It's finally Spring and with the weather a comfortable 60F, it was off to give Kay her first test in full STU trim. I frankly wasn't sure what to expect since I made so many changes over the winter plus I'm super rusty so at the very least I was hoping to scrub the tires before next weeks test 'n tune and at most I was hoping to find some settings that would give me a decent baseline for that test.
MSNE Autocross - 3-24-2019
Well she definitely turns in better this year as I can attest from the many (very many) cones I hit today. I got one clean run I think (video below). She was initially a bit loose and I dialed in a bit of understeer as her starting point for next week. Overall she feels really amazing. It's incredible what proper suspension, alignment and a real differential will do to a car. We've got a lot of work left to do though. I'm happy she at least feels in the ball park of where she needs to be. Once these tires are properly broken in, I can really try to extract some speed. I also have to adjust my driving. My timing was way off with her new cornering abilities and when I did back off a bit to get a clean run, I was totally off my marks. Looking forward to really learning how to drive her now.
Video Notes:
- Need to make sure my helmet camera is angled upwards
- Don't put the mic too near to the exhaust, it clips audio badly (video uses the helmet mic instead as external exhaust mic was unusable)
I also got a chance to put in the new Antigravity Group-48 (9.6lbs) battery. It's really insane how light it is for its size and cranking power.
Antigravity Group-48 battery - 3-24-2019
Last year I also thought I had crazy valve issues with the engine after one event but it turned out to just be dried up leaves that got into the intake. I figured I'd prevent that this year because I'm already paranoid enough with everything related to the engine of this car so I put on Zunsport side grills while I was waiting for our heat to start.
Zunsport side grills - 3-24-2019
I'd say overall it's a successful start to the season. Car feels pretty awesome and everything is working as it should. The driver (me) definitely needs lots of improvement and getting comfortable driving the way Porsches are supposed to be driven. If you trust the car and plant the throttle, it really hooks up nicely out of corners and rotates very predictably. I think the car is a bit oversprung for Lot J at the meadowlands but it might fare a bit better in Lot E. The bumps just really upset the car. It almost feels like I'm bottoming out the rear in some of the more severe bumps. From my experience with Bumblestook though I think the spring rates are going to be perfect for concrete and Nationals is really our goal so that's where the setup focus needs to be.
