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Okay, so, updates!

I took no good pictures of the new suspension, but the XR series Coilovers come with blank top hats. I gave Dave full reign over the engravings on them, and he left me some solid advice:

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I took the car up to Powercruise at BIR which isn't at all set up for competition, open lapping, or any sort of proper driving in general... And threw all their rules out the window and hotlapped the shit out of the car whenever possible. It was also my first time on the Donnybrook configuration of the facility, which was cool in that it added a couple heavily banked corners and longer straights. Overall, I was impressed with the car and made some adjustments to the damping over the weekend, found a front end setting that felt good and tweaked the rear a bit, though I do intend to stiffen things up in back to help the car rotate better.

A few days back, I swapped to my last new set of tires this year, and found that the front end was rubbing in spots, including on the protective covers for the wiring harness that runs through the fenders. The car had a ton of rake too, which generally on these cars promotes understeer followed by snap oversteer, so I left the rear alone and raised the front a bit to stop the rubbing and help induce more early-corner oversteer. Hopefully that works.

Recently, but between the last two paragraphs, I got the chance to instruct a wet event at DCTC, which really had me excited. It's not very often I get to run in the wet, especially in a test and tune type setting. I ran the third fastest time of the day by half a tenth of a second, was out of first by only 3 tenths, with both those guys being both coaches of mine and some of the fastest drivers I personally know in their M3 and S2k respectively. Being that close to them both is very telling to what this suspension is capable of.

I seriously love the wet in this car. The balance is incredible. I have myself on video after my first wet running exclaiming "This car is fantastic in the wet! 10 out of ten, I've done good!" and I stand by that.



Right now though, the car is loaded onto a trailer for the first time under my ownership and is ready to head down to Road Atlanta for Gridlife South, the final of the points events for this season that will hopefully put the nail in the coffin on the rest of the competition for an overall points win. Sunday morning's first session will tell all as it always does.

If you want to follow along, click the link in my sig and like my build page. I'll be taking my usual GoPro video, but have also borrowed a quality phone mount and will be broadcasting LIVE VIDEO ON TRACK.

So, for anyone who checked, live video didn't work. The speed combined with the lack of strong data signal at the track resulted in the stream dropping to the lowest allowable quality for the entire session which was nothing but pixelated... And I called off further attempts as it ate 40% of my phone battery in 30 minutes.

Before I go on to cover the weekend, I want to make known that Road Atlanta is a track that is as dangerous as it is fun. The track is fast, the walls are close, and the elevation and camber changes make it complex and challenging, but create a confident flow when linked together. It's a track that with comfort comes plenty of speed, but the more bites you take out of it, the likelier it is to bite back, especially if your bites are too big. Over 10 cars ended up in the walls over the course of the weekend, sadly including one of the RS Motors family.

My car, however, performed well all weekend. The suspension was solid and provided consistent and composed handling, A few adjustments to the rear to help the front turn in better provided some better front end bite, and after that the car was flying! The track is very clearly a horsepower track, but even so, I was able to run a good lap on Saturday morning. My goal for the weekend was to break into the 1:43s, which I did with a pair of 1:43.7s.

Does the car have 1:42s in it? Absolutely. Unfortunately, after that early session on Saturday, my time placed me inside a group of cars that were fast in a straight line, and not in the corners. I never got in another completely open lap in, and when I became able, the upper intercooler pipe decided it didn't want to play ball anymore. The last session of the weekend, I had the pipe fixed (or so I believe) but never got a single flying lap in; a 370Z laid oil down on track for 5 corners resulting in two cars finding the wall and numerous more almost doing so. I was witness to one myself, and it's never something that gets easier to watch.

You'll notice the lip is missing in the photos, I broke a bunch of the tabs (again) while loading it onto the trailer. Never got around to fixing it at the track.

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DSC_0662 by Alfredo Melendez, on Flickr

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DSC_3401 by Alfredo Melendez, on Flickr

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DSC_3464 by Alfredo Melendez, on Flickr

Good job man.

All of your exploits are making me spend too much money to have the civic ready for time attack next year!

Dude, if anything, you need to start making plans to come to Gridlife. It is like NOTHING else in the world of grassroots racing. The K-Tuned guys come down from Canada for the title events every year.

So, after Gridlife, I got a whole weekend off from messing with the car, then rolled up to Brainerd to put the new suspension through its paces at BIR; this time with a timer. I had to work Saturday, so I rolled up that evening, and from the first session that morning, my phone was getting blown up... The curse was back. First session that morning, an M3 found the wall outside of turn 3, completely messed up the car and the driver, who happened to be the boyfriend of one of my assistant's sister, which made for a really interesting day at work. Another car crashed later that day, and on Sunday morning, a friend of mine wrote off his 1 of 70-some Legacy GT wagon after losing the rear end in turn 11.

