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So Terry are you bringing that BAD BOY ;) to the 2009 OLOA. Also what about the 2009 Grassroots Ultimate Track Car Challenge. 

 

Peter

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T3 S2000 #61 CFR OSgiken/Hoosier Tire
2002 996GT2 with a few mods. OSgiken/Rennsport Systems/Moton/Team Cannon Fodder 2010 OLOA project. NASA TTU Solo XP

P. Lier:

So Terry are you bringing that BAD BOY ;) to the 2009 OLOA. Also what about the 2009 Grassroots Ultimate Track Car Challenge. 

 

Peter

Yes, we'd like to make it to OLOA in the Evo (still rounding up sponsorship) but this car is far too slow for UTCC. For the GRM event we're either going to bring our LS1 powered BMW or just tag along with one of our customers, that has a GT1 car.

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Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
$2010 GRM Challenge E30 V8 + E46 DSP Autox Build

When are you going to test the bars?  I am assuming you will use both front and rear.  Will be interesting to see how you like them with the coilover set up.  Have you thought of a rear bar upgrade only to start?

After looking at all of the many options available, Hanchey just contacted Cobb about anti sway bars and we'll likely go pick them up this week (along with their high flow catalyst). We're going to put them on the front for sure and probably both ends soon.


Left: Rear bar looks easy to change. Right: Front bar = notsomuch

The front bar doesn't look like fun to remove/replace on the EVO X but even with 450F/550R #/in spring rates it still needs help with roll control. We are going to up the front spring rate as well before doing one final test, then taking the entire suspension off and sending it to a magazine for one of their test cars. We have a new setup (5000 series Inverted ASTs) coming for our EVO to test with very soon. We're already testing 5100, 5200 and 5300 inverted shocks on a number of cars and the testing is going VERY well. We should have 5100s on the shelf for the EVO 8/9 and EVO X soon.

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Terry Fair - www.vorshlag.com
$2010 GRM Challenge E30 V8 + E46 DSP Autox Build

Wow, nice looking coilovers and camber plates!!!!!  ;-)

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2006 GS National Champion
2007 GS National Champion....Runner up lol
2008 GS National Champion
2009 BSP National Champion....Runner up, lol again, although, not so funny lol

The Vorshlag Crew had a fun filled track test day on Tuesday.  A magazine we work with was in the Austin area working on a Tech article, so we had asked them to drive the Vorshlag EVO X for a possible future article.  They finished up their testing on time and had Tuesday morning free.  Our good friend, Andy Hollis, is a member at the new Harris Hill Road country club track in San Marcos.  We had a magazine writer, a track, and a car.  Road trip!  


Left: The magazine tester talks with Andy. Right: Heading out on course


Seeing as the EVO build is supposed to be a "do-it-all" project, we decided to make the 251 mile drive down there in the EVO versus trailering it down there.  We've had the Dunlop Star Specs on it for a while - they are doing fine and wearing well, with several track days, many autocrosses, and 6000 street miles.  They are a great tire if you want to "do it all".

We left Dallas at 5:30AM, arrived 5 minutes late in San Marcos at 10:05, unloaded the car and got started.  The EVO's onboard GPS Navigation led us directly there (for once).  We had added Cobb sway bars to the car last week and had not tested with them on yet.  Also, we didn't have time to set the camber trackside for the initial drive by the magazine writer, as his schedule was pretty tight.  It wasn't really crucial since this was just a brief test drive.  We weren't trying to set fastest lap (yet) - more on that in a bit.  After a brief photo shoot, airing up the tires and removing our wares from the car, we were off.  The car was a little pushy for our liking, but there wasn't time to really dial the car in for him.  


The Harris Hill Road course has excellent pavement, big elevation changes, and lots of room

Everything went well and the comments were positive concerning the ride quality and handling.  Keep in mind it has to be daily driven, autocrossed, and track driven which is a challenge in the EVO. We were a little disappointed that the car didn't handle up to our track standards out of the box, although it wasn't a surprise.  We had not had the chance to get on the track since getting the AST 4200 suspension installed plus the new Cobb bars.  We had autocrossed it with the ASTs, but that is a complete different driving style and camber/shock setup.  After the magazine writer had left we put in several additional sessions in the EVO, playing with camber & toe, shock settings, tire pressures and sway bar settings.  We were able to get most of the push out and the car was extremely neutral when the tires were cool.  In a few laps the weight of the EVO just overpowered the narrow 245mm tires.  We know it would improve considerably with 275mm rubber.  When the tires overheated it would push, and the DL-1 data showed it in lap times.  It would slow down a second or more after the first few laps.  We saw as high as 1.21g lateral and 1.12g under braking, however, even with the skinny tires.  


