Were there any RAIN delays, or did you get the day in without delay?

Just as a side thought, why not start a thread where people can donate to the FALL event ahead of time. If you started now you might have a significant cost of the track rental secured, thereby minimizing the cost to all attendees later this year. Just a thought. I personally enjoyed following this thread and would be willing to donate to such an endeavor to help defray costs.

 

Dang, I regret not driving down now...I live only a little over an hour away. Got back from Germany Sunday night and was adjusting from jet lag yesterday then figured it would have just been rained out...won't miss the next one!

 

I think we were VERY fortunate that it didn't rain for very long at all. I don't remember specifically how long it lasted but it wasn't bad. Afterwards the track dried up pretty quick and we still had another 2 hrs or so of track time.

 

We missed the having the full "almost racing" line up but I'm thinking you have more important things to do right now than fool around at VIR.

Thanks for the props and Pete and I along with the rest of us track rats will do our best to spread the FD virus!!!

Speaking of the virus this man is infected for sure for sure

Shawn,
It was a pleasure you were a great student and I look forward to the next one

You left me in the trenches taking grenades PETE! JK.....love you baby

I think the track went cold for no longer than 1/2 hour well I take that back I think Bill was still out there LOL

 

fritz, is that your car in the vid?

 

I'm definitely hooked now, can't wait to go again!

Unfortunately my motor had low compression getting there and I measured around 70/65 psi front/rear when I got home. I still beat her to death out on the track while I was there! Now to prepare for the next event!

 

Thanks to Gordon, Dave, and Fritz!

It was a great event! I had a blast, met a bunch of nice guys, and rode in two awesome rides.

Dan's white LS2 powered beast was wicked. IT does make a great case towards going darkside: 463HP, AC & PS, and 29MPG on the road trip

I got the last ride on the track with Fritz, he is a machine out there. I had no idea what the car was truly capable of until I rode with him. Thanks for the ride Fritz!

I have only one suggestion for the next time: Name tags with actual and Forum names.

Vince

 

Can't wait for Eccentric Performance to build that motor for you

 

Damn you, Flynn, I checked the video and you ran a second quicker than I did in my own @#$% car! Consistent low 2:11's on the video. I ran a 2:12.4 that AM. Ran a 2:10 on Friday on newer tires.

 

Yea, and Mazda would be smart to tap into that knowledge and "feel" when developing the next 2 seat rotary sports car. I can only hope someone that matters is listening to our grass-roots community. So much R&D time could be saved by tapping into Fritz and Pete's experience...

 

That would have been fun. I wish I had a turbo. Any pic's or video of the 4 rotor?

 

Yep that's my poor beat up little old red machine.

The shifter is moving so much it's like wrestling an alligator. I'm not even sure it has motor mounts in it at this point LOL
The diff is clunking so bad my wife thought the car was broken when she went to get gas
The compression is LOW
The trans is hurtin
The exhaust manifold has a leak (I'm still tore up from the fumes)
etc......

BUT........little red managed 1.16s to 1.18s for close to 3 hours on track (oh and tires are done) ...........who says the rotary isn't reliable............that's right David I'm bragging again hehe

AND I'm going to brag some more.............. I was really dumbfounded when the C6 Z was pulling on me so hard at Summit but after the 300 dyno it all makes sense.


Hi Vince,
My pleasure and I look forward to seeing you out at VIR again

LOL.........Your car was feeling so AWESOME I thought I was running sub 10s for sure.........we need to pull some weight out of that beast. THANKS SOOOO MUCH for letting me get behind the wheel it really made my day because I was not happy with that nasty untamed P car.

I'm thinking mazda is pretty tapped into Japan and Australia where the FD is still pretty competitive but I'm sure both pete and I would be happy to assist hehe. I just hope they can do the FD/RX7 justice and if they don't they change the name.

 

So your only comment in this awesome thread is this? The outing is one of if not the best that I and the others that were there have attended so I'd think there would be more to point out.

So why not tell me what is wrong with the engine so we don't have to do any tear down and inspection work? Would save a lot of time. Yes, note the dripping sarcasm here. I just am tired of your directed jabs and barbs.

Moving on. I am scheduled to take the car back to Kilo Racing in a few weeks. Jesus is pretty sure he knows what is going on and it's not what I would have guessed. He's such a class guy and we are lucky to have resources like him in the community. I'll post up pics of the tear down and findings in my build thread.