To make matters worse, I made the decision to skip lapping sessions and do ONLY the timed standing start laps. First one out, knowing the tires were ice cold, I decided to take it easy... Wasn't easy enough. turning into turn 13 right out of the paddock, I felt some understeer and thought nothing of it, until the rear started to come around. By the apex I was at full opposite lock and applying increasing throttle to get the diffs locked enough to keep the tail from winning the race to the corner exit, and succeeded somehow. Later in the lap the upper intercooler pipe blew off and I coasted the last two corners. Still with all the drama I ran a 1:48 so I knew the car was going to be fast that day.

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Following that, my second lap was less interesting overall until turn 11, where the rear tires decided they wanted to race the fronts mid corner... At 80mph. It's been a LONG time since I've had that big of a pucker moment in a car. I was having GoPro issues and unfortunately don't have video or photo evidence, but when you as a driver make the decision to angle the car not toward the corer exit, but as close to 90 degrees to the slide as you can, that's the point where you're past trying to save it and into self-preservation mode. Somehow, I kept it on the tarmac and finished the lap; a 1:44.5. Not bad for almost dying, and only half a second off my fastest time to date. Apparently I had the entire line of spectators on the paddock wall on their tip toes.

Third lap I pushed too hard in a few corners, messed up a few others, and ended with another 1:44.5. At that point I was trying to figure out where the car I drove in Atlanta went, because I certainly was driving a completely different animal.

Turned out I needed to look for the driver I was in Atlanta. I stopped trying to drive the car fast, and just focused on driving it smooth, and it all came back together. 1:44.0, matched my previous best time, and then it was time for a break.

Next round out was another 1:44, tires were cold again. Next lap, 1:43.6. Good but not great. There was way more in it. Tires were very hot and needed a cool down, and a Civic spun into the inside wall exiting turn 2 getting me the much needed time to get the temps under control. When I lined up for my final run, the tires felt good to the touch, the fuel tank had one more lap left before I'd starve in the corners, and it was then or nothing. Went out, didn't have enough on-throttle time in turn 2, missed my braking zone into turn 3, and made a few minor mistakes beyond, but it all came together: 1:43.0.

There are 1:42s in it without question, and overall I'm extremely happy its performance that weekend; just less so with mine. The new suspension has changed the braking zones by both increasing my previous corner exit speeds and by diminishing braking performance due to less weight shift onto the front end, and it was certainly a learning experience. I hadn't noticed this in Atlanta due to the track being just as new to me as the car was, but at BIR it was plain as day. As the car grows, I need to grow with it and learn to handle the differences, something to focus on for next year.

I also did an event at a smaller track near home with MN Exotics and Supercars, which went well. Instructed for a few of the guys, got to see the rare sight of an RWB car on track, and let's face it, chasing down cars that cost 10 times more than yours is never a bad time. Got a couple photos as well.

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Love the lack of body roll compared to before in the last one, photos like this help reinforce the coilovers being the right choice.

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That things looking meaner and meaner

drift pic looks dope

Is there a set schedule for Gridlife next year? Want to see how north they come. Also am very lucky to have a cousin that bought a membership at Area27 so I'm pinching pennies hard to have the civic ready for some track days there next year.

Thanks man! I'd spent so much time on tweaking the setup and tuning the driver that it was starting to become time to step the car up in a major way... And it's been a hell of a rush experiencing how what basically amounts to changing a few numbers in the suspension has completely transformed the car. The knife has become much sharper.

Thanks!

Not yet on the Gridlife schedule for next year, but the main event is held at Gingerman Raceway in South Haven, MI, which is going to be a worse hike for you unfortunately.

End of season update! I am helping with a trackday this Sunday, but don't intend to do much more than instruction laps, and will be flagging in the AM so I don't really intend to count it as a real track day for the car. From here it'll be some fall photos to close up the season and then it's storage time during parts season.

This'll be another fairly typical update, but with a couple twists, making this one of the best track weekends I've ever had.

Friday night after work, I loaded up the car, and me and a buddy started our long drive out to South Haven, MI, for one last hurrah with the Gridlife series at Gingerman Raceway. Arrived, thanks to the time zone change, at 4AM. Put 3 hours of sleep behind us and headed to the track. From the first session on Saturday, I knew I had to put down my best time that day; Sunday was guaranteed to be wet by the forecast so we all knew that nobody was setting decent times those last 3 sessions.

