• Jake Latham: 1033, -180# driver = 853# car
• Henry Botkin: 1002 - 165# driver = 837# car
• Lee Alexander: 986 -180# driver = 806# car
• Tom Bootz: 984# - 175# driver = 809# car
• Lawrence Loshak: 975 - 170# driver = 805# car
• Garrett Kletjian: 94x# - 165# driver = ~780# car
• Chris Farrell: 94x# - 160# driver = ~790# car

• Battery: The new Ballistic Battery performed flawlessly all weekend. Not sure what the fate of the VoltPhreaks will be for now.
• Header: The new Stohr header also had zero issues all week.
• Uprights: The OEM Stohr uprights also solved the knockback issue, and the brakes were excellent all week, with no vibration, fade, or knockback. Now working with Billy at Luxon on identifying the source of knockback on those uprights. Current leading suspicion is perhaps a low quality wheel bearing?

• Shocks: Were inspected and cleaned up by Chris Billings at The Shock Shop, and everybody received a clean bill of health.
  
  
• Headers: The Ti headers have been repaired by Rilltech, and the Stohr Stainless headers have arrived. They're welded into one piece, and are absolutely gorgeous. They're about 5# heavier than the Ti's, but look to be just solid as can be. Nice piece.
  
  Richard from Rilltech figures one reason the Ti's had difficulty is that it appears my engine was running somewhat lean, from the apparent heat on the headers, and the color of the primaries. This jives with what Chris noticed about the relative color of our exhaust pipes, as well as the heat blueing on my muffler, and the increase in "pops" on shifting during the warm temperatures.
  
  Also, Rilltech finished up the new 12" oval Ti muffler for me, and it's also on the car - looks great.
  
  
• Wideband Oxygen Sensor: So, in order to measure a little bit and know exactly what I'm dealing with, I bought an "Innovate LC-2" from David and Ellen at Veracity Racing Data, and will have a bung welded into the secondary of the Stohr headers so I can really measure and make 100% sure what my O2 readings are, and get it right in that 13:1 range that seems to be best for our engines. More to come on this, as I'm very eager to see what sorts of readings I get. I did bump up the fuel pressure significantly right off the bat, to see what I get...
  
  
• Uprights/Bearings: the new OEM Stohr Uprights with Hubs and bearings have arrived, and after a bit of radiusing on the spherical bearing in the lower control arm, are installed and look good. If my brake pad knockback problem is solved, I'll investigate the source of the problem on the other uprights/hubs/bearings during the offseason.
  
  

• Tires: Most importantly, I am done with Goodyear. In addition to their supply issues, they've treated me pretty poorly over the phone and organizationally, so I'm committing to Hoosier from here on out. It is nice knowing that my tires will be able to last a weekend at Miller Motorsports Park...
  
  
• VoltPhreaks Battery: Randomly shut off again during a warmup lap for Q1. Will be repaired and then replaced with a Ballistic battery until its reliability can be proven.
  
  
• Muffler: Rilltech's 12" oval Titanium muffler has served me well for nearly 3 years now, so I'm going to have this one repaired or replaced. It performs well on the dyno, and gives readings under 103dB, which means I should be able to run with it almost anywhere.
  
  
• Wiring Harness: Unfortunately, failure of the muffler led to melting of the car wiring harness, which means I have to re-wire the car. Since this has always been a sore point with me, I'll be replacing the nasty previous job with a new harness that uses Deutsch connectors, and will add terminal strips to properly distribute power, instead of daisy-chaining wires together like was done before. Barf.
  
  For supplies, I found an excellent local shop called Ties-4-Less, and additional info to get yourself started with how Deutsch connectors work, various models, etc, can be found at www.deutschconnector.com. They're a lot easier to assemble than you'd think, the final result is *really* nice, and using Weatherpak tools with the "rolled" pins can be economical as well. ($80 tool vs $300+). Go Learn.
  
  
• Shocks: The Penske 2000's have begun to seep a bit again, so they'll go back to Chris Billings at the Shock Shop for a checkup before Runoffs.
  
  
• What Else?: There's probably more but sheesh, really?
  
  

• 22x11 Goodyears: - It turns out these might be just a bit too wide, even with the 1/8" spacer. On the left hand rear bodywork, at the trailing side of the tire, it has actually rubbed a tiny bit all the way through the rear deck. I'll have to repair that and maybe return to the 22x10" tire for now. It may take more careful configuration of wheel offsets and spacers to make those fit properly. From talking to Jim Doughty, the new 22x10's are now publicly available, so this may be less important moving forward...
  
  
• 4-piston caliper rear brakes: - They are on the car, and I used them at HPR. Basic impression is that there's more bite, and it was a lot easier to get everything balanced. Brake feel was more consistent, especially on Sunday when I had the front floating rotors (with cut-down bobbins) in place. Feels like I'm close to finally having the brakes really good, repeatable, and reliable. We'll see.
  
  It did come with a bit of a weight penalty though of around 8lbs. On my scales:
  • 2-piston calipers (2) with pad: 4.2#
  • 4-piston calipers (2): 5.7# (+1.5#)
  • solid rotors(2): 10.1#
  • vented rotors (2): 14.8# (+4.7lb)

Those of you following this log may have noticed a bit of schizophrenia with me and tires over the last season or so. Briefly, I've run Goodyears on the Stohr since I got it, but was forced into a Hoosier switch last August at Miller after I ran out of Goodyear rubber from the high tire wear there. Chris helped get me going on the Hoosiers, which worked beautifully at Miller, HPR, and at the Runoffs. However, I was uncomfortable with how long the R35's take to get fully warm - about 1.5-2 laps in normal weather - so I reverted to Goodyears over the winter. However, once again at Miller in May, I found problems with the Goodyears, and once again I found myself on Hoosiers for a race.

After talking with the Goodyear rep in my area, he sent me a few sets of a new 22x11 rear tire they've developed, which is a new construction, more similar to the 20x9.5 they released a few years back. Along the way, we discussed pressures, and he verified that 18-19.5 hot was a usual common target, but that 16-17 was nothing to be afraid of. He relayed that any lower than about 12psi cold is too low, though he did have stories of some folks doing that.

We tried 12.5-13.5 at Elkhart Lake, and found that around 13.0 would lead to around 17.5-18.0 hot pressure. We'll take more tire temps to see how that sets the temperature spread, and adjust as necessary. It's worth nothing that the Goodyears still do come up in pressure quite a bit more than the Hoosier, which we start closer to 15-16 or so to arrive at 18-19.

At any rate, the new 22x11 tire seems to have excellent wear, grip, etc, so hopefully that will put an end to wearing out the rears much faster than the front, which has been the case ever since the excellent 20x9.5 became available. I'm eager to test at HPR and see how it all feels.

Jim also relayed that they are going to update the 22x10 in similar fashion to this new 22x11, and that will be available once the inventory of existing 22x10's is exhausted.

Finally, it's worth noting that on my 10.5" rear Jongbloeds (7.5 + 3.0), I had to use a 1/8" spacer to push the wheel out just a skosh to get it off of the inner fender from rubbing, due to the extra tire width.

• Bobbin Spacers - as mentioned below, Wayne has some .032 spacers that will fit on the floating rotors to reduce the float down into the .005 to .010 range. They can go either directly under the "hat" of the bobbin, or on the back side of the rotor, just under the head of the bolt that secures the hat to the rotor. I found that putting them on the back/under side of the rotor was a better location, as otherwise the rotor is moved inboard by that .032 thickness (give or take). In the rear, that was enough to put the new vented rotors uncomfortably close to the nut which holds on the bolt that attaches the caliper.
  
  Putting the spacers on the rear floating rotors definitely helped, as I had far fewer issues with knockback coming into Canada corner after installing them.
  
  
• 4-pot calipers - Nothing to report here as yet - they will be on the car for the HPR double.
  
  
• VoltPhreaks Battery - Tony Hwang at Volt Phreaks has been very on-the-spot about answering questions and providing possible answers as to what caused my car to shut off on the opening lap at Elkhart, and Chris's battery to die completely. Likely on mine is water on the terminal for the on/off switch shorting the switch. My solution will be to try and relocate the battery so that the switch is higher up and further out of water's way, and to try and insulate the terminals better, and finally throw some dielectric grease on there to further keep water out.
  
  One other interesting option he raised was the ability to change the switch such that it can *only* turn the battery on, not turn it off. Finally, he relayed that the new, 3-pin plug like my battery has can be used for charging the battery even if it has discharged below its cutoff point, which may be useful some day...but I hope not.
  
  

• Pedals - Discovering that brake pedal pressure would bind the throttle completely explains my left-foot braking issues. We "solved" it with WD-40 for the Miller weekend, but that was spooky enough to become the last straw. Lawrence Loshak was kind enough to send me his OEM WF-1 pedal set, and we've fitted it to my car. I'm putting new Tilton "short" masters in place. I had planned on staying with 7/8" masters for the firm pedal feel, but as Pegasus only had 13/16, I went with those. Word from Stohr is that they are actually using 3/4" masters these days to provide a bit more bite and modulation, though at the cost of pedal firmness. Hopefully the 13/16 will be a bit of a Goldilocks combo.
  
  Naturally, replacing the pedal set means new solutions for the throttle cable return, throttle cable, pedal stops, master cylinders, brake line plumbing, clutch pedal stop, and all sorts of nonsense. I'll be figuring all that out this weekend.
  
  
• Brakes (Calipers) - I also decided, based on the high wear from the rear 2-piston calipers, to finally go with the 4-piston rear caliper. The Brembo kit just isn't in the cards, so the car's complete configuration will be 13/16" masters, 4-piston front (1.75" pistons) and 4-piston rear (1.38" pistons).
  
  
• Brakes (Rotors) - Also on the topic of brakes, I noticed that I continued to have soft pedal after long sweepers, indicating knockback still happening. I replaced the front floaters with the original fixed rotors, and when that didn't fix the problem, also replaced the floating rears with the solids. That seemed to take care of the problem.
  
  Chris noted that the new Brembos have a lot less float - maybe .010 or so - than the Stohr parts (maybe .040?). A quick call to Wayne confirmed that has been an issue, and they have bobbin "spacers" to reduce the float down to that .010-.015 range, that is purported to not only solve the excessive-float-knockback problem, but also the issue that some have experienced of getting progressively worse vibration when braking as the floating rotor heats up over the course of a session. Will test and report back.
  
  
• VoltPhreaks Battery - I took the time to install the on/off button for the VoltPhreaks battery onto my dashboard over the winter, since if the battery shuts itself off (due to low voltage) with the bodywork on, it's a huge production to fix the problem. However, both at HPR and Miller, I noticed that the battery shut off during my sessions with the cable connected. Disconnecting the cable solved this problem. I exchanged the cable with VoltPhreaks, who said my old cable did look a little worn, so hopefully this problem is solved.
  
  the aux-plug that I installed over the winter has been useful for the first start of the day, for me to start off of a PC680 I carry around, but beyond that, the little VoltPhreaks battery is performing admirably.
  