 

More love less hate or in my world more wag less bark

 

^ I know Fritz. There is a history here of these types of comments from Austin.

 

Dan with the white LS2 FD here.

Great day at the track fo sho! Actually, this is the first time I've been able to truly DRIVE the FD, as I had power steering issues at previous events (first with MR2 electric pump setup, then a collapsed feed hose with GXP GT pump).

Street tires => a lot of unintentional and semi-intentional dorifto action. Passengers were adequately entertained, I hope

I was worried about pads, running StopTech streets up front, parts store Duralast Gold (!) in back (my CarboTech XP10s were 650 miles away!), but taking it easy in the braking zones and lifting/coasting for the last ~1/4 of the straight (still hit 140mph!) worked great, no brake issues all day

 

Dude, I have more respect for the 2:10's you ran in that GT3 than the 2:03 in the RX7. What a handful that thing is, it scared me!

 

You and me both!



Dan,

I know I had a blast sliding around! Car is sweet!

 

I feel like Fritz's reviews have ruined the GT3 for me. Ive never personally had the opportunity to drive one, but it always seemed like the perfect car. Buy it right from the showroom, and go have a lethal track weapon that is all setup and perfectly controllable, yet still retains some civility for street duty. Then Fritz points out he'd like it to have have like 10k with of upgrades to compete with tired old FDs and its sketchy at the limit.. I guess it saved me some money in the future anyway.

 

^^^

I gather the 997 he had was better. This 996 was just a set up disaster.

However, with the little skinny front tires, boosty power steering, and light front end, I'm not sure it'll ever feel like an FD. The brakes @#$%ing ROCKED, as did the throttle response and exhaust sound. And the fact that I looked down and realized I was driving with the A/C on.

 

I sure had a BLAST in your car; turns 27 (the spiral), and 28 (fishhook) were LOADS of fun! I'm glad you were able to make it out!

 

Okay, now that I have had a good amount of sleep and feel like myself again, thought I'd post up thanks and observations.

First, to all, what a great event. Best I've ever been to and what made it special was seeing the community coming together, regardless of engine (rotary or V8) and driving experience. For the track guys there was the ability to have a closed track for 5 1/2 hours worth of driving and for those that aren't track guys, the ability to see what an FD (and one FC) can do out on an awesome course like VIR South. These cars were built to handle and for the vast majority of us, will never be driven at or even close to their potential. Until you've seen guys like those that drove on Monday, then you don't realize how far an FD can be pushed.

For the "thanks", a big heartfelt thank you to Gordon Monsen for coming up with the idea and for paying for the track time. Gordon's vision was to have an ability to compare different rotary setups as to how they handle from a suspension and engine performance perspective. I've never seen this done before and it is what most interested me and Modified Magazine. Most of us won't become track enthusiasts but we all can benefit from knowing what the upgrade options are and what one can expect out of each. Yes it is true the only way to really do the comparison is to have equal suspensions and tires, but why not do something at least from an engine perspective?

I still love the idea and will regroup and pull this off once all the test cars get sorted out. I am thinking of a date this fall. Also like the idea of name badges as well as setting up a low key food station, maybe hamburger and hotdogs. Gordon missed the date by only a few weeks and I am afraid I'll be down for about a month or two. Like I previously posted, Kilo Racing is great and will identify what has gone wrong. I'll be there as I'd like to learn more about an engine removal and rebuild and I have a few improvements to make while we are in there. Kind of a lemons to lemonade approach here.

Moving on with the thanks. A big thanks to Victor Seaber of Viper. Victor runs the ODU Automotive Research Center and he and his team graciously dyno'd the test cars for us as well as anyone else that wanted a run. Victor also brought out to the track his rotary powered Mazda race car:



The car has around 210 WHP run on E85 yet weights only 1,400 lbs. so it flies around the track awesome car and great guys. Many props to them.

A big thanks to Hoi of the Tokyo Grill in Dansville for his graciousness in hosting us multiple times over the weekend. He pretty much provided us with whatever we wanted, from great sushi to steak for the carnivores like Tvon He also entertained us on track by showing us what it is like to "love tap" the tire barriers at Oak Tree and did quite an impressive victory burnout at turn 10 :thumbsup: Great guy and rotary love too.

