ESP Camaro

[landstuhltaylor]

I've seen all of those before. Not really worth it to me when all of this will be redone later. The black car runs CP where I plan on ending up eventually. Costs just go way up.

[landstuhltaylor]

Starting to lower the car more. Went down 3/4" and 50lbs in the rear, 1/2" front (front adjusted after the photo was taken). Will see how this does at the Grissom test and tune next weekend. Puts the ride height at 25.75" fender to ground in front or 5.75 to the front LCA bolt. Rear is also 5.75" to the body side LCA bolt. Obviously no accurate rear fender measurement any more.

[landstuhltaylor]

Front fender shot at 5.75" to the front LCA bolt. Min clearance is 2.5" to the torque arm tunnel brace. Haven't measured remaining bump travel yet but the car should only need 1.5" on most courses.

[DynoDave]

So....how's the season going thus far?

[landstuhltaylor]

Good and bad. PittRace was like 35F and raining so that was a throwaway event. Car got hit in the door maybe two months ago so it has a salvage title now, waiting to get it inspected. The week before the Finger Lakes tour I found out that was a month long wait, so I bought a beater $2000 craigslist truck on the Monday of the event, changed the fluids in it and installed a brake controller and borrowed a trailer from a friend all while being very sick. Had the thing ~120 miles before hauling the car 450 miles each way out to New York.







Because of it getting hit on the way to a test and tune I still had 2 year old tires mounted on the wheels. Was about a second off the pace on day 1 and made setup changes to be right on pace for day 2 despite the really old rubber. Finished in 3rd which was just one spot out of getting a new tire.

Week after that went to Peru for the Champ Tour on the fresher tires. Day 1 was not bad but I was still dialing the car in. Unfortunately on my last run of the day I got in the marbles on turn 1 and then drove with my head up my ass the rest of the run to end up 0.9 back. Day 2 I made another setup change and ran out front the whole heat. Had a big slide on the last corner that cost me 0.4 or so, but still made up 0.201 to the leader. Finshed in 2nd 0.6 back. That day 2 time was good enough for 2nd out of 277 cars on index, only beaten by Tom O'Gorman who is currently leading the TCA class in Pirelli World Challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTvNX9eJwvE

About to head to Bristol for two events over the holiday. The Mazda Speed6 will definitely have a big advantage on the low-grip bumpy asphalt site with lower speeds, but hoping to at least bring some tires home anyway.

[DynoDave]

Sorry about the troubles, but glad to see she's still super competitive.

Aren't those old GMT400 pickups just the best?

[landstuhltaylor]

They have certainly held up well. The headlights are garbage, the ride is a bit rough, and the AC could be stronger, but at the end of the day it's a $2000 truck. It was a huge gamble that it would make the 900 mile round trip but it did it with not a single issue. Sure it's only a 350 and 4L80E, but let it spin and it got me anywhere I wanted to go. 11-12mpg but that's fine by me knowing it can sit for months at a time with zero maintenance. I do plan on an H4 headlight conversion and refreshing the brakes but otherwise it should be a good cheap tow pig and Ikea/HomeDepot truck for the next 3-5 years.

Long term I still want a 03-07 RWD Ford 6.0 with an EGR delete but at this point the extra expense can't be justified. Still need to buy a trailer first too.

[landstuhltaylor]

Back from Bristol, Mazdaspeed6 was the car to beat as expected. Only 262 AWHP but it makes closer to 400 torque and is only 100lbs heaver. Walked away with the Match Tour win easily with a big advantage on the bumpy asphalt lot. I coned all my first session runs so carried a 2 second penalty into the other session. Ended up missing second place and a free tire by 0.010 seconds. I also managed to get within 0.1 of the Mazda during fun runs after he kicked my ass by over a second the previous day.

For the Champ Tour I was clean but 1.3 back on the first day, but Clint in the Mazda had a fuel issue crop up again and knock his car out. Day 2 my codriver said the car felt super loose halfway through his first run. We had corded the left rear tire. Nothing left to do but run it for the rest of the day. With the Clint hoping in a stock Mustang it was an easy win and two free tires. Fun courses and definitely worth the trip.

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Takeaways:
1. 2017 tires are still not the best, and corded ones are almost useless. Will be on brand new stickers for Nationals
2. Car was way too low. Front upper arms hit the arm mount and the torque arm hit the floor. Luckily nothing bent but the car needs to come back up. Works for concrete airports but not sites like Bristol
3. Compliance bushings in the lower arms are torn. Went from -0.1 toe for Finger Lakes to +0.5 degrees of toe after Bristol. Helps explain some issues. Easy to make the car much faster.
4. Made 45.5 runs over 4 days and burned through 95lbs of fuel. The car never skipped a beat.

[DynoDave]

Nice job!

[landstuhltaylor]

I think a lot of people already saw this all over Facebook, but for those who didn't I won the National Championship in ESP.

Day 1 the temperature was in the 60s so as a single driver I had a hard time getting heat in the tires. The were at least warmish for the last run which was good enough to be 0.570s out of the lead. Unfortunately that is a very big gap in this sport. The driver I was most worried about (PJ Corrales) hit a cone on his last run that was called in but never made it on the corner audit sheet. We spent the entire rest of the day figuring this out because the way the rules are written the audit sheets overrule all. Corner workers claimed they remember the car being clean, but all the spectators saw it as well as his codriver. In the end he would self-report the cone the next morning moving from 3rd (0.045 ahead of me) to 4th (0.406 behind me).

Day 2 was also cool and I wanted to get heat in the rear early so I did a big burnout at the line on my first run which worked really well. After second runs I was 0.442 out of the lead as everyone ahead of me was having trouble with cones. Last run I just went for it knowing people were in their own heads and dropped almost a full second. I was the first car in our class so I didn't get to hear the announcer until I got back to grid where I found out everyone behind me had hit cones or gone slower. PJ was second driver in his car and would need to drop almost a second to beat me and raw time faster classes, so all his buddies surrounded the car cleaning tires and doing everything they could to get it ready. He ended up coming up 0.255 seconds short.

[MP81]

Way to go man, I know it's been a lot of work to get there!

[GlennT]

Wow, awesome job! Looked real clean and real fast

And OMG that looks like so much fun!

[DynoDave]

That's fantastic Devin! Congratulations. That's quite an accomplishment.

The running course worked at 2:19 in that video would have distracted the hell out of me.

[landstuhltaylor]

That's fantastic Devin! Congratulations. That's quite an accomplishment.

The running course worked at 2:19 in that video would have distracted the hell out of me.

Oh it definitely did. I saw them when they were still putting the cones back and they just turned and sprinted away. Knew I was on a flyer so unless they were still on the wrong side of the cones I wasn't stopping for anything.

[JoeliusZ28]

Somehow i missed this, congrats man! very well deserved for all youve put into this.