[quote=“ctbimmer” post=75858]I don’t know the full range of numbers as I didn’t stay all day, but a decent number of us had previous sessions at Balanced to compare to, and across the board, the repeat results were, I believe, about 6-9 HP lower than last time. Many of us were there in Feb 2013, and a few were tested this past fall. It seemed to be proportional, i.e. stronger motors had larger drops. A friend who was also there, with a GTS2/E30 (chip, header, cam) who normally cranks 170 was off about 11.
Personally I went from 157 HP to 150, and TQ dropped about 8 as well. My motor is a home rebuild no overbore, built in 2011.[/quote]
These were all SAE corrected smoothing set to 5 numbers? That does seem like a lot for the same Dynojet to be off from year to year.
From what I recall, we had numbers ranging from low 140’s to the highest of 154 or 155 for the Spec cars.
Personally, my numbers were down 9hp but I did make some small changes to get the numbers down. 20w 50 oil and removal of electric fans for stock clutch fan.
This leads to the question of were the initial numbers reading too high or the new numbers reading too low. That is a big gap to overcome.
I’m more concerned about a car dyno’ing just over it’s power/weight numbers - say the dyno is reading a touch high one day, and being DQ’d unfairly. What is most worrisome to a weekend warrior like me is being DQ’d because of draconian application of the rules. That’s a sure-fire way to make a lot of unhappy campers in the paddock. I can only hope that common sense will prevail through the teething pains!
-Vic
My personal experience at Nationals in 2013 was not a great one.
My car was dynoed at least 6 separate times 2 of those were at my expense for tuning and making sure I was not over the HP cap for 944 of 138 rwhp.
My car varied from 134 - 142 with minor changes. What did seem to make the biggest difference was testing the car as a storm cell was just starting to move through.
It always had the highest reading in this situation. If it was clear and sunny it would read low.
I was constantly chasing the dyno.
After the championship race my car tested .5 hp over the legal max. I filed a protest based on the written procedure not being followed exactly as written. The tire pressure and oil temprature was not checked.
My car was placed in impound and was tested again the next morning. Both tests were in unsettled weather.
My car then tested .2 hp under the legal max.
This is just an example of dyno variation from test to test. It was less than 1 hp for this situation but also determined weather or not I was DQ at Nationals.
944 does not have a sliding scale for weight, we have to weigh a minimum or 2,600 lbs all the time.
The complexity of variable weight and HP will create a lot of DQs since 1 hp is 20 lbs.
So there will be lots of teething and we will all need to be prepared to dyno our cars more often than we want especially if you run at the front.
There is no perfect system, and any system costs money for the racer and NASA.
But if it could get to a single HP and single weight system it would be better. IMO.
I’ve been down this road a dozen times in my FFR. Here’s how it goes.
You can get your own dyno, at your own expense, whenever you want. But it doesn’t really mean anything.
If you win a race, or get called to a dyno, you go. You dyno. And you better meet weight for whatever that dyno number says. It doesn’t matter what your own personal dyno says. If the barometer goes up during a race, or the air gets colder, etc., your dyno numbers can change. My FFR would routinely change 5hp depending on air, temperature of engine, temperature of oil, etc.
No tears, thats just the way things work. If you run your car very close to the edge on weight, don’t be shocked if you get a DQ.
I think folks are just trying to clarify. From Ranger’s post and talking to our regional director it doesn’t sound like the regional directors even know what they are going to do.
What exactly do you mean by “on the edge”? Many of us averaged about an 8 hp difference on the very same Dyno that we ran on either last year or in my case within a couple months. That equates to a potential of over a 100 pounds of extra weight. Are you saying that running on the edge would still require some people to have an additional averaged sized teenager in the car? I would hate to tell Aaron that he can’t race because he has to passenger with me.
Again, not crying here, just wanting to get clarification on a new rule for Spec E30 and how it will be implemented at the track. Ranger did help clear it up. This will be a little bit of a learning curve for many of us.
What exactly do you mean by “on the edge”? Many of us averaged about an 8 hp difference on the very same Dyno that we ran on either last year or in my case within a couple months. That equates to a potential of over a 100 pounds of extra weight. Are you saying that running on the edge would still require some people to have an additional averaged sized teenager in the car? I would hate to tell Aaron that he can’t race because he has to passenger with me.
Again, not crying here, just wanting to get clarification on a new rule for Spec E30 and how it will be implemented at the track. Ranger did help clear it up. This will be a little bit of a learning curve for many of us.[/quote]
Speaking solely for the SE…just think of the dyno standard like we do the weight standard. There have been events where we could not trust the scales so we didn’t. Over time we will know how much power everyone’s car has, just like everyone knows how much their car weighs. That means we should be able to ID if at a particular event a dyno is giving high #'s. Also, Robert’s car(s) or my car could easily be a “control.”
I can imagine a scenario where one car suddenly has 4hp more then it should. We could just put some other cars on the dyno and see if they were 4hp high too. We could also do a couple extra runs on the problem car to make sure we have a repeatable #.
We won’t know how well or not well this is going to work until we get in there and do it. If we find that there are issues, we’ll come up with a fair way to work it out. If I have 155hp, I’m going to ballast my car for 157hp.
