Okay, so now I am following the Al Balinsky method of racing and I must admit it is a very fun way to do things.

I showed up Sunday morning and registered. Unloaded the car and started it to warm up. It started first crack. I was internally jumping for joy as anybody who knows what we have been through for the last 2 plus years will understand. I went to get dressed for Warm Up and realized I had forgotten my Nomex socks. Freakin, getting your stuff ready in the dark. I brought a pair of wool socks instead. Anyways I had to scour the pit area looking for socks and bought a pair from Perry Ianuzzi that allowed me to race. Thanks to Perry.

Went out for morning warmup and got into a p!ssing march with a Castrol Touring Car Super Touring BMW. It was very cold out and the track really had no grip. We were swapping positions back and forth, but my car was pulling really well up the back straight and I was able to get around him going into Turn 8 and then pull away. Things were looking really good for the first race as the car ran without a hiccup and this was on a full fuel load. Checking things out we saw that we had thrown one of the 2 fan belts, hmmmm..........

First race time. Went up to the Mock grid and they gridded me 33rd, crappers thats a lot of cars to pass. I now understood how helpful it would be to have power like Al's Peri port. We came around on the pace lap and it sure didn't look like 16 rows of cars. Anyways as the last car in the line I was able to drop back a bit and get a really good run out of Turn 10. Everybody was clawing for the inside of Turn 1, so I decided to go outside. I got around 2 cars in one and the cars were really grouped closely going into Turn 2, so I decided to try a dive down the inside. The car was working really really well and had a ton of throttle response and quickness, so I was confident of passing a couple of other cars and I did. I came out of Turn 2 about 6 cars up from my starting position. I had some dude in a green early 90's Acura block me from the inside going into 3 so I went wide and just grunted past him down into 4. Whoo Hoo everything was looking good. I had to block a Miata going into 5a so that I could get a good run out of 5b and then I turned the horses loose. I went by 3 cars up the back straight and fell into line going into 8 behind a new gen Miata, a black Camaro and a Porsche 944. We battled pretty hard for about 3 laps as the Miata had the cornering, the Porsche had cornering and torque and the evil, horrible and digustingly straight line super quick Camaro had the legs on everybody. It took us about a lap to cycle past the Miata, then the Porsche went back pretty quickly as well, but that Camaro, ......... grrrrrrrrrrrr.

I was checking my gauges pretty often as this had been the longest the RX7 had run this hard for since the fall of 2006. Water temps had creeped up to the 210 degree zone, but oil was in the 180 degree area, so I spent a bit of time cooling things down. I was starting to hear a rattle (again) above 8,500 rpm so I pulled my shift points back to about 8,500. I regrouped and took a run at the Camaro. I got equal with him a few times, mostly coming out of Turns 3, 5b and 10, but as soon as we hit the straights, booom he was gone. He would pull about 10 to 12 lengths on me going into 8, even if we were side by side coming out of 5. As well, the tires were going off a bit and the car was sliding through 2 pretty hard. At least 4 times I had to catch a back end slide out. Finally discretion took over and I decided that this is where I was going to finish up and a eased off for the last lap or 2 to the finish. Ninth place was our finishing position with a fastest lap of a 1:39.4. All in all not a bad first race in the car.

Dave and I decided to make some chages to the car for the second race. First we decided to swap the front and rear tires to try to get some more bite. We also changed the front pads to a newer already bedded set of Hawk Blues. Dave was looking at the ECU logging and saw that the car was still running fairly rich and the Autotune wanted to lean out the settings by around 10% across the board. I was uncomfortable with that because the day was warming up a lot adn we still were getting a bit of detonation. We ended up leaning it down by about 2% and richening up the 5,000 rpm pot a bit more.