  
• Steering Stiffness - Another winter update (see below) was the 2009-style updated steering geometry, via new lower control arms from Stohr, and the Luxon CNC'd uprights. However, I haven't experienced any of the reduced steering effort the change is purported to supply. From talking to Wayne, it is possible that the bearing is installed too tightly in the control arm, so I've dropped these at a machine shop to see if they can hone the housing in the control arm and hopefully loosen up those bearings, thus providing easier steering effort. At tracks like HPR and MMP, this will be a big deal. Even in the Carousel at Road America, that would be a welcome change.
  
  

• Brake Rotor Float - Always the damn brakes! Actually, the issue at this moment was a mismatch between the new Luxon uprights up front, and the bobbins which space the brake rotor off of the hat for the float. Billy from Luxon says the supplied bobbins are slightly too tall, causing something that feels like knockback, as the rotor is spaced about .040 too far inwards. We'll machine the bobbins down to center the rotor, which should fix that issue. For the test day, I substituted my solid rotors, which were spaced accordingly for the Luxon uprights.
  
  
• Control Arm Bracket - owing to my odd Penskes, I have a custom bracket mounted on the lower control arm which accepts the pushrod and shock, instead of the usual "U" bracket on the front of a Stohr which accepts just the bottom of the front pushrod. That bracket is fixed with only a single bolt. Stohr moved that same bracket from the old control arms onto the new ones, but I must not have cinched it down quite as much as required, as the right-front rotated suddenly while out on track, dumping the right-front ride height down to almost zero. So, I'll have to address that in some fashion. We tightened the bracket down with a huge amount of torque to get through the rest of the day, but mayhap I'll have a friend tack those brackets in place or something...
  
  

• Bodywork: The WF-1 bodywork has been repainted by good ol' Pat Holmes at Don's body shop, so once again I'll be sporting proper RockySoft black-and-purple colors. The new paint looks gorgeous.
  
  
• Axles: As mentioned below, the axles are complete, and bakc on the car. A little bit of JB-Weld will weld the magnet to the axle cup for the speed sensor pickup.
  
  
• Wiring: I bought some 'split wrap' from Pegasus, and re-loomed all the wiring without the 800million zip ties. End result looks very nice, and should provide good abrasion resistance.
  
  
• Splitter Repairs: Along with the floor, I sent the front splitter to Stohr for repair and reinforcement. As it turns out, it was an extremely lightweight version made for Jaremko's car at the 2008 Runoffs, which does explain a lot of the flex I experienced. They are going to cut out the weak portions and replace with the standard thicknesses, so I'll pick up some weight, but the increase in stiffness should be tremendous. As well, Doug at Stohr opined it was almost surely the cause of my high-speed vibration at Road America, since doubtless the whole front was flopping along from the loads placed on it.
  
  
• Fuel Pressure Regulator: As part of the new fuel cell install, I've moved the FPR into the fuel cell compartment, and have a new regulator.
  
  
• Square: While the floor was off, I took the opportunity to "square" the car, since so many new parts (three out of 8 control arms) had gone on the car, and I had never actually done it. This process is outlined in the "Manual Addendum" linked at the top of this page, but basically, you make sure that all the control arms are the same length, that your wheelbase is the same on both sides, and so on. Happily, the car was almost exactly square, except the RF upper control arm, which was a hair short on its leading arm. Fortunately, this also helped explain the uneven number of threads shown on the LH and RH upper camber adjustment - by bringing the upper out somewhat, I'll have to bring the camber in, showing less threads, which will more closely match the left hand side of the car. Good when things match up!
  
  

• 2010 and earlier tripod: 1350nm/995lb-ft of torque
• 2011+ Taylor tripod: 1500nm or 1106lb-ft of torque
• Standard VW CV: rated for approx 1600lb-ft of torque

• Axles: 7# each (lightened Taylor Volkswagen-style CV's
• Video System: ~2#. (PDR100, SS1000, Camera)
• Hoosier (F): 13.3#
• Hoosier (R): 13.9#
• Kodiak (F):
• Kodiak (R): 9.9#
• Jong (F): 8.8#
• Jong (R): 9.0#
• Goodyear (F): 9.5# (published) (11.0# measured)
• Goodyear (R): 14.0# (published)
• Full Setrab 650 Oil Cooler: 8.8#
• Empty Setrab 650 Oil Cooler:
• Fire Bottle: 8.2#
• LifeLine "Zero0" FIA System: 5.5#
• Brembo Brake Upgrade (-3.5# per corner) ($7,500!)

• Weight And Fuel: At the end of Runoffs, my car was 1023 across the scales. I drained the fuel when I got home, and drained approximately 10# of fuel from the car, or about 1.5 gallons. My methodology was to wait until bubbles appeared in the line to shut off the drain. Just now, I removed the fuel cell in anticipation of the new one, and poured a further 8 pounds of fuel out of the bottom of the cell. We'll see how that compares to the single-pump-with-collector setup that will be present in the new fuel cell.
  
  
• Fuel Cell Weight: On that topic, the fuel cell itself, with my two Walbro 255's (one as a scavenge to the odd collector pot), collector, and misc lines, weighed 9.4 pounds, not including the fill plate that used to mount to the car. I'm interested to see how that compares to the new Stohr cell with the side-fill kit. Maybe I'll save another few pounds here.
  
  
• Less Weight? it's getting down to only little things left to remove on the car to try and further reduce weight, without compromising longevity/cost-to-run. Weight at the Runoffs was 1020#, so maybe I can get down to under 1000# after all?
  • $1,500 Rilltech Ti Headers: - 4#, plus additional horsepower. (Existing headers are very poor)
  • $2,000 Luxon Uprights: -3# - reportedly about 1.5# per side, and get the benefit of reduced steering effort / greater feel.
  • $200 Brake Masters: -2# - Moving to the smaller Tilton master saves about .5# per master cylinder?
  • $225 Smaller Oil Cooler: -7# - reportedly, a smaller cooler with the small surround saves about 7# in less metal and less oil. Only for cool weather though!
  • $1,500 Fuel Cell/Pumps? -#? - the new cell will hopefully weigh less, and having just one pump instead of two...?
  • $- Fuel? - will I now be able to run less fuel? From Runoffs, the car still had 20# of fuel in it at the end of the race, so perhaps 10ish of that won't be needed next time?
  • $100 Bracketry: -1# - I can remake the muffler mount from aluminum instead of steel bar stock.
  • $? Lightweight Fasteners: -4#? How much can be saved doing this, and where to get the parts, and at what cost?
  • $? WRD Tripods: -6# Evidently Lee Williams has made some Tripods that need servicing far less frequently than the Taylor bits, and save about 3# per side on the car
  • $? Brakes?: -? I'm hearing more about the Brembo brakes being significantly lighter than the Wilwoods that most run on the car, and the stiffer caliper will likely also help brake feel. (not that it's particularly bad...)
  • $0 Oh Yeah... -10# - don't forget, the driver could still lose about 10# and be PLENTY healthy!
  
  
  
• Tire Thoughts: After giving it some thought, I think I've concluded that I'm going to return to Goodyears for the 2011 season. My personal take is that the 9" Goodyear is probably a bit faster once I get the car balance right, and that the 160 compound is more suited to getting up to temperature on our cars in less than very cold conditions. They certainly have the downside of wearing out quicker, and of not being as consistent height-wise, but I believe they will be faster, overall. It'll take a bit of tuning to get the setup as neutral as the car is now with the Hoosiers, but once I have the neutrality combined with the stickier compound, I think it will be a bit better, ESPECIALLY during the opening laps of the races.

• Install Luxon front uprights for new steering geometry
• Install new Ti or Stainless header for better power and weight
• Install new fuel cell with side-fill to get that away from headers
• fix broken gear position sensor
• find more permanent location for speed sensor
• install the last aero widgets and bits - turning vane, tunnel strake, "tire scraper"
• Trailer repairs - side door, wiring, lighting, generator, etc.
• Acquire a setup pad and scales

• Shocks: Chris Billings at the Shock Shop worked on my shocks before the race. The end result is that the car is absolutely transformed. It soaks up the bumps, rides the curbs like they're not even there, and the turn-in/corner-exit characteristics are much, much nicer. Additionally, the car is quite a lot more driveable. As it starts to slide and give way, it does so much more gradually. I can't wait to return to HPR and see how it's going to work there.
  
  
• Weight: With the old body, but the new battery, wet sump, lighter driver and WRD diff, the car was approximately 40# lighter than last time, and it was definitely a difference that could be felt in the car. However, it is also true that I was still fighting for straightline speed versus the other DSR's and FB's, meaning that some sort of weight or drag issue is still in play here.
  
  
• Tires:With pretty warm weather on Saturday, I ran a set of scrubbed Goodyears from the practice day on Friday. At the end of the qualifying session and the race, the RR was missing its inner three wear bars, and the LF was missing the inner two. The tires remained consistent throughout the whole race, but they'd have been questionable to use for Sunday after such heavy wear. Perhaps this is a temp-coupled-with-driver issue?
  
  Chris loaned me a set of Hoosiers to use on Sunday, which I did all day. We spent Saturday evening getting the car reconfigured for the Hoosiers, which basically amounted to resetting the ride heights, and verifying that toe and camber were where they wanted to be. The only significant change was reducing front camber to a bit under 1*, rather than the 1.5ish I'd been running previously. For sure, it also pointed out that having a true, level repeatable setup pad is really a must-have for the future. No more of this damn guessing game stuff!
  
  
• Temperatures:Ambient temperature was around 90* both days, making it warm, but not unbearable. I did notice in particular that the car was running much hotter oil temperature with the wet sump than it had previously with the dry sump. During the hottest parts of the race, oil T was about 270* measured in the main oil gallery, versus the 245* or so that it had run at PPIR during similar ambient temps with the dry sump. So, definitely score one for the dry sump in that regard.
  
  

• Dauntless wing + support: 16.8#
• Stohr Wings + support: 20.4# (3.4# heavier)
• Misc Brackets removed from the car: (body support, duct, etc): 19#

• Shocks: These are still at the Shock Shop, in the capable hands of Chris Billings. Not having done a set of Penske 2000's before, it's taking him longer than usual, but he's really putting in the time and effort to get them really right. Very grateful for that. We're scheduled to have those in my hands Tuesday afternoon, and I'll reinstall them then. Initial discovery is that all four shocks were not even valved the same (gee, great). We've removed half of the internal spacer in the rear shock, to get the extended length back to the 14.5" of a standard WF-1 rear shock, which will help with setting the car back up with standard rear droop travel. Finally, Hyperco perches will be going in (one at each corner) to help the shocks do their job. The net effect of all this should be substantial!
  
  
• Bodywork:It's here, it's here, it's here! A giant crate arrived at SCR Performance Wednesday, and I set about getting everything trimed and ground down as well as I was able to get it ready for Pat to work his magic on the paint. As I had hoped, the new bodywork is much, much lighter than my old stuff. Even after a verrrryyyy thin coat of paint, it seems that hardly any extra weight was added - at least not within the error of my scales, it would seem:

  	Before	After Paint
  Fenders:	11.2#	10.4#(?)
  Center:	15.6#	14.4#(?)
  Sidepods:	13.0#	13.0#
  Rear:	15.2#	18.4#
  TOTAL:	55.0#	56.2#

  
  
  That is now a bit lower as we trimmed a bit off of each piece, but also adding in are the louvers, which I didn't weigh. We'll see what everything comes out to after paint, and of course, I have to add the mirrors onto the centerbody.
  
