Moving to Steguis Motorsports

I've decided to consolidate all my separate car specific blogs into a single umbrella so if you're interested in this content, please continue onto the new blog page at https://steguismotorsports.blogspot.com/

Thanks!
Steve

SCCA Solo National Championship 2019

Well after months of prep and car setup, it was finally time for the big show. This was my 7th trip to Nationals and one big difference from past years is that this time I was going to drive there in the competition car and not tow.

SCCA Solo Nationals - 9-5-2019
Photo by: GotCone

The first leg of the trip was pretty intense. We had so much rain that at one point I couldn't even see the car in front of me through all the spray even with my wipers at full speed.

Crazy rain - 9/2/2019

Eventually though the clouds cleared and we got to Iowa and it was nice and sunny. I convoyed out with James who was trailering his car and he was kind enough to bring my competition wheels/tires for me on the trailer so I could drive out on my OEM wheel with Continental DWS so the rain was no big deal.

Clear skies in Iowa 9/2/2019

We finally got to Lincoln, Nebraska, on Tuesday late afternoon. I was so tired that I just had a quick meal and got some rest. The next morning, I went to the nearby car wash to get her rinsed off. The ceramic coating is still doing wonders. A quick soap and rinse and she was back to being nice and shiny again.

Washing the car near the hotel 9/4/2019

My plan was to swap wheels and get tech inspection out of the way first thing in the morning so I could put the remaining required decals on the car before heading to the test 'n tune but it turned out that tech wouldn't be open until 1 pm so I ended up getting some practice in first. The only adjustment I need to make was an increase in front rebound by 1 click stiffer and upped the pressures to 32 psi front, 35 psi rear. She was feeling really neutral and controllable. I did an afternoon session too but failed to improve on my time. I couldn't tell if it was because of the car or all the concrete dust I was picking up in grid. Either way, I felt that doing more practice wasn't going to be helpful so that wrapped up the final day before competition.

Dusty test 'n tune grid - 9/4/2019

Day 1 of racing had us on the West Course. In grid, we had a nice variety of cars in STU which included EVOs, STIs, Focus RSes, Caymans, Corvettes, M3s and even a Mazdaspeed Miata. This is probably one of the most diverse grids at Nationals. The West Course was fun but didn't play to our strengths. There were quite a few 180 degree turns that were fairly slow and despite the Cayman having a good amount of torque, it wasn't as much compared to some of the competition. Combined with the taller gearing, I just couldn't accelerate out of corners like they could. The day ended with me sitting in 15 out of 27. The final trophy spot was 7th but the spread between 7th and 15th was only half a second so there was still a chance to move up on Day 2.

STU Grid - Day 1 - 9/5/2019

Day 2 of racing had us on the transition heavy East Course. This is where I could potentially make up time since if there's something a Cayman does well, it's transition. I coned my first run early on so I used the rest of the run to test for grip, slightly overdriving to feel where the limits were. On the 2nd run, I opted to do a safe run so I improved from run 1 only by a modest half a second but this time it was clean. For the final run, I was ready to give it everything I had. The first half was feeling really good. I felt my car placement was where I wanted and I was carrying more speed. Then, I misjudged my corner entry on the back left-hander. The car turned in almost too well and I went straight into a cone. There was no point in pushing the car further after that so I slowed it down and I'd have to end the day on my 2nd run's time. I did manage to move up a few more spots to 12th but still well out of trophies which was my goal for this event.

STU Grid - Day 2 - 9/6/2019

Was I upset or shocked? No. Frankly I'm even surprised I'm above mid-pack in an underdog car for the class. Also if I have to be honest with myself, unlike previous years I've been really chill all year. I've only done a handful of events and despite doing well in those including the ProSolo win earlier this year, I really didn't give it my all and practice and prep the way I normally would. The funny thing is that results aside, this has been my most fun Nationals to date. I truly enjoyed the drive out and back (who would'v thought GT2 bucket seats would be that comfortable) and with no real expectations for myself, I had no stress so while I'm disappointed I didn't do better, I'm also not heartbroken. Solo (autocross), is such an incredible sport. The level of skill you need to develop to be fast in only 3 runs each day at the national level can only ever be understood by those who have participated in it and I have massive respect for those that have done so successfully.

