2015 Rules discussion


#21

[quote=“Ranger” post=79493][quote=“Ranger” post=79395]Damaged suspension shouldn’t be measured and then held against someone. Otherwise where would does one draw the line between acceptable damage and we’re going to measure you, vs. too much damage and you get a pass?

A guy lost a wheel last year at Barber. The two halves of his front bearing separated. As a result he had a track width of several hundred yards.[/quote]

For chrissakes this didn’t get a single laugh? When I wrote that joke I chuckled about it all day. You guys are an awful tough audience.[/quote]

This was some of your better work. I laughed, literally out loud.


#22

[quote=“juliancates” post=79504][quote=“Ranger” post=79493][quote=“Ranger” post=79395]Damaged suspension shouldn’t be measured and then held against someone. Otherwise where would does one draw the line between acceptable damage and we’re going to measure you, vs. too much damage and you get a pass?

A guy lost a wheel last year at Barber. The two halves of his front bearing separated. As a result he had a track width of several hundred yards.[/quote]

For chrissakes this didn’t get a single laugh? When I wrote that joke I chuckled about it all day. You guys are an awful tough audience.[/quote]

This was some of your better work. I laughed, literally out loud.[/quote]
You’ve done me a kindness.


#23

Hey Steve D, please inform us about the resistor switch.
If you have a wire diagram showing the resistor and how to detect a set up like this would be great for tech to understand.
Knowing where to look for a set up like this would be important for detection.


#24

For chrissakes this didn’t get a single laugh? When I wrote that joke I chuckled about it all day. You guys are an awful tough audience.[/quote]
I started to laugh but remembered I am still bitter about my track width DQ at CMP in 2011.

PS - For everyone recommending “run what ya brung” with a dyno cap, be sure you look for various switches (hidden or obvious) that might loop a resistor into a key sensor’s wiring. The dyno ain’t no magic bullet.[/quote]
Steve, you’re not helping. Be a positive influence pls.

Re. your DQ for track width. As you know, I had no part of that, but coincidentally I used your dq as an example a couple days ago in a discussion with the directors re. the rule on track width. You got punked. The track width rule should have been modified to allow for the wider tires.

When rule changes are insufficiently thought out, heat should be applied to those responsible.


#25

On the subject of motors built by pros and motors built by Joes and the associated costs…

Could we have a single engine supplier phased in over the course of a few seasons? Your current motor would apply towards a core charge, and everyone would have to have their engines rebuilt at some point, so the cost could be moot.

This would eliminate (to some extent) the costs associated with teardowns and dyno time. There would have to be some sort of “factory seal” or “void if removed” tag on the engine somehow, but that ensures we are all running SPEC components.


#26

[quote=“OriginalSterm” post=79517]On the subject of motors built by pros and motors built by Joes and the associated costs…

Could we have a single engine supplier phased in over the course of a few seasons? Your current motor would apply towards a core charge, and everyone would have to have their engines rebuilt at some point, so the cost could be moot.

This would eliminate (to some extent) the costs associated with teardowns and dyno time. There would have to be some sort of “factory seal” or “void if removed” tag on the engine somehow, but that ensures we are all running SPEC components.[/quote]

I do understand your point but there are many Joe’s like myself that are able to save a lot of money by doing some of the work themselves. I don’t want to pay a professional to do a lot of things I can do myself. For instance, I disassemble my entire motor and give the parts to my machinist. They do the machining and build the bottom half of the motor. They charge me $900 for this work. I supply the parts of about $1000 for the bottom half. This totals my bottom half to around $1900. About $1100 for a fresh head including HD rockers and cam. Again, I supply the parts and the machine shop does any machining and assembly of the head. Once the head and bottom half are complete, I take it from there. Total of about $3500-3600 for a new motor. I am not willing to pay $6k+ for something I can half do myself for nearly half the cost. I don’t think I am alone in this.

On top of that, we certainly don’t want to get in a situation where one vendor controls a large aspect of our cars. For instance the exhaust system. Even though I have not had any problems with the exhaust on the four cars we have, I have heard numerous complaints about even simple things like contacting them.


