:. Racing .:. 2005/09/17 - Autocross
Results: *none*
Coors - Take Two
After over a year of not being at Coors, two events in the span of a month? Yeuch - already nostalgia has given way to remembering why I usually didn't like running events at Coors field.
That said, it's hard to find a bad time in the Radical, and today was no exception.
And that is saying something. The day started out poorly. Got going late due to forgetting to pack some items. The road was closed on the way to the interstate, so I had to then backtrack and go around. On the way down, some jackass in a Suzuki just about ran me off the road. When I arrived, the course set up was so insanely tight, I knew it was going to be an all first-gear course. Golly-jee.
But, as always, strapping into the car and driving around like a maniac was fun, as always. I sure do love this little car!
Since the last event, this was my first chance to run with the front suspension zero-drooped. I had briefly played with the setup at IMI, but due to the various reliability troubles I had there, I wasn't really able to tinker much. So, the suspension was at zero-drop with about 2.25" ride height, but no preload. I had swapped on the 600# rear spring to try and get rid of some of the steady-state push that Jeff and I were feeling, but hadn't gotten to run any laps with the car in that configuration.
Also, we played with rebound some. While I had left it at -10/-20 after the last event, we found that on warm tires, -20/-10 felt really, really nice on turn in. However, it acentuated the car's mid-corner understeer, hence the desire to try to get the balance right with the 600# rear vs the 550#.
Results
With the rear rebound adjusted to -15 (a hedge between cold/hot setups), the car was still just a bit squirrely on cold tires, but not as bad as last time with rear rebound turned up at -10. Once tires warmed up, the car was nice and stable. I could really crank on turn-in and car took nice sets. It was just a little push-y in the morning, but quite good overall. Nice feel, for sure.
For the afternoon, I added 3 turns of rake to the rear, and put 7-8 turns of preload on the front, to see how that would feel. I noticed that the front handled bumps definitely worse - I definitely felt them more from the driver's seat. I turned down the front bump to 1, but that didn't seem to make much difference. Overall, the car was delightfully responsive. It was very willing to rotate with a bit of throttle lift, and it felt very stable transitioning in the slalom. Overall, it is by far the best the car has ever been.
Just for the heck of it, I tried running the rear bump up at 3 for part of the afternoon, but something didn't feel quite right. Some folks said car looked ""bumpy"", so it could be my damping ratios aren't quite right. Bump damping is definitely something I still don't have a good understanding of.
On the fun side of things, despite the very slow-tight course that doesn't really favor my car, I put together a "zen" run, where I felt like everything went perfectly. I think I hit a cone with the rear at some point, but everything went exactly the way I wanted to on that run. The car finally didn't get in the way of just driving and having fun!
I feel like the .67 ratio (400/600#) is very close steady-state wise. Putting a 650# rear would be very interesting. (.615) In the meantime, I'll play with raising the back of the car to see how that helps. If it does, then I'll definitely see if a 650# might get the balance right with the rear back down lower, then go from there. Once I've got the right balance/ratio then I can start figuring out where the car needs to be in terms of stiffness/response versus bump compliance - just like the folks said. Getting some tire temps to see how the grip and car is doing will help too.
One final positive note - I detected absolutely *zero* splitter rubbage, so perhaps the zero-droop and preload is keeping the car from rolling enough that the splitter is living? Perhaps I can go back to trying to lower the car's ride height again, and see how this goes. This is also good news for the winter, where if I can get that fancy splitter, I'll finally be able to run some properly low-ride heights, and see how fast I can make this thing go!
Overall: Better than ever! Can't wait to see how the car will be with more aero everywhere!
NEW CHANGES:
- 600# Rear Spring
- Zero-Droop Front Suspension & preload
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