06platinumG

iTrader: (1)

I was running in a indexed street tire class.with the local clubs the last.couple.of years and running a 275/295-19 staggered set up with Yokohama AD08R's. We have 2 local clubs and the SCCA that we can run with here and the non SCCA clubs are a little lax on the rules so when they changed to a 200 tw for street tire last year I was still able to run them for an extra year and wear them out even though they are 180 tw

This year I'm moving to an open indexed group that allows R compond and bought new wheels for them, Enkei NT03+M, 18x10.5. I thought about Hoosiers A7's but wanted something for track days also so I bought Hankook NT Z221 C7's in 295/18.

These should be great for track days and will see how they hold up for auto-x. If they don't then for next year I'll get another set of wheels and run Hoosiers. I was thinking 295 square but if I can get 315's to work that a whole inch more tread on the ground.

I have no plans to compete at the national level but still try to be competitive locally.

06platinumG

iTrader: (1)

You can check my profile for some pictures of my car.

BryanH

I don't have much to contribute here except a pipe dream.

I don't have the resources to do it myself but I have a fun and crazy idea for a G35 ESP build. Stay with me on this...

1) Buy the lightest G35 Sedan chassis you can find
2) Swap in an HR from a 2nd-gen G35 Sedan (2007-2008). Yes, I know this is a crazy amount of work.
3) Cut and flare the narrower sedan-body fenders to fit wide wheels and tires.
4) Profit???

I wish I even had the Photoshop skills and time to represent what's in my head.

Regardless, more G35s in ESP would be sweet.

Carry on.

cbax

Finally getting around to the G. Our 1st local event is May 1st. So I still have a few weekends left. But there is always something that comes up.

I ordered some 275/35 RE71-Rs. Taking them to get mounted on the 10.5s at my buddy's shop this weekend.

Started getting the seats in. They are Corbeau FX1s. I picked up some planted bases and side mounts. I fit the driver's side last weekend. I had 0 clearance with the stock seats laid back with helmet on. When I 1st put the FX1 in on the lowest setting, I could not sit there without a helmet on... I wound up shaving the feet off the bottom of the seat to get low enough. I've now got about 1/4-1/2" between my helmet and head liner. sweet. Passenger side was worse, as expected with the trans tunnel being the way it is. I punted on that side and got a set of Buddy Club sliders. I put it in last night. The wing is currently hitting the door. One more tweak and I think it will work. I can sit there with a helmet if I slouch. Most other people arent 6'6", soooo good enough. Ive got 2 sets of side mounts and a passenger seat base to sell now.

Test fit the 10.5 +20 on the front with a 3mm spacer last night. It holds a folded dollar bill in between the caliper and wheel. But clearance is clearance, right? My last car was so tight, it started to hit after the pads got hot. lol At least the Brembos don't clamp like that one did. I may shave a little off the offending edge of the caliper and PC them.

Spring/bushing install should start next week. I'll have the tires and wheels ready to test fitment and roll/pull as needed.

Purchased a Shorai battery. Hopefully it works out. Has to be better than the 150cca I ran in my Evo.

Picked up a wingless trunk. Not a fan of the WRX shelf spoiler. I figure I'll go incognito for a little while before murdering it with a proper ESP spoiler. That won't happen until after I get real suspension and R's (and likely some form of front splitter).

I've also got a dual wideband, oil temp and a oil pressure gauge to install at some point, but low priority.

Looking forward to this season for sure!

cbax

Front LCA and compression arm poly bushings installed. I found out that one of the compression arms on the car was my source of clunk and shimmy. The ball joint was super loose. Oddly, the other was super tight, really sticky and hard to move. I had the originals in the box of spare parts from the PO. So I compared and they are tight. He replaced the entire arm with cheap units due to torn rear bushings (that I'm replacing). So Im using those.

Rear diff subframe bushing and ear bushings replaced w/ poly.

Spent some time cleaning, blasting and painting some of the subframe braces.

Installed front and rear springs.

And installed a M-Spec Y-pipe back along with a MD XYZ Y-pipe. It's loud. Havent driven the car yet. But free revving is loud. May need to put a resonator in the Y-pipe, we will see. Sounds awesome though. The stock cat-back (Y, mid and axle-back) with hardware and heat shields weighed 75lbs. Total cat-back installed was 33lbs.

Decided that my couple mils of caliper to spoke clearance really wasn't enough. Now waiting on some 5mm spacers. Bought some ARP studs and open ended lugnuts. Plan to install these next week when the spacers come in and I'll be able to run the square 275 set up.

Going to my buddy's shop to align it myself this weekend. Hoping to dial it in closer to what I want.

This thread needs more pictures, I know.

1st local event is on the 1st at a small lot. Looking forward to it.

06platinumG

iTrader: (1)

With RE-71R's are you running ESP or in a street tire class? Good luck in your first event

cbax

My local club has a street tire modifier. I'm pretty sure it's the factor between SS and SSR pax, then applied to your home class pax. Car should be somewhat competitive locally. And I'm just treating any non-local SCCA events as seat time and don't expect to be competitive this year.