SCCA Solo Nationals - West and East Course run

The drive home was generally smooth but I did have two issues while I was out there. First, the frustrating P2196 and P2198 CEL is back. It seems to only happen if I let the car idle for a while. If I start the car and drive immediately like I did on the way home, I could go 1300 miles and never see the CEL go on. I suspect I have an exhaust leak again. The exhaust note has changed and I'm definitely hearing something different by passenger side header. I put the car on the quickjack but didn't see anything obvious so I'll have to have to shop look at it when it goes in later this month. The other issue was more of an annoyance than a real issue. The brake pad wear sensor light came up which I knew was total BS since I just got the brakes replaced on all four corners in June. Well, it turns out that the driver side rear sensor was routed behind the shock instead of over it which meant it was touching the axle boot and it eventually wore through and caused the open circuit that triggered the light. Since I'll probably be switching back and forth between street pads and track pads in the future, I opted to just bypass the sensor since track pads don't support the sensor anyway.

Doing a post-event inspection under the car - /9-9-2019

Brake pad wear sensor looped, soldered and heat shrink wrapped

I took all the decals off the car right after my final run but left the yellow stripes. Over this past week, it grew on me so I've decided to leave it on for now. I like that it adds a bit of character to the car without looking too over the top. Today,  I also put back the ducktail spoiler, my LED tail lights and the RS-style yellow door pulls.

Ducktail and rear lights re-installed - 9/9/2019

Yellow door pulls reinstalled - 9/9/2019

I also had PeeJ do a full hand wash to get all the nasty road grime off the paint. I don't think I remember seeing the OEM 19" Carrera wheels look that clean before. I don't plan to autocross Kay for the rest of the year so I'll probably leave these wheels on for the winter while I go and remove the OPR from the Advans.

So Clean...Thanks PeeJ! - 9/9/2019

So where do we go from here. Well, later this month she's heading back to Speedsport Tuning in CT to make her track "capable". I'm specifically saying "track capable" and not turned into a "track car" because it's not my intent to make a dedicated track car.. I want to have to option to be able to take her out to a PCA DE for fun anytime I want but I fully intend on still enjoying driving her everywhere else I want to go including autocross, mountain driving, road trips or whatever I feel like. There are just too many fun ways to enjoy driving and I choose not to have the option to not limit myself.

SoloNatsPrep - Racing Livery and Ensuring SCCA Compliance

Since I'm driving to Nationals instead of towing out this year, I had originally not planned on putting any decals on until I got there. However, after considering it some more I realized the last thing I want to do when I get there is to fiddle with vinyl outdoors in unpredictable conditions. I figured if I did it in the garage now I'd have plenty of time to make sure things lined up properly and give it adequate time to dry and stick properly. I got in touch with Mike Snyder and he made me a bunch of vinyls for me including some racing stripes that I thought would give the car a more aggressive look for photos.

Aligning the racing stripes - 8/18/2019

The first thing I did was to mark up the centerline for the car by laying down some painter's tape, measuring from both sides then drawing a line as my guide. I then started from the back, making sure I'd clear the "Cayman S" emblem and then making the exact spacing from center which was around 7 inches. Once I laid out the exact position, I sprayed the car with water so I could reposition the vinyl as needed. Normally you'd use soapy water but with the car fully ceramic coated, nothing really sticks to it so a spray of water was sufficient.

Laying down the stripes - 8/18/2019

I trimmed the edges with a blade and then wrapped it around so I'd have a clean edge. I think it came out ok, certainly good enough for photos. All these graphics are coming off when I get back from Nationals anyway so they just have to survive the next 3 weeks.

Stripes applied all the way to the rear hatch

The other decals were applied with equal care. I always get annoyed when I put on my magnetic numbers and they move around from hitting cones so they're all crooked in photos. Switching to vinyl for Nationals means I just won't have to worry about it. All I need to apply now is the SCCA front decal and Solo Nationals 2019 side decals and I'm good for tech. I'm glad I took care of this now though. It took a total of 4 hours to get the livery on the way I wanted and wasting that amount of time in Lincoln just wouldn't have been smart.

Fully livery on 

Fully livery on 

I also had to also return a few things back to stock to be fully legal to STU rules because they're not explicitly allowed. The major item was the duckbill spoiler. It looks good but unlike the other things I have to put back to stock, this one could be argued to actually provide an advantage (even though it really doesn't). Since I had the spoiler off anyway, I figured I'd extend the racing stripes to it as well so the rear is fully coherent.

OEM spoiler vs Duckbill

OEM spoiler re-installed with racing stripes applied

The remaining two items are trivial but I just didn't want to open myself up to protest. These are the door handles which I had changed to RS style door pulls and my tail lights which I had "upgraded" to LED ones purely for cosmetic reasons.

OEM tail lights back on the car

OEM door pulls once again

Since I was already working on the car, I finally installed a dashcam that I'd been meaning to install. I did a separate write up for it here so I could share it separately as an easy DIY.

