Good day at the track yesterday. It was my first attempt at driving on course after Stage 4 of the Ron Sutton Race Technology high travel low roll setup was installed. Stage 4 consisted of a major increase in the stiffness of the front sway bar matched by a slight increase in the rear spring rate. Along with those changes, I also had new brake pads front and rear, a new posi in the rear axle and was trying a new set of air pressures front and rear based off of what I learned at NCM couple of weeks ago...so yeah, a lot of changes really.
The course was great, we all had a blast on it. It was free flowing, no pinch points, visually great, it was FUN. The car was a bit loose in the early runs, not step out sideways unpredictable loose, just a
oopsy...gotta catch that there a bit free. I backed out one click on rear shock rebound as it was lifting the inside rear tire on corner entry and started lowering the rear tire pressure a pound at a time. This was my tire sheet after my first run
I started out with 37 psi in fronts, 35 psi in the rears. For a long time, I've been starting at 33 in the front, 32 in the rear. Not sure if it's in combination with the new front sway bar or not, but 37 in the fronts works a LOT better. 35 in the rear was too much, I started my 4th run at 37F, 32R and it worked great. This was my tire sheet after my 3rd run, I didn't check them after my 4th when I ran with 32 PSI in the rear.
Here is a video of my 4th and best run, I already had a good time in the books and was really trying to let it all out. Pay attention to how flat the front stays in the slalom on the back, that is where I noticed the most improvement over stage 3.
Ron has made this car turn in really well ever since Stage 1, when the front suspension is compressed under braking, it just worked great. Where the front was lacking a bit would have been in the slalom or later in larger turns where the suspension wasn't compressed therefore hurting the front tire contact patch.
What this new MonsterBar does (and Ron will probably chime in here and correct the way I'm describing this) is on those longer turns or during the slalom where the front isn't compressed because of braking, when you turn the steering wheel, instead of the outside front dipping, rolling the car over too much and messing with the contact patch, the whole front of the car compresses and keep a better contact patch up front on both tires and more weight on the front as well. It is a HUGE difference in how the car handles and will take a bit more time on the driver's part learning how to take advantage of this new found front grip.
The best part is, this change up front did not make the rear any worse. Once I got the car dialed in, the rear is just a tick free on corner exit, just like it was before Stage 4. It is completely controllable though, not even close to being edgy. In the video you will notice two places where the rear was pretty free, but that was 100% course related. When you go from grooved concrete, to smooth asphalt, then back to grooved concrete all in one pretty fast turn, you are going to loose a bit of grip during the asphalt part of the turn. Also the last decreasing radius sweeper before the finish, the pavement is giving up pretty bad there and it's always a tiptoe through there at speed.
The timed results were encouraging, I finished 22nd in raw time out of 133 entrants and 2nd in class losing by just under a second to a 2015 Mustang with brand new 315mm Rival Ss on all four corners.
Here are the class results
http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...6_fin.htm#camc
And the raw time results
http://www.kcrscca.org/results/solo/...event6_raw.htm
When looking at the raw times, you should note that the Heat 1 drivers had a mostly wet course due to rain. I think it was drying out pretty good for their 3 and 4th runs but there was still some pretty wet spots during the course walk between 1 and 2. Everyone else ran in the dry though.
Anyway, I can't wait to get back out on course and test the new setup some more. I'm thankful to Ron that it was basically fast off the trailer (or highway since I drove it to the track) and only needed some minor tweaking to dial it in. I'm sure as I push it more it'll need a bit more tweaking but so far...so good.