Tuesday at Laguna Seca :) *vids*
 

Instructed for the Northern California Racing Club at Laguna yesterday, and got a few laps in with the RX-7.. Laguna Seca has some very strict sound limits, 90db in this case, which is almost always a problem for RX-7s and rotary's in general. I started with just a turndown, away from the sound station, 96.4db. I had come prepared though, and had a supertrapp welded onto another turndown, which managed to quiet the car enough to pass sound for about 10 laps.. Then I blew out the header flange gasket :\ So sorry I don't have a lot of video this time, but here they are anyway.

This vid is 2nd lap of the session, following my good friend Alan in his C5 running on 315 Hoosiers.. That's some serious tire :) He is waiting for me on the front straight, otherwise he'd have 3-4 more carlengths on me than he gets. Alan placed 2nd in the ITE championship in the SF region of the SCCA in his Camaro, and a ridealong in his C5 is the closest to sheer adrenaline that I have ever been..

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/lsir-...hasingalan.wmv

This vid is the 3rd lap, open, a decent lap around Laguna Seca.. 1:56 or so, not too bad for the first time back at Laguna with the RX-7..

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/lsir-121002-solo.wmv

This vid I catch a prelude, no biggie..

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/lsir-121002-prelude.wmv

and for all you who say that the brakes on the FC suck, this Lotus Esprit turbo would probably beg to differ..

http://para.noid.org/~silkworm/lsir-...otusesprit.wmv

Enjoy :)

PaulC

ooooh, Laguna Seca. i want to drive that course. its pretty much my favorite track ever. at some point in my life i will drive that course. and ill have major fun on the corkscrew. :D

I would too... but I'm afraid of it. the walls are so close! I'd want to start out on something a bit more spaced... like buttonwillow or something.

I'm downloading the videos... who knew T1 could be so slow...

i wish i had a world renowned track like that around here... well, maybe i do, that would be Road America. very fast track though, not to fun if you wipe...

that was badass whats that 7 have done too it? how much hp? what suspension mods? your a good driver if you can catch a lotus in an FC

I want to run laguna seca :(

awesome awesome :)

how i envy you

the vids kick ass, keep 'em comming

my 787b could take you, lol. sweet vids. was that your rear wheels locking on the downshift at the end of the corvette vid?

Easy,

Try Thunderhill, hell of a lot closer to you in Oregon than Buttonwillow :) If you're really interested I can send you some info on future track days there.

Jeremy,

LOL, I was waiting for someone to tell me that :)

Re: chirp on downshift, yeah, I have trouble getting the blip on the downshift to smooth that out, the gas pedal is just a simdge too high and sometimes under really hard braking I can't get my foot to roll over enough to get up onto the gas.. I'm going to bend the pedal a bit to try and improve that.

Drago,

Basically a stock 88 RX-7 :)

Ok ok.. 89 engine, no smog, 8 point cage, stripped (2450lbs empty).. Probably around 160rwhp is my guess, but with the supertrapp (aka cork in the ass), who knows what kind of power it was making.. Suspension Koni adjustables, 400/275 Eibach coilovers, stock front, no rear swaybar, delrin bushings all around.

PaulC

wow..so sweet :drool: i also love laguna seca. I like it b/c its more about handling than power, although a lot of power doesnt hurt :)

also, it looks so tempting to drift around so many of those corners but lap times would suffer. drifting = slower lap times :( man i cant wait to go to SCCA high performance car control clinic. I want to road race!

how do you like the supertrapp? thats what i was looking at getting. although not as "cool", it seems to have good performance and tunability.

Jeremy,

It's ok, but I'm going to dyno the combination to see what kind of powerloss I'm getting with it on there before I say yes or no.. As a last resort, it works ok, but the heat of the exhaust is likely to toast the fiberglass packing material fairly quickly.

PaulC

oh my... how sweet. what pads are your running? hawk blues? blacks? reds?

this is on a tuesday? isn't wednesday a work day? your not allowed to have fun on a night which has work the next day... NOT FAIR!!!!

silk you should come all the way to mosport here in toronto, ontario, canda... well not quite toronto... but close enouugh so i can get a ride in your car.

please pm me or something when you find out. i'd really like to know before i buy and throw one on.

damn... that corvette is so sweet... (yes i'm a corvette fan...) i will trade my TII for a new vette any day of the week.

btw... how fast is your firebird in comparison to your race trim rx7 na? if the firebird is still faster... whould u have been able to keep up with the vette?

also, on the right side of the dash.. above the glove box there is a red thingy. what is it for?

Cheers, don't hold your breath :) heheh, Toronto is a hell of a haul from California..

Yeah, kinda sucked going back to work the next day, but I promised I would, work is crazy right now.

PaulC

also what are your best lap times for laguna seca... i need to compare u with myself in gran turismo III, in my fully decked out FC

1:55..

If you can't beat that with a stock FC in GT3 I'll be surprised. GT3's laptimes aren't exactly realistic :)

PaulC

Oh, the Firebird is about 3 seconds slower than the RX-7, but that's mostly because the suspension is softer.. I would kill the RX-7 on the straight :) No way could I hang with the C5 in the TA..

The red thingy is the electrical cutoff switch.

PaulC

Now I want to race at Road Atlanta :)

can anyone convert those videos to something other than WMV? i am a linux user here. windows media files dont exactly fly around here. how about .mpg or .mpeg?

just make a small windows partion with win 95.