Porsche Club AutoX - Saturday, Aug 30th

Great course times, especially for the WRX. Looks like the
Formula was right up there with the top cars to boot.
Only thing I noticed in the first picture was, the Silver
Corvette owner was cooling down his engine with the hood
up. I guess you were cooling down your radiator?

Here is a link to a run with a couple of spins
and here is our autocross host, taking the car thru the paces

I have plenty of my own video and I placed the camera all over the car but the wind noise is horrible and some is rather shaky... Patrick, perhaps you can stitch me together a good one.

these 2 should give you a good idea of the day


Edited by karnak

I just got home after visiting friends in Maple Ridge after autocross. I'm too bagged right now to post much, but it was a good day. LOTS of seat time!

Gary had a great day behind the wheel.  There is no way I beat him. (The timing sheet is wrong, I didn't get a 57.482 run.) Gary spanked me by three full seconds. You could almost say he... annihilated me!

I'll review my videos in the morning. My times were okay, but I killed more cones than usual. It's going to be ulgy.

Edited by Patrick

Jim85GT wrote: Only thing I noticed in the first picture was, the Silver Corvette owner was cooling down his engine with the hood up. I guess you were cooling down your radiator?

Jim, that picture was taken before any racing occurred. The hoods were raised for tech inspection. Part of what is checked out is whether or not the battery is securely held down... and my battery has been relocated to the front.

Edited by Patrick

i need to see where the top times were but i did give it my all and was happy with the result. i wish you were there, Al. it would have been a good one

Patrick, you did do well! ...and a video would be a great way to show it...

btw, by my count you came in 7th place overall.

karnak wrote: Patrick, you did do well! ...and a video would be a great way to show it...

Oh, I did okay. I'm just getting tired of being passed by my ass end on a regular basis. And of course, I still have David Twitchetts' words ringing in my ears... "Get rid of those tires", referring to my Kumhos. His Subaru WRX is awfully fast out there, so he must know something of which he speaks.

I don't think I'll spring for new Dunlops (as recommended) quite yet, but talking about "spring", I definitely want to change my front ones for something stiffer for next season. These lowering springs just aren't doing it for me. They're definitely better than the stock '88 springs, but I feel that they're still not stiff enough for autocross.

Anyway, here's a couple of videos. I expermented with a different place to mount the camera and I don't like it. Too much wind noise (even with the sunroof and passenger window closed), and the perspective sucks.

First video is 3D (and/or 2D) and demonstrates how not to take a sweeper... and I use a bad word.  (In this run, I didn't upshift to 3rd gear.)

Click for video - Spinout - PCA-CRW autocross - Aug 30, 2014

Second video is my last run (15th) of the day, and my fastest. I'm afraid there are a few mistakes on the timing sheets (I didn't get a 57.432 on my 10th run), and I also didn't get what was shown on the sheet for this run. It was 61.13, and I'm pretty sure I didn' t clip any cones. Notice how I upshift into 3rd in the middle of the course (just for a couple of seconds) and then back into 2nd for the sweeper. It felt good to me, and I plan to do that more in the future... unless the Johanson Garage can assist me with getting some extra top end out of this engine.  

Click for video - Best run - PCA-CWR autocross - Aug 30, 2014

Edited by Patrick

i did try 3rd gear in the beginning and it did not feel right, and it later occurred to me that i was shifting too late (when i got home). the other part we all had to deal with is the change in grade of the pad. turning, while rising and falling can have an interesting effect on the car. my best times came from a lower, but more consistent throttle (still hit rev limiter) but driving a tighter line. i noticed that Rich hit the rev limiter earlier in every case. a good argument for getting on the gas sooner. a jerky steering angle around the sweepers was also something i had been doing wrong. Rich pointed it out to me early on and i did my best to correct that.
i like your videos Patrick. i may take one of mine and attempt to filter the sound a bit to see if they will show my line on one of my faster runs. my bracket is a bit shaky also..

karnak wrote: i like your videos Patrick. i may take one of mine and attempt to filter the sound a bit to see if they will show my line on one of my faster runs. my bracket is a bit shaky also..