I started out running a full 2 seconds faster than I had in the spring, and was super excited for it, knowing there was more in the car. My second session yielded my fastest time, a 1:44.656, which was a good 2.5 seconds faster than my previous best. Despite my efforts for the rest of the day, I never went faster than that, which was slightly upsetting.

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I really like this one, really shows off the effectiveness of the new suspension, settings, and alignment.

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Sunday came, and along with it the rain. Woke up late to find that the friend with the alarm set had woken up well before it went off and headed to the track already, leaving the rest of us to sleep in... And then we looked outside to some of the hardest rain I've seen in a long time. Hopped on the event on FB to find that everything had been pushed back an hour. Perfect. Showered, ate, and headed to the track in full rain gear. Arrived to see that around half the competition was packed up or had left.

The car in the wet is, above anything else, incredible. Braking in those conditions is tough and there isn't much there, and turn-in is far too sharp and results in understeer nearly every attempt to do so quickly. However, once you near the apex and start unwinding the wheel and adding power, it comes alive and charges its way out. Even legitimate attempts to slide the car failed. It felt as though it had legitimate purpose at corner exit and was not to be deterred. The result was that of the remaining drivers, I was the 4th fastest car overall that day with a 2:07.8xx.

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This is by far one of the best photos ever taken of this car:

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So, what was so special about this weekend then? Outside of finding out how impressive the car is in the wet, and that I'm able to put down relatively competitive times under those conditions...



My fastest lap on Saturday was not only good for a class win, but was fastest enough that I set a lap record for my class at Gingerman. In the 5 years that Gridlife has been running there, I am now the fastest person to ever run in the HPDE+ AWD class.

So in the coming months the car will go under the knife for more power to fill out what all I can do while staying in class, to break that record next June, and to defend my win in Atlanta. I won't consider ATL a class record yet since there's only been one Gridlife event there to date, but I intend to remain the fastest there as well. Next year's goal is a perfect season of wins and records at every track and event in the series. I like lofty goals, and so shall they be.

Great stuff and a good end to the season.

Nice pics! I was just in Atlanta last weekend, and with that same girl I told you about.

Good stuff.

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Just looks so smooth and it turns in so well. Great job man can't wait to see whats in store for next year.

So this past weekend I was at Mid Ohio Sports Car Course for Gridlife Track Battle Rd 1. Here's the recap:

"That must have been a hell of a drive."

Words from the competitor I had displaced from 2nd in class in my final session after playing cat and mouse all day. And at the time those words were directed my way, I didn't even know. I hadn't checked Race Monitor after that last session over my frustration with traffic killing any hope of setting a time while my tires were still at their ideal temperature. I had red-misted my way through the first 3 laps of frustration and anger and finally got my only worthwhile flyer on lap 4 with the tires begging for a cooldown that I refused to give them until they delivered. And despite their heat and protest, they did.

But let's hit rewind for a second here. This past weekend a small group of us went to Gridlife Track Battle Round 1 at Mid Ohio! What an amazing track. It has its own rhythm and flow, and you can either conform to it or it will slap you down as many unfortunately found out. And Gridlife, awesome as always. There are never enough words, you just have to come experience one of their events for yourself.

My buddy Garrett tagged along with me, as per usual. Having driven through the night, we were unable to do final prep on the car the night before the event. Even with an early delay to clear ice from sections of the track, we were unable to get the track tires swapped onto the car in time for the practice session, making my first-ever laps of the track during qualifying. I qualified acceptably and continued to improve throughout the day, but progress was ultimately cut short by equipment failure. After 2 seasons, despite fairly little wear, the front rotors gave up the ghost and cracked through the outboard faces. Two cracks each, on both front rotors. While I’ll spare commentary on how impressive I find the identical and simultaneous failures to be, I was able to locate a spare set of rotors and get the car ready to go again, but at the expense of my final session of the day, ending over a second away from 1st and with 3rd breathing down my neck.

Sunday morning saw cool weather return, and lap times drop. 1st was running away, but with a substantial horsepower disadvantage I had already all but given up on catching him. The goal for the day was to hold onto 2nd, which proved doable for the first two sessions. Third session, however, the WRX I had been attempting to hold off was able to put 6 tenths on me, and I was unsure if my own car had that kind of time in it. Going into the 4th session, I adjusted tire pressures down and prepared to go to war.

“That must have been a hell of a drive.”

