smoothcrim, wtf mate

2/25/2022 11:35:27 AM

tested out the r8 on supersports and it was junk. couldn't get decent tires for it or the lotus in time to cope with the forecast. looks like that was the right call based on weather for sunday. i'll be there for memorial day hopefully

2/28/2022 1:03:17 PM

Weird to hear. PSS's have been great IME. Weather sunday was...unfortunate, but still fun overall.

What's Memorial Day weekend?



[Edited on March 1, 2022 at 10:56 AM. Reason : pic]

3/1/2022 10:55:28 AM

My PSSs were old. I did maybe 3 sessions and you could see all the oil seeping from the sidewalls turning the tire blue and while they were mostly predictable, I was doing maybe 5s/lap SLOWER on them than in the lotus. New ones might have been better but I couldn't find anything suitable for the r8 or the lotus in time.

memorial day is usually the "southern fried" thscc event at VIR

3/1/2022 2:42:31 PM

THSCC isn't hosting that event this year (and is in question for foreseeable future as well). VIR decided to host a concert festival that weekend (lol).

3/2/2022 3:37:26 PM

well shit. any other thscc events this year?

3/3/2022 6:10:29 PM

They're doing one at CMP and another at Roebling Road (at end of July ).

If I do another HPDE this year it'll probably be VIR (Full) in November with PCA.

3/8/2022 11:51:53 AM

Final session on Grand Course

https://youtu.be/qThE-AEkKzE

3/11/2022 8:45:52 AM

was the final session all run groups? looked like quite the speed differential at a lot of passes

[Edited on March 13, 2022 at 1:40 PM. Reason : c63 sounds rowdy. pulls deceptively hard when you can get enough space to keep it up in the revs]

3/13/2022 1:40:02 PM

It wasn't. I just had the misfortune of lining up behind a lot of (slow) BMWs.

The fastest cars in my group (other than me) were the Supra (in video), a Bullet Mustang, 2 C5 Z06s and a Cayman GT4 with the engine punched out to 4.5 liters. I only saw the first 3 once all weekend, and never saw the Cayman. So I'm guessing we were all lapping at a similar pace.

There was also a 700 hp (so owner claimed) R35 GTR in my group, but he blew his engine in the 2nd session

3/13/2022 3:14:58 PM

Man that was a lot of slow traffic. I think I would have just pitted and gone back out.

3/14/2022 12:07:37 AM

I didn't think traffic was that bad. Seemed pretty average for an HPDE in my opinion. Was really only one jackass that was bad about giving me a point by. E36 M3, on another video of mine, waited from Spiral until T5 (on next lap) to give me the signal. I was on his ass the whole time. (FFS ) And the flaggers weren't giving him the blue flag, wtf.

3/14/2022 9:48:52 AM

yeah you just started behind all of them, where you spent half your session working through them.

I try to make sure i'm right up front when there are a lot of cars and i'm one of the faster ones. It's also one thing that makes me hesitant to buy something really fast..I feel like it might be hard to get clean laps. It was hard enough in the lowly FR-S half the time.

3/14/2022 8:23:13 PM

I was first car out in a few sessions, including this one:

https://youtu.be/RhKde09qT9Y

Was last session of 2nd day. Track is usually pretty empty by that point. Especially this day, when track was wet/damp all day.

3/15/2022 9:12:51 AM

anyone doing charlotte motor speedway with jzilla under the lights?

4/17/2022 9:47:01 PM

Nah, but I'll be doing Lemons at CMP this coming weekend.

4/19/2022 8:44:20 AM

Ugh, that fucking track is cursed! I swear!

Engine blew its head gasket and we only made it 90 minutes.

Last time I was there the Cayman's engine died.
Last time Lemons' team owner was there his (last) racecar rolled after being punted off track.

4/25/2022 8:29:34 AM

better than the fire ants or having to sleep at the executive inn

I had many offs there, then I stopped letting my friends help me work on my bike..

4/25/2022 12:23:56 PM

CMP this weekend with Track Club USA/SVT Cobra Club

6/29/2022 1:19:40 PM

first day driving the race car tomorrow

6/29/2022 5:08:26 PM

Which car???

10/31/2022 8:59:06 AM

radical SR3

10/31/2022 2:11:32 PM

Well damn!

