ESP Camaro

[DynoDave]

Excellent. When's the first event you want to go to with it?

[landstuhltaylor]

Originally the plan was to hit Toledo this weekend but I'm going to run out of time. The first national event for the car will be at Finger Lakes on May 17th-19th. I'm driving my friends Corvette again at the NJ ProSolo next weekend so my only possible change at a shakedown event will be the weekend of the 11th. I haven't even looked into what events are running then yet.

Tried to fire the car up tonight but the pump wouldn't even prime. Managed to track that down to a loose connection at the PCM. Still wouldn't start because I forgot to hook up the crank position sensor. Tomorrow I get to drop the starter to fix that and then hopefully it lights off.

[DynoDave]

Looks like the Ohio Valley Region SCCA has something.

Autocross

Saturday, May 11, 2019 Start: 8:00 am End: 5:00 pm

Solo Point Event 2

National Trail Raceway Hebron OH

The Buckeye Miata Club has an event on the 12th listed as an Autocross Points Event on their calendar. But no details other than that...could be the same SCCA event.



Mid-Ohio Porsche Club has nothing that weekend.



NE Ohio SCCA has one.

May 11 (Saturday)

Points Event #2

Confirmed. Register now!

Eastlake

Western Ohio SCCA also has one.

May 11	Points Event 1	Kil-Kare Speedway
Schedule/Info

Cincinnati SCCA also has one, though I'm not sure what an Evo event is.

05/11	Evo School Phase 1	Traders World West Parking Lot	EvoSchool.com
05/12	Evo Challenge	Traders World West Parking Lot	EvoSchool.com

So it looks like you have a few options.

[landstuhltaylor]

Thanks for looking! OVR is my local site but it's extremely bumpy and dirty. I'm more worried about breaking parts there than anything else. Traders World is about the same with fewer potholes and rocks. Buckeye Miata is a kart track and absolutely horrible in an Fbody that does not want to turn at speeds that low. I *think* Eastlake has absolutely horrible course designs but I would have to make sure it's the region I'm thinking of. Kilkare may be the only option. The only downside with Kilkare is the safety people there are sub-par, and it can be known to eat cars. Just have to have that in mind when I'm there I guess.

I did start the car for a few seconds but it didn't run long. I managed to pull apart the solder on one of the rear fuel injector wires so I'll need to redo that. While it was running it seemed like the lifters weren't coming up. I always thought it was odd the engine measured like it wanted shorter pushrods so I think the easy fix is going back to stock length. Luckily with Jegs being 6 miles away Ill have a new set delivered by the time I get home tomorrow.

[landstuhltaylor]

Welp, car was making great power until the first 6800rpm pull and now it has an awful noise. Sounds like either a spun bearing or a dead lifter. Oil pressure seems fine but the noise was getting worse the longer I drove it. I'm going to try to pull the valve covers to check the lifters this week. If it's a rod, I'll probably throw a new stock crank in it (eliminate the helicoil) and some forged rods and high compression pistons, then cam only. It will have to run CP then but I'm not sure I can justify spending money on an OEM bottom end.

In the mean time I'll be driving my roommates 2010 GT3 at the Finger Lakes tour this weekend, so it's not all bad.

[DynoDave]

Ugh! Sorry to hear that.

[landstuhltaylor]

Well some good news. Appears it was just a rocker arm bolt that backed out and started making a major racket. Tightened it back down with some threadlocker and all is good again. I also found a 40k mile 2000 LS1 for less than a grand so I'm going to pick that up as well and hold on to it as a spare for now. I'm still not going to drive it this weekend as I want to finish dialing the tune in more, but it does give me plenty of time to get the car ready for Bristol in July.

[farmington]

Whew !!

[TSTONE]

That's great news!!!

[DynoDave]

Excellent news. And a spare LS1 to boot. Nice. Is the LS1 an aluminum block?

[landstuhltaylor]

Yep. Came out of a 2000 Camaro. I was hoping for the 241 heads but it has the 853s. Oh well, still something worth keeping around. Going to be hard not to throw this and the spare T56 in the RX8 if it ever blows up.

[DynoDave]

Going to be hard not to throw this and the spare T56 in the RX8 if it ever blows up.

Oh yeah, very cool combo!

If you ever get tired of stubbing your tow on it (the powertrain), be sure to let me know.

[landstuhltaylor]

The GT3 is an absolute riot to drive. The car has zero setup time on it so it was far from ideal and quite a bit murdery, but that made it so much fun to slide around the course. It really needs to be set to factory ride height, corner balanced, and then have a lot more rear toe-in dialed in. We wanted to stiffen the front bar after day 1 but we didn't have the tools so instead we dropped the rear bar one setting. I was about 0.7 seconds back each day which I was happy with considering I made big mistakes and have never driven one before. The guys up front have 15 national championships between them.

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

[landstuhltaylor]

Just got back from Nationals last night, didn't go quite as well this year. The current gen Camaro is a much faster car.

I wound up in 1st after day 1 by 0.017 seconds over the new car, with all the same people I barely beat last year about a full second behind that. Day 2 the car was too loose and I was all nerves. I should have made a setup change but the grid was moving so quickly I decided to use that time to watch data and video as well as try to get back to the right mental state. Coned my first two runs and then got loose in the middle of the course on my third. I knew I had needed a perfect run and with just those bobbles I had already lost. Tried to hail mary the run and jammed the car harder into everything on the rest of the course and ended up hitting a cone right at the finish. Still ended up 4th in class despite carrying a cone on all 3 of my day 2 runs and don't regret it. Would much rather cone out trying to win on day 2 than put in a safe run knowing I could do no better than 2nd.

The 6th gen is a full weight stock motor car so while it is beatable with perfect runs now, it won't be if the prep is finished. Therefore I am going to prep my car for C Prepared this winter. It is the next highest prep level and I would have won it as-is if I had run the car there this year and was only 0.1s out of winning it last year. Trying to keep total prep cost to around $2500. I'll just remove as much weight as possible while keeping it CAM legal (needs a "finished" interior) and then put ballast where I want it to hit the 3000lb minimum weight. The engine will get a BTR stage 3 cam, I'll replace the front lower control arms either with spherical bearings in the stock arms or aftermarket arms, and I'll move the rear springs to a coilover setup. Other than that the car won't change from ESP trim.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hoGgQ74590

[DynoDave]

I still say congrats Devin. Running with 20 year newer cars using your own sweat and ingenuity is very impressive.