This year saw 3 road-trips, 17 autocross events, a test and tune, and one (very wet) track-cross event adding up to about 5000 miles! I didn’t do a good job transcribing any of my notes as I went, but here’s a summary to cap things off. Overall, I’ve mostly found myself right where I ended last season driving-wise, but with a better understanding of how to work with the car. I might also be a bit faster – hard to tell. Until it rains, anyway…
Suspension
I’m fortunate to have the season start off with a test-n-tune on and old airfield with reasonably grippy concrete. It also let me take it slow getting back into trying to drive anywhere near the limit without impacting season results. I did three separate passes at dialing in the suspension; one on 225 Michelin PS3 from nearly full soft; two on 245 BFG Rival S 1.5’s – one from nearly full soft, and one from recommended starting settings. I only made note of relative changes, and then compared notes at the end. On the grippier tires, I found I liked one click more low speed comp up front, and otherwise was one click stiffer/softer – whatever it was that I was paying attention to gravitated toward those settings every time around.
As the season progressed, I found the settings I’d settled on didn’t always work – not entirely surprising back on less grippy asphalt, but I ended up dropping that extra click of low speed, and a couple of high speed. I had been struggling at one particular event and remember the run where it all came together – (as it happens, the same event the photo was taken). Whether the car turned or not was all in subtle adjustments of the throttle or the brakes. The rest was up to me, trusting myself and the car.
A couple events later, I found myself wanting the extra low speed for an incredibly slalom-heavy course with lots of (if you could do it) sudden changes in pace. So, absolutely loving the range in the RaceComp Engineering Tarmac 3’s.
Exhaust
Getting through all of the tuning took some doing (3rd gear pulls to redline just isn’t a thing to try doing when you live in the city…) but in the end, Delicious delivered a fantastic tune for the Ace 350. And that front-pipe? I have to give a frown of major disappointment to JDL for failing to even respond when I reached out to them hoping to find a solution. In the end a hacksaw, hammer, and a friend with a welder adjusted the pipe to provide adequate clearance. I also discovered two of the three studs Ace provides to connect the header to overpipe had gone missing. I had tried jamming nuts against each-other to get some grip when attaching them, but that only seems to have worked adequately for one. And no instructions are provided. I switched to hex-head bolts and they have stayed put.
Results
So, how’d I do? 2nd in the two local clubs I raced a full season, though not by much (results aren’t posted, but I believe by only a few hundredths overall for one club, which is probably only one or two hundredths of a second). I still struggle in rain, a lot. And I definitely started off slow. Average performance is chasing the fast guys, among the fast end of the slow guys.
For now, it’s time to sit back and catch up on sleep, and ready myself for another cold spring of installing parts.