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223
420
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Southern California
Taking some time to update this since I haven't in a few months:


February 12-13, 2022, NASA - Willow Springs
The most memorable part of this event was hanging out with @PaddyPrix where he got to watch four idiots struggle to light a fire. Both days were warm, I was on used tires so I was sliding all over the place, but seat time is seat time and I got to experiment with car control. Overall a win because nothing broke, but traffic was pretty bad and I forgot my sunscreen.

March 26-27, 2022, NASA - Auto Club Speedway
This was my favorite event to date. Got put some faces to names (looking at you @Ewheels and @67GTA), meet new people (One of them that introduced himself after he saw the TMO sticker on my car. If you're reading this Bill, it was great meeting you and I look forward to seeing you at the next event whether you're in your Jag or your Mustang!), and learn how to wrap a door thanks to Pat's patience. A small part of me needed redemption after I went four-off last time and ruined my diffuser and I got just that.

Every session, after a few guys realized there's no trophies for HPDE of course, I was going noticeably faster than the time before. Pat is definitely to thank for that as I studied his videos, and he also gave some killer tips. I managed to bang out multiple 1:49s which seems to be decent times for TT3 as I head that way. @Ewheels also convinced me to get dyno'd and weighed while we were there and it is looking like I can probably get signed off for TT at Buttonwillow. I'm sitting at 433 avg. HP and 3,984 pounds with driver and 3/8 of a tank so I shouldn't have too much of an issue slotting into TT3. I'll need to figure out some of the details though because I know our region's chief instructor, Fulton, is running A7s on a 350r. I don't expect to just hop in and start winning though, quite the opposite. I want to get my ass kicked to really stoke that friendly competitive fire. The event photographers grabbed some great pics too:
Mar-27-2022-Nasa (Sun) [[78b2d54f67]] - HPDE 3 plus 4 - 940 Roval - AC1_0685_Mar2722_949AM_Cal...jpg

Mar-27-2022-Nasa (Sun) [[78b2d54f67]] - HPDE 3 plus 4 - 230 Turns 13 14 15 - AC1_1354_Mar2722_...jpg

Now the bad news. The left side of my splitter came apart, for lack of a better term. It's evident in the second picture. It looks like the lowermost plastic rivets came out, allowing the splitter to sag just enough that I caught it on a curb and tore it away from the bumper in my last session, separating the upper and lower part of the splitter in the process. It also tore the push-in nuts out of the K-member.

20220331_122716.jpg

Minor damage only, I'll have the tab fixed and be back at it in a little over two weeks at Buttonwillow. I took Friday prior off to finally make tech on Friday so I can wake up on Saturday with enough time to complain about my lower back hurting from sleeping on the ground. It's a very important part of the process after all.
 

PaddyPrix

If breakin' parts is cool, consider me Miles Davis
725
1,081
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
Under 3 Years
San Diego
You've got some rather tough competition in TT3 battling both the Chief Instructor, Nat'l Director (Ryan / Blue GT350 #41), Tom, Eric, and putting down some competitive and respective times means that the student has almost become the teacher. Talk to Johnny Mac about a TT promo, grasshoppa.

1648833566364.png
 
223
420
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Southern California
I'm long overdue for updating this so here we go.

At the last NASA event at Auto Club Speedway I was signed off to join the cool kids in TT. Miraculously I took first place in TTU on Sunday which was cool! I've had so much help and support these last few months from others in the region, especially with some pro tips from our regional TT2 champ @PaddyPrix. I'm greatly looking forward to summer wrapping up so it's cool enough to drive again. Until then, I've made some other upgrades and made some progress on a passion project. Onto the car!

Last year I had originally planned to hit HPDE 4 this year and get signed off to TT next year. That timeline was accomplished much sooner than I thought so I've pulled the trigger on the fir set of aero mods. I'm waiting on a Klaus Composites swan neck wing for the car, which I'm quite excited for.
1659644611587.png
I managed to score some GT4 hood vents from Kohr which I should be receiving the invoice for any day. I've also been working on a front aero package with some canards and a plywood custom splitter with some side plates from @AJ Hartman. I'm still experimenting with how I'm going to mount this. I'll post more as I figure that out.
20220706_200814.jpg
Also the second he's done with his carbon airbox cover, I'll be purchasing one of those. Since the GT350 has a direct path to the airbox behind the grill, I also cut out a path for the air to get past the restrictor plate.
20220702_200737.jpg

Now, onto the passion project part of this. I plan to keep this car indefinitely as it was the first car that stopped me in my tracks. Because of that, I probably fall down too many rabbit holes when it comes to finding parts for this thing. I taught myself a little bit about CAD early this year and printed out some test vents for the fenders. I became really obsessed with the project and wanted to make sure what I was doing was actually going to provide a benefit so I reached out to Kyle Forster at JFK Consulting (Kyle.Engineers on YouTube, former F1 aerodynamicist for Mercedes-AMG) to do some modeling based on the design and some CFD of the final model. I plan to have these produced in carbon fiber, but here's a sneak-peak and spoiler alert: they work.
render5_corr (1) (1).png

More to come soon!
 

