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i made a comment to the crew up here about corner balancing last year...they looked at me like i had 7 heads lol. I was gonna do it, and then Spencer said he never has....
i made a comment to the crew up here about corner balancing last year...they looked at me like i had 7 heads lol. I was gonna do it, and then Spencer said he never has....
i do what my chassis man says. its just costs me time and the pull to his house where the setup is.
last time i talked to spencer about it he said it was the "last thing" to do in the chassis setup process. I 100% agree it is... but I still do it. i find it hard to believe that all the time he spends on alignments and motion ratios and stuff... he never balanced the car or thought about where to put the weight.
my Integra was not corner balanced and was setup up fairly similarly to my EM1... the integra was a wild ride up the esses. my EM1 is running no front bar and more spring rate BUT it begs to go up the esses faster and faster. its probably the only section of track i'm as fast or faster than the group leaders. IMHO it has a lot to do with the balance of the car.
going from a GSR with a 4.4, to a GSR with a 4.9, to a B16 with a 4.9, to a B16 with a 5.1... i went from "boring" to keeping up to blasting up the esses. my data says i'm accelerating up the esses where most guys are lucky to stay neutral in their speed after the first turn in. this has a lot to so with the trans upgrades, but id never be able to handle that acceleration without a balanced car.
all that being said... i was toying with the idea of taking my front/rear bias down to 56/44 with this movement in weight. I think i'll leave it at the 58/42 we have now (well it needs to be tweaked now with the all the changes) because front traction is key to being fast in a FWD and i don't think going down to 56% up front aids in that. the weight movement will still help with preloading springs since i'm moving 2.5% of the total weight to the corner that is always the lightest.
I'm not corner balanced because I don't have a very efficient way of doing it (no coilovers). I do always try to keep as much weight as I can to the right to offset the driver of course. Last time I had my car on the scales, with me in it, the front corner weights were within 19# of each other and I was pretty pleased with that.
What do you do when you have 3 extra months to prepare? you go over your setup sheets and data to find out what worked best at this track and really dial the car in... you start to have big expectation as you go over more data and watch video... The only real goal for the weekend was to make sure the new brakes were working well (and they were) and that the car was reliable (it was)…. but i have dreams man! I want to go faster... well its 2020 and that's just a big old guarantee for disappointment.
My setup that worked so well last year turned out to be terrible this event. Summit Point is a semi tight but flowing track... you need to hit the fast corners hard, hang on tight through the chute, brake for T5 and throttle down through T9... I dropped 3 seconds last year on this setup and the data said all my time was going to be made up in the fast stuff. Well the car would not turn with the power down from T5 to T8... and it cost me 3 seconds. the big factor for this event was the heat... it was +15 degrees different between this year and last year.
After qualifying I made a shock adjustment, going full soft up front to try to get some more traction... it worked enough to drop 1.5 seconds and not be DFL... Some personal stuff came up so I packed up Sunday morning and rolled out.
The rest of the year will be at VIR... all HOT events. VIR is a lot different but I cant afford to get plagued with the same issues. Okay, really I just want to improve... So talking to some of the fast kids... I'll be bumping more camber up front and pulling my ITR (22mm) rear sway bar for an ASR 24mm (2 position) bar... If the new bar works better but not good enough i'll go to a hollow bar setup and lower my spring rates a little after the next event. Apparently even when i don't break the car i'm still spending money on the car #racecarlife
Yesterday i went over my chassis guys place and drug the car with me. we started checking things out... alignment was a little off and contradictory to the corner balance... my steering wheel was a little off so we decided to get that right and that's when we discovered the real reason i was pushing....
the two bolts holding the steering rack near the steering wheel shaft sheered off. the steering rack will move 1-2 inches (while its sitting on the ground, not moving, etc) before it begins to turn. he said this has to be even worse when on hot R comps and the car is loaded. now to pull the subframe, pull the sheered off portions, get new hardware... and realign the car.
The lessons you learn as a newb racer... the big thing is not to let things get into your head and to talk out whats happening with the car. if you swap a part, bring the old one with you to change it back if you dont like it...
I struggled in the heat friday/saturday/sunday... and didnt figure out my issues until the sunday race (which got cut short because of a high RPM missfire, again).
My friend and right hand man was out taking tire temps... a little too much camber, but not so bad. It would just be weird tire wear. my biggest issue came with the rear bar change. i got great turn in but the car was pushing (on throttle) mid corner and out. this was killing me in T1 and the flat esses. It was bad enough i burned down the drivers side front (5 heat cycle tire) to basically nothing by saturday.
if you have seen the IG posts... i'm pretty sure this push, plus heat, plus over driving the fronts, and being too aggressive in oak tree lead to the exploded passenger side axle that decided to pop as i drove through south bend. yes i can even break the VIR edition axles... i'm that good.
short list of things to do: 1. swap the rear ITR bar back in 2. dial out some of the camber all the way around 3. swap the MSD coil out for a new one, swap spark plugs, and dyno tune 4. swap the new axle in and get the back up axle out... put in the RTF trans fluid 5. build and install the cool suit (i thought i was going to die on sunday) 6. buy back up axle seals 7. bleed the brakes/clutch 8. oil change 9. clean the engine bay 10. more radiator ducting and cover the holes in the floor pan
being too aggressive in oak tree lead to the exploded passenger side axle that decided to pop as i drove through south bend. yes i can even break the VIR edition axles
Inner or outer joint? Did I read in your poor man's spoone brake thread that you do not have ducting for brake cooling? If it was your outer joint it is likely due to heat from the brakes. We race prep our CV's by opening the bearing cage just enough to let the ***** pass through without any force. We also make sure the bearing races on the stub axle and inner spyder are deburred and smooth. With that said, our biggest reliability gain was from adding brake/CV joint cooling.