  Also of note in the weight reduction category is that when the 1g body comes off, some decent bits like the rear fenders, large rear body support, and oil cooler duct will come off with it, which add up to another few pounds of weight. So, this way work out to a genuine 40# savings off of the car.
  
  Yet to be weighed is the Stohr rear wing assembly versus the Dauntless wing assembly, which I anticipate is substantially lighter than the Stohr pieces, unfortunately.
  
  
• WRD Diff: Through a lucky circumstance, I found a used WRD differential for a good price. Lee Williams checked it over, and sent it off. It is now happily in the car, Lee having told me about the nifty suggestion of freezing the diff and heating the sideplates to allow them to be simply dropped in place - very cool. The only remaining tricks now are to find some circlips for the axle cups, a socket to tighten the "Big Nut", and a solution for the speed sensor pickup.
  
  As it turns out, the diff is no lighter than the Torsen - maybe 2# or so.
  
  
• Dry Sump: The BRD Dry sump and tank is off the car, and as well as it worked, is now for sale. The entire weight of the dry sump system (pan, pot, lines, etc) was 18.6#, not counting the approximately 2 extra quarts of oil that the dry sump takes. By contrast the wet sump pan is 3.8#, so plus a bit for the two lines, and you have approximately a 15# weight savings out of the car.
  
  

---

2010.07.23
Updates Updates
We're just under two weeks out from the last update, and have exactly three weeks until the car needs to be on track with its new parts. It's getting a bit iffy, here's the latest:
• Shocks: The shocks are off to Chris Billings at the Shock Shop, who has been The Man for Stohr shocks for some time now, from what I can tell. He's done JR's, Farrell's, and several other cars. Stohr says he's the fellow that does the setups on most cars these days. My case is a bit odd in that my Penske 2000's are not the same as the standard Ohlins, but Chris is confident that he can get the same results with these shocks that he does with the Ohlins. They arrive today, and we'll eval from there.
  
  As part of sending the shocks off to Chris, he had me complete a worksheet for the "Critical Damping Analysis". A couple interesting notes came out of this:
  • Motion Ratios: Since I'm converting my car to WF-1 bodywork, that means lowering the front bellcrank to clear the new front fender. I measured the front motion ratio before and after this change, and detected a slight decrease - from right about exatly 1:1 before, to somewhere in the neighborhood of about .95 after. The rear motion ratio is almost exactly 1:1 as well as I could measure (with the shock in the inboard/longer mounting position). Finally, the optional "low" motion ratio available on the front bellcrank appears to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about .85:1.
    
    In theory, that means that one might be able to quickly make stiffness adjustment by quickly changing bellcrank positions, but in fact, once you do this you have to reset all your ride heights, making it not much faster than just changing springs in the first place...
    
    
  • Unsprung Weight: This was fairly shocking to me, though it makes sense in retrospect. The unsprung weight on the front (wheel, tire, caliper, rotor, upright, 1/2 spring and shock etc) is a whopping 39.5 pounds, and at the rear, is 49.5 pounds. That means that nearly 180#, or approaching 1/4 of the weight of the car is unsprung weight!
    
    
• Bodywork: Wayne is cranking away on the bodywork, and is hoping to have it ready to ship perhaps the end of next week, which will make things PRETTY tight in terms of being able to get it to Pat in time to get some paint laid up on it. With luck, if it can arrive by the end of next week (maybe!), then I could fit it over the weekend, and get it to Pat at the beginning of August. We'll see.
  
  
• Oil Pans: I've shipped my oil pan/pickup/baffle off to C&M to get double-checked before reuse, and have a second one on the way to plunk on the bottom of the motor that was previously the dry sumped engine. That engine will have to go out to have a new bottom case put on it, that doesn't have the passage drilled out for the dry sump oil bypass.
  
  
• Battery: The new VoltPhreaks battery is in place. Built-By-Bones made a nice little ally bracket for me, and it now occupies the same space that the old battery did, just with 12.8# less mass. The battery comes with a small button to turn the battery on and off, preventing discharge even when it's hooked up. Kind of a neat idea I guess. Will report on its efficacy relative to the ol' PC680 as the season progresses.
  
  
• Misc: There are lots of little bits associated with this change. Stohr has sent a new airbox that I'll be able to install to get a nice ram-air effect at speed. I'm changing to their small LED brake lights, since I can easily wire those up to the side of the spar down low, so the wing does not obstruct them anymore. The new body also means being able to remove that large chunk of aluminum that acts as the rear body support, which will be another pound or two out of the car. It all adds up!
  
  
• Camera: With the CAM-FX packing it in, I splurged and ordered a PDR100 recorder from ChaseCam, along with their SS1000 video processor to be able to show front-and-rear video at once. This should be just all kinds of fun. Among the PDR's features are auto-start and auto-stop recording, which means I won't be able to forget to turn on and/or start recording anymore on the unit, which means no more forgotten video. Woo!
  
  
• Header: No word yet from Rilltech, though they are hoping to have a few built in time.
  
  
• WRD Diff: No update here either, cannot seem to get ahold of Lee Williams.
Suspension Frequency Calculator
Most among us are used to thinking in terms of springrate when talking about stiffening the car. Others that have been around a bit longer think in terms of *wheel rate*, taking into account the geometry of the suspension on the car's setup. The next step is to think in terms of the relative wheel rate to corner weight ratio.

All that said, thanks to Rennie Clayton, I've added another tool to my way of thinking about setup on a car, which is the ability to calculate the frequency of your setup. This takes into account springrates, motion ratios, wheel rates, and the relative sprung and unsprung weights. I put all those numbers together in a small suspension frequency calculator, which I've prepopulated with the numbers for my Stohr DSR, down to the unsprung weights measured for the Shock Shop. It also includes an evaluation of your relative front-to-rear springrate bias, which is kinda nifty. Enjoy!

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2010.07.11
Midsummer Updates
It was a very quick turnaround from June Sprints to the July 4 "Freedom Sprints N/N", but we made it. Turned out to be a pretty uneventful weekend, but I'll still do a writeup of the weekend.

Further, I'm getting towards having my writeup completed for The June Sprints.

Those races completed, there's now a six week break until the "Great Salt Race" at MMP in the middle of August. After looking at the various cars, meeting the people, and seeing how we did at the Sprints, we made the decision to stay in DSR. As such, it's time to try and see if we can improve the competetiveness of the car, and that's what the next six weeks are all about. In short, it comes down to reduced weight, more downforce, more grip, and maybe a touch more horsepower.


• Bodywork: This is the biggie. Having talked about it for quite some time, I decided to update the car to WF-1 bodywork. The chief reason for this is that the 1g bodywork that I have weighs a hefty 92#, versus the 60# or so that is more commonly seen. With the 1g body known to not cool quite as well as the WF-1, and the poor feed of air to the rear wing, we decided to have Stohr build us a new long-tail body in lightweight e-glass. Carbon was simply too expensive. Fully painted, the body shouldbe right around 60#, for a 32# weight savings, perhaps more.
  
  With this change comes the need to refactor a lot of tidbits, such as replacing the front bellcranks, and then smaller changes such as figuring out how to re-mount the camera, radio antenna, moving the oil cooler back (since I can remove the front oil duct), and several other fitment issues that I'll detail as I get the bodywork and get to fitting everything.
  
  
• WRD Differential: Primarily for the performance improvement we've decided to update to the WRD diff, but the 4-5# weight savings is significant as well. This is on order from the guys at WRD, and should hopefully be ready late month.
  
  
• VoltPhreaks Battery: Replacing my PC680 is a Voltphreaks VPH300 (?) battery, for a weight savings of 12.8#. Nice!
  
  
• Dry Sump Removal: In the name of weight reduction, we've decided to remove the dry sump. The wet sump pans seem to be functioning with superb reliability these days, so those having been debugged, we're going to save the 15# or so by removing the dry sump system, and replacing it with the standard C&M pan/pickup/baffle.
  
  
• Ti Header: Most folks I've talked to reckon that Rilltech's Ti header is the best one available, so I've put an order in on one of those, once they become available again.
  
  


New Camera Setup
Unrelated to performance, but worth mentioning nonetheless, is the replacement of the video recording system. The CAM-FX has been trusty for a couple years now, but it appears that the vibration and speed of Road America was enough to finally kill it.

So, we've decided to replace it with a PDR100 and SS1000 from Chasecam, allowing us to use both cameras on the car, and have some fun front and rear coverage simultaneously. Among the interesting features are auto-start and auto-stop on recording, which should help prevent us from missing sessions due to me not turning on the camera anymore, which will be really nice to not have to worry about.

Those bits should arrive fairly shortly, and I'll report on its efficacy from Miller.

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2010.06.28
June Sprints
The June Sprints week is over, and I am AMAZED to having gotten to take part, and race at Road America. More thoughts on that later as I get a chance to write it all up and collect pictures and video.

For now, some technical notes from the weekend, for my own edification, and perhaps for yours:
• Front Splitter: Friendly observers were kind enough to point out to me that my car was the only one that sounded like it was rubbing quite a lot going around RA. A sharp-eyed catch by Critter, who was kind enough to stop by and have a look at my car, noted that the splitter was cracked where the two halves join on the left side of the tub. Some presto-chango fixes by Critter and Mike Devins, and the rubbing was gone. Looks like that may have started at PPIR and at HPR on our test days, since previous to that, the rubbing had not been anywhere near as bad.
  
  
• Splitter, 2:Both Critter and Wayne noted that my splitter seems to be installed quite high. Wayne, as before, said to shoot for 1.25" at the leading flat portion of the splitter if possible, and Critter noted that they tend to install it flat/coplanar with the floor, as Wayne had suggested, and has I had it before. Evidently the difference from 1.25" to 1.5" on that leading edge is up to 100# of downforce difference, so that is worth pursuing as I try to get the various kinks worked out. The differences may be in the amount of rake I am running (more that suggested), the weight of the car (more), and who knows what else, but we'll get there evenetually...
  
  
• Springs: In keeping with a bit of "back to basics" thinking for the car, I've gone back to the 1200/1400 combo I ran before, now that the splitter rub has been squared away. That will help the car over bumps again, and puts me back to the "standard" 1200# front that Wayne recommended to me. Per Lawrence's advice, I put a turn of preload into the front to juuuust barely give some extra roll resistance to help keep the splitter off the ground. It seems to have worked, as the splitter didn't rub at all during the race at the Sprints, though I notice the rub blocks at the leading edge of the floor took a beating. That could have been related to curbs and other stuff though.
  
  It's worth mentioning that the car again went sliiiiightly loose by the end of the race. I am curious now to see if that happens again with the slightly softer springs, and if maybe that means I need to either reduce rake a bit, or go another 100# softer on rear springs to narrow the spring gap, with the larger front tires.
  
  
• Loose Parts: As I was checking over the suspension, I noticed that the bolt that holds the rear control arm to the upright was loose, giving a good 1/2" of play. Definitely not good! That may explain some odd feeling the rear of the car could have had, and maybe even some vibration. I'll have to see how it feels now. Camber measured out as before, at around 0.5* negative, which we set based on tire temperatures at previous events. Not sure how long that one's been loose...I checked over the rest of the suspension, and noticed some grinka-grinka in the spherical bearings on both sides, so it may simply be time to replace those parts, which I'll do after HPR this weekend.
  
