Well, since I don't have an SS/TC, I only walked away with a class win. I asked around to the other drivers in my class and I apparently beat the next closest guy by 13/1000 of a second! The course was pretty short, but incredibly fast with a lot of straights, so times were really consistent all day long.


The cars I beat out in GSN:
Jetta 2.0L N/A
Subaru Impreza
G6 GTP
Benz C230


I wasn't the only Cobalt there, either! Had one guy with an SS/TC who I talked to a bit. He was a newer driver, but improved a lot through the course of the heat. There was also a younger guy there with an SS/SC that must have had drop springs on it or at least a tune because it was running in Street Mod. Unfortunately, he didn't really flog on the SC all that much, I'd have loved to hear him let that Eaton roar...

Tires definitely made the difference for my performance. Even with a cheapo set of Raptors, I had a ton of grip around the corners (way more than the stock P6s). Now I ran into a new problem, though, in that I actually was getting REALLY BAD wheel hop going around corners and I'm not sure how to solve that. Like it was so bad that they radio'd in that they though one of my wheels were loose and I had to double-check all my torques. Anyone have any ideas what would cause this? Blown strut? Too low of tire pressure (I didn't have any air to put in it after I got there)? Just the nature of the FE3 (will be doing an FE5 swap this fall/winter)?

 

Wheel hop?

Thats strange what gear were you in?

 

It's an Auto and I was in L. The wheel hop usually happened either at the apex of the turn when I was starting to roll into the throttle and still had the tires turned, or it would happen just before the apex and at the highest lateral load. It would track really well coming into the turns and then start hopping and jarring the front end in the middle/end of them... It was as if the car wanted to understeer, but the tires were holding to the pavement really well and then would suddenly break loose and then catch again only to break loose again, etc. It was really cool that day, with a high of only ~67 degrees and I ran in the first heat and it was easily below 65 degrees, and there wasn't much rubber on the pavement yet. Cold tire not being as elastic to deflect and hold to the road, maybe?

 

hey i was there
i was the ss/sc

 

Nice. You need to get those tires squealing more! It wasn't until your last run that I even heard the Eaton. What mods do you have that put you into SM?
The SS/TC guy and I were cheering for you from the sidelines

Also, not sure if you know, but the results are up on myautoevents.com: http://www.myautoevents.com/pls/mae/...event_id=10660

 

yea i know at the start i was running it to get a feel then started to get into it
i went with a friend and he basically just told me to go into sm probly could of ran with you and the tc guy

also it was my first time in an autox i dont think i did too bad

 

Nope. Not bad at all. It takes some time to get used to the idea that squealing tires and redline shifts are OK and actually necessary. Do you have it tuned/pullied? If so, then you have to go into SM, I believe.

 

ive got stage 2 from factory and a cold air intake
thats it so does that put me in sm?

 

Yep, touching the pulley will put you straight into Street Mod.

Yep, touching the pulley will put you straight into Street Mod.

http://cms.scca.com/documents/Solo_R...categories.pdf

 

yea after i posted that i went to scca website and looked up classes haha
owell i loved autocrossing and am deffenently doing it again soon

hopefully i see ya there and we can talk
i heard ya talkin to that jetta guy about my car hehe

 

Yeah, it's amazing how much misinformation floats around about our cars... Gotta do some edumacatin'!

 

Any updates on what caused your wheelhop?

I think you are on the right track. A blown strut and not enough tire pressure would definately cause that. Plus your A-arm bushings are taking a beating with the extra grip

 

Nothing yet. I'm taking it in on Friday to get an oil change (full synthetic in preparation for my M62 install) and hopefully get my driver's side door trim replaced (chipping paint problem), so I'll poke around and see if they can tell if the struts are blown. There isn't any sign of oil leaking out of them that I can tell. If the struts are bad, it'll just mean that I'll be upping the time frame for my SS/TC FE5 swap by a few months

What could be done about the A-arm bushings? Are there good upgrades available and are the stockers that bad? I'm not against upgrading suspension components to the hilt because I'm already going to be bumped to SCCA's Street Mod class with the M62...

 

The OTTP control arm bushings are the only real upgrade I know of.

 

i have a supercharged and have experienced that on the street in the country on a really wide turn 15mph, and was doing 60. i had only 20k on the car at that time and i had sportlines, but it never did it since. that was not the first time or the last ive been around that turn.

 

I think that I'm going to bring along an air tank next time I head to the races and play around with tire pressures. After thinking long and hard, I may have had my rears at too low of a pressure (35 cold psi front and rear ~40 hot psi) and that wouldn't let them swing around under heavy cornering. Hopefully upping the rears to 40 or 45 cold psi will let them break loose and then I can have the rears break loose instead of the front end chattering. The last thing I want is to loose contact with the ground on my steering and driving wheels...