Anyway, I am continuing my co-drive of the Austin Healey Sprite in GP (CPM locally) with Don for 2012. Kandi 2.0 is still under construction – I haven’t touched the 240sx at all since the engine swap last Summer.

The Sprite, on the other hand, has had its fair share of breakdowns and problems recently. However, most of it is sorted out and we are faster than ever (in raw time). Our PAX handicap has suffered due to 2011 Nationals GP performance.

During the practice, I got to try out our brand new Hoosier Wets: AMAZING!!! We were ridiculously fast in the rain. However, as it dried up, we changed back to the regular dry slicks. The whether was a bit too cold & still wet enough (but too dry for the rain Hoosiers) that we could not build up enough heat in the tires; still a fun day overall. It was unfortunate we forgot to record the wet runs – they were interesting, to say the least.

Here’s a beautiful picture Mako took of me running once it stopped raining:

For the championship, I managed to come in 4th for the 1st event of January. Not as fast as I needed to go, but overall we did very well considering our raw time. We feel the car is fully capable of topping our local Combined Prep and Mod class, but I’ll need to pick up the slack & drive better by quite a bit to top the C Modified vehicles. In any case, we are definitely on the way to trophying this year at Nationals.

My 2nd fastest run on Sunday (fastest one wasn’t recorded ):

Don’s fastest run on Sunday:

After finally destroying 2 sets of old tires, we acquired a “niew-ish” set of ~30 run slicks from Bo, Don’s friend.

In the wet, conditions were… interesting. Keep in mind Austin, the Austin Healey Sprite, has a welded differential and road racing slicks made for dry conditions. No standing water, but it was wet enough to make me not feel confident about the car. I actually had significantly more understeer issues than oversteer issues. I just straight plowed everywhere when I broke too late or came in at too high of a speed.

Once it started drying up, things were FANTASTIC!

More pictures & videos can be found here: March 19 practice – Videos/Photos [Solo2 Forums]

1st run in the wet:

Fastest run when it dried up:

We found a few issues while taking the car apart, as well:
- hardened axles were still not strong enough, slightly bent, but was okay – replaced for this event.
- rear wheel hubs were binding on brake caliper brackets pretty badly – spacers have been installed.

Other changes since past event: changed Quaiffe to welded, taller gears (can run course in 2nd gear instead of 3rd), and increased rebound to deal w/ corner entry push. We also finally bled the rear wilwood brakes correctly (outside AND inside bleeding screw).

Austin is now significantly more predictable with the welded rear-end compared to when she had the Quaiffe. It is also MUCH better than the last time we tried welded since we have now fixed more of the suspension problems.

This event was meant mainly for testing steady state turns & transitions, etc. It’s better; whether we’re actually faster remains to be seen.

Note there is some data drop out, so the speed/g’s for the very slow back corner is obviously off.

We had a lot of help & input from Jon, who drives an ST Civic in the region. Here’s Jon’s run earlier in the morning after diagnosing the corner entry push introduced by the welded rear-end:

He was faster in the wet than I was in the dry, and only after driving the car a few times, each time w/ different settings!

To counter this, and to help keep the inside rear tire from spinning all the time, we decided to add a rear spoiler w/in the limits of G Prepared (GP) class for the next event. Don did a spectacular job mocking up & installing the spoiler. I helped a little by drilling the first few holes, hee hee.

Anyway, a few “interesting” things happened:

- We oversteered early mid-corner & even worse after mid-corner w/ any kind of throttle input over 5-10%. This was not an issue in the other 2 events earlier this year.
– this was totally unexpected, but keep reading.
- The inside tire still spins @ lower speed exits

So, after a lot of discussion between the two of us & w/ other colleagues, it seems we did increase the downforce by quite a bit. However, because of this, the quaife differential is now able to put more power to the outside rear wheel, which explains a lot of the of drifting action going on.

Regardless, we both felt this makes the car too difficult to drive. We had to change our driving lines to keep the car from getting upset, but those were defnitely not the fast lines…

We tried several band-aid solutions, such as adjust the rear height & playing w/ the shock settings, etc. We can probably also change the angle of the spoiler, but the spoiler is in fact doing exactly what it is suppose to do. If anything, we want a little more downforce at lower speeds!