These pictures were with the "street" camber of -2°. It got a lot faster at -4°

Thanks to Chris Fleming at Cobb Tuning of Plano, who helped source new Hawk DTC-70 brake pads for the track testing and helped with the swaybar install at their shop.  With these new pads braking on track was MUCH improved.  Even though you're not supposed to drive them on the street, we took the car down there with the track pads on it.  We just made sure our stops were all hard and fast on the highway, hehe.


The horses in the background liked the EVO's exhaust note

You can see in the pictures the car still has some body roll.  We plan to go up in spring rates to help combat this. It rides so well now that I'm confident we can revalve the shocks, go up in spring rate, and still maintain good ride quality.  We asked the track management what a good time at Harris Hill was for their clockwise 1.8 mile course.  They said in a street car a 1:35 is fast, anything 1:30 or less is really fast.  By the end of the day we were running 1:30 laps according to our data logger.  We were happy with the results and know there's more time in it, especially with properly sized track wheels/tires.  We'll be running it at a NASA Time Trial event in two weeks and a BMW Club event after that, so we'll make some tweaks and go back for more.  Stay tuned!


Fair in the Miata: "Its a bit different than driving our V8 powered BMW..."

As a nice bonus, H2R let Terry drive their club's track prepped Miata (NB).  It was equipped one of our competitor's coilovers on it so it was nice to get an on-track comparison.  He was "just going to do a lap or two" on the almost corded race tires, but had a blast and stayed out lap after lap.  Of course he said it needed better shocks, ha. Driving the lightened Miata on 225mm R compounds is "too easy", yet still lots of fun.

The folks at Harris Hill were great and they have a fantastic Country Club road course and driver's facility. If anyone that lives near Austin or San Marcos hasn't been out there they need to look for a DE event there and go (and join - we were there on an open "member day" and had the place completely to ourselves!) We're thinking of renting the track in the future and coming down again to test with some AST customers - it was well worth the 3.5 hour drive from Dallas.

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Brian Hanchey
AST Suspension - USA

Wow those look nice... Hope ours look that nice!

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1999 Civic Si SSC (sold)--- officially a car whore!
2003 Mini Cooper S --- Runs with that other organization

The bigger question is did Ann let Andy take the M Roadster out for a spin.  :-)

 

Peter 

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T3 S2000 #61 CFR OSgiken/Hoosier Tire
2002 996GT2 with a few mods. OSgiken/Rennsport Systems/Moton/Team Cannon Fodder 2010 OLOA project. NASA TTU Solo XP

P. Lier:

The bigger question is did Ann let Andy take the M Roadster out for a spin.  :-)

 

Peter 

Troublemaker.  

--Andy

Andy Hollis:

P. Lier:

The bigger question is did Ann let Andy take the M Roadster out for a spin.  :-)

 

Peter 

Troublemaker.  

--Andy

 

I resemble that remark. :-)

 

Peter 

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T3 S2000 #61 CFR OSgiken/Hoosier Tire
2002 996GT2 with a few mods. OSgiken/Rennsport Systems/Moton/Team Cannon Fodder 2010 OLOA project. NASA TTU Solo XP

Magazine writer? Magazine writer?!!!!

 Thats Per fricken' Schroeder man!! PER FRICKEN' SCHROEDER!!

 Or, as we refer to him , Senor` Boosted' Knuckles

......Ok Ok, its more appropriate as Kim's husband, or Stig's dad.

 JK, nothin' but love Central Florida Region's Per.

 

 

Last night we were doing some "clean up" projects.  I had a chance to throw the stock MR front strut on the shock dyno.  Pretty interesting plot really.  I did a run at 15 inches/second.  This is a common "full sweep" people tend to want to see.  It actually is completely unrealistic in the real world.  There's no such thing as 15 ips in rebound so why measure it?  

So I did a sweep at 5 ips as well.  Notice how different the plot is on rebound (the negative side).  Very little hysteresis and more progression AND zero or very little rebound at slow velocities.  That's where you need rebound on turn-in.  This curve has almost the opposite shape of all high end shocks out there where you have high rebound forces at very slow speeds and a digressive shape to the curve above 5 ips.  5 ips (or less) is more realistic as to what you see on the track or street and where you should look for performance.  We've tested some of the low cost overseas coilovers where they made zero rebound force till 4 ips.  That's the difference with high end shocks.  Bistein makes good shocks and probably gets stuck with specs the manufacturer wants to meet liability and other requirements.

We recently purchased a potentiometer for testing (shock pot) to prove this in a real world situation by using our data logger and driving around on our test loop.  We've got some really good pot holes, washboard bumps, and turns to show what your car is really doing on the street.

