Oversteer help

[pontiacgp]

I need some tire temps to make any suggestions. the tires temp will tell if the car is tight or loose and you may have too much front brake heading into the corner. Why do you have to keep the 1.5 stagger in the rear?

and when do I get to see the rules of that mysterious track?

 

[ReQ]

I can run any stagger I want, I just used some annoying math and a lot of measuring to figure out how much stagger I need in the rear to get the tires spinning evenly, technically I need 1.59" but with the stagger gauge its hard to be that precise, so I just get it "around" 1.5"

I never can remember to check my tire temps when I pull off the track, we have a bit of an overheating problem so I am too preoccupied, I will make a list before next week and tape it to my dash, that way I won't forget anything hopefully

as for the rules, here is a link to the PDF for 2012 http://auburndaleracing.com/2012%20RULE%20BOOK.pdf starts at page 25 "V8 Bombers" they call them, however they do not adhere to the rule book very closely on a lot of things, and some rules are not in the book at all, like the alinement rule, not in the book but the tech says that you will be DQd if you mess with anything other than right front camber "stock means stock" his reasoning is that making small technical adjustments create an unfair field for people who do not know how to setup their cars properly

rules like this would make sense to me, if they actually did force these cars to be completely stock front to rear, that however is not the case, the tire rules alone open a can of worms with stagger, these cars are just old school street-stocks running on DOT radials

 

[pontiacgp]

setting up the car by calculations doesn't always work or mathematicians would win every race..

thanks for the link, your in the Bomber division?

 

[ReQ]

yeah, math does not always work with a racecar, I discovered that a while ago, but it gave me a good starting point and seems to be working, the rear feels pretty planted, front is ok as long as I do not carry too much speed through the turn, I barely have any stagger in the front right now

I am running with the bombers right now, went from modified mini-stocks to bombers, my goal is to go for late-models but I figured I would try a bomber first to get a feel for RWD, though I must admit I have not had this much fun in a racecar for quite a while, tonight was a great deal of fun and there were only 5 cars on the track, bombers seem more visceral and less technical, even if they do feel terrible slow by comparison

I think I am getting the hang of this "metric" chassis, I can definitely see its limitations and where it could use a lot of improvement, the steering geometry in the front leave much to be desired as far as bump-steer goes, I am sure it has been done.. but I wonder how hard it would be to move the mounts for the upper control arm, and make it look factory, little things like that and moving the tie-rods from the rear of the center drag link to the front, probably difficult to notice unless you pay attention, solid bushings in the front are my next upgrade on that list, easy and legal

 

[UMI Sales]

Awesome, thanks for the link. Now we have something to work with. I don't want to speak for GP but I think it's cool you're getting faster each time we talk and personally, I take pride in helping. You're doing a great job.

Don't get into the "he drives it in harder than me" trap. Smooth entry, get the car turned, full power out early with a good chassis wins races.

I'd go with straight up to or 1/16" out. If the never check it... Once you start getting in tech every week, due to WINNING 😀 , you can move it back to 1/16" in.

One thing concerning, you shouldn't hear the front tires all the time. I wonder why that is? Especially with near stock alignment.

Why are you overheating? You shouldn't even need a fan, especially at race speed. Here's a few cooling tips. Run a good shroud on the front of the radiator. It should be from the grill opening to the radiator, tapered from that opening and sealed tightly. Any air going through the grill should go through the radiator. If you look under the front bumper you should see shroud from the bumper to the radiator. The fan, if it has a factory style shroud should be half in and half out of the shroud. Run a Robertshaw thermostat. Don't subscribe to the "it's a race engine so I need a 5/8" restrictor theory" on a bomber car. You can be racing while guys with a trick restrictor are overheating. If you have a factory water pump get a small pulley for the front so the engine vs pump speed is proper. Run straight water and a bottle of Water Wetter or equivalent. No antifreeze. Make sure all the air is out.

more soon

ramey

ps did I ever show you my site? http://www.womerracing.com/photos.htm

 

[pontiacgp]

Ramey, you can speak for me.. 🙂

SUSPENSION:
A. 6” ride height 0 tolerance.
B. Front Springs must be same side to side (no spring rubbers, adjusters, or shims) NO bump stops.
C. Rear spring must be same side to side, no lowering blocks, or adjustable shackles.
D. Right front wheel may be cambered maximum – 3 degrees, checked by Auburndale Speedway official in tech
area.
E. Front and rear springs are to be the same rate, 25 lbs. tolerance.

