NASA-SE: Pot-O-Gold Rush, March 11-13, Road Atlant

#41

Holy crap. That looked like you lost the bulk of your braking. Did you suck up some of your seat padding during that little pucker moment? :woohoo:

#42

[quote=“Jones” post=55295]
Matt Harness- Seems you are still running the Stock exhaust or is that aftermarket? Either way, nice driving to a fast rookie![/quote]

Totally stock (with the cat) to behind the axle. I just cut the muffler off and replaced it with some cheap tube. With the muffler on there I couldn’t hear it at all when running anywhere close to anyone else.

The spec exhaust was ordered and paid for about 6 weeks ago, but hasn’t shown up yet. Hopefully it’ll be on there before the next event.

Thanks, it’s great to finally get out there and run with you guys.

Matt

#43

Holy crap. That looked like you lost the bulk of your braking. Did you suck up some of your seat padding during that little pucker moment? :woohoo:[/quote]

according to traqmate data i only lost a small percentage of my braking. i’d say the slope of the curve on that last lap was only slightly less than the previous lap (which just happened to be my fastest of the weekend).
[attachment=1394]Screenshot.png[/attachment]

#44

From Tower’s video I think I understand what is meant by Evan’s phrase “inappropriate incomplete” pass and it is not pretty. Also there is footage of a yellow flag scene that is not pretty.

All-in-all, not pretty.

It will warrant some discussion with Pantas and Henning.

RP

#45

[quote=“jtower” post=55306]
according to traqmate data i only lost a small percentage of my braking. i’d say the slope of the curve on that last lap was only slightly less than the previous lap (which just happened to be my fastest of the weekend).[/quote]
I see. The data is very telling. It looks like you got down to turning speed, just about 50 ft too late. So, you clearly had braking - just not enough of it. ABS going into “Hold” mode is a definite possibility.

#46

[quote=“evanlevine3233” post=55261]Lessons learned, in order of importance:

  1. Road Atlanta = Buy a motor

snip

  1. Spec E30 2011 = Buy a motor

[/quote]
From what I gather, the back-channels are pretty crowded with speculation about my motor (aka my overnight success). I’ll go ahead and talk about the elephant in the room so nobody has to feel awkward bringing it up. :laugh:

Over the winter I got my motor rebuilt by Sam Moore in North Carolina. I’ve never met Sam, but I know him by reputation as an IT/Production racer over in SCCA (4th at Runoffs last year in an E prod Z3). Tom Fowler has known him for a long time. Why did I rebuild? When Tom co-drove at the 8 hour enduro in December, he confirmed my fears that my motor was getting weaker as the day went on. This was the motor we put in the car from a wrecked street donor when the car was built in August 2008.

I asked for Tom to get me the best legal rebuild without breaking the bank. Mission accomplished. The difference from the December races is noticeable. I also installed a rebuilt trans from DriveGear. I don’t know if that contributes to the better performance. You can contact DriveGear on this site. If you want Sam’s number, call Tom Fowler at 770-886-8199 and ask him for it. Several people asked me this weekend who built my motor and I offered to put them in touch with him.

Here is my fast race lap history at Road Atlanta:
June 2009 - 1:48.7 (0.3 off IndyJim’s FTD)
June 2010 - 1:46.7 (pole)
Dec 2010 - 1:45.7 (0.1 off Curran’s FTD)
March 2011 - 1:45.0 (Sunday FTD)

I have a lot of laps at that track. I’ve been steadily working on developing both car and driver in the last 30 months.

Some of you will surely dismiss my wins as “bought”. It’s my opinion (experience?) that different people have different levels of what it takes in motor sports (in alphabetical order): Luck, Money, Talent & Time. Having a ton of one or two can help make up for the other two. A whole pile of one? Haven’t seen that work well. Pretty good amounts of all four? That leads to good, consistent results. I’m not sure where I rank on the combined scale.

I’m not sure there is any point in my posting this. I thought I’d add a little background though.

I’m an open book kind of guy (open hood too, right Rich?). If anyone wants to compare Traqmate data, send me a file and I will send you mine from the same session. Email me at sdevinney (at) goddard - group (dot) com (without the spaces, of course).

#47

Thank you, Steve. We will take several cars to Balancwd Performance one of these weekends to check it against other engines in the Atlanta area.

RP

#48

Steve,

My statement didn’t intend to imply anything about talent. My point is that at Road Atlanta it seems that motor ($) is the single most important item. On top of that, Spec E30 in general seems to be heading down a road where a junkyard motor is no longer good enough. Talent can only make up for so much, and as the people such as yourself who DO have talent start combining that with buying motors, it’s game over.

The rules are the rules, there’s nothing illegal about dropping $6k+ on a motor or showing up with sticker tires every race. It’s the evolution of the series. It’s just frustrating for those of us who really don’t have that option. Thus is racing.

#49

It’s true - series is progressing and cars are getting better. Look at Mid Atlantic and you can see how well prepared their cars are. In SE we were having too much fun, so nobody really went to the extremes, but folks are stepping up there game.

On the other hand, look at Johan - passed at least 3 people under double yellow and somehow wasn’t DQed. I’m going to try that technique next time and see if I can finish better.

#50

if ANYONE has video of passes made under yellow send them to me, we can always adjust the results. We are serious about passes made under yellow (or red) and will dole out penalties.

#51

Ok, as I’ve had time to mentally digest how the weekend went and get some feedback I have a few more comments.

Thanks to several of you guys for very kindly and politely getting the message across on a few things I could have/should have done better.

I think that in my driving I still have a bit of a teenager mentality where I temporarily forget that I am actually mortal and things can easily go very bad. I obviously made some moves that were aggressive. I stuck myself in places I shouldn’t have been (without even seeing some of the danger) and maybe didn’t back out of other places when I should have.

