Like how I killed 2 birds? huh? huh? lol, anyway, saw this little gem on the forums today:

Yup, that’s right. Dillon, the black ranger, drives a red zenki. Best ranger ever… that is all.

In any case, I found out my relative Donald was attending the Speed Ventures autocross on November 22, 2008 w/ his 350z. I didn’t even know he tracked his car at all, so I had to sign up. We bet lunch. Chris & I are pretty close in times at autox, so I figured it would be interesting to dual it out vs the 350z track edition + some federal tires (better than the oem ones in my opinion).

The Speed Ventures autocrosses are held in the small parking lot on the inside of Roval @ AAA Speedway. I was doubtful if it was going to be enjoyable at first (the GReddy Fest autocross had a bigger lot @ El Toro & it got boring pretty fast, though it was fun beating all the “hard parkers”). However, the course design was quite entertaining, with many elements stressing looking ahead and setting up correctly for the next turn. Not having to work was awesome as well. However, at $90 ($80 + $10/person fee to get in), I don’t know how often I’d want to go again.

Easiest lunch I’ve won in a long time, hee hee. It turns out he has only done drifting events, and it was his first autocross event. I was ahead of him several seconds in the morning. By the end of the day, he finally got within 1 second and some change – just a hair over 45 seconds flat for my relative, and a 43.7 for me. The fastest people of the day were in the 38′s & 39′s, so I still had quite a ways to go, but I managed to best the majority of cars there – something that NEVER happens @ an SCCA/CSCC event.

Mike Equina and Jayson Woodruff gave me great advice after they noticed how I was plowing into most of the turns despite my speed & not rotating the car very well. “Why don’t you stiffen up the rear suspension?” OOO YYEAAAA. I was running 18 all around for the past few months as a compromise between having it soft enough for more forgiving transitions but stiff enough that I don’t destroy my wiring harnesses that are right above the tires (can’t relocate those yet since the convertible has a factory brace that blocks the way). I ended up running 24 out of 32 in the rear. The car felt like a totally different animal. I was able to get on the throttle much sooner since I was no longer understeering out of the corners (in fact, I was able to sort of throttle steer my way through & out of the turns).

My fastest personal run from the Speed Ventures autocross:

^^^ Video comes out normal scale, but no “watch in high quality” – however, you can see it in all its glory on my gallery page.

The following weekend, I brought my Uncle Trinh to an SCCA autocross practice (November 28, 2008 practice). He didn’t want to take his 240z or his IS-250, so I let him co-drive my car. Since we shared a single entry, I also did the course work for him so that he could get the maximum (virtual Speed Ventures no-work style) enjoyment out of his first autocross.

We did a course walk and took some ride-a-longs during the first heat so he could get used to the whole course setup.

By the time it was our turn to run, I let him have the first few runs. He DNF’ed all over the place, went to slow in the fast sections, and turned too late in the slow sections. In one of the videos, you can hear me screaming “YOU’RE KILLING MY TIRES!!!” As the day went on, he got more comfortable with the course and car and managed to go from 91+ seconds DNF’ing to about 77/78 seconds clean.

The most important thing is, he’s addicted to autocross now, hee hee.

I managed to go from 73.xxx seconds to 71.8xx in 4 laps. The new digital recorder messed up in the afternoon, so the fastest run I have recorded for myself is my 72.xxx run & an 82.xxx run for my uncle.

Uncle Trinh said he’ll be able to beat me after a couple more events. I wonder how many lunches I can milk out of this deal .

*Videos are stretched because of codec I used – I need to remember what settings I use to get high quality video without the video stretch on youtube. The following videos can be watched in high quality if you watch it directly on youtube. You can watch the high quality unstretched versions on my gallery page.

One of the advantages of having an open face helmet (I was wearing a closed face one) is that you can hear & talk easier. I was yelling over the sound of the exhaust making sure my uncle heard me, fun times… not for my tires tho.

Trinh’s first autox run:

Trinh’s fastest recorded morning run:

My fastest recorded morning run:

Lastly, I attended the autocross championship event on November 30, 2008 – which essentially runs the practice course backwards. A lot of the regular CSM guys weren’t there (I didn’t know this), leaving only me, Art in one of his 280z’s, and Vincent with his MR2 Spyder. Jason Flores instructed me my first run, managing to get a 63.8xx second lap time while taking it “slow” and talking me through what he was doing. This is only his second time driving my car, but as with most instructors, I always learn a lot from having better drivers take my care around the course.

Even with his instruction, I choked and coned my first run with a 66.xxx second lap time. My second run netted a 65.6xx, but I knew I was a good 2 seconds off from where I should be. The final run was back in the 66′s. In my set of x-runs, I finally managed to get down to 64.1xx seconds, but my driving was not nearly as smooth as Jason’s. I was still happy I was able to get relatively close.

After cleaning up course, much to my surprise, Michael Palero yells at me “Did you see how you did?” I check the results, and BAM! First place in CSM by 1/10th of a second. SWEEEEEEET. This will probably be my only trophy for a LONG TIME, considering the SM class guys were running 58 second lap times. I still have quite a ways to go, but at least my car is finally getting closer to the condition I’m trying to get it in; and as I said before, the car, despite the automatic transmission and weight, are definitely not the bottle-necks in my driving.

