Ok, time for a little update since there's a couple new things in the car.
I went to the PCA San Diego's Chuckwalla 2-day event this weekend. I used this event to test some new stuff on the car.
1. Front lip and splitter. Yay! Finally! I love the aero on the front! It balances out the car. I was focused on trying different settings of wing angle and suspension settings every time I went out. I think I found a balance that works for me. Car feels really good. (Someone has already looked at it and said I need canards…..c'mon gimmes a break here! ok ok i'll do it….
) One of the pix below shows how close the splitter gets to the ground in the Bowl at Chuckwalla.
Speaking of feeling good----PCA-SD requires racing suits if your car is modded enough. This weekend was 85-90º. I've only been wearing my fire suit sporadically since the cage went in this summer---mainly because I don't really enjoy wearing heavy flannel pajamas in the middle of a hot day……so----->
2. Ultra Chiller water cooling shirt system - I decided to buy the Ultra Chiller brand over Cool Shirt. One of the main reasons is that they have a canister that can securely fastened to my cage, versus an ice chest that's webbing-strapped into a holding tray. (check out the pix) Man, I really enjoyed wearing that cooling shirt. It works GREAT! No heat issues whatsoever when the system was on. I rather enjoyed hanging out in my racing suit. By comparison, I did end up having to sit in the car for 15 minutes with the engine off, so the cooling system was not running. I was miserable. The difference of when it is on and off is stark to say the least. And since I have a sedan, where we positioned the canister makes it the easiest thing in the world to add ice, remove water, etc. I don't even need to open the door. I just reach in the window and I'm good to go. Anyway, I am quite happy that I decided to give the cooling shirt a try. It does add one more thing to deal with though----keeping enough ice around.
Chuckwalla was a good test for the splitter. My main complaint about the car was that it would start to significantly understeer beyond 80 mph in wide rounders like Riverside at Buttonwillow, or Turn 2 and 9 at Big Willow. Chuckwalla is all about rounders. I went with a time-attack-legal 5-inch-from-the-nose-of-the-vehicle splitter. I think this will be enough to balance the car out. I have continued to change suspension settings to see what the net result is. I had the opportunity to run both beat-up old TD tires and brand new TDs this weekend. With new tires, the understeer was virtually gone. With old tires, you still get a bit, but nothing like before.
And I'm happy to report that I've run my first new PB with the latest new setup, along with new tires. I dropped 3 full seconds from my previous best at Chuckwalla CW----from 1:58.8 to 1:55.8. And this was in 85 degree heat. Put up some cool weather and get me a few more days at Chuckwalla and there's plenty of room to improve.
Oh----and I have my first picture of my wheel in the air after jumping off a berm! I am so LEGIT now!