Dashcam installed

Lastly, it's probably a bad idea driving out there on my "competition tires" just in case something bad happens on the way like getting a flat. This is especially true this year since the Advan A052s aren't heavily stocked so replacing them won't be that easy. I'm convoying out with James and he's trailering so he's conveniently bringing my Advans for me. I put on the 19" OEM Carerra wheels wrapped in Continental DWS. I don't really care if these wear out anyway since I don't plan to drive the car during the winter and they can double as my rain tire.

Back on OEM Carerra wheels for the road trip

With all these things take care of the only thing I have to do is load up my luggage and helmet and go. Only 15 days and counting until we depart...can't wait!

Install a Dashcam in a 987 Cayman

I've been meaning to install a dashcam in the Cayman for some time but just never got around to it since it's always a bit of a fuss trying to get the wiring tucked in nicely. I didn't want anything expensive or fancy with wifi. I just wanted a small camera that could record clearly and would loop recordings as necessary so I don't have to worry about running out of space on the SD card. I opted to go with an Aukey 1080p dashcam, 64GB Sandisk "High endurance video monitoring card" and a Meknic dashcam hardwire kit. This came out to well under $100 on Amazon.

Dashcam essentials

This hardwire kit was particularly cost-effective because it comes with an 11ft 2A 12-20V to 5V mini-USB cable and four add-a-fuse tape cables with 2A fuses for a lot less than if you tried to buy these separately. The first step is the simply remove the cover for the fuse panel in the driver footwell and remove the three screws holding the surrounding panel in. This will allow you to pull the carpeted panel surrounding the fuse box off by pulling out from the bottom towards the pedals.

Remove Screws

Carpeted cover removed

Now I had to find a suitable fuse to tap into. Looking up the fuse diagram, I found C6 (3rd row from the top, 6th fuse from left to right) to be most suitable. It's a 15A fuse if that helps you find it. This is for the rear window wiper which my car doesn't have but the fuse is still there. This is a switched power source so it's only active when the car is on so it's ideal unless you want to constantly power your dashcam even while parked. The add-a-fuse is perfect here since all you have to do is pull the fuse out, put the original fuse into the add-a-fuse adapter then plug the add-a-fuse into the slot where the original fuse came from. This will allow whatever accessory that was using it to continue to work except now there's a tap with its own fuse. In this case, the kit includes a suitable 2A fuse already installed.

Add-a-fuse installed and USB cable hooked up

Now take the red wire from the mini-USB adapter kit and plug that into the add-a-fuse and wrap it in electrical tape. It's a nice snug fit so you don't even need to crimp or solder it with this kit. For the ground, you'll see a 10mm bolt that holds the fuse box to the chassis. Loosen the bolt, then put the ground in between and tighten. Now before you do anything else, plug the USB cable into the dashcam and make sure it works when you turn the key on.

We have power!

You can now disconnect the USB cable fro the camera. The rubber weather stripping by the door can be pulled out and you can run the cable up the A-pillar without even removing it but just tracing it through using a plastic pry tool. Make sure you give enough slack so you can run it all the way to wherever you're going to mount the camera then again just sneak the cable into the headliner with a pry tool.

Dashcam mounted and operational

Dashcam mounted and operational

Once you're comfortable everything works as it should you can now zip tie the extra cable together and tuck it in between the OEM wire looms and reinstall the carpeted panel and the fuse box cover. Obviously, the hardwire procedure is the same for whatever dashcam you prefer to buy and you can even use a similar procedure to supply power to a radar detector. I changed the settings so the screen shuts off (but still records) after a minute so I'm not distracted by it being on all the time. I kind of wish I used an even smaller dashcam without a screen but it is nice to easily see what the camera is seeing in case I need to adjust the angle or validate that it is in fact recording.

SPEEDiagnostix Used Oil Analysis

Last month, we changed the oil and I got the used oil sample sent out to SPEEDiagnostix for analysis. The oil had been in there for 7 months and 3000 miles and obviously several autocrosses and as far as I know, this is first used oil analysis for this car by anyone (including all previous owners). She passed with flying colors so this is a very good and comforting sign that the engine is quite healthy. The viscosity is about the same as the reference number for DT40 for a fresh bottle and no fuel dilation would indicate good sealing of the piston rings which is also a good indicator that the bores aren't scored. The only ding I got was for oxidation which would indicate the need for more frequent oil changes. I think we changed the oil at just the right time but I think going forward I'm going to change the oil every 6 months regardless of mileage (at least while I'm on Driven DT-40) to keep the oxidation levels low.

