I like how the paint damage on the hood blends in with the clouds.

As if to bring the season around full-circle, yesterday it rained Biblical quantities of water down on our last autocross of the season… for exactly the duration of my heat.  Given my general predilection for going bassackwards from time to time, it should therefore come as no surprise that my first run ended in an epic off-course excursion.  It was not my best outing in recent memory, but it wasn’t that bad, either.  And I’m doing a heck of a lot better than I was this time last year.

Since I last posted, I’ve made it to four more events.  At the first one of these, I drove like a total eedjot and at one point became so fixated on my tachometer (the course necessitated an excursion into 3rd gear at one point) that I drove past an entire slalom without looking.  DNF.  Oops…  I then spent the remainder of the season trying to close the gap with Don Gawf, one of the local STS regulars.  I never quite got there, but I kept making progress — at least until Don bought a shifter kart and started running in F125.  I’m in a predicament now, because unless some other middle-of-the-pack drivers start running in STS next year the only people I’ll be chasing will be National-level drivers with better-prepped cars.  Depending on how things shake out monetarily, I’m considering doing a light SMF build (primarily a VTEC head swap) and running in the Street Tire index class next year. It all depends, though.

In the meantime, it’s time put away the summer tires, track down some cheap junkyard-special shocks and springs to abuse for the winter, and start making plans.

Always look ahead…

Me killing tires around a hairpin. Thanks Jenn for the pictures!

Haven’t updated this in a while, huh?  The previous semester in school was my own personal Hell On Earth, and since school got out I’ve spent enough time under the car to make me a little bit tired of talking about it. However, I’ve found some motivation: one of the local autocrossers has fulfilled that secret desire of mine (no, the other one). She’s taken pictures of the CRX in action!

They see me roolin', they hatin'

Things started to pick up steam on the car in April, when I picked up a used set of Kosei K1 Racing wheels from Brian Harmer, the Solo Technical Assistant over at the SCCA national offices.  They came with decent, but not world-beating, Goodyear summer tires.  At the same time I bought those, I put in an order for new Koni Sports and a custom-rate Ground Control springs and perches. If I was really hardcore, I would have gone with 450/500 spring rates, but I’m a girly-man who has to drive his only car to work across some of the worst pavement in the industrialized world, so after consulting with Chris Shenefield at RedShift Motorsports, I ended up with 350 lbs/in all around. It’s a pretty good compromise, on the whole; with the Konis soft in the rear, it’s tolerable over rough roads, and stiffening the rear shocks gives me a reasonably level and well-damped vehicle while autocrossing.

Event #1 was very wet.

The suspension parts didn’t make it in before the first local event, though, so I was just running on the bigger, stickier tires. They had excellent tread on them, though, which was good, because it was pretty rainy that weekend. The combination of high grip, soft front springs, and a stiff rear bar made for some… err… exciting rear-end-off-the-ground-and-passing-the-front moments. In two days of runs, I spun at least three times. I wasn’t particularly fast, either. I only just barely beat an FC RX-7 that had an even lighter prep level.  Obviously I had some work to do.

the Solo School and Event #2 was preceded by a lot of frantic wrenching.  The first thing I did, on the Thursday before the school, was tear out my heavy, broken air conditioning.  That took about 50 pounds out of the front of the car.  Then I followed that up with a day of suspension work.  My friend Matt Schott came over to help, lured in by the promise of a co-drive (he actually ended up driving his own Matrix, but hey, I offered).   The GC/Koni setup was finally on the car at 2:30am on the day of the school, and I had only time for a very rough finger-gap adjustment of ride height before I collapsed into bed for four hours of sleep.  My instructor for the school was Andrwe Clark, a very nice guy who also is on track to at least trophy this year at nationals, if he can maintain his current pace compared to the class front-runners.  The school was great and I was running some very fast times by the end of day.

