Event 1, April 27

M

Mike's Competition

Looks like Mike signed up early and got third heat.
Third was full by the time I signed up, so the good news is that I will be able to video tape Mike.
Not sure how the "pick-your-heat" thing is going to work out. I had just gotten used to the old system which seemed to be: everyone-gets-screwed-evenly-but-when-we-go-from-three-heats-to-two-heats-XP-always-ends-up-running-on-cold-pavement. We used to pick our own heats before we had early registration, and it was a contest to be first in the signup line to choose third heat for warm pavement or gamble on the weather forecast for when it was going to start raining. The early registration now means registering long before the event and no prayer of gambling on the weather.

I got the softer springs on the back of the car, and gained a whole new appreciation for body armor and bullet proof jackets while cutting .050" UHMW washers to make up for the spring compression for 50 pound softer springs. The stuff just laughs at every grinder, sander, drill, or implement of destruction I own. And it's food grade, so now you can eat off the suspension...
My battery is continuing to degrade after the cold day earlier in the week. I went through all the saved links for a Big Crank / Deka EXT30L Harley Davidson replacement battery. It's a little bigger and heavier than the Odyssey lawn tractor battery, a little more cranking power, and half the price. That was my compromise, especially after Mike commented: "If they go dead, you throw them away". Odyssey's definition of an electrical storage device apparently calls for keeping it on a trickle charger whenever the engine is not running... Anyway, Big Crank batteries are back ordered through May. I found another Deka rebrand, I think it is going to say "Intimidator" across the front of it.
 
Bill glad to hear your winter projects are coming along. I wish mine were also. I am not sure the car will be race ready by next Sunday. Last Friday while at work I had a minor mishap and dislocated my knee. It is recovering, but slowly. I can't be on my feet for more than 1 hour per day before it really starts hurting again. At that pace I will likely run out of time to finish the car. It looks like event #1 might be a "give me". To compound things I just spent the past 5 days at Mayo clinic with my dad trying to get some of his health issues sorted out. Basically I have not touched the car in 2 weeks! :mad: If I don't make it maybe you can take my slot in 3rd heat. :)

As far as batteries goes I would recommend the one I use. It is a U1LUH, which is the largest lawn and garden battery that Wal-Mart had. Yea it is not exotic, but it works perfect. It will start my V-8 10 times without charging before it fails to function. Under normal starting and driving/racing it has held up fine. The best part is it was $40 and will recover from large amounts of abuse. It only weighs 19 lbs so I felt it was worth the extra 2-3 lbs for reliability.
 
(At the risk of having my car die on me just for making the suggestion)... You can drive my car if you want. Nothing like getting beat by someone driving your own car.

I looked up the specs for the U1LUH. It is very similar to the one I ordered. A tiny bit longer. The height difference is probably the terminals, which are not included on the motorcycle battery. And the U1LUH is a few less cold cranking amps. A pound or two less. Same reasons for choosing it, cheaper, a little more capacity, not willing to put up with the trickle charger argument. Remember, I am switching from a 44 pound boat battery to a 22 pound motorcycle battery.

Are you running without an alternator?
I swapped in the later engine, but stuck with the smaller alternator (60 amp instead of 75 amp). There is a smaller 45 amp alternator for the carbureted engines. I wanted to run the smaller alternator, but am worried that a 45 amp alternator and a small battery might be a recipe for problems.
 
That is a really nice offer I may just take you up on. We spoke last year about co-driving each others cars so this may be the perfect opportunity. Not sure how we will work out the heat issue.

I do run the stock LS alternator. When I said "without charging" I meant starting it and shutting it down immediately without enough run time to re-charge. If it has been problem free then I would just stick with the 60 amp unit.
 
mmarshall said:
...driving each others cars so this may be the perfect opportunity. Not sure how we will work out the heat issue.
Click to expand...

