Robert (fc3s91) and I are both autocrossing tomorrow at a practice day at El Toro. We've both taken very different routes to speed but it should make for a fun little rivalry. Unfortunately he's showing up with significantly more tire than I am plus I'm a newbie and he's the Adam's track record holder.

I am however, about a hundred hp up on him so we'll just have to see if the course lets me use it! Should be a fun day however it goes down.

Come on NEMESIS, what you got!?
-Joel

 

Hope you got a damn good helmet.

 

showem wat you got joel lol

 

Joel. Prepare yourself for an *** WHOOP'N!!!!

Read my signature.

 

Wished I could go, but my car is still missing the front diff mount

 

^^ come to my bbq

 

Im bring my A game!!!!

 

Good luck man. I'll be rooting for your V8 to win from here.

 

Sorry to disappoint you V8 guys but the rotary has prevailed once again. I had a blast with you guys out there. NEMESIS we will me again. LOL

 

Wait, I think I just did.

 

If what frijolee says is true, I'd like to see an experienced autocrosser drive his car with better tires for a better match.

 

Tis true... Robert brought too much damn tire to the game and I couldn't quite keep up on my well worn 235 section RA1s. Still, good times were definitely had by all. It's just so much more fun to be out there with friends.

For the record, I did manage to trade top times with Robert at a couple points troughout the day but in the end he beat me out by about a 1 second on one course and about 2.3 on the other. I could definitely get on it a lot harder coming out of a corner (the only thing that keep this duel interesting), but I just couldn't touch the transition capabilities of serious rubber in an autocross compound.

We shall meet again Nemisis... I'm glad you made it out today amigo.

 

Do you have power steering Joel?

 

Power steering is for sissies.

j/k

Actually using a depowered rack for autocross, while less than ideal, really hasn't been that bad. I'll switch back at some point mostly because parallel parking is a chore but it's a low priority for me.

It's kind of like when you see a half decent movie that you thought was going to be horrendous and really enjoy yourself because it exceeded expectations. Same thing here. I thought no PS was going to be complete terrible for autocross and was pleasantly surprised to find it's not so bad. So far I can handle it pretty well.

No excuses from me. Two cars, two drivers, two different setups (both with pros and cons) and at the end of the day I got bested by a good friend with a bad *** car. Nothing to complain about there.

 

PS This never was intended to be a truly fair comparison... It's all in good fun.

Like I said, there are many ways to achieve speed. Robert has a really nice car and made a couple recent changes (reinstalled rear swaybar, clutch type diff) that have been working out great for him.

I'm stoked that seem to have the reliability side of a v8 setup pretty well sorted so now I'm just focusing on getting smooth while driving with agression (got seriously loose a couple times in the afternoon sessions ). Given that I'm pretty much out there to learn (this was my third autocross) I'm just using whatever tires I have handy at the moment. Serious rubber will get added in a year or two.

 

Glad to see everyone had some good safe fun, that is all that matters in the end.

 

Robert, Joel, thanks to both of you for the rides yesterday.

I think if Joel had more tire and a bit stiffer suspension, he would really have something for Robert.

Robert's powerband felt very smooth, and he was able to get the power down more effectively, and seemingly with less effort. Robert's car handled very well. He has spent a lot of time on the car and it shows - his car is dialed in. I don't see how a ~2900 car with ~320 WHP could get around that track much faster.

Joel's car obviously had more low and midrange power, which somtimes was a challenge to put down for Joel's puny tires. To some degree I think the softer suspension helped keep the car planted on exit, but on entry made the car push.

To be honest, both cars are very impressive. I can't wait to get my LS1 swap done and throw my car in the mix.

 

All that matters the we had a blast. I was glad to give a ride to you guys. Nice to meet you guys.
Thanks Robert

 

Joel, you should try out a real manual rack. Steering effort in mine hasn't been an issue even on very tight courses.

 

I don't think Brismo would agree

 

Dude Brismo is hairy as chewbacca. dang!!!!!

 

they removed the pic i had of brismo!!

 

I'm running the 17:1 rack and IIRC the manual is 20:1... There were already a couple points on track where I had to grab an extra handful of wheel so I'm not sure I'd want the slower rack. Effort hasn't really been an issue but I'm definitely aware I can't whip it back and forth as fast as some folks. That said, losing some weight on the nose is certainly a good thing so staying with some sort of manual version has it's upsides too.

With a rotary the big danger is heat managment so you really have to watch both coolant and fuel issues. The v8s big weakness seems to be oil plus you also have to be careful about mechanical over-revving.

Either one can be fine if you keep them well sorted. The rotary mostly scares me because there's so much crap to take care of and so many ways it can go wrong particularly with a big turbo in the mix. That said, you can't take maintenance for granted in a v8 either as obviously a few of us have found out the hard way.

 

whats maintenance?





You should see my chest The women love it.

 

I didn't know there was autocross @ El Toro. Maybe next time I'll come and join you guys, do you have to be a member of SCCA or whoever organizes it? I would also like a ride along with Rob and Joel. Please Any video/pics to share? Nice to see both wankel and pistons can play nice together!