moar sprang! mac struts are stupid, they dont work unless they're solid lol. do you have a rear bar? i'd pull that too if you do.
i'm running 600/400 with ST front bar and no rear, and I like it, even with street tires. havnt experimented too much, i just keep adding more front spring and the car gets easier to drive.

 

I am going to add more spring for higher grip lots.

I have not been running a rear bar.

 

Hey, does anybody have a spare double throttle actuator? I figure most people remove these (with the double throttle plates) so someone has to have one lying around.

Mine took a dump and the car is hella jerky driving through grid.

Thanks,

John

 

5psi is more then enough. A bit of anti-seize at the surfaces that touch and the thing will open just fine. I used a small lumbar pump I got at a junkyard, and had it just hold the pressure constantly in a small chamber, then a 5psi pressure switch would turn off the relay. Those pumps can put out way more then 5psi, you don't want it hurting the actuator.

Whenever it was time to activate, a solenoid would open and allow the pressure into the VDI or AUX actuator. I had one solenoid for the VDI and one for the AUX. This setup actuated faster and more reliably then stock, required no exhaust or air pump. (This was on an S5 N/A)

 

Got a pile of em. PM me.

 

Well, Toledo National Tour didn't go well. Due to various issues (extreme heat being one of them), I wasn't feeling well at all on Saturday and didn't drive well. The courses were pretty uninspired and didn't suit the car very well. That combined with rear brake lockup issues led to me being pretty frustrated.

I'm contemplating not taking the car to Nationals. I realized that the one win that I had this year (NJ Pro) was a rare combination of circumstances - a good course for the car, me being at the very top of my game in terms of driving, a bad weekend by my prime competition and a course that wasn't good for his car. And I barely eked out a win that weekend. I'm starting to realize that the car just isn't going to be a top dog in STS and I'm thinking about cutting my losses and moving on to the next project.

Realistically, I'll never get out the money that I put into the car, but I can probably do better if I part it out. Having said that, if anyone out there is interested in any or all of my setup, please don't hesitate to contact me. I'm not committed to moving on yet, but I want to gauge interest.

I'll post up a list of parts in a few days if I haven't changed my mind

-JV

 

you could always keep going and roll into a prepared class (DP or CSP I think?)
if a 1st gen mr2 can win DP, i dont see why an FC cant. the chassis can definately get below 2000#

all that said, giving up after half a season of prep seems pretty premature. i know it takes a lot of people several yrs to get their setup+driving dialed

 

I did run a full 2010 season and have run a very full 2011 season so far, so it's been a bit more than half a season .

The car goes to FP, and while the FC has had a lot of success there in the past (Craig Nagler and his co-driver won quite a bit in the early '90s) that's appealing there are better choices these days. Plus, FP means converting the front end to an upper and lower A-arm suspension, which is a fabrication nightmare.

I'll probably end up sticking it out for the rest of the year. We'll see. I'm pretty frustrated at the moment.

 

You could always join me in the street mod class, on street tires I'm pretty close to the guys on slick.

 

You don't have to convert. All the Z cars are still running struts AFAIK... But it just so happens that I am working on a conversion. I'm mostly done with the front, and need to finish up the details on the rear. Hard to decide on a roll axis when you don't know the CG...
The plan is to use as many existing and off the shelf parts as possible.

 

The FC is an SSM car, which means it has to compete with the FD chassis. Having poked around the top SSM cars at nats over the past several years, there's no way an FC could ever compete with them no matter how much money was dumped into it.

The old Tri-Point FP car was converted to U/L A-arms. The current owner of the car promised me pictures of it, but I haven't gotten them yet.

 

which is generally why you always have to bend the rules when racing classes are applied. there will always be unfair advantages/disadvantages.

always read the rulebook with a grain of salt looking for ways to bend the rules to your favor. this requires some ingenuity because you won't easily find people willing to give up their methods for success.

if you don't, you will never gain any ground because those who do will.

those who follow the rules in the green area will always lose unless they happen to be in a car that happens to not have a handicap in a certain class and their skill level can outperform anything that is lacking on the car.

the car can compete with an FD but not according to their rulebook, so it is obviously biased and always will be. the only exceptions are in classes where a certain type of car is only allowed in, like say spec miatas where everything is equal.

 

I'd love to see how they did it.