How tight are they on the spring rate rule?...I notice the rules only talk about the right camber so that means you can put as much positive camber as you need on the left and adjust the caster so the car tracks left. I don't see where you'd be allowed to run a posi. The rules don't say anything about the diameter of the wheels you have to run so if you can't get the stagger you want in the tires you can always run 14" wheels on the left side. I noticed that you have to keep the body bushings, if they mean you need to have rubber bushings we used hockey pucks

 

[ReQ]

I have a factory fan shroud thats been modified to fit correctly, the front of my racecar has been lowered about an inch or so by dropping the fenders in the front, cutting them to fit in the rear and welding them up, threw all of the factory fitments out of whack with the radiator and shroud, but I have a good shroud on it now, open front end with no bumper cover but I still have metal between the radiator and bumper on each side and the top, working on the bottom as we speak

I have a fail safe "racing" thermostat in the car right now, but I also have an old aluminum racing fan that I believe is flattening out, the more rpms you turn the less air it seems to pull through the radiator, going to replace it with a steel fan this week and see if that helps, after about 10 hot laps last night, the gauge hit 230 and the engine started breaking up so I pulled off

I will try playing with the toe on the front for next week, it does not say anything about the rest of the front suspension in the rule book, but the tech says we are not allowed to touch anything else on the front except the right front camber, left must remain stock, as for the spring rule, I have never seen them test bomber springs, they have a "visual protest" thing going, if the tech sees anything wrong at a glance he will check, but they do not pull springs and shocks to test them if they look ok

we can run any tire size we want, as long as they are all four 70 or 75 series and 15" or 14" if we want to run that, right now I have 215/70-15s on my car, but the right rear is a different brand and measures 1" larger the the rest, i could run(for example) 215/70-15s on the left side at 83" on the stagger gauge, and 225/70-15s on the right at 86", but I cannot run any 14" or 75 series mixed in

the other 2 cars I was comparing mine too last night have 3/4 years of experience and tuning over mine, I have to stand on the breaks in the corners but I come out much harder thanks to running 1st gear, if I can get the push out of the corners to go away, I am confident they will have a lot of trouble with this car on race night, right now however.. they will just put a bumper on me going into the turn and wave goodbye

PS
almost forgot, the rule books says body bushings must remain stock, and ours are.. however we cut the body and hammered in down to the frame, then welded it solid everywhere possible, and welded it to the rollcage, our body does not move at all, and our body mounts are still there for all to see, we hid our dirty tricks with flame retardant foam 😳

 

[pontiacgp]

are you running Waterwetter or some alternative?, that will drop the temp and if you fabricate an air box in front of the rad that will force more air thru the rad. We had issues of overheating and an airbox cured it. Are you using synthetic oil?, synthetic oil will take high temps much better then conventional oil and it won't break down plus it will help to keep the engine temp down. Also what is the pressure of your rad cap? Another thing you can use to keep the temp down is to put your heater core back in and put it in an area where air gets blown thru it..

 

[ReQ]

I believe we put a 23-25 Moroso cap on the car, that or a 19-21, we have both and I don't recall which one we have on it right now, the heater core is a great idea actually, kind of like having an extra radiator, my modified mini-stock ran 2 radiators, one up front and another in the passenger side of the car, blocked off from the driver of course with an airbox/vents and electric cooling fan

I believe the biggest problem with this car is the fan itself, I had an old Flex-a-lite 1017 laying around that I put on it, just does not seem to pull enough air, I am going to replace it with a steel 6 blade

we also have a factory 2 core copper radiator, I did not really want to run a proper racing radiator in this class sense they are pretty rough in this class, but I may not have a choice unless the new fan helps, I may try the heater core idea as well, seems like it couldn't hurt

as for waterwetter, we are not allowed to run anything except straight water, that is something they do check in very class, they are a bit anal about keeping the track clean and they do not like additives in the water, I can see how anti-freeze would be an issues but I do not know what things like waterwetter or 40 below would hurt, they also do not tolerate leaks of any kind

we are running conventional oil, don't really have any experience with synthetic oil

 

[pontiacgp]

You're right about that flex fan may cause issues. At high rpm they flatten out instead of pulling air they actually block it like a wall and could cause it to run hotter. Some guys will run a electric and not put it on unless necessary so the blades are not blocking the flow.

almost all tracks allow waterwetter, it doesn't cause any problems if it's dumped on the track, it evaporates with the water...if your track is so anal then they shouldn't be running automatics, they are always dripping oil.