PaddyPrix

If breakin' parts is cool, consider me Miles Davis
725
1,081
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
Under 3 Years
San Diego
I'm long overdue for updating this so here we go.

At the last NASA event at Auto Club Speedway I was signed off to join the cool kids in TT. Miraculously I took first place in TTU on Sunday which was cool! I've had so much help and support these last few months from others in the region, especially with some pro tips from our regional TT2 champ @PaddyPrix. I'm greatly looking forward to summer wrapping up so it's cool enough to drive again. Until then, I've made some other upgrades and made some progress on a passion project. Onto the car!

Last year I had originally planned to hit HPDE 4 this year and get signed off to TT next year. That timeline was accomplished much sooner than I thought so I've pulled the trigger on the fir set of aero mods. I'm waiting on a Klaus Composites swan neck wing for the car, which I'm quite excited for.
View attachment 77970
I managed to score some GT4 hood vents from Kohr which I should be receiving the invoice for any day. I've also been working on a front aero package with some canards and a plywood custom splitter with some side plates from @AJ Hartman. I'm still experimenting with how I'm going to mount this. I'll post more as I figure that out.
View attachment 77971
Also the second he's done with his carbon airbox cover, I'll be purchasing one of those. Since the GT350 has a direct path to the airbox behind the grill, I also cut out a path for the air to get past the restrictor plate.
View attachment 77973

Now, onto the passion project part of this. I plan to keep this car indefinitely as it was the first car that stopped me in my tracks. Because of that, I probably fall down too many rabbit holes when it comes to finding parts for this thing. I taught myself a little bit about CAD early this year and printed out some test vents for the fenders. I became really obsessed with the project and wanted to make sure what I was doing was actually going to provide a benefit so I reached out to Kyle Forster at JFK Consulting (Kyle.Engineers on YouTube, former F1 aerodynamicist for Mercedes-AMG) to do some modeling based on the design and some CFD of the final model. I plan to have these produced in carbon fiber, but here's a sneak-peak and spoiler alert: they work.
View attachment 77974

More to come soon!


Please, please, don't make a fuss, I'm just plain yogurt.
1659675788678.png

That part looks super fancy though. Question for you or Kyle when you do your next modeling, but curious the difference for the fins being exposed vs recessed. As I've done the season half with just exposed holes and the front hood louvers, I can tell the difference, just curious what it'd yield. Perhaps it's something more dictated by the series and their rules, but you'd see the CanAm cars of the 60s and 70s with them recessed, and 90s/00s were exposed. Is it simply heat extraction vs downforce?
 
539
687
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
SoCal
I'm long overdue for updating this so here we go.

At the last NASA event at Auto Club Speedway I was signed off to join the cool kids in TT. Miraculously I took first place in TTU on Sunday which was cool! I've had so much help and support these last few months from others in the region, especially with some pro tips from our regional TT2 champ @PaddyPrix. I'm greatly looking forward to summer wrapping up so it's cool enough to drive again. Until then, I've made some other upgrades and made some progress on a passion project. Onto the car!

Last year I had originally planned to hit HPDE 4 this year and get signed off to TT next year. That timeline was accomplished much sooner than I thought so I've pulled the trigger on the fir set of aero mods. I'm waiting on a Klaus Composites swan neck wing for the car, which I'm quite excited for.
View attachment 77970
I managed to score some GT4 hood vents from Kohr which I should be receiving the invoice for any day. I've also been working on a front aero package with some canards and a plywood custom splitter with some side plates from @AJ Hartman. I'm still experimenting with how I'm going to mount this. I'll post more as I figure that out.
View attachment 77971
Also the second he's done with his carbon airbox cover, I'll be purchasing one of those. Since the GT350 has a direct path to the airbox behind the grill, I also cut out a path for the air to get past the restrictor plate.
View attachment 77973

