THE SKANKAWAY ANTI-TOE-FUNGAL 500 (LeMons @ Infineon this weekend)
10-17-2011, 08:13 AM
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THE SKANKAWAY ANTI-TOE-FUNGAL 500 (LeMons @ Infineon this weekend)
We'll be up at Infineon Saturday and Sunday Oct 22 and 23rd for the last NorCal LeMons race of the year.
Should be a good turnout. Probably 150 cars or so. I was hoping for some rain so we could show off our AWD skills, but I don't think we will be that lucky.
If you haven't been to a LeMons race, it's a trip. You get full access to the paddock so you can wander around through the carnage of exploded engines, pointing and laughing.
Stop by and say hi if you come up. Not sure where our space will be yet, but if you can't find a yellow Legacy wagon with an 8 foot tail, I don't know what else to tell you.
And we have a piņata!!
Should be a good turnout. Probably 150 cars or so. I was hoping for some rain so we could show off our AWD skills, but I don't think we will be that lucky.
If you haven't been to a LeMons race, it's a trip. You get full access to the paddock so you can wander around through the carnage of exploded engines, pointing and laughing.
Stop by and say hi if you come up. Not sure where our space will be yet, but if you can't find a yellow Legacy wagon with an 8 foot tail, I don't know what else to tell you.
And we have a piņata!!
[/QUOTE]
10-24-2011, 08:56 AM
#10
Registered User
Thread Starter
Quite the entertaining weekend. I'd only driven Infineon in March in the rain in a 300ZX with no rear shocks. Not fun.
Well-prepped Subaru. Fun. Although I wish we would have had some rain to show off the AWD.
After day 1 we were nestled nicely in 43rd place (out of 171). Day 2 our newb driver got happy in the Ssssses and slapped the wall. We were down for a couple hours getting a new passenger outer tie rod sourced (thanks Napa) and wrenched back on.
Final position, 83rd. That's a big jump for us to get into the middle of the pack. The car that was behind us before we waxed the wall eventually finished 19th.
Mechanically, the car was awesome. No sign of the misfire CEL we were catching last race. It seemed to come whenever the drivers were bouncing the rev-limiter so maybe it was my droning on about remembering to upshift. We ran a little colder plug this time, NGK wires instead of the Autozone crap I had put on previously and that could have made the difference.
I also put a fart-can muffler on to help make it louder...still not loud unfortunately. Need to get the cats out, the resonator and test out my new UEL headers.
The NA 2.2 motor simply refuses to run hot. Maybe the headgaskets will hold for a few more races. Oil/Water never went north of 180. We added an oil cooler for this race "just in case" and the AN fittings are proving to be a little bit of a pain in the ***. We weren't leaking a ton of oil, but they were sweating and needed some tightening mid race. Maybe a couple of hot cold/cycles and we'll get them tight enough to stop worrying about it.
Stock WRX rotors; toast after one day. Didn't have spares so we just ran them with the wobble all day Sunday. Upgrading to blue race fluid from the Prestone did seem to help. We ducted the front brakes with some dryer hose but need to do something similar in the back. Not sure quite how to make that work since the gas tank sits right where I want to route the hose.
Next stop DBA 4000's and some stainless lines and we'll see if we can at least keep the rotors flat. Carbotech XP10 pads remain a fantastic investment.
4th gear synchro is toast but I'm optimistic we can get another weekend or two out of it.
Need to get the car on the alignment rack to see how bad the smack with the wall messed with our rear track. There's a huge tube welded between the rear strut towers; that probably saved us because the impact on the rear passenger bumper was hard enough to ripple all kinds of sheet metal in the spare tire well.
It will never likely run as true as it did before, but now it has some LeMons character.
Suspension setup seems to be right on with our driving abilities. STi springs on the stock WRX struts. Zero toe, 2° negative camber all around. Big *** Whiteline rear sway bar to knock out the understeer.
Since it's LeMons you can't get too trick with the adjustable parts but slotting the struts was enough to give us 3° if we wanted it.
The car is really well behaved at this point. Since I haven't found LeMons budget NA HP add-ons to throw $$ at, I think we will move on to some more race comfort kind of stuff like a radio and a cool suit system. (If you do come across an H6 though, you are welcome to PM me!)
Lap times were very promising. At any given time there were 100 cars on the track so there was no chance to see more than one or two clear corners per lap. If you know the track, we were running the 9/9a 90° turn with the abbreviated 11 to keep everyone away from the wall separating the pit entrance. I wish they would have left the longer turn in, but 1st world problems, right?
Best lap was a 2:12 and our hot shoe was clicking those off pretty consistently. The top cars were turning 2:02s and we are spotting some of those cars > 1000 lbs. (We are 2800 with no driver). This exact configuration is in Forza 4 so I need to go play it and see what kind of reference time I come up with. Too bad there's no low HP AWD cars.
