My Q45 racing weekend!

[elwesso]

I know redman started a thread about this but i thought I would do my writeup in a seperate thread.....

Friday night was drag racing... My times were abysmal. Im not going to use this as an excuse, but the track i went to didnt have the normal setup with the 3 yellow lights then GO. Your light would turn red after you set up to the line properly and then apparently after the light turned green you could go, but the clock didnt start then, which would mean that there should be no reaction times... However, it looks as if I was sleeping at the light when a few times I went off before they guy next to me... I need to go to a real track sometime and get some more accurate times....

My best time was a 14.7@97.. the bad part? It was on the spray! I ran 15.335@95 without the spay.. I think there is a problem with the remote bottle opener, as it seems it might be half open all the time..... I will be bypassing that sometime. Which isnt terrible considering it was kinda hot and humid, plus the car had been run 3 times prior. My 60' times are also really bad... For anyone thats interested i can post the timeslips... but Id rather give the car some justice once it actually runs at a normal track.

Where the car really shined was on the road course. This was apparently (but I cant confirm) a SOLO 1 SCCA.. The course was fairly straight foreward.... You started off doing a fairly tight slalom, hanging a hard left and then doing a 180.. Then back out through a 3 cone slalom then to a huge semicircle left hander (which you could go sideways all the way around but you would get kicked out if you did).. finally you head back up to a LIGHTNING FAST slalom... that was great! They also seperately timed that slalom time... My best time was 5.065, the winner was 3.459.

I walked the course off as soon as I got there and thought itd be fairly straight foreward... my first run I got kinda confused and was planning on doing it slow anyway to get a feel for the course... I got 4 runs, so they suggested you go easy on the 1st run as it can really be a fast course..... I think my first time was 70 seconds.. not TERRIBLE considering it was my first auto-X and wasnt really going for it....

my second run I was all suited up and then a dude came up to me and asked if he could ride along, and if I let him i could ride with him. I figured no problem... He was driving a C6 corvette, so I was gung-ho for a ride in that beast.... I pulled off a 69 second time I think (going off memory).. I did some really sloppy driving plus I had another guy in the car..... What was cool about that run and ultimately hurt me was I was going sideways through that last slalom... I was going sidways through the finish line, the look on the finishers face was PRICELESS.. There is only one unmistakeable look of fear seeing a 4000lb car going sideways in your general direction..... The guy who rode with me was like "dang this thing is QUICK".....

Right after that run I rode with the guy with the corvette.... He was just an OK driver but that thing has so much power it doesnt do so well on those courses. Sometimes hed just tap the throttle and the back end would go crazy...... it was nutty!

Third run was fairly uneventful, i think like a 67 seconds... Nice improvement.

I then decided to check my tire pressure after the 3rd run... I had 52psi all the way around (after they had cooled off for maybe 20 mins).. I decided to run 42 front, 38 rear.. That helped a little and allowed for my best time of 66.11 seconds! THat was a good round and of course as soon as you start getting warmed up your done!

So then I let the Q rest for a little while and then it was time for the skid pad. We got 2 runs... The way it was setup is you would get started and then do 2 laps clockwise, turn around and 2 laps counter clockwise..... First run I tried not to go too much with letting the backend step out, and I felt like I made a good run. The second run I decided to have a little fun .. I did my first time around normal, and then the second time around I was going sideways pretty much all the time. Evan has a video that will be coming soon (I hope)... Its pretty much golden....

I didnt like the skidpad, i felt it was very stressful on the car.... After I was done I encountered some lifter ticking, which obviously means I got into some oil starvation.. Im not sure if it was from being sideways for so long or being above 6000 RPM for so long, but the bottom line is that it went away after I let the car sit for a few mins.....

Overall i had a TON of people come up to me that were very impressed with how I handled the Q and also commented on my drifting in the skidpad.. From what others have said on the event forum, it seems as if my Q was very much a crowd favorite.... As I left the skidpad all that emerged was a Q45 out of a cloud of smoke..... I was SURPRISED how well the tires on the Q handled up... I have 245-40-18 michelin pilot sports up front and 255-40-18 pirelli's.. The michelins cupped a little bit but not bad at all, and the pirelli's are still going strong..

[elwesso]

Heres some pics. Taken from this thread... zerothread?id=178573 , I just sifted through and posted the ones of my Q......



Q going sideways on the auto-X

On the skidpad (a GREAT shot)



Clickable:

[ddrumman]

Heres some pics. Taken from this thread... zerothread?id=178573 , I just sifted through and posted the ones of my Q......

Sounds like you had a buttload of fun. It's good to get out there and see just how much all those mods come into play on an actual track.

In the pics I noticed another Q. A white 90/93. Whose was that?Also, I thought it was interesting to see a mid 90s Supra with 02/05 Q OEM rims.

[elwesso]

In the pics I noticed another Q. A white 90/93. Whose was that?