Second Race. Started 9th. The car staggered a bit on the start and I had to stick to the pit wall. My main goal was to get far enough ahead of Doug Phillips in the black Camaro so that I wouldn't have to deal with him again. I went inside him coming out of Turn 1. Luckily for me a guy racing a an ex CASCAR Stock car spun behind me and slowed down the Camaro. I hit the back straight in 8th with a red Miata ahead of me, Perry in the Nissan and another Camaro. I was laughing inside as I knew I just had to just drive by at least 2 of them. Came out in second and it pulled easily to 9,000 whoo hoo Dave was the master. I shifted to 3rd and got to 7500 rpm in a long pull and rattle rattle rattle. GAARRGHH, the detonation was back and worse than before. I didn't want to pull in so I started short shifting and trying to carry more speed. This meant a lot of time in 4th where I was in 3rd before. It also meant 10/10ths through turns 1 and 2 just to keep up.

It took me about a lap to get by the Miata then I went after Perry. We then had a doozy of a battle for the rest of the race, broken up only by the CASCAR blasting past almost out of control about 5 laps in. I was able to catch him under braking and going through 2. He could pull me down the pit straight, out of 1 into 2 and out of 5b. I could draft up alongside going into 8, but Perry would hold me off and I had to give way. I got alongside about 4 times going into 8, but every time I had to back off as I wasn't far enough ahead to hold him off. I wasn't willing to cause a huge accident for 8th place.

We got the Last Lap sign and I screwed up my guts for a big run as I was about 6 lengths back from Perry. I went through Turn 1 with a light brake and made up some room. I got on the throttle sooner in Turn 2 and rode out the power oversteer. I went flat through 4 and by the time we came out of 5 I was about 3 lengths back. I crossed my fingers and took the car to 9,000 in second and powershifted 3rd. I picked up another length and caught his draft a lot sooner. I carried 3rd until 8,000 and endured some detonation, grabbed 4th and went by him on the outside. Perry didn't make it easy as he ran me to the edge of the track and I kicked up dust as I went by, but he was fair and gave me just enough room. I crossed in front of him going into 8 and proceeded to make the RX7 about 20 feet wide through 9 and 10. Perry could have bumped my and spun me in 10, but I knew he was a decent guy and gave me the room. I also know that he was running for mthe Championship and wouldn't take a chance on crashing. I crossed the line 3 tenths of a second ahead of Perry and held him off for 8th.

A great time and now Dave and I have to figure out why we are getting detonation on long pulls in 3rd and 4th so I can use all the power the car has.

Eric

 

wow, great write up. I enjoyed seeing you battle that camero just before lunch. too bad that didnt quite work out. very cool though. I was looking forward to seeing what you could do in the afternoon too, but i was trying to help my friend with the rx8 that chucked a belt on the lunch pace laps we were doing. haha.

 

Sounds like your having fun again Eric

 

Well, we believe we know the cause of the power loss and the detonation. In checking the air inlet temp readings, we started at 60 degrees C in the morning session (ambient air was 7 c) and progressed to over 95 degrees C in the afternoon race. Keep in mind that because we don't have an airbox on the car yet we mounted the gauge on the front of the strut tower. The air intakes are a lot lower down and the bell's opening is less than 4 inches from the header bend.

This explains why it worked very well at Shannonville and in the morning session, colder air gave it more power and helped limit the pre-ignition. The afternoon race had outside air around 25 c, I had the car under heavy load so more than likely the car was breathing 150 degree C air.

Bingo!!!!!!!

Eric

 

Sweet writeup Eric, glad that the old engine is still hangin in!!

I'm seriously considering turning my stupid drag car into a road racer over the winter.....

 

I really feel like kicking myself in the head sometimes.

We have a much better understanding over what went on during the last race weekend with the car. It turns out that on the Saturday before the race I used a 5 gallon can of gas that was sitting in the garage from our last test day at Shannonville.

Just yesterday Dave and I were talking about making the changes to the car and getting it down to the dyno to make sure everything was correct. Sooooooo in talking with Dave it seems that one of the crew guys had purchased Premium fuel and that was what was in the can. Therefore after the practice session on Sunday morning, I added a second can of Regular Unleaded and diluted the octane a bit. After the first race I topped up again with Regular Unleaded and further diluted the octane.

Therefore the increased detonation was due to my steadily reducing the octane after each run. Add that to the other issues, inlet air temps and plugs and bingo it all works out. From now on we are only going to run the car on 94 octane and maxing the timing to recover power.

It just shows why you have to keep better notes.

Eric