I’m really glad I came out to the championship this weekend .

I was still able to floor the car leaving the turns & through a couple sections. Throttle modulating is something completely new now, hee hee, but I’m glad I’m able to actually need to modulate the throttle as opposed to just flooring it most everywhere before when I was n/a.

My basically fully prepped 240sx (everything but the 5-speed) still lost to Chris’ stock 350z. Though I had a lead pre-lunch, Chris pulled away by over a second by the end of the day. I think Chris is finally getting used to his car – can’t wait to see what he can do w/ the Z once it has nicer tires. I really need to pick up the pace and get my head back into this – the only consolation is that I am faster relative my previous performances (comparing the times I’m ahead/behind most people through the past few events, with the exception of Chris, of course, since he’s been improving as well).

The video below is my first run with the turbo setup. Jenny finally took a ride-a-long with me after accompanying me to a few events.

Higher quality version is available if you watch it directly on YouTube.com.

By the end of the run, the car is on fire… literally! Luckily it was very small & easily put out. After lunch, I finally figured out why (a few different factors):

- after first installing the setup, the hi temp thermo-coat was not enough to keep the area near the turbo cool -> partially melted my brake reservoir.

- after that, I wrapped some exhaust heat wrap on the dump pipe & covered the brake reservoir and hard lines in high temp heat wrap (2000 F stuff).

- during the autox run the brake fluid splashed around and seeped out the hole/grap created by the partially melted reservoir & reservoir cap.

- after drenching the heat wrap around the bmc (explained the brake fluid smell after the runs) it leaked onto the thin heat wrap around the front brake hard line, which was directly touching the dump pipe heat wrap.

- in the end, hot dump pipe + thin heat wrap directly touching it + brake fluid = small fire.

After I removed the rest of the heat wrap, the car ran fine.

I have since replaced the reservoir & everything seems okay now, hee hee. I’ll see what happens the next event.

Video of my fastest run during the morning can be found in my gallery.

Chris & I headed out for the SCCA CSCC AutoX event on September 13, 2008. Super fun, ran into a few other autocross buddies there. Chris took out his stock 350z, still burning off the crappy performance whatever they are tires he currently has on. Not much has changed to Kandi at this point other than retarding timing slightly from last time.

During the straights, the car just didn’t want to move, especially after a few runs. I began turning off the car & letting it sit in between runs – felt a little better.

The course, as always, was very fun. Before lunch I was able to get within .2 seconds of Chris’ time, but he pulled away by almost a full second by the end of the day. Couple of my runs are shown in my gallery, runs from much faster people & some pictures available at the solo2.com forums.

Not my fastest run, but video of Chris & me being silly @ launch time (higher quality version available directly on youtube – couldn’t embed it):

I also attended the championship on Sunday. The car felt much better going the opposite direction – the fewer number of runs couldn’t have hurt either. This time I wasn’t last place!! WOO HOO! 2nd to last, ftw! I’m still super far off from being competitive anywhere, but it’s still fun.

Picture at championship event taken by Mako Koiwai.

Next practice/championship is October 11-12, 2008 – can’t wait! Got a couple surprises up my sleeve this time around.

So, my stupid self decided “hey, I should fit my brand new painted body kit the day before I do Horse Thief.” Got everything on pretty decent. Slept @ about 1:30-2am. Woke up @ 4:30am, got to track @ 7am, prepped, bla bla.

This is my 2nd time going (first time was with SRT Motorsports guys). This time around, there wasn’t as much lap time because the 626 drift crew were holding a grip competition. In between the sessions, the drift boys would run.

Anyway, we started off with an hour of practice runs. Mostly 240′s, s2ks, one Neon SRT4, and a Civic (EK I think?). There were few enough of us that it was mostly empty for me during the practice. I think I was the only one who stayed on track for the majority of the session – everyone else either got tired, wanted to adjust some settings, etc. I stopped once for tire pressure & stiffening of the suspension. My driver side tire was rubbing the fender REALLY bad @ the high speed sweeper/kink where the chicane is located.

After stiffening her up, it was pretty solid.

The car felt really nice in 2nd with the Power FC (on stock n/a KA, mind you). However, I felt like I had absolutely no 3rd gear. I was going @ the straight about 65-70mph full throttle. The first time I went, I was able to easily hit 75mph or so on the straight. In 3rd gear, when full throttling, it felt like something was off. I most likely need to get it tuned since the map is for a turbo s14. In any case, I started shifting back down to 2nd gear during the straights, which helped, but I could smell my tranny again.

My stock bumper got warped from the combination of hot weather + running rich @ El Toro. This time around, I decided to try some aluminum heat barrier material used to wrap things in the engine bay to protect from header/turbo heat. The exhaust blew the heat barrier clean off my bumper sometime during the practice, along with a good chunk of paint. To top things off, further up the bumper, the paint bubbled from all the heat . I tried making a crazier heat shield, which faced the same fate during the way home.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly… or so I thought. Too bad I only recorded the practice runs and not my timed lap.