That was evan's.....

[irax]

look at that body roll

[Rex]

Yes, that's the most impressive thing I've even seen Wes do.

I give him credit for trying and I think he'll do better if he decides to ever do another one of these events again.

Impressively enough, there were 5 Q's Wes', redmanfx, Jesda, Evan (gniknave) and mine (the one I recently bought from Rob - rsiwicki). Wes drove my new Q, but we didn't line up.

[elwesso]

http://q45.spilky.com/Q/Q45%20Drift.AVI

Theres the video.. You may need a DIVX player.

[Rex]

http://q45.spilky.com/Q/Q45%20Drift.AVI

Theres the video.. You may need a DIVX player.

Seconds 48 through 55 are the BEST

[hannibal]

Wow, that Q can really hustle!

[AZhitman]

THAT is what these things are meant to do.... Take 'em out, drive 'em hard, maintain 'em well, and HAVE FUN!

Props to Wes for getting out there and wailin' on the old gal.

[rsiwicki]

Congrats Wes on a job well done. Reminds me of the times I use to auto-x the Q when I first got it. A lot of fun pushing around a 4,000lbs sedan. I wish I would have auto-x my old Q before selling it to see how it would have felt with all the mods. Don't worry about the 1/4 ET's...that will take some practice and you definitely need to get to a real 1/4 mile track. After you get to real 1/4 ET's dialed in then you will know what needs to be adjusted on your Q. Sounds like your 60 feet times are way off...my worse 60' time was this past February running Robert's new MadMax ECU and my 4.08. I ran a tire spinning 2.496 60' time but still managed 14.752 ET. You need to get to a real track and do at least 10 runs and then you will have some data and experience to go on. Even without the 4.08 you should be at most about 2.3 60' ET as I was running all day long around those times consistently.

I look forward to seeing you post some new time slips again very soon so we can get your car dialed in nicely.

[Falkdesigns]

Congrats for getting out there and doing it! I know how much fun the first Auto-X I did was, and subsequently how much fun other types of events I've done were. Looks like your Auto-X times improved with each run, that's good.

[pdqwrx]

Wes- You the man........

[maxnix]

Don't worry about posting the times. It's all just data, and that is what is most useful to the rest of us.

The CC springs look to be in their element there. To bad no other Q45 ran.

[gniknave]

I had every intention on registering to run as well, but then by transmission started to poop out on me. It's fixed now, but I'm still in the break in period.

Stay tuned for my pics a bit later today. I got pictures of every Q in attendance.

[elwesso]

Just so everyone knows, i found my remote bottle opener on the nitrous is screwed up.. I took it off and open/closed it and it didnt move, its always less than half open...

[ddrumman]

I just installed divx and watched the video. I was laughing my a$$ off when you were tossing it around. Looked like a lot of fun.Sidenote. Is that a Scottish flag in the upper-mid section of the windshield?

[gniknave]

Sidenote. Is that a Scottish flag in the upper-mid section of the windshield?

No, but I'm sure there's somebody that wouldn't mind it being a German flag...

[Mark86T]

Nothing like seeing a Q at an autocross. I'll bet you had a blast Wes!!

Mine will be going out again to autocross soon. A group of us are doing a "4 door challenge." I will NOT be taking 4 passengers with me like I did last time though. If you haven't seen what a Q with 4 passengers looks like at an autocross, here ya go. The clanking noises were the helmets of the 3 passengers in the back seat knocking together. lol Good time.http://www.mark86t.q45.org/Q45...h.wmv

[Jeff Williams]

Great job, Wes.

Anything broken from the day of thrashing?

[elwesso]

Other than the MILD oil starvation, no problems at all!

[qsiguy]

Nothing like seeing a Q at an autocross. I'll bet you had a blast Wes!!

Mine will be going out again to autocross soon. A group of us are doing a "4 door challenge." I will NOT be taking 4 passengers with me like I did last time though. If you haven't seen what a Q with 4 passengers looks like at an autocross, here ya go. The clanking noises were the helmets of the 3 passengers in the back seat knocking together. lol Good time.http://www.mark86t.q45.org/Q45...h.wmv

Oh man, I got a great laugh from that video, classic!

[pito11213]

Nice but in that video you looked a little scared man to push that throttle and pull off a drift.

I remember throwing out my back end on right and left hand turns I used to scare the crap out of the neighborhood.

[Rex]

Nice but in that video you looked a little scared man to push that throttle and pull off a drift.

I remember throwing out my back end on right and left hand turns I used to scare the crap out of the neighborhood.

He was doing the skidpad portion of the Winged Warrior event and they were told excessive "tail end loose" (drifting) would get htem DQ'ed from that portion of the competition. I think if he had it to do agina, he'd just get DQ'ed.

[elwesso]

Its not that I didnt WANT to drift (I can drift the Q pretty good I have ot say), but it would have hurt my times.