Sam's build thread

[sambb]

no I havent been to both my kids soccer matches in a while because of the shift roster so i'll do that. I'm betting it'll still be wet this weekend. If you do do it, It'll be a good tune up to get your eye in for the short track state event though.
I just went for a wet run through the national park to get my head around the new traction control operation. I'd been thinking that some of those hairpins at Ringwood would be below 40km/h (when my traction control is active) and it would help me there but now I'm thinking the TC will just be something to help get me off the line in the first burst of 1st gear. Even super tight hairpins in the park I was generally carrying more than 40km/h at the apex. It definitely helped in the wet with handbrake boost loaded starts. I reckon in the dry with semis I might be able to launch at higher rpm and really get a good jump and then short shift into second.
Hey what happened about the tyres. Did Liam get a hold of you? AR-1's gone??

[metalhead]

no I havent been to both my kids soccer matches in a while because of the shift roster so i'll do that. I'm betting it'll still be wet this weekend. If you do do it, It'll be a good tune up to get your eye in for the short track state event though.
I just went for a wet run through the national park to get my head around the new traction control operation. I'd been thinking that some of those hairpins at Ringwood would be below 40km/h (when my traction control is active) and it would help me there but now I'm thinking the TC will just be something to help get me off the line in the first burst of 1st gear. Even super tight hairpins in the park I was generally carrying more than 40km/h at the apex. It definitely helped in the wet with handbrake boost loaded starts. I reckon in the dry with semis I might be able to launch at higher rpm and really get a good jump and then short shift into second.
Hey what happened about the tyres. Did Liam get a hold of you? AR-1's gone??

That's what I figured, that it'd be a good practise run. Fair enough with the kids soccer, that's another factor for me - Jenna's away this week for work, so time at home over the weekend is a consideration.

All you cheats with your traction control and ABS etc...

Yeh spoke with Liam, should get the tyres from him before/at Ringwood. I still have the AR-1s at the moment, can't afford to change to something else at the moment - I imagine I'll be running them until they're dead unless I have a good reason not to. That's another reason it might be good to run this weekend - get some more comparative data on these AR1s. James Pearson seems to have come to the conclusion he's not overly impressed with them, reckons they're slower on his rx7 than nt01s.

[sambb]

Yeah Pete sold his. Even destroyed shoulderess a050's were nearly 1.5 seconds quicker for him around a 1:06 lap.
No I'm all for 3 pedals being in charge of everything. Looks like the TC changes will only suit wet launches at this stage anyway. The thing I most want to kill is ABS and ESP. Today in the park I was trail braking for a downhill Hairpin, nothing over the top, not locking or sliding and the brake pedal nearly went to the floor pulsing away, certain it was saving my life. Horrible. When Pete first drove my car he pulled over and said there was something wrong with the brakes. He didn't realise that kind of thing is normal. His has abs but no ESP and doesn't do it at all. The Vw is just way over anxious to fluff you. I'll see you at Ringwood for the state round then.

[metalhead]

Yeah Pete sold his. Even destroyed shoulderess a050's were nearly 1.5 seconds quicker for him around a 1:06 lap.
No I'm all for 3 pedals being in charge of everything. Looks like the TC changes will only suit wet launches at this stage anyway. The thing I most want to kill is ABS and ESP. Today in the park I was trail braking for a downhill Hairpin, nothing over the top, not locking or sliding and the brake pedal nearly went to the floor pulsing away, certain it was saving my life. Horrible. When Pete first drove my car he pulled over and said there was something wrong with the brakes. He didn't realise that kind of thing is normal. His has abs but no ESP and doesn't do it at all. The Vw is just way over anxious to fluff you. I'll see you at Ringwood for the state round then.

