Robert Loo brings out his NSX on street tires in A Street Prepared class.
He told me he will talk to the other NSX owners and see if any want to come out to play.


The competition in ASP class includes (in Hawaii)-

Corvette with Hoosier A6 tires
Nissan GTR with Hoosier A6 tires
Corvette with street tires
Nissan GTR with runflat street tires
Porsche 996 with street tires
Consulier Raptor Consulier GTP
History

 

The 4/12 event was very competative. Plus, there were 10 cars in our ST class. It was a "technical" track--sneaky left turn @ the start, the ever present hairpins, and tricky @ the tail end...take the wrong line...go too fast...oversteer!

Anywho...here's what it was like: YouTube - 20090412 SCCA Event Honda Fit - 3 runs

There's going to be a very long break until the next event. The next one is on July 12th.

Tom and I are gonna try and represent (as best we can) for the Fits, but the competition is getting tougher.

Laters...

 

New dates for SCCA autocross events at Aloha stadium lower parking lot.

Right now we are on Summer break. June 6 is the annual awards banquet. We'll have some nice multimedia presentation featuring highlights from this past season- look for you and your car if you have driven.

Mark your calendars… the following Solo dates are confirmed for the rest of our 2009-2010 season:
July 12
July 26 (Test&Tune)
Aug 2
Aug 16
Sept 27 (Date changed from 9/20)
plus new dates
· 10/4/09
· 10/18/09 (Test&Tune)
· 11/1/09
· 12/13/09
· 1/10/10
· 1/24/10 (Test&Tune)
· 2/21/10
· 3/7/10
· 4/4/10 (run-off championships)

Hope to see you there. Lots of events to use up your tires.

Lots of chances to drive and learn at each of three upcoming Test and Tune dates. You work one heat and drive the rest of the day or until your tires wear out. And you can get instruction all through the morning.

 

Just keepin this post alive. Next one in July after the fair is off our race course.

 

BTW, Got to congratulate Raton for winning the championship race. He get's my vote for most improved driver from starting from half the season to first in the championship can't get better than that. To Minifit the best coach and friend I hope you got the points championship with your mini. See you at the Awards banquet Saturday night.

 

I think both tanukfit and Raton did great this season.

Both very improved and just got to make the best of what you have and find the right combination to work.

In the beginning it's going to take time to find what it takes to get the most out of your car within your class.

Try to not make as many changes and get to learn how to drive well with basically the same car event after event.

I was lucky to be in first for points for the season in SM class since everyone else was trying hard to get ahead. At the start of the season I made a few errors not being aware of others driving within SM and not being concerned about placing as high as I could have. As a result those early mistakes would make the sprint to the finish of the season a close one with only 2 points difference over 12 events.

In the runoffs it's anyone's race with a chance for all drivers to take the title by doing well on one of three runs. Less runs means you can't make errors and you won't have the luxury of the fourth run as in our normal events. Make each run count, even the first one. And try really hard to do well in runs 2 and three.

 

Finally nearing the next SCCA event on July 12 pre registration has started today. I hope to see more of you out there.

 

Yup.

Two events for July.

Next week the 12- everyone is invited to watch to Fits slug it out.
vs and try to beat everyone else in ST class.

Then July 26 is test and tune day. Then you can come and practice slugging it out. No pressure. Just for fun.

I'll be there.

 

Rain or shine.

Autocross will be tomorrow. Hope to see you there. I drive in Heat 1.

I'll be putting some 305mm wide race tires on my "other car". 20mm rear spacers.

Come on down and see it and the Fits go round and round.

Also did an alignment and got -1.8 degrees front and -2.6 degrees rear camber on stock suspension. Factory was about -1.4 front and rear.

Can't run mild camber on race tires- that would be a waste of effort.

 

Alright Brad! Can't wait to see how the changes perform. Tom and I are running in heat 3. Both of us made changes to our last setup too. Should be interesting to see how things turn out after such a long break. Have fun yawl!!

 

You guys did good. Yahoo.

In Street Touring:
Raton 1st of 8 in class in 34.078 sec.
Tanukifit 4th of 8 in 35.752 sec.

By comparison in Street Touring Classes:
STS 2nd place Toyota MR2 33.831 sec.
STU 1st place BMW M3 33.982 sec.
STU 2nd place Subaru WRX STi 35.035 sec.

 

Right on Brad! Congratulations on your 1st Place finish! Wow! you had a really close race.

Name.............Make Model...... Run1......Run2......Run3......Run4......Best....OA
Bradley Lau.....Nissan.GT-R.....(32.012)..(32.144)..(31.228)..(30.249)..(30. 249)...6
Gavin Lee.......Nissan.GT-R.....(31.521)..(30.892)..(30.348)..(30.579)..(30. 348)...7
Randall Kawell..Chevy Corvette..(33.252)..(32.094)..(32.034)..(31.473).. (31.473)..19

Thanks for your advice and watchful eyes today. It really helped reduce some of the understeering.

 

Congratulations Brad and Randy, you guys really tore up the track. Thanks for all the advise and coaching. I'm really looking forward to test and tune I got lots of learning to do.