  


HPR Prep
Some prep has to be made to turn the car around for HPR, but only minimal. I'm leaving the sprocketing as it is, at 16/47, but putting the dive planes back on. Curious to see where the rear wing setting finds the car feeling, since it definitely needed more rear oomph at Road America, I suspect the same will be true back home at HPR.

CAM-FX Death
My trusty CAM-FX recorder has finally bitten the big one - I was only able to successfully record one session from Road America. Vibration, time, and dust must have killed this one. Evidently from talking to David Jobusch, local camera boffin, getting tech support from these guys has proven problematic, so I'm on the hunt for a replacement. I may go with the PDR100 this time around, but will have to do some homework.

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2010.06.02
Benchmarked
One more race weekend is in the books, and this one was a great one, with me finally getting a chance to benchmark myself against one of the best in DSR. Read all about it.

Oink
One of the big realizations out of last weekend's race was that in the world of Stohrs, my car is *heavy*. On the scales with the midsection, I measured it at home at 850#. Adding in the 25# nose and 35# rear deck, that makes a car weight of 910#, and that's before adding a driver, who we'll say is probably 185# when you add in helmet, shoes, firesuit, etc. That adds up to a whopping 1095# for a DSR. Too much.

So, what to do about it? I'm making a list of some low-hanging fruit, to try and figure out the places where weight can come off the car:
• 20 - First, there was 20# of fuel left in the car at the end of the race. Having a better handle on fuel consumption will help reduce this.
• 40 - Bodywork. My bodywork is 92#, versus the 50-55 of a normal 1g or WF-1 fiberglass body, and the 35# (est?) of the WF-1 carbon. There has GOT to be something to do about this.
• 10 - the VoltPhreaks 2.5# battery saves about 10 pounds over the standard Dynabatt, but is something like $700, instead of $100. Yipes.
• 15 - Dry sump. Perhaps this could come off?
• 4 - the WRD diff, among other benefits it confers, is about 4# lighter than the Taylor/Torsen.
• 6 - the new Jongbloed wheels (9's and 10.5's on the way!) are 7.5 and 8.5# respectively, versus the 8.5 and 10.5# Kodiaks. Reduced rotational weight will be a big bonus, too.
• 6 - The Rilltech Titanium header is about 6# lighter than my large-tube ("big block", as he calls them) mild steel headers, in addition to helping the engine make more power.
So, all of that adds up to just about 100#, which would put the car right around the 1000# mark, MUCH more as to what would be expected of a good 1g Stohr. That's also approximately in line with the carbon-fiber WF-1's, which should be 20# or so lighter, and have the advantage of smaller/lighter cockpit surrounds, and whatever other details the WF-1 enjoys.

It all ain't cheap, though.

Technical Redux
Lots of things-to-try from the last update. Here's a brief rundown of the results:
• Dry Sump Vent into Engine Oil Fill: Works Great. Almost zero "fog" from the overflow bottle this weekend, and no leak/mess from the oil fill.
• Goodyear 20x9.5 Tire: Works Great. By my eval, better turn-in, better mid-corner grip, and very, very even wear. Not going back to the 8's.
• Front Louvers: Hard to tell at PPIR, but car was not overly front biased, despite no rear wing changes.
• Etc: and a public service announcement. For those of you running a Taylor/Torsen, check the damn nuts that hold the output flanges on!!

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2010.05.17
Details, Details


One of the small issues I had at the last race weekend was persistent oil mess from the overflow fitting on the dry sump tank. The tank itself was not particularly full, so I concluded that the vapor simply wasn't being separated all that well by my tank. I happened across a post from George Dean on the DSR forum, who mentioned that he typically runs the dry sump vent back into the motor, and lets the stock Suzuki vent do its thing. He mentioned that he'll run either back into the valve cover, or into the factory oil filler cap. That latter seemed like a nifty solution, since it's easily reversible, and doesn't require any drilling/tapping/etc.

Sure enough, a 20x1.5mm adapter to -8AN male, and I have a new oil overflow line. I put the O-ring from the stock cap onto the AN fitting, since I couldn't find M20 crush washers. We will see if it adequately seals during the first race weekend.

My Kingdom for some wheels


I'm not prepared to completely call them out yet, but I've been at the mercy of Kodiak Wheels for 13 weeks now. I placed an order for 3 wheel shells the last week in February, and still no sign of them. Customer service has been difficult. I was fortunate enough that they had one on the shelf, which I was able to assemble with a spare into a pair of 9" front wheels, for testing the 20x9.5 front tires. However, when I tried to fit them tonight, the new shell was so out-of-round that for about a 30* arc, it would rub on the caliper and the wheel wasn't able to turn. So, the shell is junk, and I still can't use my 9.5" tires. Frustrating, to say the least. Hopefully I will find some resolution soon.

Further, the 9" set that I cobbled together from my 4th "bent" wheels are causing issue, as one of the straightened wheels will not allow the tire to fully seat. I may have to go back to Woody's and see if they can figure out why that wheel is not allowing the tire to mount, and hopefully correct it.

Misc Else
Thanks to the SR forum for some help on my braking woes. Current thought is that it's simply due to not bleeding the brakes. I will add that as a routine item before the race, to ensure the fluid is as fresh as possible, to avoid boiling. I'll couple that with maybe a touch more rear bias (I've never even really set it?), and we'll go from there. I will rebuild the calipers per Wayne's suggestion, after PPIR, to see if the floaters can be made to work or not.

Taking a close look at the car, I noticed the chain had gone slack again. Sure enough, looking at it, several O-rings were missing. After looking at the UHMW "rub block" that I made over the winter, I suspect that the chain rubbed enough on the rub block, that ultimately the O-rings were damaged, so I think that one's on me for being too stupid to keep the chain quiiiiite tight enough. Will watch that more closely as well. Wish there was more clearance on that part!

I've made all of the resolved changes mentioned below. The raised splitter now seems to sit much more evenly with the floor of the car, and measuring the angle, it may even be slightly nose-up. We'll measure rub on the splitter versus the floor at PPIR, and adjust it accordingly - I suspect down just a hair - then mark it for good.

Never simple, is it?



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2010.05.13
May Update


After several more foiled attempts at trying to get out and debug the car, we finally did some debugging at our first R/R of the year, at the SCCA "May Daze" race at High Plains Raceway. The racing went fine, and the car held up, though I definitely lost my way a bit on setup while trying to get things dialed back in from over winter.

Read all about it.

Enough Whining, so what?
So, having whined and complained about not having the car's setup quite right, here's what I've resolved to do for next time out:
• Install the "larger" louvers from my spare nose to augment front-end downforce
• Go with the dive planes for now.
• Reset rake back to where it was - evidently there's no harm in having plenty, and it sure seems to be a large-impact knob for the car's mid/low speed turning.
• Raise the front splitter such that it touches at the same time as the floor. Right now it is rubbing, and the floor isn't touching at all, anywhere. This will allow me to run the car lower overall, benefitting everything.
• We'll be trying the 20x9.5x13 Goodyear to further augment front grip.
• And, obviously, continue to dink with the rear wing angles and installation.
I've reset the heights and weights since the various adjustments at HPR, and everythig is looking like it's at a decent start spot - 1 5/16" front, 1 14/16" rear, for 9/16" of rake. With luck the whole car can go lower, depending on how bumpy PPIR is going to be.

It looks like Chris is considering coming out to PPIR to run the N/N with us, so it'll be fun to see where the benchmark lies, and how far from it we are. More soon!

A word about Fitness
Last year, as you may have noted from some of my race writeups, doing a race distance in the car was getting to be extremely difficult. I found myself getting out of breath, my arm muscles getting tired, and generally being tattered by the end of a race. the g-loads that these cars put through your body, combined with the low-leverage position in the cockpit, puts a bit more of a premium on conditioning. More than a few folks have mentioned getting in their DSR and being physically worn out after just a few laps.

So, in order to be able to get through a full race distance without getting fatigued, I resolved to start an excercise program over the winter. Starting in early December, I began doing a light cardio routine - 30 minutes on an elliptical, followed by a weight workout of varying kinds, lasting 30-45 minutes. I do this three times a week as time permits.

The result is that the driver has lost about 10 pounds, and at the last race meeting, had zero issues with fatigue and soreness, even after 3 full days of racing and nearly 100 laps on track. Even something as simple as my girlfriend's "Biggest Loser" excercise DVD was enough to get started with, so if you find yourself getting tired - you big loser you - start doing a light excercise routine. Not only does it help racing, but you'll feel better, and look better too.



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2010.04.17
Denver Auto Show Spiffyness



Every year for the last few years, the SCCA has had a booth at the Denver Auto Show. This year I got to bring the Stohr as one of the display cars, and having the car there was a real treat. Lookit me getting to be in an auto show like the big boys!

Here's a few samples, and the full directory of images is Here.

Initial Dauntless Tests
We headed out to HPR for a test day at the end of March briefly, to try and get some laps in with the new rear wing configuration. My Dauntless setup is a hybrid of sorts, using a one-off mainplane that they did for Mark Jaremko back in 2008, and the flap from their standard kit mounted above it. The previous season, I had that mainplane low-mounted, similar to the Stohr bi-plane setup, with the standard WF-1 element mounted above. This season's configuration is much more like the usual Dauntless configuration, with the upper WF-1 element gone, and just the two lower wing elements.

We started with the mainplane at about 2*, and the flap at about 15* relative to the mainplane. The basic test was to try and get drag back to where it was with the previous configuration, and see where downforce was. We were able to do 3 sessions, dropping the main wing to first 0*, then -1.5*, and then -2.4*, basically minimizing the mainplane angle. The adjustment seemed pretty linear. Each adjustment picked up approximately 1mph, even as the day warmed up, and by the last session, top speed was at or above where it was at the end of last season. Downforce definitely decreased as I decreased the wing angle as well.

Next time out we'll continue playing with the mainplane angle to try and get a decent balance of downforce, and once it's close, we'll start playing with the flap angle. Thus far, from having talked to folks, it seems that the flap adjustment is a fairly coarse adjustment as well, so that should go a healthy way towards determining downforce balance.

Test day coming up next week, so it'll be time to try out the wing again, time to try the wide fronts, and time to finally have some fun chasing some other DSR's around HPR!



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2010.03.15
Time for some more interesting updates, now that winter is on its last legs.

Wing Project, Continued
I headed out to the IMI Karting facility today to shake down the car a bit. Fortunately, no major dramas, leaks, problems etc. Just a few things that needed snugging up here and there, and off we go. Good stuff.



Among the things that needed snugging up were my presto-fixit epoxy of the swan neck to the mainplane, which holds the flap's slot gap to the mainplane. That broke on the very first run, so I will have to re-epoxy, and this time reinforce with a couple of poprivets. That'll take care o' that.

What this also means is the first shots with the bodywork on the car, and the wing fully in place. We'll see how it all works! Right now, it sure looks loooowwww, but the proof will be in the downforce, drag, and laptimes at HPR in week's time. Here's hoping for the best. More shots in the projects folder.

Wider is Better
Late last year, Lawrence Loshak started experimenting with a wider front tire for the car, a 20x9.5x13 Goodyear. This started out as an FA tire in R175 compound, but never worked all that well for us DSR's. Evidently, it has a new construction, and R160 compound, and now works *great* for us. I've got my paws on a set, and am going to be trying them in the upcoming weeks.



