Sam's build thread

[Sydneykid]

The timing sounds strange. I believe the start system is a beam and timing starts when your rears clear the beam. So you must be staged when the front of your tyre has the beam broken, when it goes high again the timing initiates. But then apparently the finish line is independent. Instead of the bottom beam directly triggering the top ones count, they use it as a time stamp. They then look at the time stamp when the top/finish beam is crossed and subtract the two. Apparently the start and finish beam positions are fixed so it must be a problem with each of the beams disagreeing on what time it is when they are activated? Last year the Esses times were a joke and mountain straights' too but this year it seemed that the esses was ok and just mountain straight had the issues. I don't know if they transfer the timing systems from day 1 over to the other side of the mountain for day 2 or if they run separate gear.

What used to happen with the light beams, early on in their implementation, at the start line was false trips from reflections. Plus I used to get early triggers when I put the FWD car into 1st gear with the multiplate clutch, it would jerk enough to trigger the timing beam. As a result I had one run that was over 10 minutes, due to a track delay after I'd staged. The problem was the staging guy was getting the cars too close to the beam line, so any tiny movement in the tyre would trip it. RWD cars were pretty much OK, but the FWD's were an issue. So they went back to the old trusty shoe under the rear wheels.

The time stamp is used as it helps with the start and then the split times, each beacon just adds its own time stamp. It's a simplistic method overall, they really should use Dorian timers with embedded loops like we do for circuit racing. But they would whinge about the cost, for them and for the competitors.

My view is that every competitor pays the same entry fee so are entitled to the same treatment.

Cheers
Gary

[seangti]

Nicely done Sam and well done on that time.

I'm wanting to do some different events this year as I'm feeling a little uninspired, just don't know if a 30sec hill climb will do it for me, so short.

[sambb]

Short yes, but way more adrenalin - a mugging vs a boxing 12 rounder. You know what the first couple of laps feel like before the tyres come up when you do a track day, well imagine doing a standing start at Lakeside on tyres as cold as that and to be anywhere in the list you have to go hard. Slidey as it is, you have to make a perfect start with drag style pressure and cant make any mistakes and have to go as fast as possible with limited grip. I haven't done as much circuit stuff as you but I have done both and I still come down on the side of a hillclimb for the rush you get. Don't get me wrong, hammering around Wakefield was exhilarating but I wasn't pushing through fear to do it. First few times at Panorama I literally was running for the toilet before my runs. I also love the margins tenths and hundredths separating the cars in your class which really pushes you on despite the additional risk of plenty to hit if you stuff up. I reckon at the right track it might just get its hooks into you - learning a lot more about tyres, setup differences when things are cold, car control for sure etc But to GET hillclimbs you have to be going hard and caring what your times/position is. You don't really go to a hillclimb to just circulate cos that's not really the point. You guys have some pretty awesome hillclimbs up in QLD though that give some pretty decent runs compared to most of the NSW stuff. The Noosa one springs to mind and there's another that goes for miles up a beautiful sweeping public road that I've seen a vid for. Just don't start out at any of the gokarty type tracks. We have too many of them in our championship I reckon. We have awesome ones like Buladellah and Gunnedah yet stick to a lot of toy tracks. But I totally hear what you are saying re seat time. Because of that I'm more inclined to do the more quality events like Panorama, Huntley and Canberra and perhaps leave the the other smaller tracks aside this year so that I can do SMSP south circuit for dubnats and do Wakefield again. You have a set of soft A050's too yeah? Get on it! Like I said, right type of track on softs and you'll love it.

[sambb]

sean...
MT Cotton: YouTube
Noosa: YouTube

i'll try to find the really long one.

[seangti]

The Mt Cotton track is quite local in the scheme of things and i'll do one this year. Will need to adjust suspension (soften rear) as it over steers on cold tyres and no wing.

I sold the AO50's before running them. Couldn't see myself being bothered to run them at QR or LS as I've lost the drive to chase a laptime. I just want to get out, drive hard, drive home. I still log most runs, but I've stopped looking at logs and chasing lap times.

Spice of life is variety apparently. Noosa and one up at Rockhampton (which is sold out for 2019) look great, might need to get over my fear of spectators, lol.