#27

Yep, Ryan just nailed it.(As well as the cost to rebuild.)

On the single-source thing (specifically exhaust) the single source is one topic that has been argued many, many times.

Before we say it is a monopoly on the market, blah, blah, how is the exhaust any different than a Toyo tire, Bilstein shock, or H&R spring? Answer: we’ve been fortunate that distribution keeps inventory and the number of retail outlets has had parts for us.

Perhaps the exhaust dude needs to ramp-up production so that he could lower the price and allow some margins for distribution. What a concept.

RP


#28

[quote=“RAAW_Motorsports” post=79523][quote=“OriginalSterm” post=79517]On the subject of motors built by pros and motors built by Joes and the associated costs…

Could we have a single engine supplier phased in over the course of a few seasons? Your current motor would apply towards a core charge, and everyone would have to have their engines rebuilt at some point, so the cost could be moot.

This would eliminate (to some extent) the costs associated with teardowns and dyno time. There would have to be some sort of “factory seal” or “void if removed” tag on the engine somehow, but that ensures we are all running SPEC components.[/quote]

I do understand your point but there are many Joe’s like myself that are able to save a lot of money by doing some of the work themselves. I don’t want to pay a professional to do a lot of things I can do myself. For instance, I disassemble my entire motor and give the parts to my machinist. They do the machining and build the bottom half of the motor. They charge me $900 for this work. I supply the parts of about $1000 for the bottom half. This totals my bottom half to around $1900. About $1100 for a fresh head including HD rockers and cam. Again, I supply the parts and the machine shop does any machining and assembly of the head. Once the head and bottom half are complete, I take it from there. Total of about $3500-3600 for a new motor. I am not willing to pay $6k+ for something I can half do myself for nearly half the cost. I don’t think I am alone in this.

On top of that, we certainly don’t want to get in a situation where one vendor controls a large aspect of our cars. For instance the exhaust system. Even though I have not had any problems with the exhaust on the four cars we have, I have heard numerous complaints about even simple things like contacting them.[/quote]

While I too agree doing it myself will save a good bit of money, my only counter to that is the people that have to pay to have their engine torn down because they finished on the podium yet still were under the horsepower limit. They had to pay someone a second time to just put it all back together. In the crate motor scenario, there is no tear down since the tamper evident seal was not broken. Plus, there is no back and forth on what components are legal and what components aren’t, because they would always been SPEC.

Some people pay a little more per engine (including me), some pay a lot less, everyone has as level of a playing field as possible power-wise.


#29

[quote=“OriginalSterm” post=79530]

Some people pay a little more per engine (including me), some pay a lot less, everyone has as level of a playing field as possible power-wise.[/quote]

A sole sourced motor would not save money and we will never get the price of a professionally built motor below $6K with OEM quality parts. Parts and machine work alone are near $4K and a builder’s time is not without value. It easily takes me 80 hours or so to properly balance and blueprint and engine. I could slap one together in the afternoon given a full bucket of parts, but that would not guarantee any high level of performance or reliability. If we used one builder, and wanted all of the engines to perform the same, that would cost even more and would require custom machining in the cylinder head. There is enough variation in cylinder head castings to cause a ~3WHP variance in output with all other things remaining equal. I’m not talking about the AMC (spanish) head, but variation in the 885 BMW castings. Sole sourcing motors is an extreme response to decrease a barely noticeable performance spread, would take us down the exact same road that led to six SM’s DQ at their most recent national championship race, and not a good solution for what really isn’t a problem. The reality is that the front runners are already within 3WHP, sole sourced motors wouldn’t decrease the spread, teardown at regional events would add cost and discourage participation, and the dyno is a good enough tech method to enforce rules.

On the most part, guys that run up front do spend the time and money to make sure their equipment is in tip top shape. This means starting with properly built motors then refreshing on a routine basis. The idea that you can build a motor and expect output to remain consistent over 3 or 4 seasons simply isn’t true. Lapping the valves, replace the seals, checking guides and bearings for wear, and replacing the rings is something to consider on a seasonal basis and really not that difficult. If you don’t want to do these things, you might find yourself moving slowly back in the pack after a season or two. If you want to have a front running motor, spend the time and money to have a front running motor. Spec E30 racing is comparatively very economical, but nobody ever said it was cheap.