They are ~1.4" wider, and a few tenths of an inch taller than the 20x8 Goodyear. The extra width, along with different shape/construction, should mean an end to the blistering that some folks have had at some tracks, and, my hope is that it will lead to a more consistent car over a race distance - in the past, barrin the last few races - the had always seemed to go off towards understeer towards the end of the race. With luck, this tire will keep it the same all the way through.



I'm looking forward to seeing what changes need to be made to get the tire to work ideally. Back when I moved from the Hoosier 20x7 to 20x7.5 (1"+ diff) on the Radical, it took some fairly healthy setup changes to even the car out again. Hooray for front grip! Looks like a little Acura LMP1, doesn't it?

It's worth noting that at this point, at least with my 1g bodywork, I had to limit the steering angle pretty significantly using spacers (Titan Spacers from Pegasus, since it's a Titan steering rack), so the max angle is now as pictured. Reviewing my video from the past year, my left hand never passes 11-o'clock, and the angle available seems to be about 2-o-clock, so that seems to still be enough margin for manuevering. If needed, I'll take a spacer out and risk rubbing bodywork in the event of an emergency correction or evasion. Some testing in the upcoming month should make that path more clear.

As always, more shots in the projects directory.

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2010.02.28
Wellllllll, it's been a long winter of doing a fat lot of nuthin' on the race car. Mostly, trying to make up for a, uh, "complicated" 2009 season.

Fortunately March is just around the corner, which means everybody's getting ansy, and it's time to start thinking about race cars again!

Infrastructure Improvements
Despite having served well for 5 seasons of running, my trusty combo of a 2500 Avalanche and a 7x20 Pace trailer were reaching the end of their run. The Avy had a t-case that was getting ready to fall out of the car, and the 7x20 trailer was packed to the gills even for just local events. Obviously, I needed a bigger trailer, and ideally, a bigger truck to pull it with.

Soooo, a bit of searching and trading later, and operating on the "if more is better, excess must be great!" principle, I've replaced the Avy with a 2005 GMC Sierra 3500 dually, with GM's Duramax motor. Awesomeness. It pulls wonderfully, gets better mileage than the Av, even pulling a trailer that's 40% longer, 30% heavier, and has 42% more frontal area. Sa-weet!

Second, I sold the nice li'l ol 20x7 Conquest, and bought a used 28x8.5 Shadow GT, to make sure that room won't be a problem for a while to come. The new trailer pulls great, has some spiffy cabinets, and fits all my stuff just great. So, we're now ready for the upcoming season!

Here's a few images of the inside of the trailer all packed up with the car. Boy is it nice to have some room to work.

Wings!


Time for some fun parts! To recap the history of this project, I began the 2009 season with a standard WF-1 rear wing. Halfway through, I acquired the front diffuser and rear wing from Mark Jaremko's 2008 WF-1, which included a Dauntless Racing prototype lower element, and a WF-1 upper element. By chance, I also acquired a Dauntless flap element as a "refurbished" part. That prototype wing support was beginning to fail, so in a truly stand-up piece of business, Stan at Dauntless offered to replace the wing support for me.

A few months later, and the new wing support has arrived, and along with the prototype main element and refurb-flap, I've been able to construct myself a "poor man's" rear wing configuration, for much less than a new configuration from Stohr or Dauntless. I can't wait to do some testing and see how it works out!

More images are in the Projects Folder.

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2009.11.15
The season is now officially over, with the last October R/R at HPR behind us. What a great season! By completing that last race, I was able to secure the DSR regional championship over Paul Leonard in DSR. At the last race, I set a new best of 1:41.6 at HPR, setting a new track record, and beating Chris Farrell's old time in the process, which is no mean feat. Naturally he'll show up and do a :38 next year, but for now I get to be the quickest ;-)

Owner's Manual Supplement
I've been adding a bit more to the owner's manual 'addendum' or supplement that I began at the end of last year. If you have experiences or observations to add, please write them up, and I'll incorporate them into the manual. See the link at the top of the page, just under the title photo.

Recent Activity
The last race left me with a few issues to fix, thought I'd share some info about them here:
• Chain Tension: Since MAM, and maybe a bit before, I've been having trouble keeping the chain tensioned and aligned. I finally broke down and removed the rear differntial from the spar (not a bad job, actually), and the problem was immediately evident: both rear diff bearings were wobbly and shot, so Rilltech repaired them for me, and the car was 100% at the October event.
  
  
• Brake Rotors: The front brake rotors have been getting progressively worse, in that they float OK while cold, but after 3-5 laps, heat up and bind, so that the car vibrates badly on the brakes. I've sent them back to Stohr to look at, since my attempts and Rilltech's attempts at fixing them didn't seem to do the trick.
  
  
• Fuel Pump Replacement: Even though I had the fuel cell out and apart to look for the (apparent?) fuel leak that toasted my oil temp sensor, after a brief test day at Pueblo (like 10 laps brief), I began having fuel starvation problems. I ripped everything out again, and discovered that the small sock on the fuel pump inlet had come loose, and the inlet was filled with crap. I replaced the main pump (it's just a standard Walbro 255), as well as the (dead) scavenge pump (with another 255), and kept the seemingly still happy main pump as a spare.
  
  
Winter Projects
Since I got a lot of the car's reliability woes sorted out during the season, and did a healthy number of upgrades, winter's to-do list is relatively brief:
• MXL Gear Display: The MXL has the capability to display the gear, which I haven't had hooked up until now. David and Ellen at Veracity have sent me a small pigtail that I'll wire into the Suzuki gear position sensor, and with luck, that should give me 0-6 gear display. I've read that it's fairly dodgy for some folks, but at worst, it should be able to tell me the difference between 5th and 6th gear, so I don't continually try to go for 7th gear...
  
  
• Rear Wings, Part Deux: I've had a Dauntless flap sitting on my shop floor for some time now, waiting installation. It was a prototype/reman/rebuild that Rennie sold me for cheap. Plans seem to change with relative frequency, but I'll be installing that atop my Dauntless main element (12" chord), in a Dauntless-style configuration that mimics their super-whizzy standard setup, but for a much smaller cost to me. Should be good for 80-90% of the performance they're getting with the twisted mainplane. More to come on this.
  
  I weighed the various wing parts that I have. My WF-1 wing (paint, old, etc) is 7.5 pounds. the wing support is 7.2 pounds. The Dauntless flap is 2.8 pounds. The whole Dauntless assembly weighed 25#, so I am hoping that the lighter wings with less "wing support material" may save 6-10# off of the car.
  
  
• Steering Shaft Rebuild: My steering shaft u-joint has developed a healthy amount of free play. This is most noticable when on warmup or cooldown laps, when there is less load on the car, and the tires will dart a bit of their own accord, making the car feel a bit nervous. Stohr is rebuilding this for me, it costs about $200 for them to do. When it is back and reinstalled, I'm going to take another stab at installing the 270mm wheel to gain a bit more leverage on the steering wheel, and finally install my button plate from Veracity. It is the very close placement of my bump shifter that seems to be causing the oddity, so I will space the steering wheel back towards me a bit, to give my right-hand that little bit of clearance it needs.
  
  
• Dry Sump, Part Deux: I'm still intrigued by possible horsepower benefits of the dry sump system, as well as the more effective cooling it gave my car, so I intend to have my spare motor modified per BRD's recommendations to get the steady 75psi of oil pressure that is much more comfort-inducing than the 45psi or so I saw at the September national. I'll run that to start the season, and see how it works, then decide what to do with the other engine.
  
  


Racing
One last race to write up for the season, the "Brumfield's Bash" R/R at HPR, at the end of October. Here.

All of us SR and Formula types skipped the Pueblo race, as the surface has gotten AWFUL, and was literally beating our cars apart. I parked my car after just 6 laps of a test day, and Paul did the same, after breaking his header, front splitter, rear diffuser, and camera. Ugh. Hopefully THAT gets fixed.



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2009.10.02
The season is now in its winding-down stage, with just two events left to go. The car is more sorted-out than ever, so I'm hoping that with a bit of luck, the next few events will go nice and smoothly. Some miscellany:

Racing
On the heels of the MAM race in August were two HPR races separated by just two weeks. One of these was an R/R, the other a N/N:
• HPR R/R: Quite a weekend this was, running my first laps with the new BRD dry-sump, and getting a chance to run the HPR "West Loop" for the first time. Read about it Here.
  
  
• HPR "Last Chance" N/N: So much fun racing with another Stohr, and what a race Sunday's was - you have to see the video to believe it! Here.
  
  
Misc
A few small bits if miscellany, that I've picked up this year:
• Chains: every time you have any kind of issue with a chain or sprocket, REPLACE EVERYTHING. Wonked sprockets will kill a new chain, and wonked chains will kill your sprockets. Don't try to save a $15 sprocket to save a $100 chain! Speaking of, Jake, when you're looking at this a year from now, you replaced your chain for the Pueblo October race. ;-)
  
  
• Tire Weights: We make our wheels hot enough that normal wheel-weight tape doesn't hold them on. Neither does duct tape. Neither does gaffer's tape. The only solution I have found, and this mirrors what the tire guys have told me, is the aluminized aircraft tape like Pegasus sells.
  
  
• Car Weights: I finally did a "rigorous" weigh of the car. The car, ready to race, with 5 gallons of fuel, midsection installed (16# per half = 32#), is 350F + 499 R = 849. Add 25 for the nose and 35 for the tail, and you get 909. Subtract off 36# of fuel, and you get 873#. Bodywork total is about 92#.
  
  
Black Gold
• Oiling and Oil Systems: Getting these '07-08 GSX-R's reliable has been a theme for the season. On the wet-sump side, it's been determined that we all need to move the oil pickup further forward in order to prevent the pickups from coming uncovered under the hard braking that these cars can manage. The simplest solution has been to turn the pan around 180*, extend the pickup forwards, and create a new baffle. Rilltech has a version where they extend the "box" on the existing pans to avoid having to reverse the pan, and have redesigned the pan for new customers. As well, Jesse Brittsan/BRD and Dustin Wright at Phoenix have come forth with their interpretations of the solution as well. One interesting tidbit is that not only are the pressure dips gone, but steady-state pressure now seems to be in the 70's, and some folks are reporting lower oil temps, all of which point to less aeration of the oil, no doubt a very, very good thing.
  
  
• Oil Systems, Cont'd: Additionally, at the last HPR N/N, I noticed my oil pressure with the dry sump dipping into the 40's at the race end while running down the straights, having switched back to 10-40 oil to avoid the very high low-temperature pressures I was seeing with the 20-50. Hot oil pressure has long been an achilles heel of the dry sump setups, so it appears that BRD hasn't quite gotten it kicked either. However, Jesse reports to me that they've found a key modification to make to the '07-08 motors that gets the pressure right up into the 70's, without any major changes, so it may be that solution has been found as well. I'll have my spare engine modified over the winter to see if the change works for me as well. Eric Vassian and the other West were running the modification at Runoffs 2009, and both reported 75ish psi under all conditions with standard 10-40 oil.
  
  So, for the short-term, I will have Richard modify my wet sump to finish out the season, then will decide which system to deal with over the winter, since I now have what appears to be two workable solutions for the car.