I'd guess I drive second heat, then get out of the car, and you drive third heat.
Alternately, I could take the keys after second heat and hide with them during third heat...

I'll appreciate the chance to tape someone else driving my car, I rarely get any video.
 
Mike called and it sounds like he wants to be tomorrow's "Exceptionally talented, but relatively unknown person driving the unreasonably expensive, valueless car".

I mentioned the new battery is not installed, the stereo-shop bolt on battery posts are smaller than standard SAE size and the almost-new battery cables won't clamp onto the posts. But it's above 30 degrees, and the battery seems to be OK, it just still weighs 20 pounds too much and has less than half the cranking amps it started out with.

Mike was asking about the power steering (reinstalled since last year). He sounds a little worried about the front wheel drive.

I figure that around 5PM tomorrow, either Mike will be the winner and have all kinds of kind words for the little car, while I mutter "cheater" over and over.... ....or I'll squeak by and Mike will be pale with permanent shakes, yelling periodically something like "I can't believe he drives that thing! It's possessed! It tried to kill me! It's evil! Evil! EEEVILLL!!!".
 
Well I found out what the whole front wheel drive thing was like today. Bill really has the car set up nice and found it to be easy to drive fast with one exception. The rear really wants to come around under hard braking. If you brake hard while turning it really wants to swap ends. That is ok though as it is easy to just drive around that small quirk. Get your braking done while still in a straight line and things go just fine. If you must brake and turn just stay light on the brakes as you turn in and be ready to counter steer and ease off the brakes as the rear rotates. Easy peasy...lemon squeasy.

We were very fortunate that the rain held off all day long and we all ran in the dry. The new American Muscle class has brought out some very cool cars. There were 2 1969 Camaros that were awesome.

Here is Bill's fastest of the day:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmtcqrMcbAk

And here is my fastest I got on camera:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HE5r8jerGk

Thanks again Bill!
 
CHEATER! (Had to say it).

I set the car up mostly like what I ended up with at the end of the test and tune. A little less toe in on the front and a full turn of dampening on the rear shock. It oversteered pretty nasty on the first run with Mike as a passenger. I'm going to laugh a long time at his astonishment during the first long left sweeper when the tail kicked out. I let loose of the wheel, and it snapped back to center all by itself like mind control. That was the beginning and end of any advantage of knowing the car. And never let the driving instructor see you do that, they go pale and shake their head.
I backed the rear dampening down to a half turn, and left everything alone after that, so I got four runs on that setup and Mike got all five on that setup.

I rode with Mike on his first run, looked at the timing board at the end, and he was a second off my fastest time from the previous heat. It was pretty obvious that the only way to keep him from beating me would be to protest the car for something illegal and get us both disqualified.
It's a little less bitter to be beaten by someone else driving the car you built, than to be beaten by someone else driving the car you merely own. In the future I'll be leaning very heavily on the "I'm a lousy driver in a very good car which I built nearly from scratch myself", and taking the majority of pride on the last part of that.

Getting Mike's comments and input is really helpful. I rode with Mike the first time and filmed him driving the car the second, and was thinking how racing really is a participation sport that is dreadful to watch, especially watching someone out drive you in your own car. But after I rode along the second time and and looked at the video, I picked up on a few things that unfortunately, mostly revealed why Mike was not beating me even more than he did.

The camera view is skewed to the passenger side for wiper clearance (we expected rain and managed to mount the camera where it wouldn't get whacked by the wipers). So the camera gave a passenger eye view. Mike is leaving a good 18-24 inches of clear space on every cone that passes the right side of the car. When riding, it was really glaring on the slaloms. The video shows this also in the offsets at the end. There's probably a couple seconds to pick up by shortening the distance traveled and scrubbing off less speed by running closer on the right side.