Finished up fluid changeover and went and got an alignment yesterday. I still have a caster issue. Not sure where it's coming from. Car doesn't pull to either side. Hoping it will fix itself once I replace these upper arms with something more user friendly. I thought the compression arm bushings were going to sort it out. The only other culprit is the upper arm, right?


Camber -3.4f/-2.5r
Caster 7.5l/8.3r
Toe +.25f/-.25r (deg)


Car is pretty darn loud at WOT. <4k part throttle isn't too bad and sounds great aside from a drone right 2k. Above 4k or WOT anywhere above 3k, it screams. Definitely going to have to do something to run at Devens. I may do some SCCNH events at NHMS instead to avoid dealing with it this year, both are the same 2 hour drive from me. I don't think my local club will care.


I mounted up all of the wheels with the 3mm spacer in the front. There is no contact. May run it. The 5mm spacers are taking forever to be made. They were supposed to ship last week. Didn't happen. If they come in in time and I want to run them, I have to install the studs. Wishing I just got some regular ones and been done with it, whereas these are hubcentric to car and wheel.

cbax

quick driveway picture with the new wheels and tires. I'm happy with the ride height considering that I am still running the stock shocks and I don't want to punish them too bad with going lower. I was thinking about trimming the rear spring seat, but I'm going to hold off.



I don't foresee any clearance issues. The front is already rolled. Effective offset in the front is currently +17 and rear is +20.

Once I put the 5mm spacers on the front, would you guys suggest running the 3mm ones on the back? My thought was that maybe I'd use the spacer to get hubcentric. But I generally don't think that any extra track width is good for autocross. I think the plastic rings I took off to run the OEMs are still usable.

cbax

Had our first local event yesterday. It was a super small lot. That, plus the fact that we changed our reg. process and the weather forecast meant we had a small turnout. Only 40 or so.

Right after my 1st run, the event chair comes up shaking his head. I knew why. Said they were going to measure the sound next run. There is no published limit, but just wanted to know out of curiosity. I went out being overly cautious until half way through the run and then just said F it and gave it to her. Hit 103db from about 50'. Was then asked to leave.

On the 30 min ride home, I'm thinking about how awesome it felt on the course and how quickly I can get the exhaust swapped. Managed to get the mid pipe and rear canister swapped to OEM and make it back right after lunch. They filled my worker position and the event chair said to go ahead and jump in line and try to make up my runs.

Managed to get #1 pax and fastest fender (FTD minus karts). I'm sort of waiting on someone to protest it.

If we had our typical 60-80 person field, I'd expect that I would have fallen to 4th or 5th or so. Although, most of the guys in the top 10 yesterday gave me a good run all last year in my pax queen STF mazda3 (I finished 3rd for the year). And most of the hot shoes yesterday were running what was left of last season's tires. So not a super accurate measure of performance. I certainly didn't expect it. But at least I know it's capable of mixing it up in the top 10 once these other guys get their stuff together. SCCA events against R-comps will be a different story, but that's okay for now.

Also, managed to get 0 usable data points. I had 34/32 psi in the tires before I left the house @ 32 deg ambient. I recorded tire temps before the 1st run, then with everything else going on with exhaust, didn't do it afterwards. I recorded my 1st, 2nd and 4th (fastest) runs on Solostorm, but couldn't get it to process the rest to compare to the fastest. Need to look into that. And never got around to putting the GoPro on. haha.

Had a blast. I love the grip this thing has, even though it's way undersprung and underdampened. My fastest run was .7-.8 better than any of my others and was driven in anger. I think that's telling me to push harder on these Bstones.

cbax

My stock muffler has something in it rattling. This is the main reason I went ahead and purchased something to replace it. I'd like to get rid of the rattle and the weight.

My local club is now reverting to SCCA rules about sound (100db, 50' from track, etc). I still think that limit is going to be too loud for some of our venues. And I fully expect that it will go down once they see that my "103db" at 30' will pass once they do it the way SCCA explains it.

I'm looking at options to modify this M-Spec (Momentum Performance) exhaust. I believe that my cheapest option at this point is to add a muffler. For those that aren't familiar, the M-Spec is basically just 3" piping with a short straight through resonator at the exit and that is it. The rest of my setup is: Stock manifolds, Berk HFCs, MD XYZ Y-pipe w/ straight section.

Right now I'm looking at a Borla XL "multi core" muffler. How much do you think something like that will reduce sound? We talking 3db, or 8db? Ideally, I'd like to get down to 90db for Devens events (measured around 100', I think?)

Looks like a muffler will weigh somewhere around 5-7lbs. So I'm still looking at 35+lbs of weight savings. The rattle is driving me nuts.

eye-5

Believe it or not the ISIS exhaust has a resonator & fart cannon combo and isn't too loud. It's cheap too. Under $300.

cbax

^^At this point, I wish I had gone with the ISIS. I was trying to steer away from having to fab anything due to fitment issues Ive seen and it appears that's where I'm at anyways. Still more expensive than the ISIS, but hopefully it will sound great with a good muffler added.