---

2009.08.30
Lots to tell in the past two months since the last motor from the Stohr went kerblammo. Here's the skinny:

Racing
Hey, so believe it or not, this car actually runs races. Even better, it's finished every race it's started, through some luck of the engine failure scene. Mid-America and a HPR R/R since the last update:

·HPR Test Day
Paul Leonard and I headed out to HPR to run some laps together for fun. I was shaking down my new single-pass oil cooler and lines etc, as well as seeing if the new engine was going to hold up. We took lots of videos for fun, which you can see here. Paul's is on You Tube.

·Mid-America Motorplex
We loaded up and took the 10-hour tow to Mid-America Motorplex to meet up with John Stecher and run a new track for grins. Read about it Here. Finally, a good weekend!



Engines
So it's been a run lately with engines, oiling, and such. Here's the skinny on that:



·New Motors Acquired
After a Heeeeyooooooge pain in the ass, I finally have two replacement eBay stock motors. Both are sub-1000 mile 08 GSX-R stockers. Both came from "SHY Motosports", which as an eBay store, and they treated me to the WORST customer service experience I've had in 30 years. Even a month later, I remain boggled by the horrible performance of these people. Perhaps my situation was an exception, since they have lots of positive eBay feedback, but I remain boggled by their incompetence and general disregard for me. The whole thing probably took fifty phone calls over four weeks to finally resolve correctly. They did, in the end, make it all right, and both engines were crated well and delivered as described. Still, they won't get any more business from me.

·New Motors Tested
The first motor I had shipped straight to me. I installed it in the car over a few easy afternoons.

More importantly, I installed this new engine with a brand new Setrab 650 oil cooler (standard single-pass), all new fittings, and all new line. The net result is about +10psi in pressure compared to the old engine arrangement. The dips shown under braking on the datalogs are not only far less in magnitude (perhaps 25psi), but far shorter in duration. Pressure is now above 30psi at all times, and always higher while under throttle. So, something big is different, and better.

Image: Wet sump with 3-pass cooler, old lines vs 1-pass cooler and new lines.

So, still noticable, but way less bad than before.

·BRD Dry Sump Tested
I've been working with Jesse Brittsan of Brittsan Racing Developments to make a dry sump system for the Suzuki. More accurately, I've provided like 5 small ideas while he did all the work.

End result is that I have his new dry sump pan installed on the car. It has a whizzy design with the scavenge pump integrated into the pan, and runs off of the factory oil pump drive gear. Very cool. So, no extra external lines, no water pump necessary, so it's a very easy install. I bolted up the pan in a few minutes, then spent the rest of the evening getting all the new -12 and -10 lines made. I re-used my 3-pass cooler (sent to Pacific Oil Coolers for cleaning, of course), so I now have 100% separate wet- and dry-sump configurations if I need them.

For an oil tank, I used the Peterson Flower Pot style tank, about 10" around and 10" high. This is the same (more or less) tank that West Race Cars uses on their dry-sumped Kawasakis, and since I have the West oil cooler duct, I had a good spot to mount the tank in the exact same spot as West did, using the same bracket and tank mount. Pictures of the installation are here.

Results with the system are *great*. Steady-state pressure is good, scavenge is good, weight gain was only 15#. See the datalogs below for the comparison of the wet versus dry sump system pressures, and of the pressure drops (or lack thereof!) in the corners with the new system:



---

2009.07.12
·De-Ja-BOOM
I don't quite believe it myself, but yet another engine has eaten itself in the Stohr. After running the race at HPR, the race at PPIR, and a test day at HPR, it ate itself after about ten laps on the Friday practice day before the July 4th national...game over.

Not a terribly exciting video, other than that I was having a ball chasing the other Stohrs.

Sooooooo, I get to play engine rebuild again. The plan this time is to put in an eBay stocker with the wet sump pan, and all new lines, fittings, etc. Putting a new cooler in, a standard Setrab 650 with outlets on the same side, so as to reduce line length as much as possible. One test will be to see if the car will still stay as cool as it needs to with the less sophisticated oil cooler.

The old oil cooler is going back to get cleaned again, and I will use it in conjunction with a dry sump system being developed by BRD, the outfit that built the dry sumps for the West WR1000 Kawasakis. This should help the car run cooler, gain in horsepower, and most importantly, keep the damn engines in one piece.

·Aero Updates
To early to say for sure, quite yet, but it looks like a WF-1 diffuser and bi-plane rear wing configuration are on their way from a fellow updating to the Dauntless parts, so this little car should be pretty damn fast once those are in place. My initial times comparing to Chris Farrell at HPR were closer than I had hoped/feared, so adding these should really put me in a respectable spot for Runoffs, if I can get myself qualified.



---

2009.05.29
·Where to start?
Well, it's been nearly two months since my last update, where to even begin telling about what's happened since then? Here's the skinny:
1. Friday Test day before the April HPR event...this didn't go so well. I ventured out on track, did approximately half a lap before the engine started making horrible noises. Game over - spun rod bearing. All I can guess is that this is related to my oil pressure issues at IMI. This race weekend was ultimately snowed out, so I didn't miss anything, for better or for worse.
   
   I pulled the engine and gave it to Rilltech, who had be up and running again in about two weeks. We rebuilt the same engine, and built it to the same spec. We added a Power Commander and a dyno tune to the mix, and found over 15hp gain from getting the fueling right. Alright!
   
   
2. So, take two for the first race of the year was the first weekend in May. This one went splendidly, bar a few teething issues with the car. Friday test was fun, chasing the guys around in PSR. Saturday and Sunday I won both races, setting fast lap both days. the writeup is Here. The only bummer from the weekend was that my brake pedal issue evidently wasn't solved - it still went to the floor after about 10 laps.
   
   
3. Returning to the shop, I replaced both master cylinders, the rear calipers, and slightly re-routed the lines to make sure that all pressure sensors were pointed *downwards*, so that no air bubble could be trapped in them. With a pair of 7/8" cylinders now, and bleeding the CRUD out of hte system with Motul 600 fluid instead of my past ATE blue, the pedal was PERFECT for PPIR - no issues at all.
   
   
4. Also an issue was that I was sliiiiiightly over on sound - 104-106dB. I brought the car down to Rilltech, and they supplied me with a nice new Ti muffler, which successfully quieted the car, but is also a good deal lighter than the large system that used to be on the car. We installed it in the same location as is found on the WF-1, in case I ever find myself with WF-1 bodywork. Some pictures of that are here.
   
   
5. Problematic as well was the oil pressure, which continued to dip into the teens and single digits under hard braking. I kept adding oil to try and combat the problem, which worked only partially. Evidently, the GSX-R engines simply lose oil pressure under hard braking. Most folks seem to agree that high 20's is common, and apparently acceptable, although it sure makes me nervous. I have added a 1 quart accusump to the system to see if it helps at all with this "dip" behavior.
   
   
6. The Western Sprints race at PPIR over the memorial day weekend was extremely fun. The track itself is quite simple, but the concrete and high speed turn 1 sure make it intimidating! That writeup will be coming along shortly. The short version is that I won the first race, and came a close second in the second, battling a good driver and a few car issues.


So, that brings us mostly up to date. Here's what's on the horizon, and some other miscellaneous notes:
• I finished covering my seat with the OMP Nomex fabric. The result looks quite nice, and is very comfortable. Actually got several compliments on it during the race weekend. I used the 3M #80 (gray can) adhesive from Home Depot, and it seems to have worked quite well. Will definitely do this with any future seats that I have to build.
  
  
• Still slightly frustrated with the oil pressure problem in the car. Adding more oil seemed to keep it up at the 25+psi mark. Rilltech and I are going to run an experiment whereby we try some 15-50 oil to see if it has any effect on the pressure drop, which will tell us if it is oil slosh, or engine dynamics causing the pressure to drop. Either way, I'll be running the oil high for now.
  
  
• Oddly, the Accusump made no measurable difference on the datalogs. This would tend to support then that the engine is not oil starving, but just some dynamic of the oil system operation when it is slowed rapidly by braking. I will leave it on for another test day or so, but may ultimately remove it and sell it if it doesn't have any effect I can see on the datalogs.
  
  
• One of my aforementioned issues at PPIR was a blown LF shock. It caused quite a bit of odd porpoising up front, a total lack of grip in RH corners by the end of the weekend, and a big oily mess at the front of the car. They're on their way back to Joe Stimola to see if he can figure out what's going on there.
  
  
• The roughness of the track caused a few things to break - the speed sensor mount again, and the rain light mount. Will be fixing these before the next race.
  
  
• Reporting a bit on the header coating, the Jet-Hot "Extreme Sterling"...isn't so sterling anymore. It has dulled significantly, and continues to dull with each heat cycle, but it continues to hold well, still looks reasonably nice, and does indeed cool more quickly. The car as a whole is cooling just fine (20* water, and 22* oil), so I am very encouraged about being able to cool the car properly come summertime.
Next Events
Next race event looks like the July 4th double national at HPR. This will be my first national race, and might even be kinda a big deal. I'm curious to see who shows up from the National ranks. If any of the big-boy WF-1's show up, it will be interesting to see just how much faster than my ol' 1st gen they actually are. Might be fun - or perhaps somewhat demoralizing - to get a feel for what the gap is like.

Planning on doing a test day between now and then to try and sort out the car as best I can, I think we may head out around June 12 or so to HPR, and go chase eachother around a bit.



---

2009.03.29
·Less than a week to go...
It's nearly upon us - the 2009 racing season, and the first events at High Plains Raceway. There's a buzz around here for the first event that I don't remember from years past - everybody is really excited, and very nervous, at how things are going to go. I can't wait for the first laps there...and I'll have video here very soon.

This Tuesday I'll be at HPR running a test day with Mike Pettiford. Paul Leonard is going to come down in his Radical, so we'll play around a bit and shake the rust off a bit after such a long winter. For my own part, I am very excited to see how the car feels with all the details sorted out. What details, you say? Read on:

·Bead Seat
Since my first attempt at seat-making didn't go so well, I had to give it a second shot. This time, it was with a "Creafoam Bead Seat Kit" by Bald Spot Sports, available from Pegasus. I got the "Medium" size, and it was about perfect. I spent a lot of time asking around on tips for how to do it, and I really have to credit Dean Turnbaugh and Pete Fowler for their help. Especially Dean for answering my questions on how to do it.

The instructions that come with the kit are quite good, but here are some additional tips from Pete and Dean:
• Beforehand: The directions say otherwise, but IMO, this requires three people, including the driver.
• Beforehand: Really spend the time to mask off the cockpit with tape and cardboard. This helped me immensely in fitting the seat well, and not having it "hang up" on things the first time we tried to remove it.
• Beforehand: Put a pair of rachet or tie-down straps in the cockpit of the car. You can use these later to help pull up on the seat as you try to figure out how to remove it.
• Beforehand: Also, Put a bedsheet above the straps, as again, this gives you some leverage to move the seat around after it's cured.
• After you get out (before the seat is 100% cured): Take as much time as you can to remove wrinkles/folds in the bag. This makes your life easier later when you cut (and optionally sand etc).
At this point, the seat is cut, and partially covered with tape. To remove the Seat, I made a crescent shaped cut from right-of-centerline, arcing down towards my right elbow. This this bit removed, the seat pulls out quite nicely, even with the harness bar in place. It fits very tightly, and is very comfortable. I am extremely encouraged for how this will help my comfort in the car, and therefore speed.

