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Season opener race report - Siltech widetrack front suspension.


Davemk1

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2 hours ago, Andrzej said:

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Davekm1 looks like You can drive really smooth but just just on the grip limit and that pays off, not aggressively loosing grip etc, just just and with prediction what will be next, for sure looking forward far. That I think is main factor. And really soft tyres , lightweight car... as for aero not sure , for such speeds it needs to be huge like on formula student cars, to make effects like 2-3 seconds on one minute course. 

 

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Thanks for the reply.

 

I would never say that the aero I have on the car is the reason it does well. However I would say that the aero is just one of 100 things that together make the car quick and easy to drive at the limit. In my mind it's an "accumulation of incremental gains" kind of thing.

 

My aero package consists of a front splitter, fully enclosed chassis around the engine, a rear diffuser and the spoiler on the rear deck. These items all together weigh a total of 7.5 lbs (3.4 kg) and even with that I'm still under the minimum weight allowed and I need to add ballast to get to weight.

 

The aero therefore doesn't hurt performance due to its weight and I feel confident that it adds little to no drag as a whole (front splitter, enclosed underbody and diffuser should all reduce drag while the spoiler would increase it some) so there should be no downside in having it.

 

I can say with 100% certainty that high speed lift is reduced. On very quick courses I had understeer due to lift before the aero and now I have none whatsoever. So it helps there. I've heard some say that these cars are as aero as a brick and therefore why bother trying to improve it. I think the exact opposite way - I think that because the aero is so very bad that it's really easy to make major gains there.

 

Does the aero help on low speed courses like I ran the other day in the church parking lot? I'd say the answer has to be yes? The question is how much? To that I'd say probably not much. I think of it as being one part of a detailed package that all together add up to make the car quick.....having very precise alignment, the ideal shock settings and spring rates, the ARB being just right, corning weighting optimized, swirl pot for fuel to allow a near empty tank (to reduce weight) with fuel starve, the fabric cover over the passenger side compartment, +100......etc. Does any one of these things make the car 2-3 second faster than a car that has a much better power-to-weight than mine (my friend's Atom)? No....certainly not. But if each little thing ends up making it lap 0.1 seconds quicker that will all add up to make a winning car.

 

I love the little details and know from my bicycle building business that all the little things add up to be one big thing in the end and that's how a winning package is put together.

 

It's really fun stuff.

 

dave

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Wouldn't find a church with a car park for over 5 cars over here, some old Saxon Churches can be over a 1/4mile from any sort of road.

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Looks a great way to enjoy your car ...... over in the UK the MSA H&S would be all over that, requiring overalls, gloves, shoes this that and the other putting in rules and regs, making it an expensive sport all in the name of H&S. Enjoy and good luck, keep the videos coming 👍

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7 hours ago, Mark Stanton said:

Looks a great way to enjoy your car ...... over in the UK the MSA H&S would be all over that, requiring overalls, gloves, shoes this that and the other putting in rules and regs, making it an expensive sport all in the name of H&S. Enjoy and good luck, keep the videos coming 👍

That's interesting.

 

The Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) requires that the car passes a basic safety inspection (seat belts work, brake pedal doesn't go to the floor, battery tied down....etc) and the driver needs to have closed toe shoes and a proper helmet that is up to date. That's about it.

 

I've been competing 15-20 days a year for the past 20 years and have never seen anyone get hurt. I did see a car roll over once....a poor course design caused the driver to loose control and slide sideways off the pavement and into the dirt and the tires rolled off the rims, the wheels dug in, and over it went. The driver was lucky. The car (Toyota MR2) rolled over and back onto it's wheels and the driver got out and walked away without a scratch.

 

The "anyone can drive nearly anything" approach of the SCCA seems to work out well and it exposes so many drivers to the finer aspects of car control. There's even a young person's program to teach drivers how to handle a car before they actually drive on the open road. Cool stuff.

 

dave

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