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.

New Config 4K! (yes another config)

Pulled all the brake pads out just to verify them.  Front have more wear in 2 weekends than I thought they'd have but they are ok.  The rear still had ST43's in them, so I decided to put new Hawk DTC60's in there so I had the same compounds all around.

Did a few other maintenance items as well, tightened up a few things, gave it a quick wash etc.





But the bigger news (right) is we'll be debuting yet another new configuration setup for this weekend's event at Autobahn Country Club. We've had Config #1, #2 & 2K so far. We'll call this 'Config 4K' config 4K - for the new longer 4th gear, and the rear Kognition wing.
The pic to the right shows the front bumper off (again) and the stock fmic back on as well.  The gearing change cost us some mod pts so I had to shed something else something and this was the choice.  Hope to get it back together and loaded tonight!

Kognition Wing!

After running the APR GTC-200 wing for 3 weekends this year, we came to the conclusion that we needed a bigger wing.  I know it was helping keep the rear more stable, but I am just not sure how much of an improvement it is over the big OEM wing.  And with the NASA TT point system, a rear wing is +4 pts; so it better be working!

I pulled out my earlier research on wings; prices, sizes, claims, lead-times, etc.  I found a good deal on a trunk mounted option from Kognition and put in my order.  While it was a bit later than expected, it arrived a few weeks back and the Evo will be running it this weekend.  Codename 'Config 2K'.  And I'll be making a LOT of testing changes as this wing is pre-slotted for everything from 5 to 18 degrees AoA (Angle Of Attack).  I fully expect the car to be very push-heavy at some point this weekend; or else we'll be back to the drawing board!