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 ended up in grid next to yet another KU student, Cameron.  He was out for the first time in a ‘93 Miata that he’d just got; the previous owner was apparently an autocrosser or club racer, because the car had a rollbar and fairly fresh Falken Azenis.  I hooked him up with Rick Hartpence for some instruction and he certainly seemed to have a good time.  As for my runs, I was pushing way too hard on my first run of the day, and ended up skidding out wide on a couple of turns; reeled it in the second time with the help of a visitor who was driving a ITA prepped Si riding shotgun.  He was there with his dad, mother, and a another older woman, a friend of the family.  They wanted to ride along with somebody, but since the ITA car had only one seat that wasn’t an option.  I offered them a chance to ride on my last two runs.  My third was my best of the day, even with the passenger.  I was very smooth and was close to as fast as I think I could have been.  The last time around I got distracted on a chicane and nearly lost it, otherwise I would have been even faster.

I’m beginning to notice my tires more.  I didn’t pump them up to very high pressure this time around (I don’t have a tire pressure meter in Lawrence yet!) but the things just aren’t sticky at all.  I feel like I could do at lot better if my car stayed hooked up to the pavement.  I may put some fresh, decent all-season tires on them for the rest of the season and hold out for somebody to sell me their old tires and wheels at the end, and just use the stock rims for driving around in the winter.

The ricers were out as usual, with one guy in an over-lowered Prelude pusing his way around the course like a bulldozer and even failing to grasp the optional slalom on his first run.  One poor sod out there even had a riced out Cavalier.  I mean, a Cavalier?  That’s GM’s beefy middle finger to the working class!  As I was packing up at the end of the day one of them came over and congratulated me for owning a Honda (okay, fine) and then suggested that I put Si badges on my car, and “nobody would know the difference.”  Hrrm… DPFI, no rear sway, no sunroof, wrong seats… Yeah, I think an autrocrosser would know the difference pretty well.  Ah well, not everybody really gets it.

Looks like the next event in the pipe is a Crown Autocross one.  Hopefully I’ll not lose my wallet again for that.  Again, my times and other information on my autocrosses can be found on the AutoX Results page.

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…

I then met fellow KU student Len Necefer, who is in STS with an Integra. Len and I talked shop on cars, and later on I got a chance to ride along on one of his runs. Len is fast. Also, his passenger seat doesn’t have a racing harness. Something to keep in mind if he ever offers you a ride…

I did end up deciding to run, and ended up in second heat. I wasn’t very fast, but I didn’t get lost on course and I had all clean runs. Rick Hartpence, an experienced autocrosser who drives his Miata in STS2, rode with me for my last two runs and helped me improve. He drove one of them, and ran a 75.4 — not bad for his first time in a FWD car, and two seconds faster than my best time of the day! — and was a great help in learning the ropes. Thanks, Rick!

I got stuck working the course in third heat. By that time the temperature over the tarmac was over 100 degrees and there wasn’t a cloud in sight. I got thoroughly sunburnt, but didn’t mind: there was an ITA-prepped RX-7 and two Formula Fords running in that heat! The sound was incredible.

At the end of the day, Rick’s time was good enough to put my car in second place out of three for H Stock, between a madman in a Mini Cooper and a ricer with a modded-out Civic that somehow got classed with me. Not bad for the first time out. I’m looking forward to the next local event, which is on August 10th at Kansas Speedway. We’ll see if I can get new, better tires by then!

I’m maintaining a list of my results and an events summary here.

And so Randomonics was born.  It served as a repository for my geeky moments, angst-ridden freakouts, and wandering philosophical diatribes through most of high school and the beginning of college.  Then I stopped updating.  Sometime between then and now, the server died, and I never bothered to bring it back to life.

Now here I am with unused web space, a much more useful install of Wordpress, and a bevy of new interests and projects.  It’s time to bring Randomonics back to life.  Where will this go?  I don’t know.  But I intend to have a little fun with it in short term, at least.

Well, I’m home.