Bloody hell. Maybe I should just try and offload the Nankangs while they are still near new. I really wish now that I hadn't missed the opportunity to pickup those A050s a couple months back. But realistically I'm not in a position to purchase new rubber right now, at least they seem comparable in performance to my street tyres and not worse... I guess I'll have to head down to Wakefield or EC at some point and use them up - should still be good for getting some laps at a track day or two and helping me get my eye in for the higher speed events. But no point offloading them or burning them up when I don't have cash to replace them at the moment, and the car needs a lot of other little things.

Yeh, I like being in control too, but the Golf R that has been one of the quickest cars this year has all the drivers aids tuned up, turned on, and obviously working very well for him.

[sambb]

Reece Macintoshs Golf R? Yeah that thing is pretty awesome. We met him at the Wakefield track day we did. He's a Trackschool instructor and driver coached Pete. They put Pete with him because he's a massive Clio fan. When he turned up at Bathurst he had dinner with us at the camp site and he said that while the thing is a weapon he'd never buy one - he said you literally just steer the thing and it just feels too automated/distant/easy and that something like his M3 (the pure straight six one) or a setup Clio is just so much more smile inducing/rewarding.
Its actually his bosses car (Reece runs the tuning business for him) so I imagine the driver aids are there to protect the flagship car to some extent too.

[sambb]

Get on it!!

YouTube

Nest time I go on the track I'm putting on space saver rears ha ha

[metalhead]

Lol, classic!

Good day at Ringwood on Sunday, was my second time at Ringwood on the AR-1s. Just under 0.9s off my best on the Continentals but conditions were very fast when I ran that time at the state round last year. I ran 0.15s slower than I ran at the similar club round last year, but the conditions were worse than they were last year - there was wet patches on corners 2 3 and 4 all day. So times seem to be fairly directly comparable, maybe slightly better than the Continental ExtremeContact Sports. Could be that the shorter sidewall is a negative factor against the Nankangs - the Continentals (my street tyres on 17" wheels) have a 114mm sidewall compared to the 88.5mm sidewall of the Nankangs (on 18" wheels). I suspect that the Nankangs would be quicker on a circuit, with more time to get heat into the tyres, but they seem to be little to no improvement over my (very good) street tyres for hillclimbs. I posted a couple of my runs here: YouTube

[sambb]

Nice. The wet patches on the exit of turn 3 would have been killing the times. I cant wait to run there again in a couple of weeks. Havent run on the coilovers and new setup there yet so itll be interesting to see how that goes. Yep it was quick there at last years states so if I can crack the 42's Ill be stocked.
Whats the rolling diameter difference between the Nankangs and your Conti's. Smaller the better for Ringwood I'd think. Are you running staggered or square tyres?

[metalhead]

Definitely. My car is fun out of turn 3 at the best of times, trying to get the power down over the undulating surface. And turn 4 was wet all through the apex, so slower through and out of there onto the straight too.

The 18" wheel and tyre are about an inch shorter than the 17"s (285/40R17 is ~660mm diameter, 295/30R18 is ~634mm diameter). I suspect the car would work better with a 295/35R18 (~663mm diameter) than the 295/30 (due to the extra sidewall rather than the diameter) - but that means stepping up to much more expensive tyres, as none of the cheaper options are available in that size.

I am running square, I've actually been starting to wonder if I'd be better with a narrower tyre in the front for hillclimbs as there might be more chance of getting some heat into the tyre? I do tend to lock up a front tyre pretty regularly.

[sambb]

I'm starting to think you don't actually get any heat at all into a tyre in a hillclimb. Well not the kind of heat to start the process where the tyre starts to chemically bond to the road surface anyway. The temp you can feel after a run is most likely just skin temperature and you wont have that until you're on the way back down the hill at Ringwood. The pressure jump you see back in the pits would have to lag the temp rise that you assume you were driving on ie it'd be interesting to see what pressures you have at the top of the hill - you may have come up 2psi after you cross the line but I dont think any great portion of your lap was done on a tyre hot enough to produce that pressure rise. I think a lot of it comes after you've nailed the brakes twice coming down the hill, trundle to your bay with hot brakes toasting the inside of the rim and then you measure them and go wow, they came up 2psi! but I dont think you did that run on tyres as warm as that pressure rise suggests. I think that's why hillclimbers run as much width in the softest compound they can (or go and talk to Mitch about his tyre softener!!) I reckon you just need to get as much rubber on the road with the most mechanical grip eg don't go narrower than normal. I think there has to be something in using a taller sidewalls too. When you look at diagrams of the contact patches of low versus high profile tyres, the high profile tyre of the same width/diameter has a much bigger patch. For hillclimbs I think there might be something in that.