For those that want more details, I don’t have them. We need to ease into this. Lets ID the problems before we start debating the solutions. Do we have rigid rules re. when to discard flaky results from the scales?
I think folks are just trying to clarify. From Ranger’s post and talking to our regional director it doesn’t sound like the regional directors even know what they are going to do.[/quote]
I will refrain from using internet memes in the future.
The rule as written is pretty clear. Implementation seems transparent as well. I would hope the regional directors would give everyone a 1 race pass up front to sort things out. Past that, know your car.
In the absence of official guidelines from Carter Hunt, I would think the previous experiences from Scott McKay and the last post from Foglight would be a good way to look at the rule.
The above was the reason for the dyno day. The cars tested were in the same box.If we find a racer that runs away and leaves others on the back straightaway at Road Atlant you’ll know something is up. Literally up. We all know what 155hp looks like on Balanced Performance dyno. I don’t expect that Chuck Taylor or Michael Harness will leave me in their wake.
Last September at RA, Kelly Childress and I did a planned, but informal, 2nd gear drag race from T7 down the backstraight. First to Black Flag wins, etc.
Both engines were homebuilt by us, and the equality of the cars was pretty clear. Neither gained more than a half-car over the other as I recall, but there was some back-and-forth maneuvering based, I assume, on slightly different torque curves. An interesting experience that I wouldn’t mind repeating with some of the fast cats, if I knew they weren’t sandbagging me!
In actual on-track speed and results, we were pretty close to each other all weekend, as we normally were over the years. Apparently our driving mediocrity is about as consistent as our motors.
[quote=“ctbimmer” post=75914]Last September at RA, Kelly Childress and I did a planned, but informal, 2nd gear drag race from T7 down the backstraight. First to Black Flag wins, etc.
Both engines were homebuilt by us, and the equality of the cars was pretty clear. Neither gained more than a half-car over the other as I recall, but there was some back-and-forth maneuvering based, I assume, on slightly different torque curves. An interesting experience that I wouldn’t mind repeating with some of the fast cats, if I knew they weren’t sandbagging me!
In actual on-track speed and results, we were pretty close to each other all weekend, as we normally were over the years. Apparently our driving mediocrity is about as consistent as our motors. [/quote]
Nothing to be sorry about when it’s good clean fun close racing. Already miss you guys back in the SE
Yup, that’s what it means. You have to change your spec mentality on weight. No more shooting for <10lbs over at the end of a race. Now you need a cushion. In GTS3 I’d routinely run 75lbs heavy just in case I got a bad dyno number.
I don’t see how this dyno rule is good for SE30. You don’t want guys building motors to keep the costs down, but now we will be spending money to get to the dyno’s so we are legal. And then you have guys questioning & complaining due to the rule.
We will see how it goes once we get a full season under our belt. Hopefully this rule or one similar can be implemented before everyone gets turned away from SE30.
[quote=“barkerdm” post=75925]I don’t see how this dyno rule is good for SE30. You don’t want guys building motors to keep the costs down, but now we will be spending money to get to the dyno’s so we are legal. And then you have guys questioning & complaining due to the rule.
We will see how it goes once we get a full season under our belt. Hopefully this rule or one similar can be implemented before everyone gets turned away from SE30.[/quote]
Technically, you don’t ever have to pay for dynos. Just bring ballast with you and if you get dynoed at the track, you’ll be ready to go.
And if “guys questioning and complaining” about a rule made it a bad rule, we wouldn’t have any!
This rule is great for the class actually, but let’s just be friendly and honest with each other about a few things:
If NASA sends you to the dyno, you don’t pay, NASA pays. NASA doesn’t routinely send people deep in the field just for fun as a spot check. They send the winner, maybe second place. At nationals they will usually send 1-4. People who win races or show up on the podium are already acutely aware of how much power their car makes, and what it must weigh. People who win races are doing those little extra things that you aren’t doing. People who win races are also not those that are seeing a 8hp swing out of a 160 horsepower engine on the same dyno on the same day. Those people know what makes a dyno needle go up and down, and they will only be seeing a 2-3hp variance, and they will be ballasted for that occurrence.
Let’s not all go being crazy here. I’d lay a bet that people complaining about this rule will never have to worry about spinning those dyno rollers, because they will be too busy chillin’ out in the midpack, and that’s ok too. And, for the record, I don’t think Whittinger was complaining about the rule, he was just asking how it would work. And, for the record, I can’t wait to be there and watch that massive HP beast turn the rollers. That car is going to have to weigh 2900 pounds to be legal.
[quote=“barkerdm” post=75925]I don’t see how this dyno rule is good for SE30. You don’t want guys building motors to keep the costs down, but now we will be spending money to get to the dyno’s so we are legal. And then you have guys questioning & complaining due to the rule.
We will see how it goes once we get a full season under our belt. Hopefully this rule or one similar can be implemented before everyone gets turned away from SE30.[/quote]
As much as going to a dyno is a pain in the ass for me, I would rather spend the $200-300 to really dial it in rather than dump $4-5k into a motor.