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Brian Hanchey
AST Suspension - USA

I had a really interesting morning I thought I'd share.  Late last night Fair and I decided to install a new spring rate package for this weekend's events.  Saturday I'm taking the car to a NASA Time Trial, Sunday "the Fairs" will be running the car at an SCCA autocross in STU,  a good mix for testing.  After seeing all the body roll at Harris Hill we decided to go from 450/550 lb/in to 700/800 rates.  Now the car had slight understeer with this first combination, but I attribute some of that to running a skinny, worn out street tire versus the balance AND the nose heavy platform that the Evo is doesn't help.  So if we fix the front, it's possible that we fix the issue.  We don't like to change the opposite end of the car if we don't have to, I.E. fix what's broken.  Most of the time you'd think more spring rate would make that end push more, but sometimes that's not the case.  As a side note, we'll be switching to Yokohama AD08s in late April, running AD07s in the meantime.  We have always loved Yoks for their R Compound-like turn-in and have had a 1st and 2nd place at Nationals on them too which doesn't hurt.  

I drove the car home last night and it definitely felt aggressive to say the least, but not unbearable.  I still want a suspension that I can drink a Starbucks in.  Call me a snob, but I gotta have my coffee.  :)  I had to meet AJ from Performance Speed Tech (shop at MSR) this morning to deliver a part for a customer.  We met in downtown Fort Worth which is 65 miles one way for me.  I figured it might be a good test for the new package.  I revalved the front slightly and did nothing to the rear.  The rear has been working well on soft settings so no need to go up.  The front we were running at full stiff so with the increase in rate I upped the rebound valving.  North Dallas to Fort Worth is a great test for a suspension.  Concrete side streets, new concrete highways, old concrete highways, new asphalt and old, VERY old asphalt highways make up the trip.  Not to mention downtown Fort Worth is a disaster of construction.  You get a mix of every bump you could ever imagine.

The trip to Fort Worth was comfortable, still aggressive.  Definitely not coffee cup worthy.  The car was pitching more than I like, and it was pretty obvious the rear of the car was the likely problem since I had them full soft and 6 clicks on the front.  After meeting AJ I turned the rears up 5 clicks and drove back to our shop down the same roads.  It was a night and day difference!  The car was super smooth, obviously stiffly sprung but you could definitely drink your favorite beverage now.  

Why do I bring all this up?  Aside from the fact that it proves that monotubes can do a great job of controlling high spring rates without beating you up, it comes back to all the chatter we hear about critical damping.  Yes, the theory and practice of trying to find the "perfect" suspension via calculations works, it can never beat the actual practical testing on the street.  With a simple turn of the knob, I was able to match the front and rear frequencies of the suspension without too much effort.  I reached in the trunk, turned two knobs, and was done.  I can probably tell you that 700/800 won't be the perfect combination in a spreadsheet (I didn't calculate it), but with some tuning and testing, it might end up being very fast.  We'll see this weekend.  :)

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Brian Hanchey
AST Suspension - USA

hancheyb:

Why do I bring all this up?  Aside from the fact that it proves that monotubes can do a great job of controlling high spring rates without beating you up, it comes back to all the chatter we hear about critical damping.  Yes, the theory and practice of trying to find the "perfect" suspension via calculations works, it can never beat the actual practical testing on the street.  With a simple turn of the knob, I was able to match the front and rear frequencies of the suspension without too much effort.  

You didn't change the ride frequency.  You changed the damping curve to better match the ride frequency.

 --Andy

Andy Hollis:

hancheyb:

Why do I bring all this up?  Aside from the fact that it proves that monotubes can do a great job of controlling high spring rates without beating you up, it comes back to all the chatter we hear about critical damping.  Yes, the theory and practice of trying to find the "perfect" suspension via calculations works, it can never beat the actual practical testing on the street.  With a simple turn of the knob, I was able to match the front and rear frequencies of the suspension without too much effort.  

You didn't change the ride frequency.  You changed the damping curve to better match the ride frequency.

 --Andy

 

Gotcha, I didn't mean to say I changed the natural, undamped frequency of the suspension.  I adjusted how quickly the rear recovered from a bump by using the shocks therefore matching the front.  After the changes we made a certain Civic doesn't have a prayer.  The car "woke up" with more spring rate this weekend.  :)  700/800 worked well at MSR-C and Pennington Field.  More later.

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Brian Hanchey
AST Suspension - USA

hancheyb:

 

Gotcha, I didn't mean to say I changed the natural, undamped frequency of the suspension.  I adjusted how quickly the rear recovered from a bump by using the shocks therefore matching the front.  After the changes we made a certain Civic doesn't have a prayer.  The car "woke up" with more spring rate this weekend.  :)  700/800 worked well at MSR-C and Pennington Field.  More later.

Hah!  We shall see.  Especially with what I now know about tires.  Next A&M event (two weeks from now).  Be there!

--Andy