...esteban

Longtime RR/AX lurker here.
Not sure I understood where all of the OG posters here went, but glad to a see a trickle of light ITT. Hope you guys, and certainly OP, will make a comeback of sorts here.

descartesfool

I heard an echo! I definitely heard an echo.

Man we had some fun back in the day, best forum discussions ever. It sure was fun getting everyone twisted into a knot over just an inch or two of rear wheel lift, or not...and we all learned a lot, still much to learn, but a little less so now, hence we moved on. What I learned from rear wheel lift is that you need less of it so get the power back there, and still keep some FWD. So I bought a GT-R seven years ago and have been beating the crap out of it on track ever since. Got all the problems finally sorted out with my turbo ITR and then after wrenching and modifying it endlessly over almost 15 years, I finally let it go last year to a buyer who was in love with the Type R and has fully restored it back to OEM. I sent 2 pallets of all the original parts I had kept along with the full turbo monster, and he stripped it all down and sold all the go-fast parts I presume. Over the years I found that the more I drove my GT-R, the less I drove the ITR. Kind of got addicted to the power and the way it comes off corners, where you can just get it pointed at the exit and nail the throttle completely. Different car, different technique, lots of fun, and I love just driving the thing. And it has turned out to be just as reliable as my ITR ever was.

But there is so much less interesting discussion and head wrenching on any other forum than this one had. So I really miss that. Cars are getting so much better and faster now. My buddy who used to drive an MR2 and taught me all about turbos doesn't wrench anymore and now drives a Viper T/A. Killer car. He let me drive it on track for a session, and what a track monster. All you gotta do is put gas in it. My other buddy who endlessly modded his CR-X and came to my house and we wrenched on our Hondas together for years also moved on, as he bought a 2015 Z06 with 650 HP. If you like driving fast, these new expensive high power cars are really fun, and all you have to do is buy tires, pads, rotors and fuel. Until you feel the need to start modding. Honda kind of lost its way, and now I virtually never see any kind of one at any track event. Hard to keep with the 500 HP crowd. So many GT3's now. It seems like a much more expensive game, and all the grassroots guys are gone from where I run, except for my buddies who drive in Chumpcar. Now that is bargain basement stuff which I can't get into. It's as if the cars have to look poorly put together to be in with the in-crowd, which is just the opposite of what I think race cars should look like. Another buddy of mine who also used to track his modded MR2 has got bored with it and now just runs and drives an MR2 in Chumpcar and they have won many races. So he is off the forums, and off modifying things, and just likes to drive now.

Dust is settling in I think.

Claude

STN_Pat

(Y)

KoRn_vIRuZ

Hi descartesfool, thought you might get a kick out of this video, in case you haven't seen it before:


ps: most impressive of all is that when this car first came out, auto magazines here in Europe considered it one of the worst handling cars in the segment.

rice_classic

Not up here it isn't. There were 12 entries in ITA at the last race at Pacific Raceways and each year and the number of Hondas has increased between ITA/H4/STL equivalent classes. Just this year we've added 2 and there should be 2 more or so next year.

I think the dust is settling on Honda building affordable cars people want to race, not on people wanting to go racing affordable cars (or FWD cars for that matter), at least in the PacNW.

Which raises a question, are there any affordable (or sporty) FWD cars that have Double wishbones up front anymore? They all seem to have Macs nowadays.

miamirice

+1

I will also add this: in my 10+ years I have seen a complete morphing of the HPDE scene. It was a place for the commited enthusiast to run his car safely with like minded people. They had a decent understanding of basic mechanical and followed some form of auto racing. Rarely did the new exotics show up.

Today's crowd:

Still have the original type folks but they are are half or less of the participants. They come in Miatas, Hondas, older bmw, air cooled Porsches ......
Then there are these folks that do 0 wrenching, don't follow racing, come in new cars with big price tags ( m3 up to Mcclarens, z01, 458.....). They come with girlfriends, family and seem more interested in checking off a bucket list participation than in learning fundamentals of high performance driving.

At least that's what's going on where I live and drive.

aw614

Outside of the previous generation accord and tsx; the previous gen mazda 6 and ford fusion are double wishbones, but both don't seem to have the aftermarket support hondas do and are midsize family sedans.

90civichbsi

iTrader: (1)

It is an interesting time to own and drive a FWD Honda at HPDEs. I have been on this forum since 2002, but didn't start tracking my civic till 2010, even now I only do 5-6 track days a year. Most people see a civic and are thoroughly surprised to see it keeping up or passing people with the current crop of cars out there. They usually come up to me after and ask about the car and are even more surprised when they hear I do all the fab work/wrenching. Not many people do anymore. Those aspects make it a little more fun for me.