 

I don't know who you're referring to when you say, "their rulebook." The rule book is the rule book, and there really isn't any gray area with what is legal and what isn't.

In SCCA Solo's SSM class, there isn't anything in the rules that will get an FC platform close to an FD. It sucks, but that's how it is.

 

they won't be ripping the motor apart every event to inspect all the work that has been done, or that it hasn't been swapped out before season end. here i'll say it, sometimes you have to cheat to be fair.

there's things that can easily be done that are not easily visible or even detectable, like aggressive porting that still idles relatively smoothly yet increases peak power a bit or a sneakily hidden engine management system. swapping an engine in an FC is no difficult task. these are just things you don't want to get caught doing, but with a car with a handicap what is truly fair? seems like they want everyone running in miatas.. or cheating.

if you don't see anything that has a gray area, you aren't looking hard enough.

all i'm really getting at is you can play with certain things without keeping the engine management system 100% factory, or at least try to have some fun in not being overly competetive in a class that doesn't favor the car. how can an n/a FC really be expected to keep up with a twin turbo FD? it can't and that's just stupid of them to think it can. at least step up to a turbo FC if you want to keep it competetive since it is in the same class and gives even more undetectible tweaks to the powertrain to overcome for the lacking handicap, because the handicaps are not a perfect science obviously. or simply move away from street touring stock as it is too generally widespread of a class to allow much flexibility with, it just seems to be a class they don't care about "all things being equal" with.

 

I think you're confused. The class I compete in now (STS) is only for the N/A FC. What would be the point of cheating? I guess that's not how I play, and I know the people I compete against aren't cheating either.

Someone suggested moving to Street Mod, which would allow me to swap in a turbo motor and do essentially any power modifications I want. Even if I swapped in a turbo motor, I'd be competing against highly modified FDs in street mod, and no FC will ever be competitive there.

 

i suppose i did misread the rules for STS class, but as for an FC not being competetive against a modified FD. they really aren't as far off as someone has been leading you to believe. stock for stock the FD is a beast compared to an FC, a modified FC versus a modified FD isn't very far off at all. the FD does have more potential though in certain areas.

 

I'm not being led to believe anything - these are my own views. And I'm talking autocross here, not track driving, not drag racing... autocross. Specifically, street modified. An FC is leagues worse than an FD for that class. I can go into why if you're really interested... but if you have seen any of the top FD's up close (and there really are only two at this point), you'll quickly understand why.

 

The Strelnieks race in my local club. I cannot imagine trying to build an FC to compete with that monster... not to mention the differences in driver talent.
I'm too cheap for SM, that's why I'm going to Prepared, but then they went and bought an XP/FP Boxster... so maybe I should just quit now.

 

A properly built FP Boxster is why I'm hesitant to consider buying the tri-point FP car should it come up for sale.

And yes, Beth's car is insane - from interviewing her at Nats a few years ago and learning a little of what went into that car... yikes. In SSM there is just no way you can turn an FC into that car. Too many advantages to the FD chassis.

Either way, I think this is my last season in STS. I'm getting the itch to try out DSP or ESP for a bit.

 

Yeah... My FC is SSM, and even if I could drive it amazingly well, there is no way it would be competitive with an FD.

not going into anything but the basics....
a) they have double a-arm suspension that's amazing
b) they can can fit way more tire under the fenders. I barely stuffed 245s/275s A6s under my FC and they're running 295/335s...

 

In addition to what you posted here, the longer answer is that the FD starts out lighter than the FC which is a big benefit. I think Eric and Beth have to ballast their car up because of the 3-rotor, but that means they get to put the weight where they want it. The other amazing thing is that their car has stock fenders, so the car gets all that tire while not being wider than stock.

The other big thing is that the FC's suspension really hamstrings it. Even with the front geometry improved by extending the ball joints and moving the roll center back up, it will never have the camber curve that the FD does so an FC will have to run more static camber which is never good. Same story in the rear - the FC will never put down power like the A-arm equipped FD will.

 

Nothing like running a standalone ina factory ecu cover :p or adding spacers to the intake manifold to maintain the "stock manifold"

 

Yup.

 

Don't give up yet! If you do you will just be giving in to what most people think. Why did you do all this hard work just to part it out? You know you could have just started with an FD, but you took on the challenge of making your FC the best! I believe it can be and I think you still do to. I say keep on driving and keep on testing until you find the right combination.