[metalhead]

I'd tend to agree with you, particularly at this time of year. At the last few events, in much cooler weather, I haven't really seen any significant ongoing tyre pressure/temperature rise through the day (I see it each run, but it drops back to the same before the next run). And the tyres are barely getting any signs of heat/melting around the tread blocks at those events.

I think, as Gary suggested a while back, that for my car the less than ideal geometry means that a bit of sidewall height, and therefore flex, can be a good thing. Not to mention how it helps with traction on launch, which is a fairly large factor in a hillclimb, particularly for a rear wheel drive car that's large and heavy with a reasonable amount of horsepower.

[sambb]

yeah at Bathurst one of those guys that double drive the orange datto 1200 coupe with the carby SR20 were saying that they go much better on the track with lower profile tyres but that for the hillclimbs the plumper sidewall gives them better times.
I still think that if you went narrower at the front and changed nothing else that it would just tend towards corner entry understeer. Do you have a limi in yours?

[sambb]

There is a god and his name is Ari. Still cant believe this vid - just mental. The famous line at 2:05. In my opinion at 2:00 he knew he was ****ed and that they were going to hit the wall but was just an iceman waiting to see what he could do about it when it happened. I think even Ari soiled himself. And then check out how hard he still goes afterwards with the puncture - again at 3:04, so calm sliding towards the wall and just knocks it down a gear and drives out of it. An artist! Makes current F1 look like a video game.

YouTube

[Sydneykid]

yeah at Bathurst one of those guys that double drive the orange datto 1200 coupe with the carby SR20 were saying that they go much better on the track with lower profile tyres but that for the hillclimbs the plumper sidewall gives them better times.

Assuming the Datto 1200 still has its steel leaf spring rear end then it almost certainly has too much rear spring, so a softer tyre (higher profile) will reduce the total spring rate. Similarly if they aren't running a rear swaybar (most leaf sprung 1200's don't because the leaf spring acts as an anti roll bar) then a taller sidewall will tolerate the higher levels of roll. In the same vane if it doesn't have a floating rear end with appropriate toe and camber, then a more flexible sidewall will help.

Crossing over set up tips from a 70's RWD car with live axle leaf springs to a 00's FWD car with independent suspension all round is a garden path that I wouldn't suggest following.

Cheers
Gary

[Sydneykid]

For hillclimbs we really need to look at using the softest compound tyre available, what we used to call a "qualifying tyre", good for one flying lap only. These days more often used in time attack with one slowish warm up lap, one flying lap and then half a lap slowish cool down, then throw them in the bin and put on new set for the next run. The other choice used to be a wet weather compound, we used to buy them without groves and then cut our own for wet weather, occasionally they accidentally found their way on for qualifying on a cold morning The Yokohama A050 soft compound would be my choice for hillclimbs, they don't need a lot of heat build up.

I think I mentioned it before but just in case, I'd strongly suggest before each run running the car up on the jack and dragging the brakes. There is lot of heat transfer from the rotor through the rim to the tyre. Obviously in a 2WD situation that means only 2 tyres are pre warmed, so be aware. As Sam has done previously, on a FWD car a medium compound on the front pre warmed works pretty well with a soft compound rear. For RWD car I'd strongly suggest warming up the rears, for a good launch, just be aware of the understeer from the colder fronts. Of course if anyone asks you are warning up the engine and the transmission.

Cheers
Gary