Many of the folks in the second group you speak of around here still have an interest in learning the fundamentals, but there are always a couple out there that could care less. I would not want to be their instructor.

RR98ITR

So, I guess we've pretty much established that the effects of time apply here no less than anywhere. Outside of this fossilizing bubble interesting things fwd continue to develop, and I can't help but want to record my reactions to some them here.

The latest issue of Racecar Engineering (October 2015 V25N10) has an article on the Nissan GT-R LM by Danny Nowlan. It includes the pic above of the car lifting an inside rear tire, with referential text: "...unloading the inside rear tyre. Do (sic) really want to be doing that in the middle of the Porsche curves?"

Who is this guy Danny Nowlan? A motorsports engineering author, chassis dynamics software creator, regularly published in RCE, and his relevant experience includes "...race engineering a high downforce front wheel drive time attack car, so I know up close and personal what limitations a front wheel drive car faces."

Bear in mind the difference between a high downforce front wheel drive car and a front wheel drive car. An important part of the Nissan's design is high front downforce. Nowlans prescriptions for 55-60% front static weight bias must be implicitly premised on the high front downforce (AND operational KERS powering and harvesting from the rear wheels!).

In the no to low downforce world most of us inhabit such a prescription would only apply to a very low powered car, and at that you'd have to consciously dismiss or more likely unknowingly not know of Doug Peterson's recommendation against.

Even if Ben Bowlby himself has made allusions to the "touring car antics" of the inside rear (and he has), don't be mislead. Without that missing 75% at peak of design power put down thru the rear wheels, which I imagine to be the (much) larger factor in Nissans disappointing performance at Le Mans, the higher front static weight bias of 60-66% they ran is not unreasonable.

Now for the nitpicking: Nowlan's model data puts the front CW's at 297 kg static, 388 at 120 kmh, and 605 at 220 kmh, and rear CW's at 153, 200, and 311 respectively. Lateral load transfer, presumed to be at 3g, puts front lateral transfer at 334 kg and rear at 167. So you can see that in the absence of aero, the inside rear would just barely unload (and the front a bit more!). And in a fast sweeper the inside rear would still have about 150 kg CW and the inside front about 300. About all this he says "...very clearly...central problem...front tires are taking too much load..." He clearly states his concern about tire design and load capacity - fine. But he makes no mention of the general imperative to maximize the vertical load on the inside drive wheel. Did he learn nothing about front wheel drive while engineering that time attack car?

Scott, who understands ever more why Erik Z takes these guys to task...be careful reading this stuff...the usefulness of Nissan's exercise for the rest of us is obscured by functionally more significant design attributes than which end the primary driven wheels are on...

descartesfool

I've met Danny Knowlan at a PRI show. Who is he? Let's just say he is quite a character. A one man band show. I went to one of his seminars there on vehicle dynamics and simulation. It was pretty entertaining as he mesmerized the audience with equations and charts. Does that make cars he has worked on or others developed with his software package fast? Well that is another question entirely. But he does add some interest to RCE. Never sure how useful it is though. There was great hope for that Nissan LMP car, and a whole lot of pre-race hype. Just never going to be fast with FWD only in that crowd. I thought it was embarassing actually.

RR98ITR

Hi Claude - I'm inclined to be sympathetic to the team. Sure they tried to harvest PR and then couldn't get it together in time for the race - they deserve some grief for that - but you can't realistically expect the management, marketing and media to show any sensible restraint in circumstances like this. Nowlan refers to his earlier writing about the car and admittedly works to exculpate himself for not having been more "on the ball". It's gotta be hard when you gotta write something and it's gotta be somewhere in the vicinity of open-minded and positive. I credit them for running anyway, and am happy that the earlier stories about pulling the plug have been reversed and now they're supposed to try again next year with a more fully developed effort. With luck they could have a respectable, creditable, and honorable result.

Scott, who likes to see interesting things tried...but has had difficulty taking an interest in their other car...and anyway none of this proves anything anyway except how clever Muggles can be when you give them a pile of money and a technological goal...

descartesfool

Hello Scott, happy holidays to you.

Nissan has given up on their LMP experiment that unwittingly turned out to be a FWD experiment since they could never get the rear wheels to help out with the hybrid unit.

Nissan Fired Its Le Mans Team Over E-Mail

But it was an interesting foray into neverland, and kudos to them for trying something so far in left field. Always stuff to be learned with out of the box thinking. Cars are changing, even Boxters are going to be 4 cylinder cars. Many hybrids coming, and full electrics too. Makes life interesting.

