Patrick, Robert and I posted a lot in the Solo forum. Look for the thread started by Robert.
However, some comments. We did not cord a tire. There is a pic that because of the cement dust and/or light, looks like something is wrong. It was not. The tires were fine, but we did not some higher temps and more wear on the outside corner of the Hoosiers. We also noted that they don't work well when hot.
We also tested the A048s against the Hoosiers. The A048s are a wonderful street tire and will work well for most applications. But they are still not a Hoosier and we were back 2-3 seconds on a 35 second course. PART of that is me insisting on driving the car like it had the Hoosiers on it. More finesse would have dropped some time. I kept feeling that the grip in the A048s was not there, so I was often "behind" in my steering inputs.
Robert and I both did a lot of 35 second runs, neither of us feeling like we extracting a lot out of the car. We both have a lot to learn. Funny, I don't normally feel that way in strange cars, but this was more like learning my shifter kart. It's a different animal. I finally got down to a 34.6 second run, and that was not a great run. Leslie in the Z-06 was doing some high 33s I think. So we were less than one second back. We definitely would have been kicking A-Stock butt with the drivers being talented (heck... everyone there were National drivers) such as Jason Isley in his C5 Corvette. I think it's a done deal that the car will be placed in Super Stock. There was one member of the SEB watching and paying some attention I think. A new car with drivers not used to it, with zero prep time, should not dominate a national level driver and car.
The question is, can we change some things to make it 1-2 seconds faster in Super Stock? I am not sure, but it seems possible. The car did somethings very well, and some others... maybe could use improvement. Always fun to experiment. I use the word fun... but I mean painful.
I think the looseness can be tightened up a little. Perhaps because we are running 205 tires on the front and 225s rear. It seems very possible to stiffen up the front bar, either by just moving the endlink attachment points in the stock bar by drilling some newer (closer) holes. Or maybe contact Saner Performance about making a custom bar for us. If I do that, and assuming it would fit, I would look at a hollow bar to reduce some weight.
It also looks like we might benefit from some more negative camber to help the tires work, specially up front.
Maybe some more toe in on the rear... but I will wait on that until other changes get made.
I think we were hitting bumpstops and that caused the car to act oddly. We are going to look into custom shocks from Guy Ankeny. This will mean a lot of shock dyno time and testing. This could take months for testing
. It will also take a bit of money, which means it may not start that soon.
Wife will be getting surgery. Some good news and some not so good. I had to cancel flying off to Kansas and will not be scheduling anything for the next month or so that will not allow me to care for her. I hate missing nationals and showcasing the car, but stuff happens.