After the drift session, we all lined up for the qualifying runs: 1 warm up lap, 2 timed laps. I decided that it might be more beneficial if I just forget about 3rd gear & stay in 2nd the whole time – the taller gearing of the J30 vlsd should keep my transmission oookkk. I started building up speed pretty quick, wasn’t concentrating like I was suppose to, missed the apex, and understeered right off the sweeper/kink area – the whole time thinking “fuck, I hope my body kit is okay… and not flipping over would be nice.” I tried to take it easy and slow down gradually, but then the car slid across the track and onto the other side of the dirt/dips – BUMP BUMP BUMP! FUCKKKKKKKK!

Car stops. Only one car at a time during timed runs, so no big deal. I regain composure and continue on my way. Everything seemed fine once again until I went one round around HTM & “Hey, that’s my rear bumper @ the hair pin!” I ignored it for one lap since it slid out of the way of the driving line. On my final lap, I decided to stop @ the bumper & pick it up. Stopped the car, then realized, “Crap, if the Willow Springs safety ppl might be mad that a driver left his car in the middle of the track.” So I proceeded to the timing guy as my lap finished and told them “My bumper is in the middle of the track!” Got it afterward.

The masking tape did very little… well, basically nothing. I believe my first lap time was 1 minute and 11 seconds and average of something higher since I stopped the 2nd timed lap, which put me dead last. The other guys in the group were running between 1 minute and 5 seconds to 1 minute and 9 seconds or so. Top contenders at that time was an S14, a few S2000′s, and the EK Civic – man, that guy was fast (sure he had r-compounds, but he was outpowered by EVERYONE). Cars already fucked, let’s take a rest, then proceed to next elimination round (only 10-12 ppl, so everyone qualified, haha).

Elimination round I ran 1 minute and 13 seconds rear-bumperless, which was 1 second too slow to advance. Now that I got eliminated, I had time to put Candy (my 240sx convertible for those who don’t know) back together. Left @ 2:20pm, got some hybrid lilies for mom, & arrived home around 5:00pm, just in time to give mom her Mother’s Day flowers & partial rent for the month.

No one even questioned why I was gone @ 5am, SCORE!

Complete album can be seen by clicking on one of the images above.

Also, got a video of the “Flaming S13 Driftos!”:

More pictures, info, videos available on Zilvia.net: http://www.zilvia.net/f//showthread.php?t=181124&page=39

Also found a decent map of the track: Map of Horsethief Mile @ Willow Springs

Very fun day overall, & I finally got to drive my 240sx convertible at an autocross again after a couple months of waiting. This was also the first event I’ve done with Candy with a “tuned” Power FC. Felt much faster than before even though the tune was for a turbo car thanks to Lien from FRSport.

In any case, I remembered to take a couple quick shots – this was in the afternoon, so a lot of the cars have already left – only about 30-40 people to begin with.

I also had a chance to record in-car runs in Jimmy’s & Lily’s cars. Here’s the one from Jimmy’s Car (you can view the others by clicking the image above):

This reminds me, I need to get my car ready for the next event!

Good thing I rolled by because there was a bit of miscommunication between us when I was going over the parts I want painted. I had given Jesse a sheet with a picture of a 240sx hatchback, which was orange w/ a black hood. They had thought I wanted my hood black, so painted it that color. OH NOES!

Also, they didn’t prep the bumpers as much since they figured I was going to use the aftermarket body kit I brought in for paint as well. I had to explain that I was going to be using both (stock bumpers being backups or vice versa).

However, Jesse & Max were both extremely understanding and patient; they will be making sure the hood gets redone & the bumpers reprepped. I feel kind of bad since they did a really nice job on the hood – looks very smooth and nicely done.

They also found the PERFECT orange for Candy. Hopefully it will turn out as good as the swatch sample. Estimated finish time is late next week. It is taking a week or two longer than expected, but it is understandable since there were a couple mix-ups and they are waiting on the paint supplier to bring in the new orange.

That being said, I will be taking the Sentra to go get my ass kicked at the El Toro Pro Solo (as opposed to taking my 240sx to go get my ass kicked, haha). The only mod on the Sentra is the 17″ rims w/ 235′s in front -> which would put me in STX…

My plan is to put the stock rims back on and slap 225/50R15 Hankook RS-2′s on the stock 15×6″ & compete in G Stock vs all the Mini Cooper’s, eeekkk! From the Entry list, looks like most, if not all, are running R-Compounds for the event.

Man o man, what did I get myself into?

Here are the latest pictures of Candy with the completed body work, smooooottthhhh (click the picture for the main album):

For those who don’t know, the Pro Solo differs from a regular autocross with a “drag light” christmas tree start & 2 mirror courses, which 2 competitors run @ the same time, then loop around to the other side, line up, and run again.

I’ve done a few local championships, which I’ve also placed pretty low, but this should be a great new learning experience. I’ll update as the event comes closer.

In the mean-time, I found this picture of me running @ a practice down in El Toro last year in my little sister’s Sentra (yes, it’s also automatic) – IIRC, the course was based on a previous National solo or pro solo course, so I thought it was appropriate: