Ran COTA again, had a blast and even repaired my car
02-09-2016, 01:07 PM
#1
Ran COTA again, had a blast and even repaired my car
It was cold in the morning so the first couple of sessions were constrained due to the hard tires. By 11:30 it had warmed up enough that the speeds were higher and people were pushing it harder. Halfway through the run, the intake hose clamp came loose and I lost boost. Car wouldn't go faster than 110mph and I had to let people pass me on the back stretch but I kept going and just practiced entry points for the various technical portions where the car was plenty fast enough. Anyway, I have watched this stupid hose clamp issue get fixed twice now so I had the proper tools in the car. I have been carrying them since this first happened in September so that if I was at the dragstrip or COTA, I could possibly fix it.
So fortunately that third run was before the lunch break which gave me about 90 minutes to do the job. I took the fan shroud out, unhooked the fans and then took out the rubber ypipe interface and saw that indeed, the hose clamp had gotten loose. So loosened it up further and checked to make sure the hose had stayed attached and luckily it was still firmly in place. So I was able to reseat the clamp and tighten it back down and put everything back together. Car ran great in the afternoon and the last run was of course the most fun. I put an excerpt up on youtube where I am chasing a 458 and finally get the pass from the instructor (not the driver).
There were several Turbo S out there and I heard a Sharkwerks exhaust which sounded awesome going by on the track. I talked to the owner to be and she didn't know anything about the car, she had just bought it or was about to. I may make some more clips. Unfortunately I didn't get to use Harry's lap timer because it couldn't connect to the server and download the COTA track info. So I reverted to the GoPro, Vbox and AP data collection. Anyway, the AP gives more data and I just used one of the projects I had already created in Dashware to annotate the video. The tricky part is figuring exactly where the video and the data align so it's close but not perfect. Anyway, it's good enough for the human eye I think. The fastest speed I hit on the back stretch was 159 because I was letting up earlier and not braking as hard. On the grandstand I was hitting 141 when no one was in front. That is about 7mph faster than before the ByDesign Stage 3 tune. The back end was also coming around a lot more when I was coming out of corners so the tune has made the car much stronger at the track.
Tell me what you guys think. I put up two different videos from the last two runs. The first one is longer and there is less traffic. The second one is me trying to catch a 458 that passed me earlier and I managed to get the pass right at the end of the session. I also have different layouts on the data. I think I like the fist video gauges better.
So fortunately that third run was before the lunch break which gave me about 90 minutes to do the job. I took the fan shroud out, unhooked the fans and then took out the rubber ypipe interface and saw that indeed, the hose clamp had gotten loose. So loosened it up further and checked to make sure the hose had stayed attached and luckily it was still firmly in place. So I was able to reseat the clamp and tighten it back down and put everything back together. Car ran great in the afternoon and the last run was of course the most fun. I put an excerpt up on youtube where I am chasing a 458 and finally get the pass from the instructor (not the driver).
There were several Turbo S out there and I heard a Sharkwerks exhaust which sounded awesome going by on the track. I talked to the owner to be and she didn't know anything about the car, she had just bought it or was about to. I may make some more clips. Unfortunately I didn't get to use Harry's lap timer because it couldn't connect to the server and download the COTA track info. So I reverted to the GoPro, Vbox and AP data collection. Anyway, the AP gives more data and I just used one of the projects I had already created in Dashware to annotate the video. The tricky part is figuring exactly where the video and the data align so it's close but not perfect. Anyway, it's good enough for the human eye I think. The fastest speed I hit on the back stretch was 159 because I was letting up earlier and not braking as hard. On the grandstand I was hitting 141 when no one was in front. That is about 7mph faster than before the ByDesign Stage 3 tune. The back end was also coming around a lot more when I was coming out of corners so the tune has made the car much stronger at the track.
Tell me what you guys think. I put up two different videos from the last two runs. The first one is longer and there is less traffic. The second one is me trying to catch a 458 that passed me earlier and I managed to get the pass right at the end of the session. I also have different layouts on the data. I think I like the fist video gauges better.
02-09-2016, 05:46 PM
#4
Here is an inside the cabin view that a guy with an exotic car website put in the rear. There is a lot of windshield glare and he has video up to the point the hose clamp came loose during the third run. You can hear me curse the thing when it happens. Right on the grandstand straight is when it happened and I had to let everyone go by.