It's like they designed it for this sort of thing

The car loves the courses that tight lots lend themselves to, and it showed at the next day’s event.  I was only a few seconds off my instructor’s times, and gained ground on pretty much everybody compared to the last event.  I absolutely loved the way the car felt on the new suspension, and was looking forward to the event onthe following week… except my car wasn’t going to cooperate.  The check valve on one of the wheels decided it had just about had it with me and my over-pressuring ways, and decided to not hold air on the morning of the Event #3.  To add insult to injury, my bike-mechanic room-mate woke up three hours later and fixed the damn thing with a pair of pliers.  That was a bit of a drag.

FEEL THE POWER OF 92 RAGING KITTENS

Event #4 made up for it, though.  My car is pretty well sorted now; I took it over to the dealership where Tim Herron (former National Champion, 3rd place in STS last year) works and had him put the car on the alignment rack a few days before the event, and I’ve got the ride height set just about right.  Matt came out again, and brought his whole family along for the ride (Dad Schott got one heck of a Father’s Day out of that!), and I got to ride along with Tim on one of his runs.  The highlight of the day, however, was very nearly beating Don Gawf, a local veteran and  owner of a very well-prepped Miata.  I had him until he pulled off a 1-second improvement on his last run.  Next time, Don, next time…

I just spent the last few days doing some overdue maintenance of the car.  I changed the oil, replaced some worn-out coolant hoses, flushed the radiator, and fixed a worn-out torque mount.  Not that all that will make much of a difference of course, but at least I won’t be worrying about having a hose blow up or the engine falling out of the car.  Next event is at the end of July, and I’m itching to go.

Also, just FYI, orange juice goes quite well on ice with a little Tanqueray gin.

Second on the the list of Things To Do is getting the suspension sorted.  I bought a  swaybar from Tim Herron towards the end of last season, and getting it installed took several trips to the hardware store, half a can of PB Blaster, and finally a trip to the repair shop to have a couple of stubborn bolts drilled out.  In the process, I discovered that my RTA bushings are all but torn out. So, when I get my Ground Control/Koni combo,  I’ll have to get new bushings from Honda and have them installed.

Finally, tires.  I’m awfully interested in the new Kumho XS in 205 width; since these are a bit wider than the 195 width tires that dominated the Street Touring S and 2 last year, I think it’d be worthwhile to get 7.5-inch wheels to mount them on.  949racing’s 6ULR, due out in July, looks like it’s a pretty darn good fit for what I’d need.  Unfortunately, I’d have to wait until July, and they’d be every bit as expensive as the current king-of-the-hill Enkeis.  I think I’ll probably try to scrounge around for somebody’s cast-off tires and wheels for at theast the first half of next season.

Looking into the distant future, I think my plans to migrate from Stock to STS and then through to CSP are more or less cemented.  The CSP move would be a couple seasons away at least, and could itself be just a transition to SMF should that class become a reality (by that point, I’ll have a real job and probably another daily driver, so it’s not out of the question!)  I enjoy working on my car, and STS is a good place to learn, but a DX will just never be competitive in Street Touring.  But all that’s beyond the horizon.  In the near term, I’m looking to have some fun…

It’s been unseasonably warm lately, so rather than three layers of heavy clothes that still can’t keep the wind out like at the Haloweenie, I was in short sleeves, and the surface was warm, but really, really sandy.  Turnout was a little low, so there were only two heats and everybody got five runs.  My folks even turned out for the day to watch me run (unfortunately, I couldn’t convince them to autocross the minivan, but at least Dad rode along with me on one run).  The course was short and narrow, but with several sections conducive to WOT, it made for a good balance between power and handling.  In fact, taking the lightweight, high-grip, purpose-built FSAE cars out of the equation, a Corvette took home FTD.  As for my runs, I laid down a decent time first run taking it easy and underdriving the car… and then proceeded to get slower and slower for the next three runs (however, in my defense, Dad rode on my fourth run, and I could certainly feel the extra weight in the corners.  Funny how much a difference having a passenger makes…).  I pulled it together on my fifth run and trimmed 9/10ths of a second off my previous best, good enough for a solid first place in H Stock (over a Suzuki SX4 and an Oldmobile Aurora, but still! First place in class!) and a decent middle-of-the-pack PAX score.  I know I didn’t get a couple of the corners quite right at any point of in the day, but I didn’t suck completely and even PAXed ahead of a couple nationally competitive drivers — a fluke, one was driving a car he’d not competed in for quite a while — so I’m calling it a win, and a much better way to end the season that the Port-A-Potty-toppling nastyness of the Halloweenie.

