So i'm writing this as my puppy tries to make love to his bed so forgive me if I don't sound like i'm all there, im a little distracted by this maniac!

As some of you know we're prepping a 350z for Koni Challenge and our first race will be June 14 at Mosport. It would be great to have a bunch of you come out and support the only Nissan racing at Mosport (there is another guy currently running a 350z, but can't make it up for the Mosport race), we're running up against porsches, mustangs, M3's and the such.

It will be my first pro race i've prepped a car for, and my second pro race driving so I don't expect us to do too well off of the bat, but I believe we'll have a fantastic time regardless, and learn a TON about chassis setup, what it takes to make a car reliable for endurance racing and how to organize and run a real racing team.

The car I'm preparing used to be a Koni Challenge car a few years ago, it was then sold and run privately and then sold to us. It's not in the best shape, its kindof like taking a super model that has since had a child and become addicted to coke, take it to rehab and get it all cleaned up and back in the gym.

Over the winter we gave her the typical love, lots of time on the dyno found us a solid 12whp over what the guys had before, and then put together the new race motor and put it in the car, as it is balanced and should take high rpm abuse better than the factory engine that was in the car. Diff cooler was setup and every single nut and bolt on the car was torqued and paint marked. It's amazing what you find loose on these things sometimes. We then painted the car Audi S4 brilliant red and sold all of the old beaten CCW's in favour of new shiny RPF1s, gotta look good too right?





Well that being said shes starting to look and drive beautiful again, boy was it ever scary driving it the first time at Dunnville. I could have sworn the car was trying to kill me. It was insanely loose at all times, mostly due to the fact that it was riding on the rear bump stops due to ridiculously soft rear springs. As soon as you hit bump stops the wheel rate becomes incredibly high, while the front stays the same. This gives the front tires a ton of grip but the rears next to zero, and the car wants to slide all the time. Not only that but it was violent, race cars should always be as smooth and predictable as possible. If that wasn't enough, the car had amazing brake knockback, and when I say amazing, i mean it in the worst way possible.

Knockback occurs when flex in the wheel bearings causes the rotors to shift relative to the caliper, which ends up pushing the pads back. This then requires a stroke of the pedal to bring the pads back out into contact with the rotor. This is bad. Brakes should always be firm and ready to bite. I don't like to have to prime my brake pedal thank you very much.

Lastly, when the fuel cell was full it was seeping out of the top of the cell and running down and dripping rather close to the exhaust. Well we decided to call it a day with that fuel leak and pack it in.

From that experience we decided we needed to up the springs, rebuild the front calipers with knockback springs and repair the fuel leak, among other things. All of this testing was done on totally worn out racing slicks that had next to know grip and were beyond the end of their life cycle, so we knew we were only going to get the car so close with the tires we were using.

So we went from 750lb springs in the front and 480lb springs in the rear up to 1100lb springs in the front and 900lb springs in the rear. The car is starting to feel like more of a race car, before it was silly soft. Infact the rear was almost as soft as stock (I believe stock is 400lb?)


Koni 2822's with Hypercoil 1100mains and Eibach 175lb tenders

We rebuilt the calipers with 8lb knockback springs from stoptech, the idea here is to have small springs behind the pistons that are always keeping the pads in contact with the rotor. Yes the rotors will run a little bit hotter and yes it does add a tiny amount of drag, but my god you should feel how good the brakes feel now compared to how they were. Amazing what a tiny little spring can do.

Corner balancing went insanely well. Better than I could have ever hoped infact. The car ended up being within 6lbs side to side in the front and 7lbs side to side in the rear with a perfect 50.0% crossweight. All of this was achieved in about 30minutes thanks to the beautiful rear spring adjustment that allows me to fine tune the rear spring preload, which changes height and when adjusted independantly it changes corner weights also reffered to as "wedge" by the roundy round guys.

Then we aligned the car, 3 deg camber all around (max allowed by grand-am) and a touch of toe out in the front, touch of toe in in the rear, just the way I like it!

So with that all set we went back to Dunnville and boy was the car better. It was using up the front tires a lot better (in other words the rear tires were holding on that much better) and in general the car was working the way it should be. Well as good as it could be on corded tires I believe. Pop and all of a sudden a rear tire was corded. Clackclackclackclak haha oh no i blew up a racing slick. And I wasn't even drifting.

It was good though because it was starting to get wet out and we threw the rain tires on the car. Guys I swear to god the rain tires had more grip in the rain than the dries had in the dry. Thats how bad the dries were.



The car was tons of fun to drive in the rain, except for severe windsheild fogging issues that need to be sorted out.

The fuel cell is still not fixed, that is on the list of things to do this week along with a ton of other things, and then it is off to Mosport to test and have our first race with the car this weekend. Just a regional race, but it should still give us some insight as to how the car performs at speed.

Will keep you guys updated on the progress, but as I said before it would be great to have you guys there on Saturday June 14 for good or for bad!

 

looking good!

 

Cool stuff. I would like to get some coaching at the track and feedback on my car

 

sasha, i'd love to come. any chance you can ask the organizers if there's any spots around the track to set up to take shots?

btw, if there is an extra SG shirt laying around so i can be show support it'd be greatly appreciated (sexual favours can be offered for said shirt exchange)

 

damn be cool to watch and support but my detail date is on june 14 ;(

 

I cannot guarantee it, but I'd sure like to be there. Hard to believe those spring rates - all I can say is, Wow!
I'm really looking forward to seeing that car in action in just a few days!
Frank

 

We just were at Mosport this weekend for a regional race trying to get some time with the car, testing and doing setup work.

Car mechanically worked great all weekend, however it still has a long ways to go setup wise before I would call it race ready. I'm really fighting the car and its still too loose which around Mosport is a bad thing.

We qualified 2nd and finished the first race 1st and the second race 2nd. Got some rain practice too which was much needed as i'm a bit of a rain rookie.

We'll get to Mosport again on Friday with hopefully some re-valved shocks and new springs to try, the car as I mentioned is still too loose so perhaps raising the front rates to 1300 will be beneficial.





Smasher send me a PM or email any time and we'll try to figure out a track day when we're both going to be there.

 

We're leaving today boys the car is just about done, if anyone wants to come to Mosport bring your Z's and show these BMW and Porsche guys whats up!

My cell is 647 818 4014 call if you want more info

all red:

 

Good luck BRO!
Knock 'em dead.

 

Wow - what a difference a couple of weeks makes!
Unfortunately if I do anything car related this weekend it will be a SoloSprint event at Shannonville - too far away to see you running your Z!

 

congrats Sasha, the Z is looking sick in Red.

 

Car looks great and ya Smash those beamers and VW's haha

I did send you a email BTW but maybe you didnt get it??

Maybe next year I will try the big league tracks. Mostport DDT track was a blast.