continued from above
I also wanted to note that as badly as the Traction Control system has behaved it has mostly only happened to me and Costas when driving this car - Amy is a much smoother driver and it never faults on her.
We will test this new ABS/Traction Control module at the USCA event this weekend (on street tires) and at the Track Guys TWS track event the weekend after (on sticky tires) and I will report back with results after autocrossing and tracking this new M-2353-CA module with those vastly different grip levels.
Back to Saturday's TT Event...
So after the AdvanceTrac issues in TT session 2 and 3 and with the weather getting much colder, I sat out the 4th and final TT session on Saturday. Ended up being a good call as very few folks set their fastest in that session and we saw lots of "offs". I took pictures of the TT group, watched the AI/CMC crash-fest races, and took pictures when Costas was out in the Blitz group. Troy Messer eeked by my best time in his 3rd TT session in TT1, and I ended the day with the 2nd fastest time out of 29 cars in the TT group. And I think it was the 3rd fastest time for the entire day of all NASA race groups, with Costas getting a 1:17.3 in qualifying for the SU race (he was on some 3 weekend old, harder compound tires). That was weird and lots of people thought so as well, but I guess it was just a good day for the 3800 pound pony car. What was funny was I put two stinkin wheels in the dirt on that lap and the AdvanceTrac was going bonkers! I was excited about Sunday, hoping to beat that time - but who knows what tomorrow brings? Would the faults and CELs get worse on Sunday? Would it rain and slow us all down? No idea.
We had a great dinner provided by NASA Texas for everyone that night with killer BBQ cooked by one of the CMC racers, but it was SO cold we had to move indoors to eat. NASA Texas had a new thing that night where they handed out trophies for wins that day and track record certificates when a record was broken.
I picked up those trophies and print-outs for the TT3 win and new TT3 track record as well as for several of our friends/customers who couldn't stick around for the party.
Costas won TTU, set that track record, won both Blitz races overall and won SU class both times on Saturday. Vorshlag customer Eric Johnson won TTE and set the class record, his first class win, so he was very happy with that. Long time Vorshlag tester but first time NASA TT racer Doug Worth did his first TT event in his E36 M3 and won against the "E46 Mafia" in TTB by a couple of hundredths and set the TTB track record, but days later it was taken away after his classing sheet was rechecked came up one point short for TTB class. He has since received a dyno re-class and with 10 more pounds on board is TTB legal for the next event. Bummer.
It was close, and I didn't find out for about 5 more days, but there ended up being a car moved from TTB to TT3 class (sorry Doug!) so we ended up with 5 in class for Saturday, which meant I scored two Hoosiers for that day's win. Whew! That was good news, because I pretty much ruined one of the brand new (and expensive) 345mm rear tires in that spacer snafu. Not having any of our crew or Amy there made it more stressful than normal, and I really missed all of them that day. After a a couple of plates of food and few beers I made it back to the hotel and tried to get some sleep.
Sunday March 9th - NASA TT Day 2
Sunday dawned with Daylight Savings giving us more light but stealing an hour of sleep. I was at the track by 7:30am, got ready for TT for the day but skipped TT session 1 because it was 29°F indicated -
stupid cold and well outside of the A6 tire's performance envelope. I went out in TT session 2 gridded in P1 at 10:30, and the sun had just started to peek out of the clouds. I had some nice clear track in front of me and with temps in the 40s I ran a first lap of 1:18.2 and a second lap of 1:17.310. As usual the AdvanceTrac was faulting BADLY the entire time, turning itself back on and applying brakes in that first lap. I think the car sees the g-loading and my spastic driving and calculates "Danger! This car is crashing!" It was blinking lights, applying brakes and FREAKING out. The last 4 corners on my best lap of the weekend and the damned REAR BRAKES were on the whole time. The engine was straining but I kept the throttle matted and cursed my way through that 1:17.310 lap (see in-car video from those two laps, below).
That time was a half second quicker than Saturday's best and a second and a half quicker than the January SCCA Club Trials lap on 315mm Hoosiers, so the new tires were working despite the AdvanceTrac system fighting me the entire time. Frustrating laps, but I was happy to reset the track record (the car's 10th standing NASA TT3 track record) and ended up being fast enough for another win with 7 in class that day.
Indicated 470°F front and 350°F rear brake caliper temperatures were a bit alarming
The brakes worked well this weekend but I got them REALLY hot, as shown in the
Alcon caliper temperature indicators that we placed on each caliper. This is a standard data acquisition trick, but I learned the value of it from Costas in January at the NASA MSR-H event. So I picked up a packet of these adhesive strips and the results were a bit startling. The 470°F degree front caliper temps were the most alarming and we will need to address this before our next high speed track event. Again, we were running with driver and ballast at over
3800 pounds (much higher than most S197 racers) and seeing speeds and lap times that are probably atypical for this chassis.
Like many S197 racers we are using a single a 3" brake duct hose coming from the fog light openings right now but we had just re-routed and lengthened these hoses to avoid the 335mm wide front tires at full lock (see new routing, above). I fear that the new cooling hose routing (now located inboard of the splitter's rear mounts) with tighter bends in the hose is causing some additional airflow restriction we weren't seeing before. The rear calipers even saw over 350°F, which was a tick higher than expected. We will replace these Alcon indicators for each event and monitor the max temps reached on each caliper and possibly add a second 3" hose (or move to a 4" hose) up front and maybe even add some under-car ducting for the rear brakes. I have an idea for that which will tie into the new rear bodywork nicely and discretely.
We've run multiple brake cooling hoses to the same corner on other cars we've built before, like this C4 Corvette above. That one used a massive inlet duct, air passed through the frame rail then was diverted out into two duct hoses: a 3" hose routed to a custom brake backing plate for the inside of the rotor and a second 2" cooling hose pointed right at the caliper.
continued below