OK weekend report from our 2016 season-opener...it was a rollercoaster of a weekend.
On Friday I got the car over to the dyno, and encountered a similar situation to what
@Tucson302 noted in his Time Trial thread--my car read a bit lower than I expected. My best runs were down about 15hp and 10tq across the entire rev range after installing the Kooks headers. I previously had 410whp on this same dyno in very similar weather conditions, but now she only put down 395. I was expecting something in the 420-435hp range, so needless to say I was very confused. I don't think these numbers were accurate as I've seen this install on many B302s and every single one gained power.
Saturday's practice session went well and I was pleased to have no issues whatsoever with the new brake package. I did remove the 1/2" spacers up front and switch back to my original 1/4" spacers as there looked to be some tire rub after practice. The car certainly didn't feel down on power, and I was able to reach the same speeds at the ends of the straights despite over-slowing into corners with the new brake package. I am thinking even more that I just got some weird data at the dyno. I'll go back in a couple months to check again. No CELs or knock, AFR looks solid.
During qualifying I put the car on the pole for the race group and ran just shy of a personal best time at this track (Wild Horse Pass East).
I got a great start during the race and gapped the field by about half a lap.
Unfortunately, in Lap 10 of 24 I made a bad decision when passing lap traffic and punted another car off the track. That took the other car out of the race and left my steering angled when traveling straight ahead. I was ashamed by my stupidity. That combined with the damage to the steering prompted me to retire from Saturday's race. The collision also bent both of my driver's side wheels, dented my door and rear quarter and front fender. I was able to massage the front fender back into shape but the door and quarter will have to wait until summer. Fortunately the door still opens and closes just fine. The driver of the car I punted talked for about 20 mins and I am working with him now to make sure he will be ready to run next month's event.
Filling out Body Contact Report (BCR) forms:
I expected the steering issue to be a bent inner tie rod for sure, but they were completely undamaged. I was very confused. Then I noticed the driver's ball joint APPEARED to be bent. I removed it (thankfully I have Watson-ized my LCAs and ball joints) and sure enough it was pretty badly bent. Fortunately, I carry a spare ball joint and within 20 mins the BJ was replaced and the steering was confirmed straight! The rear axle was a bit pushed over from the impact by about 1/4" so I will have to tackle that later. We took the A7s off the car and put on the practice set of wheels with R7s for Sunday.
Sunday morning I was able to shake the car down in the practice session and everything (thankfully) felt great, at least good enough to race.
During qualifying I was again able to put the car on pole despite the incidents and damage, but there were some ST3 cars within a couple tenths of my time.
I ended up getting a great jump at the start and pulled away again! This time I was much more conservative moving through lap traffic. The race ended about 3 minutes early under red flag conditions after one of the guys in my class blew an engine and put oil down on the track, but I took the overall victory!
I wasn't planning to run Time Trial this weekend but decided to do it and try and win a couple tires to offset some of my damage costs from the weekend. I had to butt in on
@Tucson302 's victory on Sunday by doing so but will be more respectful of that for the remainder of the season. We did get the opportunity to do some lead/follow laps together after I laid down a couple 10/10ths laps for tires.
Things were looking up! At least until I was loading the car into the trailer. I caught the splitter on the door of the trailer and the splitter shattered into about 30 pieces.
@captdistraction and I are getting ready to make some locally here as replacements and she'll be back to normal in a couple weeks; I have ordered some Race Ramps as well.
Not the weekend I was hoping for but the brake package did work out great. Everything about the car worked out great, really--just not the driver.
That's racing!