I'll shake down and race the first race without the seat totally covered - it's just covered with a layer of gaffer's tape right now - and then put the OMP seat fabric from Pegasus on it during the break between races. Some in-progress pictures are Here.

·IMI Shakedown
I took the car out to IMI before leaving for Hawaii for a bit of shakedown. It was fairly undramatic. The ride heights I had set in the shop were too low, so I raised the car 2 turns (~1/8") and that prevented further rubbing. I found a small water leak at the water pump outlet, caused by a clamp crushing the hose against a bead on the pump fitting. A new Samco hose and a slight modification to the waterline solved that.

The only troubling issue was some low oil pressure on the datalogger. After talking it over with Rilltech, I think it was just low oil level, so I added ~1 quart (yeah, that much), and will watch it closely at HPR. As a consequence of this, I've also relocated the oil pressure sensor line to the main crank galley with the Autometer 2268 adapter that I used on the Radical, per Rilltech's recs.

·Hoosiers
Since they're a bit easier to get from John Berget Tire, my used tire guy, I've switched the car to Hoosiers. The front is slightly wider and slightly taller than the Goodyear 20x8, so I've readjusted the car to match (The rear is very similar). I'm going to run/test/shakedown on some R35's, then race on R25's, since it's early season, and should be somewhat cool.

As an update to this, actually - not! As it turns out, with the WF-1 uprights, which move the front wheels forward by an inch, the Hoosiers are too tall, and too wide to allow turning the wheels when the bodywork was on, so I returned back to the Goodyear 160's.

·Intakes Complete
The Ram-Air intakes I've been working on are finally done. Grant finished the weld for me before I left for Hawaii, and I put them on the car. They're made of Pegasus brake ducts cut down, and mounted on the headrest. Metal adapters bolt to the intakes on the GSX-R airbox, and allow for the ~3.5" hose to duct straight into the airbox. Not bad! Pictures Here.

·Harness Bar Complete
The harness bar saga is complete as well. I painted it with a few coats of primer and rattle-can, and finished it off with a pair of aluminum split-collars from Lucas Industrial to keep the belts at the proper spacing. The great news is that with the new seat, thinner padding on the HANS, new harnesses, everything fits *great*. I can see the dash, the HANS isn't riding on my helmet, the sliding tethers give me good vision...everything seems to be sorted out really well. Tuesday's track day will say for sure. Pictures Here...

·Winter Summary
So, since it's the end of winter, I thought I ought to summarize for myself everything I've done over the winter. It doesn't seem like any of this will directly make the car much faster, but hopefully it will come together to result in some nice speed increases:
• New hubs/uprights/bearings
• New floating brake rotors
• Switch to Polymatrix A brake pads
• Fresh Hoosier tires (previously was on unknown state Goodyears)
• Actually set the heights, camber, cornerweights
• Ram-Air intakes for airbox, and fresh-air duct from sidepod
• New Harnesses & Harness Bar
• Larger/Complete oil cooler duct
• Coated headers
• Freshened Shocks, stiffer springs
• New rear splashguards (no rocks in radiator!)
• Connection of the no-lift ignition cut box
• Dive planes on the nose

---

2009.02.21
·Corner Weights, Body weights
I was able to get a setup put on the car after the uprights were installed and ready to go. So, now, all I need is a harness bar, and probably a new seat, to be able to go racing. At least with the bar, I can go shake down the car and make any changes that need making. Here's the setup on the car:

	L	R
Front
Camber	-1.5	-1.5
Toe	1/32 out	1/32 out
Rear
Camber	-0.5	-0.5
Toe	1/32 in	1/32 in


And the corner weights:



	L	R	L	R
Front:	153	169	1 7/16	1 4/16
Rear:	234	224	1 8/16	1 10/16


Note those weights are without bodywork (93#!!! - normal is about 53#!), and no driver. 1 turn of the pushrod would get my fronts even, so I left it for now, since invariably I'll check things one more time before the first race.

Numbers seem slightly odd. With even cornerweights, the heights are a bit strange. I think some of that is down to the front diffuser and floor not being quite as symmetrical as they ought to be on a car that's seen this much racing. When the car first when back together, I had everything set equal length, and the cornerweights were perfect. It was just once setting ride heights that I had to monkey with things a bit. Not sure if this is indictative of anything, but I suppose it is what it is....

We'll see.

·Close...
The season is fast approaching, and fortunately, the list of projects on the car is down to just a handful.

Remaining Issues:
• Harness Bar: Fitting the harness bar has turned out to be a big saga. The West bar did not fit due to the variations in my car's fuel cell bulkhead. Evidently, the first 15 or so Stohrs had slight variations in these parts since they were hand-made, and mine is a bit taller than most. So, that went back.
  
  The Stohr bar seems to be pretty basic, but fitment doesn't seem to be all that great on a couple cars I saw. So, coupled with mine potentially being different, I threw any notion of a pre-made bar out.
  
  At this point, I've got all the bits to get the bar made, and will head down to Rilltech when I'm able to get the bar fabbed up.
  
  
• Engine Intakes: As with the harness bar, I have all these parts, just need a bit of time from a welder to tig them together. The ducts from Pegasus are installed on the headrest, I have the hose and clamps, so all that's needed is hte last piece of the bits that fit over the Suzuki airbox to accept the ducting.
  
  
• Harness: Evidently, Schroth makes (but does not advertise) a Formula II-HANS harness with adjustable lapbelts. It's about an extra $40 or so. I had them ship me one, so I will fit and compare with the standard nonadjustable lapbelt model when it arrives, and send back whichever I don't want.
  
  
So, everything that's dealt with, and how it went:
• Uprights, Hubs, and Bearings: These have all arrived from Mike Scully, and are on the car. Everything bolted right up directly with just a few different fasteners needed to get them on the car. No adjustments to the control arms were necessary, the installed angle (approx 90*) was the same with no adjustments.
  
  They have slightly different geometry than the old uprights - basically, the upper and lower pivot are moved aft 1" - and the wheelbase is extended by 1". Looks like it probably changes the effective caster or something, I'm not one to know. The only issue this caused, with the wheel being located further forward, is a rub on the rear edge of the lower front control arm at full lock, so I will need to make a spacer of some kind for the rack for when I'm moving around paddock. Might just be as simple as a few washers to slip over, but I will investigate later.
  
  
• Radiator Repair: I noticed a bit of steam from the radiator when starting the car a while back, and it turns out there were some hairline cracks. I had a local radiator shop repair it with some goo. They only got it about 75% back though, as there's still steam (but no visible coolant) from the radiator. C&R says it's a $600+ radiator to replace, so I'm going to run it as-is and see if the car keeps cool, or if the problem worsens or goes away. I have an old original radiator as an emergency spare if I need it.
  
  
• Floating Rotors: The new rotors are on the car with the new hats from Stohr. I added a set of new Polymatrix A brake pads all around, and kept Scully's 2-pot calipers as spares.
  

---

2009.01.23
·Torque
Thought I'd share something I noticed the other day. Pegasus has a handy-dandy reference page that includes torque specs for AN hardware which is quite useful for all the misc bolts and such on the Stohr. For SAE hardware The Engineer's Handbook has a nice page.



---

2009.01.17
·Happy New Year
2009 is upon us, and I'm glad for it. December was a particularly long and dark month, with a combination of various illnesses keeping me from doing much with the car. Lots of parts were out-and-away for service anyway, so 2009 is bringing both improved health, and new jobs to do. A lot of the things I wrote about in early November are handled, and are done now, or will be shortly once the parts arrive. Here's the latest:
• Uprights, Hubs and Bearings - My existing parts couldn't be updated to the new style bearing, due to how much material was taken out of them when they were built. Fortunately, a WF-1 owner, Mike Scully, offered to sell me his lightly used uprights for a fair price. So, his uprights will be on my car around the middle of February.
  
  According to Stohr, the only change in geometry of these parts versus my 1st-gen parts is the location of the upper control arm stud, which is further back - more caster is built into them. They say simply asjusting the rod-ends on the upper A-arm will get me where I need to be - with the upright essentially perpendicular to the ground.
  
  
• Floating Brake Rotors + Hats - When he saw my rotors, Doug Learned said I should be fairly nervous about racing on them. A similar thread on ApexSpeed convinced me, so I ordered a set of floating rotors from Stohr.
  
  All well and good, but the new rotors and bobbins are made for 1/4" fasteners, and my hats were drilled for 5/16" fasteners. Not a problem, since they had had bushings made for this reason, but they had just six left, and nobody would make any more for a reasonable price. So, I bit the bullet and ordered 4 new hats to go with the new rotors.
  
  I guess now I well and truly do have an entire corner's worth of spares - brake disk, caliper, upright, and control arms. I think the only thing I don't have in duplicate is the shocks!
  
  On the upside, the new uprights, plus the floating rotors should make for a ROCKIN brake pedal. Also, to finally satisfy my curiosity, I bought a set of Polymatrix A brake pads. After having used Hawks on both the Radical and the Stohr, I'm curious to see if these pads have a bit more feel, or bite, or something than the Hawks, or if I'm simply not good enough to tell...or if the brakes are so good that it doesn't matter anyway.
  
  
• Header Coating - I sent the headers off to Jet-Hot to be coated with their Jet-Hot "Extreme Sterling" coating, which claims to be good up to 1700*. As it turns out, so did Pat, as he tries to solve his overheating issues. We will see how well it lasts. I chose that for the temperature rating, and that it is supposedly a much better thermal barrier than their Jet-Hot 2000 coating. If it does not stand up, the JH-2000 will be the only option.
  
  
• Splash Guards - David and Ellen Ferguson upgraded their car to WF-1 spec, so he was kind enough to give me his nice old metal splashguards. I've modified those to fit my car. They look a bit nicer, and should prevent more rock-spray onto the coolers than the nasty chicken-wire concotions were doing.
  
  
• Repaired Floor - With Grant Barclay's help (read: me doing grunt work and him doing the delicate stuff), we repaired a slightly crunched section on the front of the floor. The repairs seem to be nice and strong, so that is good. The floor is reinstalled, and I am busily reassembling the car now.
  
  
• Oil Cooler Duct - My car has the West style oil cooler duct, which is made for the ~44 row cooler they use on their cars. At Pueblo, this still resulted in around 230-240* oil temps on a non-hot day. I expanded the duct out to duct entirely to the full 50 rows of the 3-pass cooler that Rilltech got for me (Setrab), plus moving the cooler over a bit. The result is that now 100% of the cooler is in the airflow, instead of around 60%, so this should help cool down the oil.
  
  
• Intake Project - my intake-ducting project for the GSX-R airbox is coming along. I made some templates of the intake openings out of .090 aluminum, mounted them to the airbox, and cut a 3" hole in them for the hose ducting. I think I've got the various angles figured out to let the ducting fit around the chassis bars, so will have Grant tack one up for me this coming week. A 6x4" brake duct from Pegasus, cut down to approx 4x3, fits nicely in the scoops, and I will mount those to the headrest so they'll stay in place when the back deck comes off.
  