Those that don’t take the time and money to build a motor should not expect their motor to perform like a motor built to the highest extent of the rules. There are anomalies and claims of front running junkyard motors, but this is not the norm and I’m skeptical. I think we can all agree that it’s unreasonable to expect a junkyard motor to run like a pro built motor. Some folks have good luck with shade tree builds and some folks don’t. If you want a fast motor, build a fast motor. That’s really all there is to it.

Reference tech, I will never get behind teardown and will likely just refuse teardown unless I’m on the podium at a national championship event. The latter will likely never happen even if I have a 10 WHP advantage over the field. In my opinion, teardowns are both cost and time prohibitive for guys like me that race on a restricted budget and more restricted schedule. I build my own motors, have built many for others and confident my motors can and do run up front. The idea of routine teardowns at regional events is ludicrous and a solution to problem we simply don’t have. Racers that spend the time to prep their equipment are already extremely close in car performance and making sure their valves are the right color, pistons are the right weight, and they don’t have any illegal coatings on their bearings will do nothing but increase expense and discourage folks.

At the EC Nats, I stuck around to see how post race tech would proceed. I imagined a finely tuned operation with E30 expert inspectors; rather, what I saw was inspectors had no idea what they were looking at, compared components to pictures, and really had no idea what modifications cause a performance advantage. Neither of the cars that were DQd had any unfair advantage or a modified part that would increase performance any appreciable level and I have plenty of time on the dyno to be very confident in this statement. I haven’t seen the plots, but heard that all three cars had very close numbers on the dyno.

Steve Devinney made a point that a racer could tune his car to perform well on the track and then maker lower numbers on the dyno by making DME inputs adjust to the conditions experienced on the track and adjust differently to the conditions on the dyno. Easy to do with some ingenuity and custom wiring, it’s also easy to detect if armed with a voltmeter and a good understanding of how e30 fuel and ignition systems function.

To sum all of that up, I believe that legal pro-built motors will all perform with a 3WHP window given equal fuel and ignition systems, sole sourcing a motor would just add cost, and that the real problem is that tech inspectors don’t know what they are doing.


#30

I agree with the comment that we need to keep things simple.

Yes Spec e30 was the largest class at East Coast Nationals, but with Spec 3 out there and Spec e46 attracting people who want to spend twice as much to race in a spec class…we don’t need to do anything to the rules to scare people off…

If we have a dyno rule, a dq for a fpr makes little sense to me…engine teardowns make little sense to me and I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it anyway :wink:

Its club racing its for fun…let me repeat that for those not paying attention, it is club racing, it is supposed to be fun…whatever rule change makes it more expensive and less fun I am against.


#31

I agree with Harper, the dyno rule should prevail and not stupid shit that won’t give someone the advantage. Keep it simple. Crate motor idea is whack, same as any single vendor supplier (not happy that guy has my first name and same initials… grrrrr). It’s club racing… both the racers AND organization(s) are amateur. Yes, a select few racers may move in to ‘professional racing’ and even fewer among those may move up and make big $$ racing, but highly unlikely. In a perfect world we would all love to ditch the regular job, screw around, and race cars. At the end of the day most of us are happy to have a great race, finish where we may, have a few drinks (or more) and laughs with other friends who are professionals in their every day line of work.

[quote=“harper” post=79539]I agree with the comment that we need to keep things simple.

Yes Spec e30 was the largest class at East Coast Nationals, but with Spec 3 out there and Spec e46 attracting people who want to spend twice as much to race in a spec class…we don’t need to do anything to the rules to scare people off…

If we have a dyno rule, a dq for a fpr makes little sense to me…engine teardowns make little sense to me and I wouldn’t have a clue how to do it anyway :wink:

Its club racing its for fun…let me repeat that for those not paying attention, it is club racing, it is supposed to be fun…whatever rule change makes it more expensive and less fun I am against.[/quote]


#32

[quote=“Buzzbomb” post=79509]Hey Steve D, please inform us about the resistor switch.
If you have a wire diagram showing the resistor and how to detect a set up like this would be great for tech to understand.
Knowing where to look for a set up like this would be important for detection.[/quote]
Charlie -

I replied a day or so ago but my reply has been deleted by the admins. I received a PM telling me not to disclose cheats. Odd. I thought by bringing it completely out in the open people would know what to look for.