RR98ITR

Hi Claude - Happy Holidays to you too, and to everybody else around here too!

Yeah, I've kinda followed their goings on and judge Nissan unfavorably. Feel sorry for the employees that got such a rude surprise, but live by the sword...

This future you describe...I get it...I'm ok with it for practical mobility...I'd like it to be economic without subsidy...but I don't need it and don't think I want it in my motorsports. Technology in general is of limited interest to me in my relationship with The Zone. I want the full tactile analog direct drive no condom feel. Life is only so interesting and interesting enough...I'm not seduced by every new prism.

Funny you mention the Boxster...I've been thinking about a 986 lately and that has me wrestling with every why and trying to weigh things that simply can't be weighed.

Scott, who was last seduced by a white car with a wing...

descartesfool

I get the tactile, raw feel thing. But power corrupts. While I sold my ITR last year, I still have my 93 NSX which I've had for over 20 years now. Black with a wing it is. And it has a purity like no modern car. Barely heavier than an ITR, but with so much more torque, it slithers through the road. But smooth though the scalpel be, it just still does not have enough go compared to my GT-R that I've had for over 7 years now. When I first put that thing on the track and went through a high speed kink, I felt its weight take control as I asked it to dance and it wanted to lead. But I learned how it wanted to dance, and what the master designer Mizuno had put into its genetics in those seven years of development, and got to see how a new standard of car had evolved. Michael Krumm who just released a new edition of his great book, Driving on the Edge, wrote a piece on how to drive the GT-R. He set the 7:08 Ring time with the special edition one, and has raced the car in all its variations. The car is high tech, and has shown that even with a high weight, power and a smart AWD system will help turn it into a catapult off the corners. The thing just eats tarmac like nothing else.

My NSX is still a very fine machine, but just so slow compared to my GT-R that I hardly ever drive it. I had high hopes for the new NSX when I first saw it at the Detroit auto show in 2012, and even put a deposit on one at a then price of $83,000 the dealer told me, thinking I would sell my GT-R and buy that when it came out, but they have bloated the price and the weight, and by all reviews so far have abandoned any semblance to the purity of driving the original had. At first I thought what a perfect setup a car with independent motors on each front wheel would be, the ultimate drive system with a miracle anti-lock diff equivalent system. But reviews show that it is the feel of the steering wheel thing which they have gotten all wrong, by removing the driver from the action. So it was not designed in the land of the rising sun, like the ITR, NSX and GT-R, and that is likely it's undoing. Having been beating my GT-R on track for 7 years, I have come to appreciate what a great machine it is, DCT transmission and all. And just as bullet proof reliable as my ITR was. In a way I miss my ITR, but in another way not. It seems all cars on track have so much power, you can never play with your buddies if you are still driving a FWD car. One of mine has a Viper T/A, another has a new Z06, both with well over 600 HP. And another buddy also has a GT-R, and other ones have new 991 GT3's, even one with a new 991 GT3 RS. There is just no place for Honda 4-bangers in that crowd. All of these guys drove 4-bangers when they started, heck the guy with the Z06 drove a CRX for decades, and the one with the T/A drove an MR2 for as long. I still have some buddies with old E30's, but not a single one has stayed with Honda, as power does indeed corrupt. I was the first one to move into the 500 HP realm with the GT-R, as I was really interested in its new tech, and my other buddies have followed. One who didn't drives an MR2 in Chumpcar, and even another who sold his GT-R drives a Miata in Chumpcar. But that is a whole other world of fun.

By many reviews (latest EVO mag and others) it is Porsche with their new Cayman GT4, full of GT3 parts and a mid engine that has got the feel right, manual tranny to boot. Just too bad Honda did not do the same with the new 3800 + lb NSX. But all these cars are so much more expensive than anything I could have ever afforded in the past. When I was at the SEMA show last month, I went out and paid to drive the AMG GT-S on track, as Randy said it was perhaps the best handling car he had ever driven when they gave it the Best Driver's car award at MT for 2015. I wanted to see what the Germans had contrived. A truly excellent car in every way. But excellence costs, even more so when fitting over 500 HP in an excellent car. No more MR2's, no more CRX's, no more ITR's, no more NSX's with the lightness is speed concept. And now that Chapman is gone, no more Lotus F1 team with Renault having taken over. Maybe they can make those things sound better if Bernie has his way. Plus ca change!

RR98ITR

Hi Claude - Motorsports really is a social activity...nice that power corrupted you and your friends together.

Scott, whose new racing friends are corrupted at comparatively negligible power levels...it's all good...