For non-obvious reasons, the judges moved us from class C (slowest) to class A (the fast class) for this race. We were definitely getting embarrassed in the straights by just about every other class A car. The Opel GT was notable exception but they got moved up from C to A as well for this race.
Realistically, we should probably be class B. The 2.2 NA engine/weight combo is too much of a boat anchor to be competitive in class A unless we really, really improve our driving. (not likely).
So, Laguna Seca with ChumpCar Nov 21st next. Need to get a few of the Chump safety items (Window net, center kill switch) taken care of; lick our wounds and keep at it.
One of these races we might actually start taking things (somewhat) seriously.
Jim
www.facebook.com/goodluckracing
Well-prepped Subaru. Fun. Although I wish we would have had some rain to show off the AWD.
After day 1 we were nestled nicely in 43rd place (out of 171). Day 2 our newb driver got happy in the Ssssses and slapped the wall. We were down for a couple hours getting a new passenger outer tie rod sourced (thanks Napa) and wrenched back on.
Final position, 83rd. That's a big jump for us to get into the middle of the pack. The car that was behind us before we waxed the wall eventually finished 19th.
Mechanically, the car was awesome. No sign of the misfire CEL we were catching last race. It seemed to come whenever the drivers were bouncing the rev-limiter so maybe it was my droning on about remembering to upshift. We ran a little colder plug this time, NGK wires instead of the Autozone crap I had put on previously and that could have made the difference.
I also put a fart-can muffler on to help make it louder...still not loud unfortunately. Need to get the cats out, the resonator and test out my new UEL headers.
The NA 2.2 motor simply refuses to run hot. Maybe the headgaskets will hold for a few more races. Oil/Water never went north of 180. We added an oil cooler for this race "just in case" and the AN fittings are proving to be a little bit of a pain in the ***. We weren't leaking a ton of oil, but they were sweating and needed some tightening mid race. Maybe a couple of hot cold/cycles and we'll get them tight enough to stop worrying about it.
Stock WRX rotors; toast after one day. Didn't have spares so we just ran them with the wobble all day Sunday. Upgrading to blue race fluid from the Prestone did seem to help. We ducted the front brakes with some dryer hose but need to do something similar in the back. Not sure quite how to make that work since the gas tank sits right where I want to route the hose.
Next stop DBA 4000's and some stainless lines and we'll see if we can at least keep the rotors flat. Carbotech XP10 pads remain a fantastic investment.
4th gear synchro is toast but I'm optimistic we can get another weekend or two out of it.
Need to get the car on the alignment rack to see how bad the smack with the wall messed with our rear track. There's a huge tube welded between the rear strut towers; that probably saved us because the impact on the rear passenger bumper was hard enough to ripple all kinds of sheet metal in the spare tire well.
It will never likely run as true as it did before, but now it has some LeMons character.
Suspension setup seems to be right on with our driving abilities. STi springs on the stock WRX struts. Zero toe, 2° negative camber all around. Big *** Whiteline rear sway bar to knock out the understeer.
Since it's LeMons you can't get too trick with the adjustable parts but slotting the struts was enough to give us 3° if we wanted it.
The car is really well behaved at this point. Since I haven't found LeMons budget NA HP add-ons to throw $$ at, I think we will move on to some more race comfort kind of stuff like a radio and a cool suit system. (If you do come across an H6 though, you are welcome to PM me!)
Lap times were very promising. At any given time there were 100 cars on the track so there was no chance to see more than one or two clear corners per lap. If you know the track, we were running the 9/9a 90° turn with the abbreviated 11 to keep everyone away from the wall separating the pit entrance. I wish they would have left the longer turn in, but 1st world problems, right?
Best lap was a 2:12 and our hot shoe was clicking those off pretty consistently. The top cars were turning 2:02s and we are spotting some of those cars > 1000 lbs. (We are 2800 with no driver). This exact configuration is in Forza 4 so I need to go play it and see what kind of reference time I come up with. Too bad there's no low HP AWD cars.
For non-obvious reasons, the judges moved us from class C (slowest) to class A (the fast class) for this race. We were definitely getting embarrassed in the straights by just about every other class A car. The Opel GT was notable exception but they got moved up from C to A as well for this race.
Realistically, we should probably be class B. The 2.2 NA engine/weight combo is too much of a boat anchor to be competitive in class A unless we really, really improve our driving. (not likely).
So, Laguna Seca with ChumpCar Nov 21st next. Need to get a few of the Chump safety items (Window net, center kill switch) taken care of; lick our wounds and keep at it.
One of these races we might actually start taking things (somewhat) seriously.
Jim
www.facebook.com/goodluckracing
Last edited by chicagozer; 10-24-2011 at 09:03 AM.
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