Project Update for Oct 1, 2011: Our showing at the $2010 Challenge event was not what we had hoped for. The concours showing for our little crapcan was actually our best score, which was weird, but our autocross times were off the mark - we finished 7th overall. This wasn't too surprising, since we finished putting the car together and took it on its first test drive about 15 minutes before loading it onto the trailer and taking it to Florida. With a whole 2 miles of street testing, the fact that it made it through 4 autocross runs at all was a miracle, but it handled like an ox cart with a wheel missing. Being 2 seconds back from the leader was NOT what we had desired. Then the drag race potion, with drivetrain breakages; First a half-shaft, then 3rd gear in the trans, with only a coasting 18 second 1/4 mile time that went in the books. That was embarrassing.


Left: Costas saw me rolling up in the truck/trailer. Right: I got the car unloaded while he went and grabbed lunch
We left there vowing to return in the same E30, but to TEST LIKE MAD for the next 12 months before the 2011 event. For us, dedicated autocross testing has always made for good showings at the SCCA Solo Nationals, and years where we didn't test our cars made for poor showings. So while we meant well, life got in the way. After thrashing for the previous year to get the car built, we took a few months off of the GRM project in late 2010. As 2011 rolled around we found another $100 CraigsList T5 and put it in the car, and then we did a local autocross with 2 drivers, where we cut one of the 18" Hoosiers due to excessive body roll. Some spring changes later the car worked better at two track days, where it really shined, except for the fact that I blew up another T5 at a NASA Time Trial. Now I really started to hate the car, more than a little. It sat for months, completely ignored.


Cones? Check! Timing system? Check! Radios? Check! Data + video? Check! Let's test...
We then procrastinated a good bit longer, and the past 6 weeks were burned trying to get another working T5 and working clutch hydraulics in the car. Where does the time go??? So we missed the last six weeks of scheduled local autocross events, where we had planned on testing various front toe settings, tire pressures, and rear spring changes. There's really not many adjustments we can play with on this low-buck car, since we didn't have money for things like adjustable front camber or caster, or adjustable shocks, or fancy things called swaybars. We had still hoped that this limited array of variables could help get the car tamed a bit through the cones. There was a local autocross scheduled for this weekend (a scant week before the $2011 event) we could have entered. Can we learn that much in just 4 runs at an autocross?


The normal array of test equipment and vidcams we use for autocross testing was slapped on the E30
Since this isn't the FIA, and we do not have an "in season testing ban", it was time to make up for our lack of autocross events in the car with a dedicated test session. I made a phone call, loaded the trailer, and then bombed out to a "secure test location" on Friday afternoon that has 62 acres of asphalt. Costas met me there and we had a short little Vorshlag Test-N-Tune event, which we've done many times in the past. We stocked the Vorshlag trailer with our 50 traffic cones, my new FarmTek/Polaris wireless timing equipment (thanks Dave @ SPS!), Costas' DL-1 data logger & ChaseCam 520 line lipstick camera, and my Sony 1080P hi-def vidcam, sound meter, tire pyrometer, camber gauge, and some tools. All of which combined are worth far more than the crapcan we're testing, but its the same testing stuff what we always use.



I tweaked/marked the course after driving it in the '92 B4C Camaro - wow, it loses a LOT of front camber under load!
We brought an extra set of "test tires" that we would do most of the testing on - the pretty 18x11" CCW wheels and 285/30/18 Hoosier A6 tires, robbed from my 2001 BMW E46 "DSP car". We used these same wheels & tires at an autocross in the E30 last March, as well as the two days of track days at MSR-Cresson the same month. Using those for the bulk of the day's testing would allow us to make our worn 275/35/15 Hoosier throw-aways make it though a few laps at the end of the day (to scrape off the old rubber) and hopefully just 4 more runs at the $2011 GRM Challenge event.


Left: It was a bit dirty when we started. Right: Ran with the hood off, to keep an eye on "things"
We spent the first hour wiring up the cigarette lighter receptacle (oops! forgot to do that, my bad), then Costas mounted and hooked up the DL-1, the ChaseCam, and the Sony 1080P vidcam. Costas, who pretty much always drives around on R compounds, showed up in his '92 1LE/B4C Camaro. We didn't add in the extra camber he normally does for autocrossing, but it was still a great way to check the course for gate size and flow...and also for a time comparison. We set up a "30 second course" that I then tweaked, driving thru it in the B4C on Kumho VictoRacers. Then I marked it, set-up the timers, and got our radios fired up. That was a huge improvement on previous tests - radios inside and outside of the car, with the outside guy calling out times to the driver while making hot laps. This made for instant feedback and quick driving adjustments.


High resolution, close-up views of the tire loaded in a corner tell you a lot about camber & tire pressure
Over the course of about 2 hours of actual testing we found a little over 3 seconds on this 30 second course, from changing things like driving style, tire pressures and rear springs. A sizeable chunk of time came from the "Hanchey trick" - running the car in a higher gear, to limit wheel spin (which was ridiculously excessive in 2nd gear). I guess our $100 used LSD has seen better days.



Left: I spent much of the afternoon swapping springs. Right: A screw left us with a flat in our allotment of "test tires"
We crammed about ten autocrosses in 2 hours - Costas put in 43 laps in the E30 - and had zero reliability issues with the car. It was nice to be able to quickly change rear springs, simply leaving Costas in the car for 4 minutes while I swapped them, and then away he went. We did the same for tire temps and most other quick checks, to maximize seat time.


Costas finally donned his helmet and we installed the hood at the end of the day
At the $2010 GRM event we had nothing but trouble, including a wiper motor that caught fire, brake lockup, a massive push, crazy body roll, too much wheel spin, and all of the drivetrain breakages, so having no trouble over 43 runs was a good omen. I probably swapped the rear springs back and forth about 8 times, using 2 different rates, and did about a dozen tire pressure checks/changes. The 18" tires picked up a huge screw and then a flat at lap 31, so the handful last laps were made on the 15s. All in all it was a good afternoon of testing, and hopefully our showing at next weekend's $2011 Grassroots Motorsports Challenge event will be better than last year's, at least in the autocross portion. Fingers crossed.
Was this amount of testing excessive? Well, when you are a shop that specializes in suspension set-up & sales, this is pretty much what you do regularly. We damn sure didn't want to go to the event a second time with a completely untested car. The drag race? If I can make the halfshafts and the transmission stay together for 1320 feet, who knows? We have an all new exterior theme we're applying tomorrow so hopefully that will make the car show portion better, too.


Left: Video compilation of in-car and exterior views. Right: External car ChaseCam video
To sum up, regardless of what you are doing, you are likely going to learn a LOT more during testing than while competing. We sometimes get caught up setting deadlines around and going to races, and thrashing and learning next to nothing at the actual events. But when we go through a dedicated test, we always learn a TON and more than we'd learn in a half-dozen events or more. Testing...it is not pretty, not glamorous, and usually not as cheap, but the knowledge gained is always worth it.
$2011 GRM Challenge Oct 7-8
Look for live updates on the Vorshlag Facebook page (sign up here!) during the GRM event, next Friday (car show + autocross) and Saturday (drag race).
Thanks,
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