I’ve obviously overstayed my welcome here. Back to lurking mode. Enjoy the series you create.

If anyone wants to reach me for good or evil purposes, sdevinney (at) goddard-group (dot) com.


#33

I am new to the series, but I too support a flat rule that is Dyno based. Include the curve as the requirement and pick a WHP number. After that, do what you want I could care less. Simple is better in this area and it doesn’t get much more simple.

There should be more dyno’s during the year and the series directors should “seal” the motor and ecu after the dyno if you pass.
The weight should also be a flat weight and it should be 50lbs lighter than current. I want 100, but would settle for 50.


#34

Thanks for the effort Steve D.

I was interested in knowing how to find that cheat so it could be exposed or at least teched occasionally.

I will send an email.


#35

Let’s just go back to the 2012 engine rules. If that will cause some of you to lie awake at night wondering if you lost because you’re down a few HP then find another series.


#36

There are way too many ways to cheat a dyno…tire pressure, engine temp, placement on the rollers, etc. In addition, a resistor could be added deep in the wiring harness never to be seen again!!! Note to NASA. CHEATERS ARE GOING TO CHEAT Not a damn thing you can do about it.

IMHO, I would much rather pass tech at the ARRC (that is SCCA for you non Devinny’s) that any dyno test. A car I worked on came in second in ITS. An 88ish e30. We had to pull the intake manifold (actually just moved it back far enough to get a camera to check valve pockets and port matching) and it took us, me directing and someone who had never worked on the motor before, about 30 minutes to perform the task. The motor was also compression tested with the Whistler, and passed both. Now for those that don’t know, getting through the tech shed at the ARRC insures your legality to all your competitors. NASA might want to get hints from what is done there since they copied everthing else SCCA does. DQ for the things that happened at the two NASA nats is ludicrous.


#37

Yes, let’s do all we can to suck all the fun out of this series.

My view is a lot of this discussion is taking place over basically six or so cars capable of running at the front. The rest of us in mid-pack-land really don’t give a flying fig unless it starts to cost us money–money we probably don’t have or that would be better spent on tires or another race entry.

Rebuild a M20? Some of you guys actually do that? :stuck_out_tongue: (I’m looking at you, Ott!)

I think this series is at it’s peak, or maybe even a little bit past it. More ‘modern’ cars will draw new participants who think E30s are ‘archaic’. We’ve already lost a few good competitors in our little sphere from odd rules and on-track rulings. A lot of us do this for fun, not for glory. Over-complicate it or drive the expense up and back to HPDE I’ll go (with remorse).


#38

[quote=“ddavidv” post=79721]Yes, let’s do all we can to suck all the fun out of this series.

Rebuild a M20? Some of you guys actually do that? :stuck_out_tongue: (I’m looking at you, Ott!)

[/quote]

It really would suck the fun out of it (and suck the money out of my wallet) if I actually ran a good race, dyno’d something reasonable, then had to rebuild my engine for the fun of it because they tore it down at nationals after a 155hp dyno run.

My crate motor suggestion was an extremist point on purpose, I have no intention of running a crate motor series EVER. I couldn’t afford that and I’m not fast enough to notice a difference. It was intended to poke holes in the current mindset that everything and anything needs to be scrutinized to determine if someone is cheating, regardless of the outcome of the previous rule/test/configuration/etc.


#39

The more we beat this subject to death, which is just turning into general complaining anyhow, the closer this group will become to Spec Miata, which has turned into a total suckfest. This series isn’t broken. Race and have fun and drink beer. Horsepower isn’t what’s keeping 99 percent of us from winning. Talent is.


#40

Dang, gotta agree with McKay, again.
The more I hang out with McKay the more he is the coolest thing since sliced-bread/Joey Lagoneo.(sp?)

Love ya man. again great drive on Saturday. Hope to see you next year.

RP