As usual, results are here.

Saturday was pretty much a cluster.  Before we even got started, the stadium management tried to kick us off the lot in contravention of our contract with them, because they had planned to park staff for the Northwest Missouri vs. Truman State rivalry game on our lot.  There was thirty minutes of delay and a lot of nervous handwringing before we finally got the go-ahead to run… then the timing system decided to throw a fit.  First heat was half re-runs and timing errors, with a forty-five minute break in the middle to try and get the T&S working like it was supposed (didn’t really help.)  Of course, I was running first heat, so I couldn’t get into a groove and forgot all the little things I figured out on course on my first two runs.  At one point, in a tight left-hand element, I managed to peg both the entry and pivot cones.  Not my best driving.  Second heat, which I was working, went more smoothly, but then after I left during third heat an F-Mod car grenaded its transmission and spewed gear oil all over the back slalom.  More delays.  I don’t think anybody left the course terribly happy that day.

To make up for that, Sunday was damn near perfect.  The timing system worked perfectly, my driving sucked less, and although some foks from Nebraska damaged the diff on their E30 at the start they didn’t leave any oil on the ground and even managed to get it patched back up well enough to drive home. 

All things considered, I PAXed pretty low and certainly didn’t blow the doors off anybody.  Even with my drastically improved tires, I was fighting for grip all the way around the course, and I’m still driving too much by the seat of my pants.  I’m getting better at looking ahead, but every so often something would jump out and suprise when it shouldn’t have, and I need to doa better job of knowing where the front right corner of the car is (that’s where I kepot pegging cones).

I’ve also started to buy parts for my STS2 (err, is it just STS now?  I don’t know) build.  I’m buying a used Suspension Techniques rear sway from Tim Herron at a great price, and I’m talking with a friend to get some Falken Hanabi wheels with a fairly new set of Dunlop’s Street Touring tires on them.  Looking longer term, I’m thinking of using STS2 as a stepping stone up to CSP.  No matter what, with the stock 1.5 liter in my DX and its DPFI system I’m going to be down on power versus the Si’s, and the taller FD I have hampers acceleration.  Eventually I figure I’ll buy an Si engine, do a complete overhaul on it, and then move up to Street Prepared.  But that’s way down the line budget wise.  Baby steps…

I’ll have my results page  updated with times shortly.

I knew that the no-name budget tires that used to be on the car were bad, but I didn’t know they were THIS bad!  I took the car out to the Park and Ride tonight to give them a try and wear some of the mold-release crap off of them (incidentally, I ran into the KU FSAE team while I was out there… damn, their car is finicky, but awful fast too).  I knew the first time I turned in that I had at least twice the grip I did before.   Things that would have made the old tires howl and shimmy, the Altimaxes (maxii?) just ate up.  I no longer get momentary wheel hop on easy street launches, which is a relief.   The whole time I was out there, doing tight slaloms at speed, I think I heard the tires squeal twice.  Maybe.  My car’s limits just got way higher, and I can’t wait to explore them.