Now, onto the passion project part of this. I plan to keep this car indefinitely as it was the first car that stopped me in my tracks. Because of that, I probably fall down too many rabbit holes when it comes to finding parts for this thing. I taught myself a little bit about CAD early this year and printed out some test vents for the fenders. I became really obsessed with the project and wanted to make sure what I was doing was actually going to provide a benefit so I reached out to Kyle Forster at JFK Consulting (Kyle.Engineers on YouTube, former F1 aerodynamicist for Mercedes-AMG) to do some modeling based on the design and some CFD of the final model. I plan to have these produced in carbon fiber, but here's a sneak-peak and spoiler alert: they work.
View attachment 77974

More to come soon!
I love me some fender vents! Let us know when these are available
 
223
420
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Southern California
Please, please, don't make a fuss, I'm just plain yogurt.
View attachment 77993

That part looks super fancy though. Question for you or Kyle when you do your next modeling, but curious the difference for the fins being exposed vs recessed. As I've done the season half with just exposed holes and the front hood louvers, I can tell the difference, just curious what it'd yield. Perhaps it's something more dictated by the series and their rules, but you'd see the CanAm cars of the 60s and 70s with them recessed, and 90s/00s were exposed. Is it simply heat extraction vs downforce?
I'll reach out to Kyle with this question because he'll do a far better job at explaining than I can. He had a run in the queue to compare an open hole vs vent in place. My tiny little brain can nearly guarantee a lot of it has to do with managing the direction of the flow but I'm not aerodynamicist, I just stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night. I had originally created the design with three exposed louvers and everything behind that was recessed. My thoughts there were the exposed would act as an air dam, for the vents in the rear to maximize extraction. Kyle significantly improved upon that design. I told him function should be the most important aspect. Some actual data I can provide is CFD is showing a 36.6 lb. gain at 100 mph in the front and about 10 in the rear (I can calculate this today). That number will increase as splitter effectiveness increases. This was modeled with AJ's 5 inch splitter. I'd like to have this wind tunnel tested as well once I get them in production.

thumbnail_1655789092977027_2074089648.pngthumbnail_1655789000750006_2074089648.png

Overall, my goal for this is to offer these to the community after finding a producer that meets all my standards. I just want to provide the best vents possible with proven numbers behind them for a community that has been so incredibly helpful and accepting. I feel like 90% of the time I order a product, I get screwed somewhere in the process with fitment, shipping, customer service, etc. Apex has been an exception to that rule because they have been fantastic. I'd like to replicate my experience with them for anyone that is interested in these in the future. I'll apply as a vendor here as well as soon as I have a physical product.
 
223
420
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Southern California
That part looks super fancy though. Question for you or Kyle when you do your next modeling, but curious the difference for the fins being exposed vs recessed. As I've done the season half with just exposed holes and the front hood louvers, I can tell the difference, just curious what it'd yield. Perhaps it's something more dictated by the series and their rules, but you'd see the CanAm cars of the 60s and 70s with them recessed, and 90s/00s were exposed. Is it simply heat extraction vs downforce?

Following up on this with some answers and numbers! Straight from Kyle with my edits italicized:

"The protrusion is beneficial, it allows us to use the high energy flows above the car body to drive more mass flow up from the low energy area in the wheel arch. If they were fully recessed we wouldn't be able to do this."

"Yep, open hole is actually pretty potent it turns out! Not hugely surprising based off some of my other work that I've done on this type of car before. It's an extra 2 points (0.02 sCz, roughly 5.5 lbs) of front downforce to run the louvres vs an open hole, and a 2 unit (0.002 sCz) drag penalty (some of that may be CFD error). So, not a big gain, but it is a gain, and would definitely be helpful in categories where you aren't allowed to just run a huge hole."

In the future, I want to have this wind-tunnel tested and of course I'll provide those results here. I'm all about being as transparent as possible.
 
223
420
Exp. Type
Time Attack
Exp. Level
3-5 Years
Southern California
Since I'm installing hood vents before the next event, I needed something to block off the airbox. I originally bought some plexiglass but hadn't got around to actually mocking things up. That's when @AJ Hartman delivered an awesome solution for exactly what the hood vent guys need.
20220815_204703.jpg
20220815_204603.jpg
20220816_171902.jpg

I've bought many pieces of carbon fiber across several cars and must say that this is without a doubt the nicest piece I've ever had. Fitment is flawless and it has a nice low design. What's great is that working with AJ is also incredibly awesome. I've had a few vendors reply to my messages weeks later (one time even a year later), or just not at all. AJ responds multiple times in the same day. I can't say enough about the work he puts in and his craftsmanship. Not to mention he shows the entire process to us as learning material. 10/10 experience.
 

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