Dr Alex’s EVO 6 – Brake Test Day at ACS
We took the Dr Alex EVO 6 with the new Varis widebody to a Speed Ventures track day at Auto Club Speedway this last weekend to dial in the Stoptech Trophy Brakes a bit. This is the first full run with the car with the Muellerized Ohlins, 18×11 Volk SSL wheels and Hankook tires. The car has the OBP Motorsports pedal box with tandem master cylinders and cockpit adjustable front to rear brake bias.
John Mueller (Muellerized…) was just minding his own business under orders doing some shake down runs and a beautiful Porsche Cup Car was right there in front of him. Go for a lap with John on the low boost setting. In the video all you hear is the Porsche revving and shifting. I wish EVOs would sound that good going just as fast :-)
Coco Zurita and the Death of a GoPro
We were hanging with Coco Zurita @ the Extremespeed AWD Challenge @ Streets of Willow Springs. Coco was doing some filming with videographer Dylan Pfohl. We put a Go Pro Hero camera on the rear bumper looking at the rear suspension. Things were mostly safe and out of the way, just forgot about the front tires firing rocks back at the camera :-P
Watch the tire move about the rim, even half way up the rim. Also note how much the rear differential moves in its soft rubber mounts. How much the hydraulic piping for the AYC clutches jumps around near the rear sway bar.
About half way into the video the rocks start to take their toll. The outer case and lens gets messed up, finally getting blown away completely. Then the camera lens starts taking direct fire.
First Drives: Shaking down my RRE built EVO VIII at Streets of Willow for the first round of the AWD Challenge
[Part IV in a series]
words by James Singer
stills by CaliPhotograpy
video by my GoPro and Aldric’s GoPro
In previous blog entries, I have said that I am a pretty normal guy that is trying to track his car without going broke while maximizing fun. I started writing about my experiences while running NASA’s HPDE series from HPDE1 to 3. After that, I started trying out some time attack competitions with Extreme Speed in their AWD Challenge. Since starting out, I have had some ups and downs. I have gotten a lot of support and even some hook ups but I have also shattered a piston due to my own stupidity. However, I did not give up and this is the next chapter with a new set up for 2013!!
Super True Stories From The Track [part II]
Part I is here.
Text by James Singer
Photos by Mike W
Prep
[it isn’t the camera, it is rosacea]
I am a pretty average guy as far as driving cars on the track goes. I am also a pretty average guy in the sense that this economy has taken its toll on my ability to indulge in track days. As a result, I prep my car painstakingly before going to the track to avoid breaks and other disasters. This month, before going to the track I changed out my blown (more…)
Extremespeed AWD Competition – Willow Springs – Round #2
Well the second round of the Extremespeed AWD Challenge is done and in the books. We ran the tighter Streets Of Willow Springs clockwise with a great turnout. A lot of people felt the track a little off, maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the wind. With no record setting times to be had everyone made the best of what they had to deal with.
Gevorg had the best ride with his big off. The car was fine other than one wheel beign pretty well done in. He borrowed some stock wheels from Zhong, ran back to LA and picked up some spare wheels and tires to finish the day. His best time for the morning was his best for the day and good for 3rd place. Ben Sui had a great day and was 1st in Street Class. Nate;s MR was fixed up from his exhaust leak issues from the last event and earned a close 2nd place finish.
X-Melt :-P
Watch your underhood temps with the EVO X. Mitsubishi had to move the turbo to the back of the motor with the EVO X to make it easier to pass the newer emissions regulations. This puts the catalytic converter closer to the turbo. Already in some European markets Mitsubishi had put a pre-cat in the down pipe of the EVO 9. While solving their cold start emissions problems, this makes for headaches for guys running track days, guys running large turbos and also concerns for people running headers.
Here are some heat failures we have run across lately:
Tubular headers with a plastic valve cover. In 2010 plastic valve covers started showing up on the 4B11 motors. Probably cheaper, they seemed to do the job well enough. They just don’t deal well with heat from a tubular header. We have seen three of these failures. Even when using the factory heat shield wrapped around the headers, if the heat can concentrate up through a gap near the valve cover it will melt.
Lose bolts:
This customer installed stock frame upgrade turbo came loose. The heat shooting out through the small gap at the flange burned a hole through the factory heat shield. Then it proceeded to melt the wire harness and seriously toasted the AMS pump unit. Hopefully the fuses that all blew protected the really expensive bits.
Extremespeed AWD Competition – Dyno Day/BBQ
A few of the track regulars from So Cal EVO go together this year to organize their own time attack competition. Rules and classes by and for the people! With points for various mods and some HP caps, they divided it up into a “Street” class and “Modified” class. Street cars are limited to roughly 400 whp and 5 points. Modified cars are capped at 500 whp and 10 points.
RRE volunteered the Dynapack AWD chassis dyno to be the official dyno for the series. We hosted a dyno day/BBQ to kick off the race season before next weekend’s opening event at Willow Springs Raceway.
Here are some pics from the event. Along with some dyno charts from a couple of the cars that will be running. One of the guys just picked up a new camera and looking at Nikon D7000 Accessories, using the remote and microphone for filming the dyno pulls here in the future is going to make for some sweet video! No more editing out video of me running from the camera to the driver’s seat :-P
http://www.extremespeedtrackevents.com/
One of the guys just picked up a new HD Nikon and looking at Nikon D7000 Accessories, using the remote and microphone for filming the dyno pulls here in the future is going to make for some sweet video! No more editing out video of me running from the camera to the driver’s seat :-P
Track Day Prep Check List
by James Singer (track n00b)
Last year I decided to stop talking about going to the track and to actually go to the track. One of the things I wanted to do was to see the reality of this dream I had of tracking my car regularly. I learned a few things along the way and I wanted to post some of that leaving the rest open to discussion (mostly on SCE).
[my first day at the track running with NASA in HPDE1 at Buttonwillow Raceway Park CW13]
Willow Springs Track Night
Here is a cool video of Scot Grey out in his dope 1G at STREETS of Willow Springs braving the hot hot summer heat with some night action!! Scot can normally be found driving cars on the dyno as RRE’s tuner.
Our good friend and both customer and supplier Ziggy from Zeitronix also took his 1G GSX out for some night runs.
