also help counteract some of the high intake temps of the summer.

The picture here is the car as it sits today.  The stock FMIC has been pulled and it's awaiting the AMS FMIC to be bolted back in place.  I'm hoping to get some additional ducting in place on the bumper to help out temps as well.  Time permitting...

Sat 7.16.11 Mid Ohio

I lined up in the morning with R6's in the front and crappy (partially corded) old A6's in the rear. I wanted to run a time good enough for top 15 out of the 55 cars registered in TT. I also wanted to be safe with the new setup changes including Kognition wing back on, more aggressive alignment and more toe. I fired a 1:37x that slotted me into #8 on grid and was pretty happy. The car felt pretty good, not scary or loose or anything. The new set of front Hawk pads felt really good!

Session #2 I mounted up 2 new tires in the front (only brought 3 new ones!). I ran a 1:34.7 and the car felt pretty good. It wasn't rotating the way I wanted in the right-handers and the left-handers it was fighting me a bit but it was a great start. That landed me 2nd in class out of 6 with tops being a 1:34.2 ran by a Vette.

Sessions #3 and #4 I stuck with the same tire setup and tried to push the car more. It did NOT like it. The more I tried the less it'd turn left. I made a wing adjustment and it didn't help; loosened the front rebound; didn't help much. It was getting warmer and I was fighting a loosing battle with times, but still wanted to get the car to rotate and turn left for the next day! I ran several 1:35's.

With Session #5 being my last session and still being locked in 2nd of 6 I decided to pull the wing and put the stocker back on and the R6's back to save my best ones. If things felt good; I'd go with it the next day. And guess what... it rotated! The bueaty of my Shep rear diff was back under throttle! My Sunday setup would change!

Autobahn Sunday - 07.10.11 - 1st place in TTA!

For Sunday I knew I needed to make a change. I decided the simplest was to pull the Kognition rear wing and put the stocker back on. The car felt much better when I was there in April and I ran the stocker back then. The Kognition was definitely producing downforce, but since I don't have a front splitter to balance it out, with my current alignment/settings it's just too much for this track right now I guess.

So I lined up Sunday with the stock wing and ran a 1:33.4. Car definitely felt looser in turns 3 & 4 where I had to left off the gas earlier. And the bandaid was still holding! Still though, I wasn't as fast as I was in April. I looked over my traqmate data and see I was loosing time in the braking zone of T1 of all places! So I set out to correct that in S2 and ran a 1:33.4 again! I assumed at this point the tires much be nearly shot.

I was going to run at least 1 more session and I wanted to make some change. Talked it over with a friend and I made a 1-click rebound adjustment - note this is the FIRST TIME this YEAR that I've touched the suspension settings on my new AST's since they were installed (they've been that good). Amazingly enough I felt the 1-click adjustment! The car rotated better through 2 specific corners and I was able to drop a 1:32.5 to end the day. That time held to win TTA for Sunday - although I wasn't able to reset my April track record of 1:32.1

Here's a good vid from Sunday. It's me and Jeff in his Evo; running nose-to-tail 1:33's.

NASA - Gingerman - 1st in TTA - June 4th!

After driving up late Friday night (~6 hrs), got up Saturday, unloaded all the remaining crap inside the car, unloaded the car and did a little prep. This was the first time the car had been off the trailer since being loaded at Putnam Park May 15th! Only changes were a quick wash and I had installed a Kognition rear wing on the car since!

With the new wing set at the lowest possible angle, I lined up and ran a 1:43 for the practice session which put me #3 in grid for the entire TT group. Always strive to be in the first couple spots so I can get some clean laps right away!

For S2 (the first timed session) I was lined up behind the current TTA track record holder; what else but a C5 Vette! We did 3 laps hard laps and I could gain on him in a few spots, but he'd pull away in a few spots too. My best was a 1:40.0 - while his transponder didn't register. Sucks... as we had to be close!

For session #3 I made my 1st wing adjustment and fired a 1:39.3 which broke the track record for TTA! The car felt more planted and I liked it! Session #4 was at 2pm and it was starting to get pretty heated up. I made another adjustment and thought the car pushed a bit. Best was a 1:40x. Session #5 was at 3:40pm; hot hot hot. I backed the wing off 1 step and ran another 1:39x but not better than before as track conditions were degrading quickly.
The car was also sorta hopping in low speed turns under hard throttle. It did this a bit last year in 3rd gear corners, I assumed because the turbo comes on so quickly there. With the new 2011 alignment it's been better, but apparently it's back! I can drive around it, but it's not ideal so I hope to be making some adjustments down the road....