I'm seriously considering buying a remote audio recorder, such as can be seen discussed HERE.

If I get one, I plan to construct a bracket to mount by the rear license plate to hold the recorder in during autocross. I have found in the past (using those cheap little eBay thumb-sized cameras) that audio recorded back there is perfect. The sound of the engine/exhaust and squealing tires comes through loud and clear with NO wind noise. It's... beautiful.  An example from the video vault is HERE.

It's a relatively simple matter during the editing process to match up the recorded audio file to the appropriate video file. So that frees up where the camera can be mounted big time, as wind noise would no longer be an issue. Hallelujah!

 

Hey Patrick,

I know you want to learn so that's why the peanut gallery
spoke up. :) Kudos to you.

As my video in the post above showed, a simple lift when
you have plenty of steering wheel input is all you need
to spin. This is what you did. A lift moves the weight
transfer to the front, unloading the rear tires a bit and
then they can come loose.

That's why you want to get most of your turning done
before the apex of the turn so at the apex you are
unwinding the wheel (reducing steering demands) while
getting on the gas. Getting on the gas moves the weight
transfer to the rear, giving you more grip at the rear.
This also reduces the weight at the front, giving you
less grip up front. Good thing you are unwinding the
wheel then. Think of when you don't do this.....what
happens? Think of "understeer"; that horrible shuddering
or plowing coming out of a turn where you want to get
down the straight and are on the gas a bit but your car
isn't turning and you mow down some cones at the exit of
the sweeper.

To help control the understeer or oversteering traits of
your car in a turn, you need to fully understand these
issues. So in the case of your spin in that tight
sweeper, you had more turning to do at the start of the
spin (you didn't want to hit that cone at the exit) - so
you didn't have enough grip at the rear for that speed
and the spin showed you had plenty of grip up front (car
"oversteered"; steered too much!). The ideal line there
was to get slowed down a bit more at turn entry and get
the car rotated more during entry so you could accelerate
out of the turn. You simply carried too much speed into
the turn and lifted or coasted through the turn while
feeding in a ton of steering. The combo was too much for
your tires.

For tire pressures, you need to play with them. Generally
speaking, higher pressures are required for heavier cars,
but IIRC I ran 34psi at the rears of my car and it's
several hundred pounds heavier than yours. Factory wanted
39psi for the rear of my car for street. That wasn't
where the grip was at autox. The race track is different
and I run 38psi there with the tires I use.

Try dropping the rear pressure a few lbs.

The ideal method is to align your car and tune the tire
pressure so the temperatures are equal left/centre/right
on the tire tread under hard cornering. This shows the
tire tread on the outside tires are flat on the asphalt
in a hard corner. You need a pyrometer for this and a
helper to take the temps immediately after loading the
tires and getting them hot. I have a pyrometer.

You might be better served with a slightly stiffer front
suspension, but be careful here. A novice mistake is to
think stiffer is better. Body roll is fine, as long as it
isn't hindering your cornering. If you are hitting the
suspension bump stops in a turn, that's bad. Mild roll is
fine, and good for the undulating pavement at the
skidpad. Especially for the street and a racetrack like
ORP. Too stiff and you'll be demanding a ton from your
tires and will "skip" across undulations in the pavement,
and this lack of grip isn't good.

When I was at ORP last time, it was really hot and my
grip in the morning sucked. So I softened the shocks and
the grip went up a lot and I eventually set a new
personal best lap time. Remember what I did; I softened
the suspension!

Gary is right though. Do one thing at a time so you can
better learn how these changes affect the car. I can type
and type and type, but if you are anything like me then
you will learn best by living it rather than reading it.
Keep what I'm saying in the back of your mind and next
time you're out there, pay close attention to the car and
what it's doing, early in the day. Really learn what it's
doing. Cause and Effect kinda thing.

Cheers,
Allan