Post by
IanS »
https://forums.nicoclub.com/ians-u23642.html
Sun Jun 24, 2012 4:45 pm
Now that my post rally depression has worn off a little, I figure I should post a little rally recap before I get down to editing video, and hunting for pictures.
Leading up to the event everything seemed to be falling into place. The car was running well, I had a small oil leak, but nothing to be worried about. On Friday I buttoned up a bunch of little things, then took the car to my tuner. We spent about 2 hours adjusting the timing and fuel maps. The car was feeling very good, though there is a serious drop off in power in the higher rev range. When I got home I shut the car off and chatted with Dexter for a while, he and his wife had arrived from MI while I was gone. What I didn't know at the time was that when I shut the car off, I lost all the adjustments to the ECU that had been made. I was back to square 1 with the base map. I did not discover this until a few hours later, when it was far too late.
We ended up running the whole event on a base tune. Not one to give up, I decided to POR, and go for it. Its better to race a slow car, then not race at all.
On to the event, everything but the tune was working out nicely, and we headed down Saturday morning. We did a 2 pass reconnaissance so competitors could make adjustments to the notes what check road conditions. Everything went perfectly, and the roads were beautiful.
My nerves were starting to climb as we neared the start of the race. I new there would be a steep learning curve from the all new suspension, and the new engine with a vastly different power band. When we got to the start control I was shaking from head to toe. I was so nervous that when the start control worker call 15 seconds, I thought he said 5, and I put my foot to the floor. I spent 15 seconds bouncing off the launch control rev limit at 5000 rpms. As soon as I dropped the clutch though, my worries were gone. The modified dampers and softer rear springs provided a great deal more traction. Add a little extra power, and the car launched a lot harder then before. 4 miles into the stage though, I realized there was a problem. The brake pedal was solid as a rock, and the car wasn't stopping. I fought with it until 2 corners before the end of the stage at 8.8 miles when I noticed the over temp light on, and the gauge rising fast. I pulled in to finnish control, and huge plumes of smoke began to roll off the front brakes. I cooked them hard.
As we waited at the next control I re-lived the stage in my mind. My driving style needed to change. I wasn't making use of the increase in traction, and I was over using the brakes. Even with those mis-steps, we were able to pull a respectable time.
As we got ready to run stage 2, I decided on a plan of attack. I was going to try and increase my speeds and spend less time at the top of second and more time in third. I would slide the car a little more on entry to scrub speed without using the brakes. My plan worked beautifully and I started to feel the car more and more. We finished the stage with much less smoke and no overheating.
We spent our time at service checking fluids and the like. Everything was going well, and nothing was broken. I used the computer to add a little more fuel to the map so as to reduce temps a bit. It seemed to work, as I pushed the car significantly harder on the 2nd 2 stages (repeats of the first 2), to the point that I was able to shave nearly 2 tenths of a minute off each stage.
We achieved a 5th place overall, and 3rd in class out of 15 total entries. I am very pleased with how things went, and it was great proving ground for the new parts. The new engine is having a very hard time breathing through the stock intake and exhaust manifolds. Luckily, I have a set of ITBs here waiting to go on, and I am going to try and pick up a header from some where. Then if it still feels like its drowning, I will look at either doing adjustable cam gears, or new cams entirely. Besides that, I don't think the car needs much more power, I just need to widen the power band more so it doesn't bog so hard in many situations. I also need to beef up the cooling system a little, and look at getting more aggressive brake pad, but one thing at a time right.
Onward and upward. We had 3 GoPro's shooting in the car, so Im hoping I can put together a sweet compilation video. There should also be a decent amount of pictures floating around, so I will try to post those up as well.