That isn’t even the half of it. Traffic cut short both of my ideal laps, and as tire and brake temperatures rose I found myself becoming more frustrated with the lack of clear track. I flung my arms around. I swore loudly to the GoPro. I was a mess mentally. But as I entered the front straight on lap 4, I had nothing but room to breathe. None of the other laps mattered anymore. I had one chance, and I laid into the throttle with singular purpose. Pushed every braking zone, sawed the wheel through every corner, second by second, I nailed down the makings of a proper attack lap. But in the end it didn’t feel fast enough. The tires were unwilling to grip the way they had on previous laps. As far as I was concerned, I was finishing 3rd. The game was over. I didn’t even care to see the results after finishing the session. As I found out later, while I need 6 tenths, I actually had shaved a full second off my previous best time and secured a 2nd place finish, armed with the knowledge that I could still have gone faster without traffic issues early that session.

So I’m starting off the season down by 130 points, but I’ve got plenty in store for the car to help make that up. Here’s to a good start to a fantastic season!

Finally getting around to adding some photos from Mid Ohio.

The elevation changes were pretty rad.

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Using the curbs as best I can.

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Running away from 3rd place.

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And getting stuck behind this boosted Civic in a braking zone for the eleventy-billionth time.

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Basically on 3 wheels, almost on 2. This car digs.

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And as some bonus content, here's some chase video from the WRX I was trading podium spots with all weekend. This is the kind of stuff that makes time attack so much fun.

Looking good Spaz!

I hear he got an exhaust recently too. (No pun intended)

So I've been meaning to ask you something for a few weeks now, and it occurs to me that you have this thread here I've never posted in which is why I didn't think of it sooner. Having just (half-accidentally) just put almost completely solid motor mounts in my car and immediately regretting the decision as even after over 500 miles of settling down they still make the chassis vibrate uncomfortably and make it sound like I've got some kind of crazy exhaust setup, I gotta know. What did you end up doing with engine mounts on your Evo? Did you go solid as well and just ignore it since it's a race car, did you go with something softer than solid but harder than stock (polyurethane 60~75?), or are the mounts stock?

Just curious. I could see them being awesome if I were towing the car everywhere and just banging it on a track for a few minutes, but I tell ya, doing daily commutes with solid mounts is just...

Right now I have one "solid" mount (front roll stop) and the rest are OE. However, I can confirm that the left side chassis mount is torn, and I'd bet the other two are as well considering the roll stop I replaced was almost in two pieces already.

Here's the trick though. Solid urethane mounts CAN be softened, and my roll stop is, hence the quotes above. I posted the below photo before when I put the mount in, but you'll notice there are a bunch of holes in it. Those were drilled by the mount's previous owner to help soften it up, and they do work wonderfully. Definitely something I'd suggest if full solid are just too brutal for you.

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I'll be updating the remaining OE mounts at some point here, but when that will be I still have no idea. The plan is to let 'er buck for the time being and get everything else sorted first.



And yes, I did put a Buschur Racing turbo-back exhaust in the car last week, complete with Magnaflow mid- and primary mufflers, along with an AMS Performance lower intercooler pipe in order to remove the main restrictions in the stock piping. I can feel the difference in pull without any tuning yet, so the car has already picked up a decent chunk of power, but it'll be on the dyno next week sometime to get everything dialed in and I'll make an official post to update.

Sweet, thank you for that! I actually went and nabbed an OEM rear mount and will see how just replacing that one solid mount with OEM will do. The side mounts being solid shouldn't matter that much (the motor doesn't really move/vibrate longitudinally), and the front torque mounts (similar to your 'front roll stops'?) I'll leave as the aftermarket billet 75A polyurethane mounts. They should 'give' enough to not be causing the majority of the vibration.

Drilling holes through though...now there's an interesting idea. I'll have to keep that one in my quiver.

So, I've been pretty radio-silent on the car as of late, and part of that is how things are shaping up in class for Gridlife.

Right now, the WRX I was fighting for 2nd in Ohio will not be at Gingerman in June. The Evo that waxed the floor with me is on the market right now, having been replaced with a current-gen Mustang GT, possibly running this same classing which is worrisome... Those cars are no joke, especially in this low classing that limits my mods compared to a what a naturally aspirated V8 can do. Also, a guy I met in Ohio with a blobeye STi made it known to me that he's demodding the car and dropping classes with his sights set on making the car more reliable and class-competitive, which has inevitably painted a target on my back with my current class track record at Gingerman. And HPDE+ is now the largest class by far for the event, as it's becoming more of a driver's class. Overall the situation puts me in a good place for season points, but with the influx of competition I still have very minimal room to breathe. This could very well become an arms race by the end, which my budget less than allows for, but that probably won't stop me.