I apologize to you guys and hopefully I can quickly figure out the line between good close hard racing and getting myself into trouble. I think I just got lucky this time around.

Thanks for not biting my head off when some of you probably wouldn’t have been wrong to do so.

Matt

#52

I think it’s pretty clear that Steve has good equipment and he is also a great driver. After looking under the hood, I confirmed that he does indeed have what appears to be an M20B25 powering his car. Without expending considerable effort, it will be next to impossible for a tech official to gain any more insight about any racers particular engine. I’m not trying to open another rules debate, but it makes much more sense for us to have a horsepower limit than requiring all to run stock engines.

I guess some cars had Traqmates (or something similar) installed by tech officials during this race in effort to enforce our rules. What kind of power does a stock engine make anyway? From the results this weekend, it appears that “stock” engines vary greatly in power output. I’m certainly not calling Steve or anyone else a cheater, but I do think some engine builders are better than others. What would it hurt to ditch the “stock” engine rule for a rule that picks a power output and lets us racers figure out how to get there?

#53

if ANYONE has video of passes made under yellow send them to me, we can always adjust the results. We are serious about passes made under yellow (or red) and will dole out penalties.[/quote]

Jim - my camera died at some point in the race, which corrupts the file and makes it useless. Fred was right in front of me and may have something on his video. I think Evan said something about getting passed under yellow, not sure if there was video in Jay’s car on Sunday.

#54

I have not previously heard any negative talk or speculation about Steves motor nor did I take anything written on this forum as such. However,in case it was on anyones mind (or is now) I will say this in his defense. I ran close behind Steve both days. At no time did I feel as though he was faster due to horsepower and I am still running an engine which has never been rebuilt. If anyone doubts it, I’ll sell it to you for half what it cost to build one.

I can point out in my video where Steve made incremental gains on me and each time, show you the mistake on my part which caused it. If I had extra horsepower, could I have made up for my mistakes? I seriously doubt it, but the absence of mistakes could certainly have made up for any lack of horsepower that MIGHT have been.(to a certain extent of course).

What Steve says is absolutely true " that different people have different levels of what it takes in motor sports: Luck, Money, Talent & Time. Having a ton of one or two can help make up for the other two. A whole pile of one? Haven’t seen that work well. Pretty good amounts of all four? That leads to good, consistent results."

I’ll post my video as soon as I get the chance. If you are astute, you will easily see what I’m talking about.

As far as Johan passing under yellow, that was already addressed and he was DQ’d on Saturday. Stuff happens even to the best drivers, it just does.

#55

Although it has been a while, the engine in the taxi has also been suspect.Then it was Robinson’s engine, then Geiger’s, then Walsh’s, then Johan’s (until it didn’t run for long at CMP). Bratton, Gress and Harness have strong engines too. Your observations of DeVinney’s straightaway talent via video will help us all understand the situation better.

Better yet, let’s grumble at Pantas and get him to bring the dyno to the track, thus ending the horsepower speculation.

Then we can focus on what really matters…tires

RP

#56

[quote=“FishMan” post=55362]I confirmed that he does indeed have what appears to be an M20B25 powering his car.[/quote]That’s about the extent of my mechanical abilities, too.

Personally, I think we need the rules to stay the same (i.e. requiring stock components) AND put in place a repeatable, techable horsepower rule. Last time the HP rule bubbled up, I gave my suggestions based on experience with SSM.

It isn’t as simple as stating one number and saying “have at it boys”. You give me one number and open up components and I will have HP & torque curves as flat as Kansas and right up against the limit. The problem with HP rules is that there is no consistent measuring stick. Dyno results on the same dyno on the same day are comparable and relatively repeatable. Different dynos, different days? Not even close. That makes it virtually impossible to put a number on a piece of paper and know as a race director that your competitors can definitively know if they are compliant on any given day.

The correlation between engine power and race results is not as direct as one would hope. If you look at all the parasitic losses (brake drag, toe out/in, worn wheel bearings, etc.), there is a lot that can be done between the motor and the ground.

Patton - You need me to remove your power steering for ya?:woohoo:

#57

DeVinney, is power steering just for old guys?
Actually Chuck Taylor removed the P/S belt for a dyno run at Balanced Performance with the result being …no difference.
But he wasnt turning on the dyno when the pump belt was on, but how much hp does it take to turn, but isn’t the P/S really needed in the parking lot, but isn’t P/S loss(?) a red herring?

I think yes.

tires.

RP

#58

Agreed… You know, a dyno can measure parasitic losses by doing a cost down pull. Over 50% is in the diff…

#59

It’s not the magic bullet, but it is definitely not a red herring. It is one of many, small, incremental improvements that can be made. If you measure each one and say “I couldn’t tell on the dyno” or “I only saw 1 hp on the dyno”, I’ll try all of them and hope for 5 hp.

#60

[quote=“Matt H.” post=55361]Ok, as I’ve had time to mentally digest how the weekend went and get some feedback I have a few more comments.

Thanks to several of you guys for very kindly and politely getting the message across on a few things I could have/should have done better.

I think that in my driving I still have a bit of a teenager mentality where I temporarily forget that I am actually mortal and things can easily go very bad. I obviously made some moves that were aggressive. I stuck myself in places I shouldn’t have been (without even seeing some of the danger) and maybe didn’t back out of other places when I should have.

I apologize to you guys and hopefully I can quickly figure out the line between good close hard racing and getting myself into trouble. I think I just got lucky this time around.

Thanks for not biting my head off when some of you probably wouldn’t have been wrong to do s

Matt[/quote]

Matt, FWIW you raced me very clean and competently. No complaints here.
-FS