Also, with the wheels being rebalanced, the steering flutter I had thought was alignment-related has vanished, and with it an espescially noticeable shimmy under braking I had thought was a warped rotor.  Whoever had balanced the wheels last did a horrific job of it — not suprising, given the lack of thought evident in the tires he was mounting.  Bottom line is that the old tires were some of the (pardon my French) shittiest lumps of rubber ever churned out of a factory and the CRX drives practically like a new car now.

I’m so happy…

The site out at the speedway is a long, very narrow lot with no elevation changes.    To make a little extra length, the first half of the course consisted of a loop with a slight but very narrow offset at the front and an optional slalom on the back stretch.  Going fast around the loop required choosing the right side of the slalom to take on each go-round; it was best to come out on the left side on the first lap to widen the back turn, and then to come out on the right side to align with the opening in the cone wall to the rest of the course.  Then was a series of walkthroughs capped by a tight right-hander to the finish lights.

The course was tight as hell and more than a few people were coning the crap out of it.  Gary Hartmann in his MR2 wiped out at least 6 cones on his fourth run; we kind of lost count  because they were coming so fast.  As for my runs, I was making all kind of angry tire sounds and at one point overdid a transition coming off the optional slalom and went sideways through the cone wall at the end of the front loop.  Somehow I managed not to cone, though…  I did cone once on my second run, but by the end of the say I’d shaved more than 3 seconds off my first run on a 50 second-ish course.  I was eleven seconds off the FTD (set at 42.4xx by a STU Mistubishi Evo), but only five seconds off HS ST lead.  I’m sure I left time out there, but I’m feeling more confident in my skills.

Next up: buying real tires!  I’ve got to get this worthless rubber off my car.

As always, my AutoX history is available here.

I’ve been noticing more noise trying to engage second lately (not grinding, though, thankfully), and an obnoxious shifter rattle at certain RPMs. All of it is quiet enough to masked by the radio, or even by wind noise, so it’s a distinct possibility it’s always been there and I’m just now noticing. I already knew it needed to be rebuilt at some point, but it’s not something that can be done cheaply, so the longer I can stretch this one the better.

I’ve also been pondering an STS2 build-up to do in phases on the car. For the time being, I’ll run stock on street tires (cheap cheap cheap), but the first phase is wheels and tires. Depending if I can get them used or not, that could be anything from $400 to $800.

Next is suspension goodies. This is where any attempt to fit this to my current years’ budget goes out the window. I want Ground Controls and Koni Sports, but that’s freakishly expensive. Panducky has a package deal on KYB AGXs and GC springs and perches for $700, but if I find that I do want the Konis, only the springs are universal. Which means another big outlay. Besides, at the price these things run, the extra $200 to get the Konis in the first place make cheaping out on shocks seem kind of stupid. A rear swaybar is a must too; this wouldn’t be chump change if I did it the hard way and got a junkyard special, or about $200 for an aftermarket bar.

Next on the list is adding lightness; the cheapest part of this would be removing the A/C. I’m torn on this; while it’s already broken and I’ve been getting through the summer fine without it, this car is still my daily driver and cool air would be a nice thing to have next year. Next would be a racing battery, about $150 or so, and then racing seats. With harnesses (and that’s half the point of having a racing seat, really) that’s about $500 a seat. I don’t really need two racing seats but it’d be another ten pounds of weight savings.

Finally, after all that, engine goodies. I’m not even sure if a full-blow cold air intake is available on my car; the cheap thing to do would be to pull off the resonator on the existing intake and do a little ghetto plumbing with some dryer tube, but that just reeks of cheapness. I need to figure out if any of the existing kits can be adapted to the DX’s DPFI setup, and if it’s even worth the effort. Headers and exhaust will probably run about $1000 for street-legal, non-obnoxius-ricer kit. I’ve heard good things about the RS*R catback, and DC Sport header would be nice. If I can find a legal excuse to replace the stock cat with a Magnaflow I’ll do that too.

And those are the big ticket items, in about the order I’d be phasing them in. $3500+ of go-fast on a $2000 car. Yup, I’m nuts…