11/1/2022 2:24:16 PM

first day driving the car with a new motor tomorrow (hopefully)
hoping for a just a smooth break-in and oil change to normal oil

finally got some good telemetry and found 3s just by giving more steering angle. Now I'm ~6 off the track record in the car, but was driving on clapped tires which are good for 3-5s (slicks) with 0 setup. Garmin catalyst is cool and all, but if you actually want to go fast, get an aim setup

3/27/2023 5:22:29 PM

What track?

And....new engine?

3/29/2023 12:27:13 PM

AMP.
New engine break-in was a huge success. The engine that came in my SR3 was trash. I built a new one from scratch that revs like a motherfucker. Was able to do the same times without trying without the aero even on the car (to make swapping out break-in oil easy) on even worse tires and ancient brake fluid

3/30/2023 2:15:57 PM

I changed out the break-in oil and gear oil. That shit took 6 hours. Yeah, its easy to work on with the body off, but getting the body off sucks and is borderline impossible without a lift. Thank god I can do the brakes with the diffuser on. Hoping to be ready to race by the end of the month.

4/7/2023 11:14:11 AM

WTF. I figured everything would be super-serviceable. In particular, I figured the body shell would come off in a couple of minutes.

Man, what if you needed to access something in the paddock?

4/8/2023 11:46:52 PM

air jacks or you can get a quick lift for the front and a normal floor jack for the rear, but you'd need 2 linear spaces to have enough room. even then, you're only getting the car up 8-12", which frankly isn't enough room to comfortably get under the car and remove the diffuser, which is necessary to get under the engine. Without a set of a-frames, the work you're doing in the paddock is on the corners or the top of the motor.

4/9/2023 10:25:34 AM

Ouch. Seems like a design flaw, or rather they assumed people would have pricey support equipment to negate these issues.

4/11/2023 11:39:26 AM

there's a reason they've been around a long time

4/19/2023 11:38:28 AM

got a deal on a race car I couldn't pass up


can't take delivery until july unfortunately

5/31/2023 8:56:03 AM

Oh my

6/1/2023 10:18:12 AM

picked it up yesterday. ergo is a little off (couldn't reach the pedals without a lot of padding and still couldn't floor any of them) but the thing rips. it's honestly not that much harder to drive than the 4cyl sr3. i was tiptoeing around on clapped slicks, but im pretty pleased. I also got the AC in my garage fixed!

7/14/2023 11:10:58 AM

Badass, can't wait to hear more.

7/17/2023 10:23:20 AM

the track certainly could. got black flagged every time out, even short shifting and letting off. swapped the exhaust yesterday and got the seat out. now to find a replacement

7/20/2023 11:32:02 AM

That's surprising. Which track?

My AMG is loud as hell but I've never taken it to a track that's strict about sound restrictions.

7/21/2023 1:38:22 PM

AMP

7/21/2023 2:19:27 PM

finally got a seat solution that works!*
first time out did a personal best by a solid 3 seconds. the suspension is WAY too firm and I have to let off more than I'd like because the chassis gets upset easily as-is. im also sitting on the wrong side of the car for a CCW track. the car is proper savage though. 8 ITBs on a CABLE THROTTLE.

went out in the first session of the next day and couldn't figure out why my hands hurt so bad. go back out after having set pressures and something is starting to feel progressively worse, but I haven't figured it out yet. was hauling ass into a hairpin faster than usual, miss the brake and hit the clutch then don't have enough time to brake so I ride it into the grass. get back going, try another lap around and just can't get my harnesses right.

*get out and see that my seat bolts are basically hand tight at this point and they've backed themselves out everywhere. so clearly the solution still has some kinks hoping to race saturday. im about 3 seconds off pole but within a second of 1st in class with 0 setup. can't wait for a full season with this thing. 440hp and 1615lbs with a half tank of gas is no joke!

10/5/2023 10:58:44 PM

LOL wow man, loose seat bolts...unexpected. Have any vids?

I'm headed to VIR next Friday to put the GR Corolla through it's paces.

10/10/2023 8:29:35 AM

[Edited on October 10, 2023 at 3:14 PM. Reason : as you can see from my mirror, the suspension is proper fucked]

10/10/2023 3:11:58 PM

I don't know AMP at all but looks like a blast, even with the adjustments/fixes needed for the car.

10/13/2023 9:05:21 AM

its basically 3/4 scale barber. im a big big fan

10/13/2023 10:52:52 AM

What was top speed? I watched about 5:15 of video, think 134 was highest i saw

10/13/2023 5:32:16 PM

Quote :

"its basically 3/4 scale barber. im a big big fan"

Agree. Similar flowing style to Barber, similarly full of blind corners and with substantial elevation change.