The driving styles are really opposite too. Mike is a lot more assertive with the accelerator, and I think I am a lot more assertive with the brake. I have been saying for a long time that I am a chicken to run in good and deep, brake late, and really push the car as far as it will go. I think I am tending to brake three or more times for each time needed. Once too early, then I realize I am too early and get back into it, then a second time, then back into it because I had already scrubbed off too much to begin with, and then brake a third time that is far too late and far too hard. I'm also pretty sure that I am overdoing the left foot braking and trying to dance the car around too much with excessive input and correction instead of doing just exactly the minimum of what needs to be done to get the job done as quickly and efficiently as possible.

The comments about the car being neutral to a little understeer and only goes into oversteer when braking hard make it really obvious that my driving is most of my oversteer problem. And that I am using the brake pedal way too much and misusing it when I do.

I'm going to continue to wonder about the comment from the Illinois autocross guys about increasing the rear rebound dampening (IE, replacing the single adjustable rear shocks with really expensive double adjustable Firebird rear shocks), and adding a big, ugly rear wing to put some downforce on the rear tires. But I still want to do the notched rear bumper...

Meanwhile, maybe I should be looking into remedial driving school.

The forecast for next Sunday (Event 2 at Family Arena) looks the same as today, "Scattered Showers".

Add the names, car information, and event information to the video descriptions. No reason not to cause some controversy with those.
 
Mike's Competition said:
CHEATER! (Had to say it).


Add the names, car information, and event information to the video descriptions. No reason not to cause some controversy with those.
Click to expand...

Bill I will make that change tonight when I get some time. I believe your assessment above is very accurate. There is no reason you can't fix a few problems and be faster. Start driving that thing like you stole it.....I did!!! :D Watching your videos you are 12+" tighter on the cones than any of my lines. I will have to fix that ASAP. I really like the surface at Gateway. I am tired of all the gravel.
 
I looked at the results. You beat me by 1.9 seconds! (Cue the guy screaming inside my head).

But turning that around a little, about half of the times you beat me last year, it was by less than that. And quite a few over the last couple years were separated by less than half a second. So the question that should cause head shaking and unending humor among the Cobra owners:
"Would you be faster in the econobox than in the Daytona?"
 
Mike's Competition said:
"Would you be faster in the econobox than in the Daytona?"
Click to expand...

I was!!!

Actually that just shows how hard these cars are to drive fast. They take a lot of skill and attention or they will bite you. Combine that with the same power ratio of a ZR1 or Gallardo LP 570-4 Superleggera and you have a disaster in the making if you don't respect it. Just ask Jeff Osborne how humbling a few laps in the Daytona can be. He spun the car 6 times in 6 laps and never did put up a good time. So far Andy is the only driver to master my car.

The way the Isuzu runs through the slaloms and transitions is my goal with the Daytona. If I can achieve that then I can attack the track like I did in your car. If I can accomplish that then I will eventually be one of those setting the fastest time.

I think there is another second or more left in the Isuzu, but it will take perfect driving to find it. Tighten up the lines (for me) easy on the brakes (for Bill) and just hammer it through the course. I am used to the oversteer of the Daytona and so I naturally turn in later expecting the car to rotate by itself, but with the FWD when I turned in that way the car drifted much wider than I wanted. The few times I tried to run the cones over I actually cut a nice line.
 
Looking at the index side of things, my best 5 index finishes were 27, 39, 44, 53, and 56 in my Daytona. So a index of 76 is far from my best. In the last 3 seasons I have bettered my Isuzu best index of 76 fifteen times out of twenty races. I ran Jeff's WS6 TA and finished with an index of 70 in a 3600 lb car. Looking back when I ran on street tires I ran a best index of 58. That being said I think the I-mark is capable of running in the 60's on index which would beat me 2 or 3 times per year.

The index is strange sometimes anyway. Go look at 2012 event #10. There were only 5 cars at that event that ran a faster raw time than me and yet I was 44th on index. Now look back at 2011 event #5. There were 5 cars faster than me and I was 27th on index. It makes no sense to me!
 
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