We finally decided it was time to give the welded differential a try again. We’ll see how that goes next event!

In the mean time, here’s what the sexy little red sprite, I’m naming her “Austin” unofficially since I don’t think she has a name yet, looks like now:

And here is a video of me trying to take the fast line (more vids on the youtube page):

1st SDR SCCA event of 2011 @ Qualcomm Stadium. Weather was cold all day. We ran Heat 4. Fastest run shown here. Datalogger showed that we were peaking around 1.3 G’s (lower than we should be) & only 56-58 mph on the straights.

Without the rear sway bar, we push A LOT, especially w/ this more transition heavy course & the off camber turns compared to the AAA event a couple weeks ago. Some tweaking needs to be done, but I am still far away from the full capability of this car as is.

Run was still good; we are on our way. Placed 1st of 4 entrants in the class.

EDIT: updated video to have data overlay, WOO WOO. looks like it works pretty decent:

We ended 2010 kind of poopy – car still wasn’t running right, crazy snap oversteer, etc. Don fixed all the little issues like oil/tranny leaks (the big ones anyway), adding an MSD ignition so we can start easier in cold weather, upgraded to rear disc brakes for better bias, and most importantly removed the rear sway bar.

O M G, what a world of difference. However, it was only slightly different in the morning, still very drift happy. Once we found out we actually had the suspension set to full hard, instead of full soft, we lowered it to half way, and put the stickier newer Hoosiers on. Afternoon practice runs were a blast. I got down to a 48.0xx with still SO MUCH left in the car. I just need a lot more seat time now. The ST civics were in the high 46′s & low 47′s. We haven’t been this close to them since very early last year.

Sunday went even better. Didn’t make many changes other than putting smaller spacers in the front to fix the rubbing issues we were having Saturday afternoon. I managed to pull off a 55.4, which was barely enough to get 1st in CPM (Combined Prep Mod) w/ our GP indexing vs the other cars. It goes w/o saying, but I was a very happy camper. Again, still much more left in the car. Super predictable. Hopefully it will be even better w/ some minor mods like a rear spoiler & putting the front lip back on. Rear spoilers for similar cars have been helping w/ the rear inside tire wheel spin we have been dealing with when coming out of corners too hot.

One of Saturday’s Afternoon Runs:

Sunday’s Fastest Run:

However, I do plan to finish Kandi… eventually. Big plans, no more budget, things will have to wait.

In the mean time, here’s a random gif Ankur found, I love it:

Recently, Lien from FRSport had some time to street tune my 240sx convertible, Kandi. She feels MUCH faster now. I obtained a set of 17×10 Enkei RP-F1′s (only 17 lbs!) and 245/40R17 Bridgestone RE-01r’s all around. The acceleration & turning response just from lighter rims is definitely noticeable, not to mention the stickier tires.

Between those upgrades, the much needed seat time, and the very slightly better CST (California Street Touring – basically, “run what you brung” with street tires of 140+ treadwear), I’ve recently moved up the rankings from the low 200′s all the way to 148 in the last event with CSCC / SCCA.

My buddies and I also attended the 2009 Pro Solo event at El Toro. Donny from FRSport & I competed in XP (bumped to R1 – Race Tire Index) class with our RE01r’s, hahaha. We had our “battle for 2nd to last place”, which turned out to be a complete blast. Pro solo’s are about as fun as autox’s can get, with the Lone Pine Time Trials coming in at a very close 2nd. It was very fun launching against Donny on Sunday.

I’ve also attended several events before that and the event directly after. The most recent autox had a practice slalom & figure-8 for testing & tuning during rest periods. Absolutely AWESOME!!!

Unfortunately, something got screwed w/ my DVR setup & I don’t have any video from my February/March/April events . It’s more or less the same stuff, though . I’ll definitely work on getting some quality video this upcoming event – a bunch of friends and I will be working the Motorsports Z Autocross event, which gives us a free practice the day after. Stay tuned!

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.