now its working

 

Sorry, I'm used to posting the url then the title. Vice versa here.

 

well i hope they try again next year with what they learned. they can do better.

when will all this come to print so i know when to buy this useless fanrag?

 

I hear Steve will be running his CYM next year

 

My school's formula SAE team had a similar experience: we took a well-running, fast car, made some last-minute changes to it to make it even faster. The car had a lot of great components, and a good driver, but lack of testing time kept us from trophying.

As the saying goes, "Hindsight is 20/20."

Don't feel too bad though, it sounds like the car that won was pretty well put together, and had tons and tons of testing.
-s-

 

actually that is the farthest from the truth. In fact the week before he left he was dropping his motor. (i went to his house right before he left). The nitrous was not even installed, his clutch was shot, and he had tunning to do. he stayed up the last few nights reallt late tying to just put it together. He hadn't got it dynoed for months.

so the tons and tons of testing is waaayyy off. BUT he is a VERY VERY experianced builer/tuner. There is always at least 4/5 differant mr2's at his house that he is working on. He can drop a motor in less than an hour. So if anybody knew that cars limits..............it was brad. Even before he left....he said he just wanted to finish. If he placed in the top 4/5 he wouldn't care. those were his exact words. But the guy is a GURU for sure. so it was NOT some big corporate car. This was a DIY guy that just knew how to do it.

http://bedellracing.home.comcast.net/

 

reagarding the crappy 1/4 times, brad (mr2 owner) says this:

"Honestly, everyone's times sucked. The track was covered in dirt. I ran 12.69@ 122 @ 2500 ft elevation.
The fastest car was 12.40 @ 111 or so, AWD eclipse.

There were no vipers.

I figured the track was a solid second off based on the fact that all we had was a radar gun to time us with, no "traps" In the past, The Sparco Evo has run 11.90's in teh same trim. The Miata has run low 11's in the same trim. I've run 12.70's with 108 traps. In any case, these are just excuses, just know that the data in the tests would not be consistant with say, Ennis."

 

hey Guys,
Just got back from the trip this morning (7a.m). The event was totally different than what we expected for sure. We got kill pretty bad on dyno, emission, driverability, car show, and grandma test. As a matter of fact, we were 200 points behind the 9th place and 550 points behind the leader on the first day. It was so disappointing that I almost wanted to go back home so I can work on customer's car instead. Here're some highlights on what I saw.

Car show: They didn't really care if the car was clean or new paint job. They want stickers and wild crazy body kits. The Sparco EVO won the car show. We got 36 points (I think?).

driverability: We have a heavy guy driving everybody's car. Since we have the racing seat, he barely fits in it. On top of that, Kaaz clunks really bad and he wasn't used to the exedy twin disc clutch. We don't have A/C, P/S, or radio in the car so we expect to score low in this test. (42pts?)

Dyno: We only get two pulls on the dyno. The first pull, somehow the boost controller was switched to low 17psi and made 409rwhp. I think the person who was during the dyno accidently hit the switch located on the steering wheel. On top of that, he hit the rev-limiter causing all the vacuum caps pop off (w/o me knowing it was popped off since he keeps reving the engine so I didn't know that the idle was unstable. the 2nd pull, I turned the boost up to 21psi and only made 392rwhp. The torque was up but it wasn't much higher than the first one. The big cap (for the pcv), was totally gone when we pulled the car off the dyno. It was just bad luck in our part. (30/70pts) peak power/ delivery

Emission: That's one part we knew we're gonna score low since we didn't have enough time to put a cat in the car. 13pts (sparco EVO got worse than us?)


Grandma test: We thought since we didn't have a/c or radio, we ran to a local walmart and brought grandma a water spray electric fan (for a/c). She/he thought it was pretty nice of us. but we still scored the lowest with the heat, no radio, no window tint etc.... (10pts)

Guru panel: This is something I wasn't sure what they're looking for. From what I understand, they're interested in something unique and (handbuilt). not something purchased off the shelf. There were alot of things we installed for performance and we actually did okay in this test but since the spread was so far from the leader on guru and us, we scored 48pts?

gas mileage: I think I lean the car out too much and actually hurt us for this test. On top of that, we climbed 6000ft moutain for 50 miles and 20mile downhill. We were only able to get 18.5mpg while the MR2 somehow got 46mpg?? miata was 35mpg. That doesn't add up?? 24pts?