My 1:39.3 stood for 1st out of 6 in TTA. I also ended up with FTD of the entire TT group!  It was pushed hard all day through 5 sessions, high revs, high oil temps, high boost, etc and responded with flying colors.  Thanks as always to AMS Performance for a truely terrific tune!

Here's vid from the last session, looking backwards under the new Kognition wing; enjoy in HD!

NASA - Putnam Park - Day #2

Having won my class and set a new track record on Saturday before the rain set in; Sunday we woke up to more rain.  It wasn't a hard rain; more of a spray/mist that held out the entire day.  I mounted up the street tires - my 3yr old Dunlop Z1 StarSpecs - and went out for the first session in my #2 gridspot behind the 500hp TurnInConcepts (TIC) Subaru.  I made no suspension changes.  Putnam just blows in the wet; the pavement is like 13 years old and most of the turns are pure ice when wet.  I was figuring something under the 2:00 would be good! 

Like the TIC car, I was able to spin all 4 on the out lap in various spots testing out grip - which is very very rare for me.  The session was pretty much a follow-the-leader deal for about 3 laps before some of us all got daring enough to start passing.  I ran a few laps in the 1:54-55 range with a ton of skidding including a 2-turn combo through T9/10 when I was a full opposite lock for awhile.  I kept turning laps and kept saving the car in turns and was having fun until I was in the wrong spot for T8 and when I went for the brakes there was nothing.  So I had my first off-course excursion of the year.  I just went straight off as I could turn or brake at that point, through some grass, through a small gravel trap, through some more grass, up a few small hills - it literally felt like offroading and I was told I had the car airborne at least once.  I came back and jacked up the car and nothing looked broke.  There was dead grass everywhere; all over the front bumper, inside the wheel wells, jammed on the intercooler, on top of the LICP, all over the wrapped downpipe, etc.  The worst of it was the gravel knicked up the far right of my lower bumper; that's it.  Pretty lucky.

While my S1 time of 1:54.0 would have been good for 4th in grid, I had to start from the end of the pack because of the 4-wheels-off.  I new I'd have to pick my way through traffic and search for a descent lap.  On the straightaway on the 1st lap I think I passed 4-5 cars.  Ended up with a 1:51 in that session and the track actually seemed a little better as that was much less sideways!  Back up to 7th in grid which is much better to work with!

3 hr gap until the 3rd session.  Hoping for dry, I remounted the A6's.  Actually a lot of the guys were running A6's in the earlier sessions too - some on streets - some on fancy Hoosier wets!  The rain slowed to a mist and there was a racegroup in front of us so I knew the track would definitely be better than before at least.  I was gridded 7th overall; just behind the TTA leading Corvette.  I matched my pace with his for a few laps, got around him and ran a 1:34x - about 2.5 seconds ahead of the Corvette.  The time held out for 1st in class and I came away with the 2-day sweep in TTA!  Thx for AMS Performance for the ever incredible tune and Forgeline Motorsports for the new rims (see pic).

NASA - Autobahn - TTA Track Record!

Sunday morning the TT group was the first ones on track at 8:30!  I decided to go out and defend my gridspot - as we grid by time and all the Sat times were in the 2:03-2:35 range. So I asked a buddy to go with me for the hell of it because I like to scare people! As it was in the 40's it took a bit for the tires to warm up, so the rear was pretty loose for several laps which is quite fun! Eventually we played a few laps of cat-n-mouse with a TTB 350Z and had some fun running mostly 1:38's to keep at the front of the grid.

S2 I went out and hammered it. The car felt good but I was getting held up by a TTR C6 Z06 (check out the vid below). Unfortunately he ruined 2 of my laps and after that the tires were out of their prime. I did manage a 1:33.5 to regain the #1 gridspot so I'd be in front of that C6 Z06 the next session! I was also just .2 off my TTA track record from 2010 and knew it was well within site.

S3 was probably going to be my last as there was a 2.5hr gap afterwards and it'd been a long cold weekend for the wife and dog. I led the group out, took 1 lap to warmup everything and ran a pair of 1:32's with the last being 1:32.1 and breaking my own TTA track record from 2010.

Apart from a few sloppy lines; that was pretty much everything this current config had in it. That in itself was some great knowledge to have. I only wish we could have done all that on Saturday instead of Sunday. As I had a different config I wanted to test; but it'll have to wait.  All in all I ran 1.1 seconds faster that last year and reset my track record. I also had FTD both Saturday and Sunday over the entire TT group.

With zero changes to the suspension, the car is already rotating better on the setup than it ever did last year.  I have to thank Aaron from Winning Formula for the setup, AMS Performance for the power delivery and Sheppard Racing for the trick rear diff.  Enjoy the vid...