Thanks to Fritz and Peter for participating and donating their cars into the comparison. Fritz spent all weekend driving and then all 5 1/2 hours at the event providing us with a track experience like no other. The guy is amazing and very gracious for being our own "Stig" and personal chauffeur. Now if he could just work on that wife and kid intro thing

Thanks to all that participated and donated to the cause. I enjoyed meeting all of you and hope you had as good a time as I did. Trey, great meeting you and hanging out and I really appreciate your help. Can't wait to see how your NA 3 rotor turns out with all its "special sauce" you designed.

Finally, a big thanks to the Modified Team led by Peter Tarach for coming on down and covering the event. You guys are great fellow car enthusiasts and we all enjoyed the company. Joel, many thanks for helping to diagnose my OMP issue (22 ounces of OMP injected in 3 miles is not good) and if I were in Canada, I most certainly twist your arm into working on my never ending project.

During Monday morning, we dyno'd the test cars and then several other cars, including Robin's LS2 FD. The stock FD donated by Eccentric Performance (lookup allrotor93 and StevenOz on the forum if you are looking for a great stock FD or an really good engine build in NC)) dyno'd in at an impressive 247 WHP and 225 lbs. ft. of torque. Pretty impressive for an engine that has 3.2 miles on it The car is now back at Steve Osley's to sort out the suspension and tranny issues it had which is a normal process for them. They ran out of time though as they had just recieved the car from paint on the Friday before the event and the towing guys ripped out the steering rack and radiator in giving it back.

Here is a link to the stock car dyno run:

VIR May 2013 Stock Car - YouTube

My car dyno'd in at a less than impressive 400+ WHP and I can't remember how much torque but it wasn't good in any event. Fritz's car also has compression issues at came in at around 300 WHP, down about 50 HP. Not like he needs anymore anyway Peter's car did 350ish. Robin's LS2 did 350 WHPO but a very impressive flat 375 ft. lbs. or torque and I did not see what other guys did. Post up your results if you'd like.

VIPER did also weigh in my turbo 3 rotor as well as RGordon1979's LS2 powered car. Robin's car, with 1/2 tank of gas, weighed in at a little over 2,800 lbs. and my 3 rotor 20B with a full tank of gas tipped in at a portly 3,000 lbs. If you take away the gas difference, or 9 gallons at 6.25 lbs. pr gallon, that takes the car down to about 2,950 lbs. The other differences with the cars are rear wheel sizes (335s on mine), my old man subwoofer and the 5 gallons of Quiet Coat on the car (again an old man no noise thing). So, my best guess is an LS2 conversion car weighs in at a little over 100 lbs. lighter than a turbo 3 rotor. Interestingly both cars had about the same weight balance, or around 51% front and 49% back. They were also about equal as I recall on weight distribution over the 4 tires, or almost perfectly balanced. Would have loved to see the HP and torque numbers from Gordon's NA 3 rotor as his car weights 2,800 lbs. I think Gordon's NA 20B would make a little more WHP at 375 versus Robin's 350 but Robin's 375 ft. lbs. of torque will be flatter and greater than the NA 20B. Finally, regarding the 3 rotor turbo car, you'd have to decide if the extra 100 lbs. in weight is worth the increased HP and torque. For comps, here are my numbers with a non-wounded engine at 12 PSI:



At 18 PSI, we previously did a little over 675 WHP and 531 ft. lbs. of torque. I'd love for Robin to post up his dyno as I'd like to compare his torque curve which I think was a pretty immediate and flat 375.

Speaking of, when the test car idea failed to materialize, we took option "B" and that was to do the best we could with the comparison of a stock FD versus Fritz's and Peter's cars and then combine it with an open track experience for all that attended. Because we didn't need as much track time and structure for the test cars, this made the 5 1/2 hours essentially available to all that wanted to drive or get out as passengers. Although rain was forecasted, we only had about a 30 minute delay so it was pretty fun.

Fritz gave the pre-track talk and then it was on to driving. Nothing like seeing a bunch of FD out exclusively on the track. Regardless of engine types, it truly is an impressive sight. I got to go out in my car for a few laps but only a few as my water temps skyrocketed. Oh well, it was fun anyway trying to figure out the lines.

All in all a great, great time and one we will certainly do again soon. I'm thinking October/November so stay tuned.

 

Please post up pics you took. Here are mine. I spent most of the time scrambling around so I think you will have better ones than me at the track:

At the Dyno


"Brent Was Here"