[sambb]

Ah bugger about the softs. The federals should still go well though. Ha yeah I know what you mean re the spectators. I 've found the hillclimb scene to be really close nit and social though. Usually the crowds are connected to the drivers in some way and genuine enthusiasts, not peanut gallery types.
Theres a club in Noosa that does tarmac rallysprints too isn't there?

[sambb]

[Sydneykid]

Needs more neg camber on the rear

Cheers
Gary

[sambb]

Yeah I know. I was looking at that pic feeling happy about the front angles and how the softer front bar didnt turn out to be a grand mistake and then I saw the rears and thought jeez - they look properly positive cambered! That was only run 1 too so I wasn't even really pushing. It'd have only gotten worse which might explain its inclination to slide at the rear. Rears are at static 1.75 degrees so 2 degrees minimum would be the go yeah? A bit loathe to go over 2 degrees though as I still have to get some form of mileage form the road tyres.
Is it normal that the inside front would go as super negative as that appears?

I also need to look at rear ride height. It was sublime for the Esses, but probably should have been dropped for Mt Straight. Trouble is its as low as it can go really. It has a pair of collars on the rear adjusters and yes like we've discussed I can remove the bottom ones there BUT the problem is at full droop the helper springs will extend past the main threaded spigot and the main springs could dislodge. Virtually impossible with the car on the ground yes, but still possible which worries me. Not sure if I need to look at slightly longer main springs and run sans helper or what. I'll have to take some measurements and see. I cant limit the droop enough on the threaded base section of the rear damper body enough to keep the main springs trapped either.

[simon k]

if you're out of adjustment with your eibach plates, I can post you my lathe mount for the alloy plate and you can machine whatever camber you want in to them. I really need to get on to mine and give it some more rear toe

It has a pair of collars on the rear adjusters and yes like we've discussed I can remove the bottom ones there BUT the problem is at full droop the helper springs will extend past the main threaded spigot and the main springs could dislodge. Virtually impossible with the car on the ground yes, but still possible which worries me. Not sure if I need to look at slightly longer main springs and run sans helper or what. I'll have to take some measurements and see. I cant limit the droop enough on the threaded base section of the rear damper body enough to keep the main springs trapped either.

I have seatbelts limiting my rear droop - between the one of the top damper mount bolts to the bolt that goes through the bottom.

[metalhead]

I have seatbelts limiting my rear droop - between the one of the top damper mount bolts to the bolt that goes through the bottom.

Got any pictures? I have a situation where I need to limit droop travel in the rear myself - I had relocated my upper mounts, but just bought new shocks that when they arrived I discovered are longer, and I've no room to relocate the mounts further.

[sambb]

Do you run the limiters Simon because your rears weren't captive at full droop or because you wanted to promote inside rear wheel lift?

[simon k]

They're only there to keep the springs captured, they're a little too long now that I've cut the springs shorter - the springs can't fall out, but they do hang a little loose

not much to it - I've no idea what the belts came out of, my mate scrounged them from somewhere, but they all work the same. They were a retractable lap/sash, the retractor is mounted to the floor, then the belt goes up the door to a fixed point with a hoop thing (B) it passes through, then you have the tongue and it goes back to the floor to a fixed point (A)



So I put the old floor mount (A) under the top damper mount, then cut the belt to the length I wanted and sewed it on to the hoop thing (B). The bottom damper mount bolt goes through that. I happen to have a heap of handy little stepped sleeves that I've saved from minis I've wrecked over the years, so I use one of those at the bottom

bottom mount (sideways) - stepped sleeve is visible, it goes through the belt mount (B) and hard up against the damper mount bracket


top mount (A) (upside down - what is going on with these pictures?)


edit: I only used seatbelts because I've seen it done before and it didn't cost me any money, but you could do the same thing with a bit of wire rope and some screw clamps, or anything that doesn't stretch... just a little imagination needed

[sambb]

Neat little system there. Not noisy either. If I did have to do something like that I've got lots of those child restraint anchors laying around that I could use under the bolts.

[Sydneykid]

Sam, Murray can easily change the droop limiters in your shocks. You just need to tell him by how much.
Simon, I can do the same to your Bilsteins. Cost around $120 for the pair, includes oil replacement and nitrogen regas.

Cheers
Gary