My local club has now been forced to make it a priority to define a DB limit at our in town venues. I'm surprised it hadn't happened yet. Few others are going to be affected.

Started installing my Shorai battery. 32lbs is a huge chunk of weight savings! I took it out of the box and put the posts on it, hooked it up and it started right up. They are supposed to be 70% charged out of the box, so I'm happy with that. Just need to get some AL bar and make a quick strap for it. It's nice to not even consider relocation. The cable required would be at least as heavy as the battery.

cbax

Quick Update.

I finished the battery install and also modified the passenger Buddy Club seat rails so that they didnt bind up as bad. Now I can move the seat forward and backward! AND actually sit in it myself! yay. I may have to pull the cushion out if I want to sit there with a helmet on.

our last local event was 5/29. It was a little bigger venue, but tight in alot of areas w/ curbs and whatnot. It's not ideal, but we work with what we can right now. We had 56 entries. I had the 3rd fastest time in a car behind a couple guys on R-Comps, 8th fastest overall. And I managed to get 2nd place PAX behind an alien shifter kart driver. But I don't think the karts get PAX points.

Here is a video of my 8th run. It was a 41.034. My best was run #9 @ 40.847. The data is a little off sequence with the video and it looks like my BT OBD is cutting out a little. I still have not figured out how to get the accelerometer calibrated either.

SilverGLE

iTrader: (3)

A bit late, but why not pick up the resonator section for the XYZ...? That's my plan if I can't find a resonate single exit.

cbax

I'm not sure a resonator will be enough. I was measured at 90db at 50' at that last event with the stock mid-pipe back. If I was 103db with the single as it was, I'd expect a good muffler to put me around 95 or so. Which is still a little loud, especially for Devens (which I do believe is measured further than 50'). I don't think a regular resonator will get me that far and I may still end up needing another anyways. All it will cost me is the price of the muffler. I've been tuning a buddy's car that owns a shop and he's offered to do it.

SilverGLE

iTrader: (3)

Ah... Man, didn't think that thing was THAT loud, wow! Yeah, the baby resonator on the XYZ will likely not be enough! Could look at Vibrant's Ultra Quiet line, too.

I have a friend with the M-Spec and a resonator somewhere between the cat and the muffler... No idea what brand y-pipe, but he was 100-ish at another region's event.

cbax

Another quick update.


Here are a few pictures from the last event on 6/12. I wound up with the #1 pax.











Here is the video of my fastest run, unfortunately Solostorm was acting up and not giving me complete runs after the 2nd of the day, so no data. This was run 6 of 8.








I also took the car to a friend/fellow autocrosser's dyno. He just built the garage addition and upgraded his old 4 post/2wd dyno setup to 4wd in the ground. Mostly went to check it out and just get a baseline on the car before tuning and a few more parts. But I also wanted to see whether the Hypertech tuner was actually doing anything. Turns out stock makes 1hp more. But it holds 14.7 AFR all the way to peak tq! wowzers. Get your tunes people. Even though the Hypertech doesn't do much, it will save the motor. As it is, it's way rich on the Hypertech tune, but that's much better than stoich.


I was really surprised how consistent the 1st 2 runs were. All runs were within 5deg IAT after the run. Some sat longer due to the flashing process.








Here is a video one of the runs.

cbax

Here is a video from the last event. Super tight lot, but I need to run to get the points. I had problems getting clean all day in the super tight V box. One of my early runs was able to hold onto #10 pax. I'm now in 2nd, behind 4-5 points in total PAX points.






Re-installed the 3" single exhaust yesterday with a Borla XR-1 split core muffler added. It was a tight fit. Hoping I don't kill this thing with lack of ground clearance. The lower part of the muffler is equal to the W brace.














It's still too loud above 4k. ;( Idle, cruise and low-mid load are not much (if any) louder than stock, just with more rumble. But WOT is not much different than before the muffler. It's not as raspy, but sound level is still up there.


Burns 2 stage muffler on the way. It should be really close to just replacing the slip fit fart can on it right now. Worst case, I make a cut in my piping and have to add a tip to the muffler. This has got to be the most expensive single steel exhaust ever.


If the muffler doesn't get here before our next event on the 16th, I'm considering making a turn down or deflector.


would a bent up license plate hold up? lol

SilverGLE

iTrader: (3)

A lift in the garage... I wish!

What muffler is that...? I have a Greddy RS single muffler with the Motordyne resonator and so far the SCCA Sound Police haven't nailed me!

cbax

Lift is at my buddy's shop. I wish I had one in the garage.


It's a Borla XR-1 split core. Sounds fantastic. Either I'm getting used to it, or it's mellowing down some. I also picked up a slip-on turn down from the parts store, trimmed it up and made a steel mesh screen for steel wool. I figure I will show up this weekend as it is and see how loud it really is now, then I'll toss the turn down on if needed, then the steel wool if needed. The dealership sponsoring this one has a gutted wrx that is fairly loud. As long as I'm not that loud, I should be good. Next event has no sound restrictions, old air base by the Canada border in the middle of nothing.