AMS Tuning!

Took the car up to AMS Performance in Chicago last Friday.  I had AMS replace some leaking seals, and a wideband A/R gauge for safety and retune the car. 

AMS last tuned the car in mid 2008, and there's been some parts switching so an updated tune was in order.  I also wanted to verify the boost leaks were the only reason my traqmate logs showed me down on power and not something more severe.

Results = Yummy!  (Vid below.)
Nearly 360whp / 380wtq on their Mustang Dyno in cold 20 degree Chicago weather. That's nearly 470hp if measured at the crank. I think that'll pull nicely.
Huge thanks to the team at AMS for taking care of me including Dan & Eric up front and Chris for the tune.

Boost Leak Testing!

Here's some pics from the boost leak test I setup. I did everything with the car still loaded on the trailer in my garage! Not ideal, but not impossible.

Here is a pic of the turbo 'cap' I built. (On the left is the air hose.) It's a way to enter metered air into the turbo. I use an compressor initially set to a stockish 20psi and let the system build up and started listening for major leaks. After tightening up a few intercooler hoses, I could hear major air leaking from around the injector seals.
Ideally I'd pump the system to just above what I'd run on the track - about 30psi - and it'd hold solid with no noticeable leaks. 

So thanks to this test, I'm planning on replacing the injector seals and then getting the car re-tuned to verify the horsepower!  The car goes to AMS Performance in Chicago at the end of the month.

Putnam Park! - Double NASA TTA wins!

The final event of the NASA MW/GL regions was last weekend at Putnam Park outside Indianapolis. The forecast was to be gorgeous, and it actually turned out HOT! High of 87 Sat with zero clouds.
The NASA MW/GL region does an end of the year banquet now on Saturday night, so Saturday was to be a double-points day for all classes. For TT, that meant we get 1 warmup session as usual; then 2 sessions for 'event #1' and 2 sessions for 'event #2'.

The bad:  I unlocked the car early Sat morning to find about 3 gallons of 100octane spilled inside the car - assummedly on the trip there so it'd sat at overnight! Needless to say it was nasty smelling. Fortunately I've removed all the interior carpet so that wasn't an issue. It was also in the mid 40's at this time so scooping up the cold liquid wasn't fun. I did the best I could but quickly ran into another issue - the sound deadening that comes on the floor of the car was starting to dissolve and turn into a tar-like substance. Nasty. I took a putty knife and hammer and scraped out as much as I could in the driver's footwell. The rest I covered with some adhesive paper and (you guessed it) duct tape!


So with the car smelling quite ripe yet - but dry and less sticky - it was time to lineup on grid. Doing my best to breathe fresh air (which is difficult when everyone on grid is trying to warm up their cars and most run catless exhaust including me) and be aware if I got dizzy or a headache... I sat out on the opening warmup lap with 40 other cars on Putnam's 1.8 mile curcuit - needless to say it was crowded. Only ran a 1:19x to get a descent grid spot, then just navigated traffic. 

For sessions #2 and #3, I let it fly. Ended up with a personal best of 1:17.4 winning my class by about 1.5 seconds and setting the 4th fastest time of 40 cars.  By Session #3 everyone was agreeing the track was getting pretty greasy. Most were probably like me and using up the last of their old tires to finish out the year?!?

Event #2 (sessions #4 and #5) were to take place between 3-5pm. As the track was already feeling rather greasy from nonstop sunlight all day, I decided to change setups. I added a bit of weight (gas) and switched to a wider tire. The car felt more stable and ran a similar time of 1:17.9 which was enough to sweep TTA for the day!

All-in-all a good weekend. I corded the outside of both of my front tires, I believe because I'm driving too hard w/o enough camber. Really looking forward to new suspension and a much more aggressive alignment next year!
I also confirmed my suspicions; that when running my high-boost tune, my car has been down on power all year long. I've been gaining time as compared to last year in the corners with more aggression, more disregard for tire life, and most recently Shep's upgraded rear diff. I'm hoping it's just a boost leak; perhaps the stock BOV but we'll see.

Thanks to AMS Performance, AMSOIL, Girodisc & Shep Racing.

Girodisc Front 2-piece Rotors!

My new quest of lightening the car as much as possible along with needing new front rotors led me to Martin @ Girodisc!  After some conversation a set of Girodisc 2-piece front floating rotors along with their recommended Raybestos ST43 pads f/r were on the way.  The old front PowerSlot rotors did a good job for a 1-piece but after 14 days there were shot!  This will also be a brand new pad for me, so I'm anxious to see the results.