Prepping for Toledo

With the first two big events of the season out of the way, it's a whole 2 months before we head out to the ProSolo in Toledo, OH. I'm taking a month off from racing to recover but that doesn't mean prep work for the next race can't start now. First on the list is to take care of a one minor annoyance. The tiny 3lb Shorai battery simply can't crank her up when it's cold and on Ethanol. It was fine last year but I supposed the ITBs have something to do with this. Not a big deal, she starts up just fine on a regular battery or when the small battery is fully charged but if she drops in charge a bit (like leaving it overnight or towing long distances), she often requires a jump to get her going. Best way to fix this is a battery with higher CCA so I went to the slighly heavier 5lb battery which is exactly the same size but has 540CCAs instead of 406CCAs. She fires up a lot easier now.

Switched to the Shorai LFX36A3-B12 - 5/8/2014

Next on the list was to make some suspension changes. While I was generally happy with the balance of the car at the past events, the rear is cranked down as soft as it can and I have no more room for adjustment on both the sway bars and shocks. I don't really like that so I'm dropping the rear rates down from 1000lbs to 900lbs. Went with Hypercoil springs 6" x 2.5" ID springs for this for their known consistency. A bit pricier than Eibach but well worth it.

Hypercoil 6" x 2.5" ID 900lb springs for the rear - 5/8/2014

Since Bumblestook is going to be displayed at the big Evans Tuning S2000 meet next week anyway so they can showcase some of the excellent work put into the car, I figured I'd drop her off a week early so they can do some work on her. Mostly just nut and bolting everything now that everything's settled, install the new rear springs, and see if we can shave even more weight off the car from wherever we didn't last time like simplifying the exhaust and removing the radio and speakers and other miscellaneous little items that we left in. At the next event I'm going to be doing some fuel level testing as I haven't had my car fuel starve yet even under half a tank with some crazy left hand sweepers and I'm wondering if I can get away with as low as a quarter tank of fuel in race trim. Between that and any other weight savings we can find, I think we can get her to around 2550lbs without driver. Once I settle on the final weight, she'll get corner balanced again for sure.

Dropped her off at Evans Tuning - 5/10/2014

It was then off to SJF Performance to sort out tires. I picked up Robert Thorne's 6 run Hoosiers which I'm going to use as my race tires for Toledo. It came free with lots of Lincoln OPR so I may run these at an event in early June to scrub it off at the Meadowlands the lazy way (doing a bunch of runs with them on). It'll add some heat cycles but they're still better than my other set which were used for both the DC ProSolo and the NJ Champ Tour (which are now relegated to my practice / local event set). Steve Farkas made quick work of mounting these bad boys using his excellent touchless tire mounting machine.

Tire Mounting - SJF Performance - 5/10/2014

Thorne's 6-run Hoosiers with Lincoln OPR - 5/10/2014

Steve also picked up a Nitrogen machine recently. Nitrogen has a more consistent rate of expansion than regular air so this should help keep the tires pressures more manageable during ProSolos. I'd definitely recommend this if you get a chance to do so.

SJF Performance Nitrogen machine - 5/10/2014

Lastly, I had the two tires I won from Hoosier from winning SPA at the DC ProSolo shipped there so I took them home today since these won't go on until Nationals.

Nothing like winning race tires! - 315 Hoosiers FTW - 5/10/2014