Inner or outer joint? Did I read in your poor man's spoone brake thread that you do not have ducting for brake cooling? If it was your outer joint it is likely due to heat from the brakes. We race prep our CV's by opening the bearing cage just enough to let the ***** pass through without any force. We also make sure the bearing races on the stub axle and inner spyder are deburred and smooth. With that said, our biggest reliability gain was from adding brake/CV joint cooling.
it was the inner joint leaving just the shaft in the trans... the bearing cage and all exploded. we had to take off the drivers side and beat out the axle shaft with an extension.
SO... data said i was down on power. It was getting worse the longer i was out there... i'd see the same/similar corner speed but low Gs coming out, etc.
1. I sent my injectors out to get cleaned at Injector Pulse (great service by the way)
2. Injector Pulse said my gas smelled bad (i honestly thought this was my issue and my only issue)... so i replaced my fuel filter and drained the tank (what a mess)
3. I made a date with the dyno... and boy i am glad i did.
My TPS was failing.... the more heat the more issues (we only did 3 pulls on the dyno before the problem was identified). First pull looked like it wasnt going wide open (169hp) and i had a bad breakup at 7k rpms... second pull it showed the injectors (RDX) were cycling out (160hp) and it broke up again... third pull it was showing all of it (151hp)... we pulled a TPS off another car and threw it on... back up in the 180hp range... tweaked some things and go back to my normal 188ish hp range. My AIM Solo said i was only able to get 121mph on the front straight... which is about 8.5mph low... and i'm going to conclude the TPS was the reason.
Several things are being swapped this winter... I'm going to put on my max bore throttle body, go up to a 3 inch exhaust, and i'm going to swap my RDX injectors out for something else. Some people like them, some people hate them... but the rule is... always do what your tuner says when you are looking for more and earlier power.
130 on the front straight? Man, I need to get through Hogpen faster!
AIM says i consistently hit 129.5 mph on the front straight. This was up from 125mph when i was in competition school (and when my hood flew up). I also hit 129.5mph on the back straight but i should be at 131... SO i need to charge at oak tree a little better and i think the error we found with the 5th gear tune might help a little.
Hog Pen has a TON of grip... I don't brake before the left hander. With a 5.1 FD i float the top of 4th gear, turn in left onto the gators, tap (and i mean tap) the brakes once the wheel is straight, turn right into hog pen, accelerate 100% once the front compresses.
Likewise... T10 (Southbend) of the roller coaster is also a very mild tap before you turn in. I think i can actually just lift and turn in at Southbend… but that isn't possible at Hog Pen. I actually keep the car in 5th gear, left foot tap to settle the nose, and turn in for Southbend… picking up speed in southbend is easily 1 second pickup.
What's your slowest speed through Hogpen? We're pretty consistently around 4-5 mph faster on the back straight than front, so I must be giving up quite a bit of time coming on to the front straight.
What's your slowest speed through Hogpen? We're pretty consistently around 4-5 mph faster on the back straight than front, so I must be giving up quite a bit of time coming on to the front straight.
75ish mph when i begin accelerating … shifting to 5th on the exit at 99ish mph.
the speed i'm telling you on the front straight is at the kink... because it flashes at me there every single lap so i know it like clock work. the front straight i hit 129.5mph max and the back straight is the same. that might change now that i have a tweak to my 5th gear tune with the 5.1 final drive. i can only hit 132 mph maximum anyway...
for some more axle prep you can use swepco hi temp grease and leave the inner clamps off the boots
the sambas are my friends... he noticed "something important is missing." You can catch me in flip flops when i climb out of the race suit usually.
I've been meaning to watch the video you all put out on axles and sizing. thanks for supporting the forum, putting out great content for the community, and of course for the great products!
also since you are running b-series if you can find some OEM honda axles those work best for road racing applications
any 94-01 integra axles will work along with 99-00 civic si
OEM axles with swepco hi temp grease will do you good
also since you are running b-series if you can find some OEM honda axles those work best for road racing applications
any 94-01 integra axles will work along with 99-00 civic si
OEM axles with swepco hi temp grease will do you good
Something about VIR though.. these gators like to eat axles...
thats why you use OEM axles. they fair much better if you are a curb hopper
sorry this is not Brian
he posts here on honda-tech under his BrianG screen name
we use swepco hi temp grease on our road race prep axles
Ah ok, any idea why the oem axles fair better? Are the cages more robust, better tolerances, metallurgy or simply allow for more angle with droop (hopping gators) before binding?
Yes, all of that. Parts store axles are death right out of the box. Buy used OEM axles that are in good shape, re-boot (vent at the inner clamp) and re-grease with high temp grease.
Yes, all of that. Parts store axles are death right out of the box. Buy used OEM axles that are in good shape, re-boot (vent at the inner clamp) and re-grease with high temp grease.
Oh yea absolutely over the PB AZ and AAP axles.. I suppose this is conversation is more geared toward B powered cars. I've seen lots of length issues with using OEM on different K cars.
04-14-2020, 08:08 PM
Re: Civic of Doom: Honda Challenge Recycling
