onefastviking

Funny that you say that, I believe his car has too much tire and it will actually be faster with a smaller tire. We will be testing some with it over the next few months and trying some smaller tires are in the plan to see how they do.
His times really improved after he got a little more familiar with the track, and some sway bar changes and shock adjustments were made to take full advantage. Sat AM before I got there the car was very jumpy and loose so he didn't feel he could push it real hard, it took me until Sun afternoon to get it dialed in right so he could do the 1:58, then he was starting to run out of brakes while swapping places with Rob in the 355 Challenge car. - That track is harder than I expected on the brakes, the hills really take their toll. Next time I will be better prepared on the brakes for ECR so he can push it even more.

jakermc

Scary to think that car could be faster! I think he entered 11 races this year with 10 wins and 1 2nd. You'd certainly know better than me with regards to what will work on that car.

For perspective, the BMWs wear 275s all around and I have a 245/285 footprint. For any given load through a corner, we are going to have a smaller footprint to help us stick, less friction under braking, etc. There has got to be dimishing returns somewhere, but I know my lap times dropped DRAMATICALLY when I went from a narrow body 225/265 set-up to what I have now.

What I was really referring to was tire wear. Both Martin and I were on used tires all weekend. On Saturday mine were less used than him and I had an edge. On Sunday I stayed on the same set while he switched to a less used set (but still used) and I think the advantage changed. Both of us had fairly poor afternoon races (his on Sat, mine on Sun) when our tires gave out. I think we each had another 1.5 - 2 seconds in us if we had stickers. We'll find out next year. In any case, I really enjoyed the close quali times and races we had.

C.J. Ichiban

viking, actually my windows looked terrible and I had no idea what happened to them- looked like someone spilled soda on my windshield!

about braking at ECR- I totally agree the brakes are the one major limiting factor in laying down consecutive fast laps. it seemed that every braking zone was super bumpy/ jumpy and I think they're extremely taxing on every car- I was worried about my brakes and tended to take it a little easier after seeing a few guys go off into the rocks with severe body wiggle!

onefastviking

Actually, I think the car can be much faster still, and yes that is scary. We will get to see after some winter test n tune how much more I can get out of it. Keep in mind this is still just the 3rd weekend out for the car !

The thoughts on the tires are that we are passed the point of positive returns, 275 fronts and 315 rears just seem, and feel, like too much. There are a few issues that I won't go into here but the geometry of the larger tire starts working against you at a point and I feel we are past that point.
The fast BMW M3's I have seen are all wearing smaller than 275 , mostly 245's (all around).

Jay was running on old tires also, actually old ones from the Mid Ohio weekend, stickers for him are usually worth around a second a lap on a track like ECR. No need to run stickers and waste money if we don't have to. On Sun he actually corded a tire all the way around the tire, he definitly got his money's worth on those. We had another set that had a few races on them so we just used those which worked allright.

Veloce Raptor

As I told you guys, ECR is probably the hardest track on brakes I have ever driven anywhere. And the bumpiness makes it worse. Hell, my diff broke in the bumpy braking zone into 6 last November, and others suffered similar damage there as well.

onefastviking

I'm really sorry about your windshield, mom had eye surgery and is scheduled for another one in 2 weeks so I am not surprised that she didn't do a good job. Hell, just that fact she got the wrong car kinda says it all. Next time I'll clean them for you.

Yeah, the track is bumpy which makes it harder to drive. I thought about suggesting to you an adjustment on your car, thats what we did with the 996 to give it a more stable feel and better handling. Next time we can work on that if you want, since it was your first weekend racing I didn't want too many variables to change for you so I figured it was best left alone.

onefastviking

You were very correct, hard braking track, I still think it is the hills that make it so hard on the brakes. We were able to dial out the bumpy areas with a sway bar adjustment and the Motons, god I love Motons !

Veloce Raptor

Yeah, it is the downhill braking zones. But the undulations put additional stress on the car when it is heavily loaded up. But yeah, nice dampers help.

C.J. Ichiban

I had my car adjusted pretty well for it, but never driving there at all I didn't really feel like going for that last few bits of stopwatch- it was more important for me to simply finish the races!

eclou

fixed it for you

C.J. Ichiban

easy dude- let me get a podium in an enduro before you go jocking my MadSKILLZ lol

jakermc

I think I understand a little bit about what you are talking about. Something about the distance between the suspension bits and the centerline of the tire? Is there a simple lesson you could provide along with the implications of getting it wrong? I'd love to understand this better.

How do you go about finding the right width? I assume there is more to it than trial and error.

onefastviking

Lesson would be hard without typing a lot which I don't have time for today. But you are on the right track in your thinking, think scrub of larger tire also and it will start to come together more. Basically more drag is created with the larger tires (front and rear). Also more drag and scrub is created thus slowing the car, or requiring more power to make it go as fast , especially in the turns. Not to mention the gear change we will make going to a smaller rear tire will make the car pull even harder, especially coming out of the corners. - Which is a place I feel we are currently lacking some. Also add that the smaller tires will weigh less resulting in a quicker MOI.
There are some calculations you can do to get close on which works best but in the end it is trial and error/test n tune to find which combo works best for the car and what the driver prefers the most.

Veloce Raptor

Damn, look at the big brain on Viking.

C.J. Ichiban

sam jackson in pulp fiction.

what did I win?