this is Cheesy...

[kronus]

wh33lhop - chris is the guy with the lotus, he's the one who rebuilt a formula ford and is aiming to do national-level autoX

corvallis - the general consensus is that we need more sway, not more spring. In this race, after tolerating the mushiness on Saturday, we stuck 4 tennis balls inside the spring on each corner, which decreased the body roll slightly but made the car settle less well after turns... we'll probably take them out and look into adapting swaybars from a truck or something. Serious about welding diff? wh33lhop mentioned this also, I'm not sure if it's a good idea, wouldn't wheel skip in tight corners with the accelerator in raise the chances of it kicking out badly?

[KenC]

Welded diff is DEFINITELY the way to go. You never go slow enough or have a corner tight enough to skip the inside wheel.

[brutus87]

Awesome.

[Wh33lhop]

wh33lhop - chris is the guy with the lotus, he's the one who rebuilt a formula ford and is aiming to do national-level autoX

Wait, was he the guy whose girlfriend I saw driving?

Welded diff is DEFINITELY the way to go. You never go slow enough or have a corner tight enough to skip the inside wheel.

Regardless, it will still change the way the car drives a bit. It will likely want to push more on entry of sharper corners, but it'll obviously be much better on exit. It'll just take some getting used to as in order to get sharp turn-in early on you may have to unsettle the car a little. In the end though it'll be way more badass, faster and more fun to drive with a welded diff, just get some seat time and nail corner entry down on the sharp hairpins and you will be much better off.

Worst case, swap back to an open if you really don't like it.

[KenC]

How'd you guys do in the race? Mechanically, that M30 is prob fast enough to win or place high.

We keep grenading shit and can't seem to finish more than 10 from the bottom.

[CabbE30]

How much for the sickass headlights?

[Kershaw]

you mean the headgaskets? roflrofl.

yeah, im pretty sure i saw jaywatch on jalopnik. i cant find the link now either.

[kronus]

How'd you guys do in the race? Mechanically, that M30 is prob fast enough to win or place high.

We keep grenading shit and can't seem to finish more than 10 from the bottom.

we placed somewhere in the 60s for a variety of reasons including losing 3.5 hours on saturday to a diff swap and black flags, as well as fuel starvation at like half tank (we swapped fuel pumps and went to a 3.73 which is better geared to the track, and the starvation problem decreased drastically along with improving our mileage a bit)

if we can keep it together, the car is fast enough to get top 10 for sure, everything after that is pit strategy and fuel economy... we were doing ~14 minute pits every 75 minutes and the waffleswaffleswaffleswaffleswaffles Wagen was doing 9 minute pits every 2.5 hours.

also: come to infineon.

[kronus]

Wait, was he the guy whose girlfriend I saw driving?

wife, and if she was in a lotus, yes?

Regardless, it will still change the way the car drives a bit. It will likely want to push more on entry of sharper corners, but it'll obviously be much better on exit. It'll just take some getting used to as in order to get sharp turn-in early on you may have to unsettle the car a little. In the end though it'll be way more badass, faster and more fun to drive with a welded diff, just get some seat time and nail corner entry down on the sharp hairpins and you will be much better off.

Worst case, swap back to an open if you really don't like it.

I posed the diff-welding idea to the team and got universally rejected... do you have any literature showing welded diffs being good for track use?

[Wh33lhop]

Nah, in fact after doing some research it would appear that it may not be such a great idea. I had a whole thing typed up but it may not be worth it.

Still, it would be interesting to give it a shot.

What you may want to try is fashioning some M3-style endlinks for the front sway bar; besides less roll and more front grip, it should help even out the load on the rear tires so it won't roast the inside so fervently.

[!AjHoWzA!]

Looks sicckk hah. Love it

[kronus]

Nah, in fact after doing some research it would appear that it may not be such a great idea. I had a whole thing typed up but it may not be worth it.

Still, it would be interesting to give it a shot.

What you may want to try is fashioning some M3-style endlinks for the front sway bar; besides less roll and more front grip, it should help even out the load on the rear tires so it won't roast the inside so fervently.

yeah, M3-style endlinks are in the plans. I aim to rob a junkyard fiver or sixer of its endlinks and strut endlink tabs...

[KenC]

We're skipping Infineon in October... too much $$$ to tow the car down there.


Regarding the welded diff, we were convinced to weld it by Gordon Jones. He holds the lap record in his class (2002) at PIR as well as ORP. He's also won several competitive races at Infineon. He's also an instructor at PIR and ORP... I usually take his word on things haha.

[KenC]

Regardless, it will still change the way the car drives a bit. It will likely want to push more on entry of sharper corners, but it'll obviously be much better on exit. It'll just take some getting used to as in order to get sharp turn-in early on you may have to unsettle the car a little. In the end though it'll be way more badass, faster and more fun to drive with a welded diff, just get some seat time and nail corner entry down on the sharp hairpins and you will be much better off.

Worst case, swap back to an open if you really don't like it.

+1

I probably wouldn't do it on an auto-cross car, but neither of the two tracks we've driven on (ORP, and Infineon) had sharp enough turns for the welded diff to provide any disadvantage... none of us noticed any push even through the chicane at Infineon.

[kronus]

^^ well, we will think about and consider doing it to a spare diff.

btdubs, we are now facebook official! Upcoming shenanigans (like making camber plates out of steel plate with a plasma cutter) will be posted here: https://www.facebook.com/teamjaywatch