New swap-4G63T

[bertvorgon]

ONLY 3 degrees of castor? THAT is sure not going to help you on corners! MORE castor induces more negative camber in a corner, bare minimum you want to be running 5- 5.5 degrees. I ran just over 6 degrees at my most competitive time. YUP, made the car a bear to steer at slow speed, but, on the course it was awesome!

Car looks like it still has a bit too much roll to the outside front wheel. What was the anti-roll bar diameter at front?

Not being critical, just observing, when I watched your video a few times, if you are kinda serious about doing Solo, you need to loose that seat. To me, as a past Solo instructor, you are moving around way too much, and, as we try to get precision in the car, to get it at the limit, the human body needs to be tight in the seat.

No sense agonizing of 1/16th of toe up front and then saw at the wheel abit as you move around. You do NOT want to use the steering wheel to help hold you in position.

DO not be afraid to turn the boost down some too. If you cannot use your power, there is no point. You will be faster if you can get on the throttle as early as possible and not try to worry about excessive wheel spin.

I used to tailor my car to the course, short tight courses I would run 10 PSI boost and on a faster course, I could run up to my 16 PSI limit, again looking at WHERE I could best use the strength of my car, which was low end acceleration.

Don't be afraid, again if serious, to put more rear TOE IN. That was my secret for many years, tons of rear toe so the car would not be taily at all and I could just use judicious use of the right foot to control a tad of oversteer, if I needed it.

[jeffball610]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm definitely working towards being more serious, but I'd like to keep the car streetable as well. As far as caster, that's what my guy put in, but I am somewhat limited due to tire diameter. I tried 5 degrees the first time I did my own alignment and the tire nearly ripped off the fender on getting off the rack.

The front bar is a Futofab 1", although with their adjustable control arms, the mounting point is pushed out a bit and providing a little more leverage on the bar. I'm not sure what kind of effect this has, but it might be a factor. I'm also only running a 4k spring up front and the adjustable shocks are set in the middle of a 32 step range. I'll set them higher to see if it helps and move up spring stiffness if that's not enough.

I definitely want to get better seats, but finding low and comfortable seats is a chore. I'm not that wide, but I still require a wider seat. I've been eyeing the Corbeau GTS II seats from the start of this, but I haven't had a chance to sit in one and try it out.

I've definitely considered turning down the boost. On the most recent event (all video is lost) I was staying in 3rd gear through portions just so I could get on the throttle sooner.

All of this is still new to me and I'm happy to receive any critiques or criticisms anyone has. I'm also eyeing some fender flares to get more tire under the car. I'm mostly just looking at VW Rabbit metal flares because I'm not a fan of fiberglass bubbles, boxes, or plastic bubble flares. I'd like to at least get a 225 under the car, but I'd love 245 or more. Within reason of course.

[bertvorgon]

We run a 1 1/8" front bar, No rear bar.

I get the fender issue, we built my car with the idea of running massive castor right from the start, plus, I increased my wheelbase some.

be aware that some shocks when "stiffend" up, do NOT react fast enough under Solo use. Unlike road racing, Solo requires a suspension shock to react VERY QUICKLY, to the very fast inputs we do through fast lineal and offset slaloms. If the re-bound does not react quickly, the car can un-weight the wheel and after say 3 left/rights, you may jack the car down some and not even know it. To the extreme many years ago, KONI shocks were some of the worst, to the point that the rear wheel would lift off the pavement due to the rebound being too stiff.

Do not forget you can do some fine tuning with tire pressures, do the classic shoe polish down the tread to sidewall to see what is going on.

Again in watching your video, which again I was not in the seat, you seemed to NOT be on full power in a few spots. This is where the Art & Science of soling really starts to come in...be SMOOTH AGGRESSIVELY!!!

I know you are learning and again, only you know how the car feels in those lineal slaloms, but it looked kind of like you drove through, as opposed to the toss, catch, toss, catch...which again I cannot FEEL what your GRIP is, which loops back to what is the rear doing. That is where running lots of rear toe-in really helps, as that mitigates the sudden feeling like the car wants to come around. It's the toss part that you need the confidence with, and, the tailored boost, to not spin the wheels.