That said, I did have the car tuned, which I did share in the Discord, and it made 283whp/272wtq, but the boost tapered hard at the end, the fault of my (technically Grappler's) old manual boost controller. My tuner is adamant that the car will hold boost much better and make notably more peak HP with an electronic controller, so I ordered one that same day and it now sits next to me, ready to be installed. The car already does AWD burnouts through most of 1st gear on competition rubber if I give it too much clutch too quick, but I'll need all the power I can get to keep up with the guys that are now gunning for me.

As per usual, some bonus shots from the last shakedown because everyone loves pictures. And glowing rotors.

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There was a goddamn Rally Fighter of all things at that event too (only one in the Midwest, at that), so I'll get my highlight reel posted when I get a chance to toss it together.

Tell me about it- Finally got to see some of these first hand when I went to the track with the 7. These things are amazingly quick for what they are- And handle far better than id have expected. Ford really seems to have done a decent job.

That or im getting old.

As always man- Awesome work on that toy.

Thanks man! I've been exceptionally impressed with the current gen Mustang, and can assure you from the lap times I've seen and the handling I've witnessed from mere feet off their bumpers, it's not us getting old. They ARE that good.

As for my own car, well, timing didn't work out with my tuner so no update on numbers, but I can run the tune with the boost levels where they're at based on my logs so guess what?

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Swapping tires and bleeding brakes tomorrow and the car is ready to go hurt some feels... I hope.

Good stuff

I'll bring the trusty Hallman for you just in case

Well, part one of the past two weeks updates. Two race weekends in a row kinda makes you cherish every second of relaxation time you can get, especially when you bring a car back from the first weekend needing some work.

So, two weekends ago was Gridlife Midwest, which included Round 2 of their Track Battle series. I went in slightly behind the lead in season points, but was confident in the car despite being unsure of what competition would hold and having as less than perfect tune on the car.

Friday began with a practice session that was... Interesting to say the least. I spent a majority of it chasing a Toyota Starlet with a 4AGE swap VERY closely, which was a tad nerve wracking considering his brake lights were inop. At the end of the session I noticed the car was running quite warm; near the 260F range for coolant temps which is close to boiling at my system pressure. I kicked the heater on full blast and the needle plummeted back to normal, so it was a relatively false alarm that I attributed to the general heat and my close following distance messing with air through the radiator. Times were poor due to traffic.

Second session was qualifying for run group/order, and I broke the class track record I set last October by 2 tenths of a second. Unfortunately, a lap later, that was invalidated as the STi that had dropped classes knocked another 8 tenths off. The battle was on. However, the overheating issues returned.

Final session on Friday was the first competition session, and by then with the heat I was only getting one solid lap out of the tires before they'd get greasy. I knew I only had one shot per session for the rest of the weekend and had to make it count, combined with the cooling issues the car was having. And make it count, I did. A hero lap put my pace at a blistering 1:42.860, another new class lap record, and one that would stick for the rest of the weekend; I would not be able to go any faster.

The remainder of the weekend was spent rubbing elbows and trying to resolve my overheating issue besides my failed attempts at going faster. I watched as the RWD cars in my class slowly caught up, and two, a Corvette and a Mustang, were able to post times faster than me. So I won my drivetrain, but not my class overall. I have a less than comfortable lead overall currently, but need to put up a good show in Chicago in just under two weeks to hopefully increase my comfort level in the points chase.

Sitting in grid wait to go run, photo courtesy of QuickTrick Alignment Tools

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On track in Turn 1 Saturday, courtesy of sponsor Stance Suspension

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Friday evening, relaxing in the paddock

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About to find some slip angle after hooking a tire inside the curb. Channeling my inner Takumi.

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Using all the track

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The obligatory trophy photo.

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So, on Sunday, I was (somehow) able to get a buddy's RaceCapture working in the car to grab some telemetry. I haven't gotten it to work consistently since, mainly because the software is absolute trash so it won't become a staple by any means, but I did find some interesting data in the process.

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The car pulls 1.16Gs under braking, and as per the above image, up to 1.23Gs in the corners. For a less than ideal street tire and no aero, those are definitely solid numbers that tell the data side of the success of this car. Color me impressed, I've done good.

Last but not least, I'll cap this post off with the record-setting lap.

I'll get my video from BIR this past weekend chopped up and a post made in the next couple days.

You're making strides. Congrats on breaking the record again!
Damn I so badly want to sponsor you.