 

So what are the changes you two made during the break?

Anytime you make changes it's going to take some time to learn how to make the best use out of them.

For me-
I did new alignment on stock suspension
Added new wheels and R compound tires
Added 20mm rear spacers

What did that do-
More agressive alignment with more front and rear negative camber- means you use more of the entire tread width, with emphasis on the inner edges at slower speeds and full tread width on the tires opposite from the direction of the turn. And more toe out in front for better turn in response but not exessively aggressive to not wear stock tires too fast. Smoothness for daily driving not harmed.

18x10 wheels front and rear instead of 20x9.5 front, 20x10.5 rear-
This was wider in front than stock but more narrow in back. Offset was +22mm which was more aggressive in front and stock in back. To make the rear even out I added 20mm rear spacers so the front and rear track were closer. Wide 305/30-18 tires front and rear helped to put more rubber front (to reduce understeer) and rear for more power. 30 series sidewall for stiffness vs 35-40 series stock, and reduced weight 51 lbs per wheel tire vs 63 and 66 front and rear for stock.

Tire diameter was 1.8" smaller than stock for lowered gearing for better acceleration and about 0.9" suspension drop in ride height. Observers were saying the front bumper was often scraping on the ground with hard cornering.

18" R compounds while not quite as soft as Hoosier A6 in 19" allow for longer wear- one whole season at comparible cost.

18" wheels were under $450 each vs $980-1100+ each for 19" or $1400 for 20".



And all the additions have to fit in my car to transport with no extra help.
Plus a 2 ton capacity floor jack and tools.

Jayson's Corvette Z06 had new Hoosier A6 tires as did the 2009 Honda S2000 CR.

 

My change was my rear tires now, matching the front 215/45/16 with a diameter .1 inch taller than stock but coming off a tire that was .5 inches less according to the specs. on tire rack. It felt like I lost some bottom end and quickness in steering response but, very predictable in the sweepers but, felt spongy (slow reacting) on sharp/abrupt (slalom) turns. I want to see if I can get a little more camber in front and maybe a small toe out to get it to react faster.

 

Brad if you need help carrying anything to the track lmk. I come usually unloaded and ready to run. I can pick up and drop off the tires or something.

 

When possible matching front and rear tires for type, sizes, newness all are going to be helpful and make the car handle more predictably. You can use mixed tires but it's not going to be easy to control because the ability of each tire will vary on traction and slip angle.

Any tire that is slightly taller will give you taller gearing- allow you to have more speed at a given tire rpm but that helps mostly top speed in a given gear. Since at autocross we top out at 2nd gear we want smaller tire diameter to give lowered gearing which means start in first, throttle up hard and fast to second and then push second to the highest rpm you can. This is what we should be doing anyway. But for smaller tire this gives you faster acceleration up to speeds slightly more than stock at a given rpm. Similar to a lowered gear on a bicycle.

Often when you make changes you could push harder but you don't know where the new limit is. Assume that you can do more and keep pushing until you reach the limit. When I watch you turn you could be more on throttle coming out of the turn and when entering a longer straight element.

We can work on these things at test and tune- are you both coming? In the morning we will have instructors and I can go with you and we can work on a lot of things.

 

That's it Brad!, I know why I've been struggling with the sharp turns. When I hit it I always look for my next marker then I hit the gas (too late) by that time I'm off the accelerator and sliding pulling my focus and thinking the tires have delayed reaction. Thanks, Brad (good eyes)

 

Wow! Great catch Brad!

It's funny. Just before my 4th & final run, Brad mentioned about my understeering and that I should brake sooner leading to the 1st hairpin--that I lost some time with all of that sliding. While I was driving, I knew (was aware) that I was understeering but I was so focused on going fast in the staights that I disregarded my brake-points leading to the turns. As it turns out, concentrating on braking at the right point before the hair pin shaved off a good .300 of a second of my time. I wonder if I would've concentrated as much on modifying my braking in my 4th run if Brad hadn't said anything to me.

Tom...we gotta work on our driving self analysis and problem resolution skills. haha. At least we have some specific stuff to work on @ the test-and-tune.

Here is the video from my 4 runs: YouTube - 20090712 SCCA Event Honda Fit 4 runs

See yawl @ the test-n-tune on 7/26.

 

Good video.

Listen to the tires on each run. Note tire noise is less on the last run.
Respect your speed when entering tight turns. You must brake and slow down (enough). Anyone can drive fast into a tight turn, even one mph too fast will lead to understeer with the Fit and you'll overshoot your apex and end up slowing way down and steering back in the opposite direction before recovering not to mention you can't get back on throttle when you can't straighten your wheel. Everything gets messed up. Easily costing you 0.5 seconds or more.

The other place to watch in the video is your hands on the steering wheel. See how you move the wheel and sometimes you don't keep things as smooth as you go along, it's jerky. Try to settle it down and be smooth. Use "slow hands" which means you look far ahead and move your hands on the wheel as little as you can, don't overcorrect and keep a good line. It takes far less time to steer a straighter line and less time to drive the course because you do not need to overcorrect.