I think AMP actually has more elevation change. At the very least, the changes feel steeper and more dramatic.

10/13/2023 6:36:11 PM

Quote :

"What was top speed? I watched about 5:15 of video, think 134 was highest i saw"

Looks like 141 but I'm letting off a bunch in the back carousel and onto the front straight because the suspension is getting so upset. I think I could hit 160 by start finish if I could stay in it

10/14/2023 4:25:14 PM

Just looked up the schedule for Friday's event at VIR...I'm able to get on track for 205 minutes, if I want it. DAMN that's a lot. I was expecting 90, maybe 100 minutes tops.

Immediately after discovering this I ordered some track pads

10/18/2023 12:36:34 PM

Track pads didn't arrive in time. Ack, so I picked up another set of OEM pads and flushed out the stock fluid for some Castrol SRF.

Overall the car performed wonderfully, especially given the stock brake pads and far from optimal tires. The tires definitely overheated a few times and got very greasy. And while sliding around can be fun, I really didn't want to destroy the tires so when that happened I would back off a bit. I've never tracked an AWD car before and it took me a little while to adjust my driving lines to fully take advantage of that (heck i'm pretty sure I'm not done figuring that out). It takes a level of confidence to put your foot to the floor in mid-speed turns and trust that the car will pull onto the correct line instead of understeering off course.

But by the 3rd session I was figuring it out a bit and really working the AWD. Which meant, after setting my best time, the AWD rear diff controller overheated and put the car into FWD mode. Annoying, but was also interesting to see how the car drove purely in FWD. Wasn't the worst, but the torque steer was real and I could feel the front end struggling to put the power down below 60 mph.

3 of the 4 afternoon sessions were wet, with rain coming down, heavy at times. For one of those sessions nobody else felt like dealing with it, so I had the entire track to myself for 30 minutes. Car would slide very predictably in the wet and I repeated the same slide through Hog Pen lap after lap. 2nd wet session was even wetter (rain heavier) but a lot of cars were out there (guess they got tired of waiting). I passed them all (obviously it's the car) as all, except for one Evo, were not AWD.

I had to rotate the tires after the first hour of dry lapping, and I periodically checked the brake pads. They were quite thin before my last session, but I didn't have the time to swap them so I just went out and went easy on the brakes. Experienced fade a few times on track and I never really tried to punish them, since I knew what I was working with (street pads). My best time was a mid 2:17, roughly 5 seconds off the pace of my AMG. With proper tires and brakes the car may be able to break a 2:10 in my hands. (of course proper tires will overheat the rear diff that much quicker).

Few gripes would be the engine is too quiet (can't hear shit through the helmet), seat lateral support sucks (I was sore afterwards from bracing myself) and the car called 911 several times before I pulled into pit lane and told the operators to turn that shit off on my car!

https://youtu.be/ZI0QoGswPRg?si=FE95tvxLnI9vxAzZ

10/23/2023 9:44:20 AM

good on you for taking on the rain. one of the best ways to learn the impact of your inputs
surprising the diff overheated that fast in relatively cool weather. can you add a cooler?

that west/stohr that passed you into 6a/b

[Edited on October 23, 2023 at 12:43 PM. Reason : what is the thing giving harry's the canbus data? pedal data looks wonky]

10/23/2023 12:42:17 PM

There doesn't seem to be a guaranteed fix for the rear diff yet, or an agreement about what causes the problem. Two leading theories are the diff itself gets too hot from the exhaust (that partially wraps around it) or its the temperature sensor housing itself that gets too hot (also close to exhaust). Some have said the wrap works, others not. Some have never had an overheating issue. Of course it all comes down to how hard these people are driving their cars (and what their driving ability is) so when it's just words online...hard to figure that out.

I was trying to collect telemetry data for someone working on a heat exchanger cooler for the rear diff but for some reason Harry's download files for my sessions are completely devoid of any ECU data. Which has me currently stumped. And to answer your question about the wonky overlay data, I'm using a Kiwi 4 Bluetooth dongle. There information presented is out of sync with the video, and the transmission gear displayed is so bungled I can't even imagine what's going on there.

When I do ECU telemetry dumps with Harry's for my AMG it includes everything. And clearly the ECU was properly communicating with the app so I'm currently at a loss.

10/24/2023 8:42:39 AM