home |
build diary << | show individual entries | >>August 4, 2005: I didn't do a whole lot last night. The sway bar bushings were replaced with some polyurethane ones that I found at FM. The rear bulkhead panel was finished. A couple of leaking gas line connections were fixed. And for the first time in months, I fired her up! She started very happily as if I'd never been gone. With just a bit of work left, I'll have it on the road tomorrow. That's the plan anyhow. Then I'll see how well the sways work out. I've decided to take both the Mini and the Seven to the autocross - this could be some interesting inter-garage rivalry. Janel has volunteered to drive the Mini out for me. Seems she likes it better than the Seven - or perhaps it's just less intimidating.
My first run was a bit ugly. As usual, I was driving too fast in the slow parts and too slow in the fast parts. The course had a fairly high speed section but a couple of really tricky and tight corners. On these, I was having all sorts of understeer as I just pushed the front tires too hard. This could have been due to the new handling balance with the sway bars although I'm pretty sure it was just the driver. On a couple of the tightest, I tried pulling the handbrake. That rotated me very nicely and the crowd really liked it. I came into the pits knowing I could go faster. Jeremy was a bit quicker - and the Fiat beat me by 3 seconds. Ouch. Still, the car was running flatter so the sways were working. For the next run, I softened the front shocks up a notch and told myself to slow down. I continued with the handbrake turns. While the understeer went away, I straightened out on of my slides too fast and hit a huge cone. Nuts. Still, with the penalty I was still faster than Jeremy and two seconds faster than my first run. A video is available. The Fiat knocked another second off his time. It was obvious that he had huge amounts of traction in the corners. The third run had the crowd pretty excited. The announcer was talking up the rivalry between the three fast cars. Rolling up to the start line, I was debating whether I should continue with my handbrake turns on the entry into the slalom, or if I should take that corner quite slow and see if I could get around on mechanical grip. That's what the Fiat was doing and it was very quick. I decided to go for it. The run started off well. For the first time, I actually used full throttle through the fast turns at the beginning. The Seven tried to walk around at the back a bit and I was getting concerned about the speed in tight quarters, but I stuck with it. Everything was going well until I got to the interesting turn - and the car just whipped around. I came out faster, tidier and on a better line than ever before. At the end of a short slalom was another, tighter turn and a quick tap to toss the car sideways worked perfectly. The ability to see what the front tires were doing helped a lot - I actually walked the front wheel around the base of cone on that one 150 degree corner. On the second lap, it was the same story. I came back into the pits and discovered I'd managed to get 0.2 seconds ahead of the cursed Fiat. I knew that run was close to the fastest I could run the car. The only disappointment was that the video camera had decided not to record the run. It was a long wait until the Fiat rolled up to the line again. When he did come out, you could see that he was working a bit harder. The car was moving around more. Unfortunately, he didn't make any mistakes and managed to shave 0.5 seconds off his time, putting him almost exactly 0.3 seconds ahead of me. While it hurt not to win, there's no shame in losing to such a good car and driver by such a close margin. We'll meet again in a few months and we're both looking forward to it. Hmm, there are some race tires in the shop... At the end of the day, there was a draw for a free helmet for everyone who stuck around. My name was pulled, but unfortunately, I was at the other end of the parking lot talking to the Fiat driver and didn't hear it. The helmet went to someone else. Janel was disappointed, she knew that would have been her helmet. Oh well, maybe next time. Janel did get to drive the Seven home from the track as I nursed the Mini back with no brakes. Overall the Seven did extremely well, competing with a slick-tired monster on a set of 195-60-14 street tires. The car corners much flatter and can be tossed around naturally with the sways and I'm very happy with how it feels. My Revlight was working - I can see it in the video - but I never looked at it. I'll have to try it out a bit more. I also need to do something about the fender stays up front. The fenders are constantly cock-eyed. It looks bad and it's only a matter of time before one escapes.
The local track here is a kart track that operates under the looming cloud of small-town politics. Due to some houses in the area (on the other side of an interstate, underneath an airport approach path) deciding they need a 55 dB ambient noise level in their back yard, the noise regulations are very tight. There's no way the Seven will pass as it is right now. Last year, I ran my "kickstand" diffuser but it would drag on every right turn. This year, I've decided to go a little more high-tech and ordered a Supertrapp "disc-only muffler" from Summit Racing. This has removeable diffuser discs that allow me to tailor the amount of noise and backpressure. I welded up an adaptor yesterday but the fasteners that came with the Supertrapp were weak and had to be replaced. So I don't know how well it works yet. My fingers are crossed. A victim of the autocross - one of my hood latches pulled out.
Most of the car time this weekend was spent working in Janel's little supercharged Miata, but the Seven got a little love. The glass for the instruments was installed. Unfortunately, the 2001 gauges I'm using now have needles that stand higher than the older style. I had to space the glass off the gauge cluster a fair way. This will let dust get in behind and makes the gauges look ill-fitting . I'll have to come up with a better solution. Putting the glass on the outside of the dash would work but that looks terrible. A better fit on the instruments is the LED tach. I carefully cut a rectangular hole in the dash and was able to get a press fit for it. It looks good. The new transmission cover. The first time out, I set the Supertrapp up with 12 discs. It's the most I had. I wanted the worst-case scenario. After a couple of laps I came in and the track owner looked concerned. Obviously I was too loud. For the second test, I used 6 discs. This made the car noticeably quieter. I came back in after one lap and the track owner told me he wanted a few more samples. I was to go out and lap the track until he waved me in. Sigh, the hard work I have to do for this car. After about 5 laps, he had all he needed. The 6-disc setup knocked about 7 dB off the peak. Excellent. Since the track owner is also a car nut (why else would you do it?) he wanted me to put some discs back in for maximum performance. Oh well, if I must. The next test was with 9 discs. I let Bill Cardell take the car out so I could watch it. Well, that was the plan. We were also testing transponders so it was suggested I take out the supercharged Miata so we could check how they worked. The Miata had already come in with overheated brakes and was not set up well for the track at all, so I decided to simply play around. I'm sure the noise peaks from that car came from the tires instead of the engine as I practiced my sideways driving. Hee hee! While I'd been hooning around in the Miata, the Seven had shown itself to be borderline for sound. So we took out one more disc (to 8) and I went out one last time. I also had three transponders stuck on the back of the car. The sound levels were perfect so I just stayed out to play. The car was right at home - the front end stuck well once I sorted out my entry speeds and the slow track (almost all second gear) allowed me to steer the rear of the car whenever, wherever I wanted. The soft springs meant I could still hammer the berms without upsetting the car but the sway bars kept it flat on corners. There are no high speed corners on the track so I couldn't check out the behaviour at the limit, but for a kart track it's a good little car. The transponders showed that I was lapping fairly consistently, ranging from 1:07.234 to 1:07.888 over four laps. Not too bad considering I'm still learning the track and trying different things. The LED tach worked perfectly, allowing me to judge engine speed easily and also acting as a speedo of sorts. Do I have a great job or what? This sound testing was done in the middle of the day when I was supposed to be at work. Not only was I allowed to go, but my boss came along to play as well. We'll be going back tonight with the others from the office for more "sound testing". Whee! The datalog from the sound testing. Interestingly, a coworker took the Seven out (after many subtle hints on his part). He found it a little abrubt in the transition to oversteer and had the front tires go off on him after about 5 laps or so. Neither Bill nor I had the same problem. He also complained about the same thing in his own car so perhaps it was driver-related. More "sound testing". |