Sports Car Club of Vermont

MX5 Driver wrote:

brownMINI wrote: But, having watched Dave G, Jeff C, and Cliff C (among others) pull away from me at Tremblant in turns 1-4, there's hope that some improvements can be made.

There is an easier fix for this you know.......
Zoom Zoom Zoom.. Join us, you know you want to.

I wasn't going to say there is a common denominator there.... BUT

Since Tim did, its ok!

Zoom Zoom

Mr. Bridgestone wrote:[
I wasn't going to say there is a common denominator there.... BUT

Since Tim did, its ok!

Zoom Zoom

I mentioned those three since their cars are close to mine in weight and power.

Besides, I think "love" beats out "zoom zoom" for the lame catch phrase award.

Dang. As long as I've had my Miata, and Jason has had the brown MINI, our cars have been very close in times no matter where we have run. Just when I thought my car was finally faster, now Jason has to go and get another go-fast part.

A month ago I went and bought a pair of slightly stiffer rear springs with the plan of dialing out some understeer. I was thinking about waiting until after Watkins Glen to install them, but of course now this just means I'll have to work hard to get them on before the event.

I'll be happy to help you install stuff, Jason! Then we need to have a group buy on corner weighting. I know it's been discussed before but I believe the venues that offer this in VT are pretty limited. Ultimately all you really need is four accurate car scales, though.

skivittlerjimb wrote:Then we need to have a group buy on corner weighting. I know it's been discussed before but I believe the venues that offer this in VT are pretty limited. Ultimately all you really need is four accurate car scales, though.

I found a guy locally here in Middlebury that will do it. He's a circle track racer who teaches automotive technology at the high school. Before he started teaching he had his own shop; I was a loyal customer for years. He's very good, though the quality of his student workers is of course a perpetual unknown.

I'm planning to set up an appointment for myself sometime in the next 2-3 weeks. If people don't mind the idea of students learning on their cars, I can ask about doing a "group buy" deal on corner weighting.

Brings up a good point... Why not just buy a set of scales as a club? I know I wouldn't mind using them once in a while. They could be borrowed from the club (signed in and out), and only be available to those who bought in. If someone who didn't initially "buy in" wants to use them, they could rent them from everyone else for an agreed upon fee.

Cause lets face it, they are too expensive to justify for individual use. Although I have considered buying some bathroom scales that go up to 400lbs (since the locost hopefully won't weigh more than that per corner).

The coilovers have arrived



KW variant 2 coilovers with upgraded springs - KW Racing springs, 60mm diameter for the front so there's more negative camber available. The "normal" springs are a wider diameter and hit the strut towers at around -1.75°, these springs should let me get all the way to -3.0° if I want. And these springs go through a tougher QA process by KW than the ones that normally come on the variant 2 coilovers.

Wow..... a lot of progress. I think you might be able to break a minute now.

Coilovers are on.



The tie rods are stuck pretty badly. We were only able to free up one of them, so we did the front alignment by only adjusting one side - which puts the steering wheel off center. I guess it's time to get some new tie rods installed.

It looks like we goofed up when setting the rear camber... there's a visible difference between the two sides, and using the little level app on my iPhone this morning showed -2.2° on the driver's side (what we wanted) and -4° on the passenger's side

I think I can work my way through that adjustment in the parking lot, but if anybody has a nice level (maybe even covered from the rain) place I could work some evening this week, that would be nice (hint hint).

I'm hoping to bring the brown MINI to NMHS this weekend (the 25-26) for some skidpad practice so I can see how the new suspension works.