  There is some thought that this, may help reduce under-body airpressure, also helping air evacuate through the heat exchangers. However, by sealing off the underbody, this is part of what prompted me to coat the headers, until I can duct a bit of air into the underbody, if it proves necessary.
  
  
• Misc Else
  • The shocks are back from Joe Stimola at SRP, and are on the car ready to go, along with the new 1150/1250 springrates.
  • I wired up the no-lift box inline with the wiring for the coils, so I'll be able to test that functionality first time out to the kart track as well.
  
  
  
• Still To Do: Still on the list:
  • Fixing the seat once the car is on the ground, covering it, seat angle, whatever it is.
  • The noses are back from Don's Body Shop (thanks Pat!), so I'll reinstall the various louvers and ducts on those.
  • Installing the new harnesses, harness bar (which needs modification) and so on.
  
  
  



2008.11.04
·Winter Project Progress
I've reached that early winter state where the initial flurry of activity has subsided, and half of the car's parts are scattered around the country for various gurus to work their arcane magic. Here's what's on the list:
• Hubs and Bearings - Chief among the problems I'm worried about is the state of the hubs/bearings/uprights. During the last race of our season (my first in the car), I had a very soft pedal, which Wayne@Stohr diagnosed for me as pad knockback.
  
  So, all the bits are at Doug Learned at Fast Forward Components in California, and he's going to see what can be salvaged for update. Later cars all came with Atlantic bearings in the rear, steel sleeved uprights for the bearing, and a new hub design. Yeowtch. $. $$.
  
  
• Freshened Shocks - The Penske 2000's are off to Joe Stimola for a refreshing. They take a special tool to disassemble, which my local guy Mike Leary (Leary's Shock Shop) didn't have.
  
  Joe says he hasn't seen them in 2-3 years, so they could use it. Both fronts were leaking, so this will make sure those are up to snuff.
  
  
• Raised Springrates - A good conversation with Wayne at Stohr Cars indicated that the current thinking for these cars is to run around 1200# front, and somewhere between 1200-1500# rear, depending on what you like the car to do in slow corners. I found some 1150# and 1250 2" Hyperco springs for $50/each, so I'll put those on and run those for a while.
  
  
• Harness and Harness Bar - As I mentioned below, the Willans harnesses expire at the end of the year, so I need new ones. Among the issues with the 1st gen Stohr is that the belts were mounted too wide for proper HANS usage. Phil made a bracket-thingie to try and move them closer together in my car, but it's frankly a bit scary.
  
  To replace this, West is sending me one of their bolt-on harness bars, along with a new Schroth "HANS Formula-II" style belt. The loop-around adjusters will go on the harness bar, which puts the belts the proper distance apart, and that should help me get fitted with the HANS in the car properly. The P/N is 25083, and as an FIA harness, is good for 5 years - lower annual cost versus SFI belts.
  
  
• Composites/Repairs - Four projects remain that I need composites help with, which means wheedling time from Grant. The first is some minor repair to the front diffuser - an aluminum closeoff plate and filling some holes from "the off". Next is modifying the oil cooler duct to duct air to the entire cooler, not just the outer 2/3 of it. Third is repairs to the leading edge of the floor, also from "the off", and lastly, modifications to the seat to see if we can recline me a bit, and fill in the gaps and loose spots.
  
  
• Misc - Of course there's some little stuff, like getting the no-lift shift box working, trying to get the radio setup completed, airbox ducting, some cheapo scales, installing the dive planes on my spare nose, and so on.

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2008.10.27
·Radical vs Stohr impressions
So a lot of folks have been asking me my impressions driving the Stohr versus the Radical, which I drove for the past four seasons. I was surprised how similar they really felt. I'll try to see if I can enumerate the differences I felt, and will post it here...

Differences:
• Trail Braking - Aside from the increased high-speed grip, this is what I noticed most about the Stohr. The Radical did not like to be trailbraked. I suspect a lot of that was due to the excessive rear bias I could never work out of the car, due to the large rear calipers. The Stohr trailbrakes beautifully, perhaps also due in part to the 11" longer wheelbase. T2 at Pueblo, I could turn in as I brushed the brakes, and the car would seemingly pivot around its nose. Speed there was awesome
• Front Grip - Folks say that the Stohr tends to understeer with the tunnels and the "standard" front, but I felt like the front was a bit more grippy than the Radical was. If so, I'm really looking forward to having the WF-1 style front-end some day - at higher speeds like T5 T6, it was always the front that washed out, not the rear.
• Overall/High Speed Grip - There's only one fast complex at Pueblo, Turns 5/6, and there the Stohr was way quicker. Almost flat every lap, versus hefty lifts in the Radical unless everything was *perfect*
• Straightaways - The Radical always felt like it hit a wall at higher speeds. The Stohr definitely doesn't as badly. Highest speed the Radical reported last time out was 132, and the Stohr showed 137 at least once - I haven't downloaded the data to see the peak speed. That's with the GSX-R versus the Radical's busa.
• Bumps - the Radical is MILES better at soaking up bumps than the Stohr. Some of that is four years worth of tinkering with the Radical's springs and shocks, whereas the Stohr runs double the springrates, and I haven't the foggiest where the shocks were set. I found bumps in T1 I didn't even know existed!
• Convenience - the larger cockpit of the Radical makes it much easier to buckle yourself in, and also, getting the rear deck off is an easy one-man job. Not so for the Stohr on either count.
Similarities
• Turn-In maybe it's just foggy memory, but I don't feel like one car was way more pointy than the other. That surprised me given the difference in springrates, but perhaps the Radical's anti-roll bars are at work here.
• Ease of Maintenance - I reserve the right to change my opinion, but the Stohr doesn't seem any more difficult to live with than the Radical, once the bodywork is off. Nothing seems confusing or terribly hard to get to, although I'm not looking forward to ever doing anything with the fuel cell. The parts generally seem to be much higher quality, although I'm sure that will be reflected in their expense when I have to replace them. But, the convenience of pulling the body off, and sitting on my favorite bucket to service the car remains, which I enjoy.




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2008.10.26
·Season's End
Our last race of the season is in the books, the Pueblo "Miller Time" race that closes out the season here in RMDiv. It was an incredibly fun, if somewhat abbreviated year. Next year promises perhaps as many as 10 of us to be regulars in CSR and DSR, it should be one heck of a fun time. Read all about the race weekend, including video, here.

·Winter Projects
End of the season means its time for some winter projects. That said, the car doesn't need much done to it, so the list will hopefully be quite small:
• Replace harnesses (they've expired)
• Repairs to front diffuser and floor from the 'off' (see video)
• Rebuild front shocks
• proper setup, stiffer springs per Wayne's rec's
• Finish off the seat
• Improve ducting to oil cooler (230* temps on a cool day)
That's about it for now, I'll keep things updated as the winter moves along. Until then...happy bench racing.



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2008.10.05
·The Next Step
So I have moved on to a Stohr DSR, stepping up a bit from my Radical.

This is actually one of the oldest cars around, Stohr #003. Originally owned by a guy named Jay, then by Doc Stafford, and most recently by George Smith, all of whom were out of the Southwest.

The car has been nicely updated over the years, and now has a WF-1 style back half, a 2007 GSX-R engine, a tunnel floor, and Penske 2000 shocks. These latter bits are quite rare, and quite expensive, at about $1,300 a pop. Evidently they are made mostly out of titanium, and are commonly seen in LMP cars, such as the Intersport Lolas. Wow. Both Phil and Stimola say they work quite well, so I am happy to have those whizzy bits on the car.

I'm getting the car since they're evidently tired of the bike engines. George had a fire with his last GSX-R, which 'sploded, so I'm hoping that same fate does not befall me.

As a result, there have been a few projects, getting the car fitted to me:
• Seat - Grant, of Built-By-Bones, and I have poured a seat. We use foam beads and epoxy for the seat to shape itself to you, cover with Carbon Fiber, and then finally a layer of OMP velour fabric from Pegasus. Should be comfy, and nice looking. Grant said at one point, all the seats in the Indy Car grid were his, so certainly expertise is not an issue here!
• Pedal Adjustments - I am much shorter than any of the car's previous occupants, so I moved the pedals closer to me, which requird a lot of new brackets and such. The original Stohr pedalbox is awful, so it's taken some phenagling to sort out.
• New Oil Cooler - the old oil cooler from the previous engine kerblammo was still in place, so I decided to replace it as an ounce of prevention. Going in place of the ~44 row cooler is a 50 row, triple-pass Setrab from Rilltech. This ensures all the oil is forced through the cooler, and should take care of any cooling issues I may have. This also took some ingenuity in mounting, and I may have to modify my ducting later or over the winter.
• Trailer Updates - It's also taken some trailer changes, since the Stohr is a few inches wider than the Radical. I've installed a $60, remote-controlled winch (complete with cammo paint!) from Harbor Freight to help pull the car in, in case I have to lift the nose with the jack while rolling in. I've added a shelf to hold extra fuel, and a set of tie-down hooks in the middle of the rear floor for attaching to the car's jack points.
• In-Car Camera - I've finally caved and bought an expensive camera system. I am hooking my existing ChaseCam up to a DVR system from CAM-FX, which is a nice, flash-based recorder. 640x480 at 30fps, a screen built into it, with some shock resistance, and the ability to take DC input from the car. A small LANC remote means I can power it on and control it from the cockpit. All, for about $400 - a LONG way from the cost of ChaseCam's PDR100. We'll see how it does.
• Paint - The car's body is in dreadful shape from the 'drive-by-feel' antics of the car's previous owners. I packed the body off to Pat at Don's Body Shop in Colorado Springs, and he is redoing the glass and paint for me. with RockySoft sponsoring the car's paint job, it will be black, with purple and silver accents - I can't wait to see what it looks like!
·Sponsorship!?
With the Stohr, has come a confluence of major and minor sponsorship help with the car. As Caroll Smith says, most folks' sponsorships start with "Dad...", and it has been similar for me. Sponsorship help has come for the car, so I'd like to publicly thank everybody who is helping me go racing:
• RockySoft, Corporation - The company I've worked for for nearly a decade has decided to sponsor the paint work for the car, hence the RockySoft scheme we are applying. We'll be able to do some fun things with this, I think. Visit our website here.
• Mill Creek Vet - In keeping with the above quote, the good Drs Latham have decided to step in and help with the costs of running the race cars. They say it's seflishly motivated, as they're really enjoying watching the races.
• SCR Performance - SCR Performance has been assisting me over the past season, and they're continuing to do so for 2008 and 2009. In addition to adding to their Sports Racer work, they have assisted with keeping my Avalanche, trailer, and A4 on the road.
  
  For truly superlative work, in European cars, motorsports programs, street performance, and now pure racing cars like sports racers, give SCR Performance, a look.
• Rilltech Racing - Richard at Rilltech and I have worked closely the past few years, as I've been maintaining his website. His advice and knowledge have helped me out, and saved me a lot of money over the past few years. Contact him for sports racer support, arrive-and-drive, and his calling card, excellent engines.


I'd also be remiss not to mention friends of mine that own shops I have used for my car, Pat Holmes at Don's Body Shop in Colorado Springs, and Grant Barclay here in town, at Built By Bones, for fabrication, welding, rollbars, and general race car services.

From the bottom of my heart, THANK YOU ALL.

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