You looked good in some spots, if you can, ask one of the seasoned drivers to watch your car and your driving style. Constructive criticism is good. I sure learned from that. I let one of our top hot shoes drive my car a few times, back in the 70's, when he put 2-3 seconds on me.....it said I needed to learn more and the car was doing not badly.

Not sure what you have for seat belts, again being tight in the seat with comp style belts is a good thing.

You could try running a full tank of fuel as that weight just might actually help plant the rear more. As the tank is where it is, it does not affect the polar moment too much.

RE: the boost, good you can do that. I tailored my boost to a course. Took me some time to be able to scope out a course during the walkthrough, then, I would try to decide where I could make the time.....BASED ON WHAT MY CAR DID BEST! On short, tight courses, I turned the boost down to 10 PSI in my case, this let me be able to jump on the throttle and not have excessive wheel spin. If you cannot put it to the ground...the clock is ticking and solo is about moving forward! If there are more entries onto straights, then I would rely on my cars ability to accelerate HARD and then use my brakes. Again, as I was not in YOUR car, it looked like you were not using the brakes much..yes.no? That is when I would use all of my 16 PSI of boost.

How is your steering box? Lag in the box is always a problem with our cars, as the on-center feel becomes so crappy. here is my write up about adjusting the box if that helps.

http://www.the510realm.com/viewtopic.ph ... nt#p179694

Some thoughts at any rate

keith

[jeffball610]

Here's some video of the car on the dyno back in October. Nothing exciting. It made 285hp at 10psi and 345hp at 14psi on a Garrett hybrid GT3076R.

https://youtu.be/iwajT9AFKeY

[eastbaysolo_73]

Those are awesome numbers!!!!

[Heinrich]

that is more than decent power

[jeffball610]

I just returned from a 1,907 mile road trip to Colorado. Before leaving, I made a few "improvements" to the car. The first was the previously mentioned cruise control. It was not as simple as expected. The directions are pretty basic and aren't quite accurate. I ended up finding an alternate tach signal than the directions listed and had to adjust the signal to compensate beyond what the directions list. That being said, it works great and I think it actually improved my fuel mileage.

I mounted the unit in the cowl area using rubber mounts to isolate any mechanical noise that might get transmitted into the car. The control panel is mounted inside of my center console to keep it out of eyesight.









The next item was more of a safety thing. I've wanted to add a high mount brake light for while. The 510 is by no means the smallest car, but soccer moms still have trouble seeing it. I got my unit from an early 90s Civic sedan. The rear window radius is close enough. I had to create a mount to lift it up and have something to attach it to my rear shelf panel.






While I was in Colorado, I also attended a local Solo autocross event. I'll have some video of that up soon as well.

[jeffball610]

Here's the autocross video

https://youtu.be/dsQ7z8beLaY

[Stu]

Where did you get the grommet/ferrule? I can never find those things at the hardware store.

[icehouse]

It says your video is private.

[jeffball610]

Where did you get the grommet/ferrule? I can never find those things at the hardware store.

I take them off of other cars. I think the ones I used came from a wiper motor or something else mounted to the cowl area. Hondas and Mitsubishis are my typical parts cars at the salvage yard.

[jeffball610]

It's been quite a while since I've updated. I missed a summer trip due to some wiring issues, but did a 1000+ mile round trip to Datsunville in October. Not much has changed, but I have some things in the works. For now, here is some autocross video from last weekend including a bad spin. I need more tire. And more skill

https://youtu.be/q1fEJvypSmo

[icehouse]

You need to practice your drifting further away from the walls!

[yenpit]

I just returned from a 1,907 mile road trip to Colorado. Before leaving, I made a few "improvements" to the car.

While I was in Colorado, I also attended a local Solo autocross event. I'll have some video of that up soon as well.

Wish I had known! Did you come thru Denver?

TJ
Arvada CO

[jeffball610]

Wish I had known! Did you come thru Denver?

No. My family lives in Canon City, so I stick to the southern route using HWY 50.