Used Oil Analysis Results -  Page 1 - 8/6/2019

Used Oil Analysis Results -  Page 2 - 8/6/2019

Used Oil Analysis Results -  Page 3 - 8/6/2019

Final Testing Before Nats

We're still a month away from Nationals but there really aren't any events from now until then that'll work for me so today was the final shakedown for Kay. I really had no goals today other than to make sure the updated alignment and sway bar fix all felt good.

NNJR SCCA - 8-4-2019

Overall it was a successful event. The intense heat was really getting to me but held it together long enough to grab the win. You can tell I was being much more conservative since I didn't hit a single cone all day long. The car was a bit pushy. I increased the front rebound one click and that made it more neutral but I didn't want to make any major changes since I'm going to be changing some of these settings when we're on concrete anyway. I'd like the car to be a bit more loose and I can do that in Lincoln with no concern about poles and curbs.

Results - NNJR SCCA - 8-4-2019

NNJR SCCA - 8-4-2019

I've done everything I can to be in the best position for Nationals. I don't think I've left anything on the table as far as setup is concerned. Thankfully, I won't have to drive all the way there on my competition tires as James offered to transport my wheels so I'll be driving there on my Continental DWS tires which will end up being my rain tires in case we get poured on.

There are 29 drivers registered for STU at Nationals with only 2 of them being Caymans. I'm obviously one of them and the other one is a 987.2 so it's going to be an uphill battle. It's such a huge mix of cars and drivers it'll be anyone's game. I'm just hoping to eek out enough for a trophy position on this, my 7th, trip to Nationals.

Pre-Nationals Maintenance

There's only one event left that works for me before Nationals so I wanted to take the opportunity to get some maintenance out of the way and double-check the alignment before that to make sure everything is as expected. I also wanted to get the car on the lift to inspect everything that's been done to the car this year so I took Kay to SJF Performance.

Fresh Motul Competition Gear FF 75W140 - 7-28-19

First up was to flush out the old transmission fluid. I haven't changed the fluid since the OSGiken diff was installed in early February of this year. That was about 3000 miles ago and the diff was starting to whine a little bit more than usual. The old fluid came out pretty clean so that's always a good sign and 3 quarts of fresh Motul Competition Gear FF 75W140 went in. The diff is now back to being quiet and the transmission feels really smooth.

Sampling the old engine oil - 7-28-19

Sample of used oil for SPEEDiagnostix - 7-28-19

The engine oil is also only about 3000 miles / 7 months old but I plan to drive Kay to Nebraska for Nationals and not tow so I want to make that trip on fresh fluids. I've also put enough miles now to get a valid used oil sample. I've used Blackstone Labs a few times now for Bumblestook but this time I opted to give SPEEDiagnosix a try. Their work with LN Engineering and specifically Porsche engines are particularly interesting and I'm hoping they can give me much more insight than a more generic UOA (used oil analysis) lab can provide. We also put in a fresh 8.5 quarts of Driven DT-40 oil.

SPEEDiagnostix

I wanted Steve to double-check the sways bars to make sure there's no binding or preload and he noticed something odd on my driver side rear lower control arm. The swaybar end link seems to have been hitting it and left several gashes. Upon further inspection, the swaybar wasn't centered properly (off by well over an inch). He recentered it and re-greased the mounts and we're now back in business.

Rear bar endlink hitting LCA

Rear swaybar re-centered

Next up was to verify the alignment. The front was actually really good despite Speedsport Tuning doing string alignments. The camber was spot on but the toe had drifted a little. The rear on the other handed needed a bit more tweaking. The camber had slipped a bit and the toe was uneven. SJF easily took care of this and we were back to the specs I wanted with a bit of toe-in in the rear and a smidge of toe-out in the front for better turn in. The sheet also shows the secret to why Porsches turn so well despite having a Macpherson strut up front, look at all that caster from the factory!

Ready for Alignment - SJF Performance - 7-28-19

Perfect alignment once again

Now that everything is well sorted, we'll test everything out with one final local shakedown and then get ready for the big event.

Oh, I also picked up a ScanGuage to help me see what my true coolant temps are from the OBD2 port. The factory gauge just shows 175F when "warmed up" at all times and I wanted something more accurate. I'm not sure I'm going to leave the gauge at this location but it's very useful. Interesting, in 93F weather and cruising around, coolant temps are already around 210-215F.

Scangauge E

Maintenance Updates:

Mileage: 36,515
- Oil change - 8.5 quarts DRIVEN DT-40, Napa Gold oil filter
- Trans Fluid Change - 3 quarts Motul Competition Gear FF 75W140
- Re-greased rear sway bar mounts