As you can see, first day wasnt good for us....

2nd day

1/4 mile:
the track was slippery. Apparently, their interpretation of preparing is to clean off the dirt. There was no VHT on the track and it was worse than the street in my opinion. We were able to get 12.8@119mph our 0-60mph was 4.52s and 20-100mph was 7.84secs. AWD cars definately has an advantage on this.

60mph-0:

Again, the track was slippery since we did this at the drag strip. ABS was clicking on and off and we were able to get 109ft on this test

After performing those two tests in plamdale, we headed to willow springs for skid pad, road course, and gross display of horsepower.

we were the 2nd to last car for the skid pad, Since I have never driven the car at the track (gas mileage was the first time driving it) until this day, I figured I would let the test driver to perform this test since he did all 8 of them before us. My thought while driving it for the fuel economy was that the car was a little pushy so I stiffen the rear suspension a little and also added 3-4psi of tire pressure to the rear to help for the skid pad. Once the guy finished testing the skid pad in our car, I was shocked to hear that we only able to muscle .97G on it. He said that the car was so pushy that he couldn't get anymore out of it. He could feel that car wanted to turn but it wants to go straight. It turns out that the Kaaz hurted us for skid pad and eventually hurt us at the road course. 24pts?

road course:
Knowing that the car was way understeer, I put more tire pressure and stiffen the suspension more at the rear to help compensate for it. Even with all the stuff I did, it was still pushy at turn. On top of that, I didn't realize that when jason replaced the hoses to the braided hose for the brake booster he didn't put the check valve back in it. As I was coming to the braking zone at turn 1, I got no brakes and eventually it catches up. So basically, I had to let off the gas pedal way early before the turn or I'll get no brakes. I also couldn't do any heel and toe because it'll build up pressure on the brake booster (no brakes). So the best time I was able to get (considered it was my first time at the track) was a 1:15:66. The best time was done by the busher EVO with a 1:11:82 by a local pro racer. I seriously think that I could have ran into the 1:12:xx if the car didn't have all the problems.


Now that I know what to expect, I plan to enter my CYM next year. I already know what body kit and paint I want for my car. I have a good engine in it (20B), I have descent suspension already (Tein), I have stereo (dvd player), A/C, and P/S. I think my cym is a better contender than the car we brought in this year.

On a good note. We got two trophies. One for *never say die award*. According to SCC, they have never had a rotary engine survive the competition so we deserve the award. LOL

The other trophy was for the gross display of horsepower. We placed 2nd in that test. I pretty much melted the worn out tires we brought with us for the 70 secs that we do burn out. I drifted a little while burning the tires and then lost all grip and just stayed on the burnout until they tell us to stop. The funny thing was as we were doing the burnout, there were a few times that I hit the rev limiter, the guys watching it was like, OH!! there goes the motor!!.

 

*never say die award*.

aaahahahahahhaa - thats great.

 

congrats to everyone involved for putting forth a great effort.

unfortunate outcome, but lessons learned for next year!

thanks for sharing, and for doing such a great job of representing the Rotary Community

 

Here are some photos and videos of the event originally posted in the forum linked to on the previous page.

Photos & Videos

 

Friggin typical ignorance.

On a side note.. I looked at all the pics from the show; I'm sorry, but the Gotham car CARRIED everyone as far as looks. I don't know what they were smoking.. A clean FD is more appealing to the eyes than nearly everything on the road. Oh well..

 

Damn you guys were right in Rosamond California! Man I live there! I had no idea it was here........I would of been out there supporting if I knew this, but I read somewhere it was in Riverside. And yes LACR sucks! The reason it is always covered with dirt is because there is a dirt bike track right next to it and the dirt gets blown onto the drag strip and LACR does not care. Also the strip is uphill.... That's why I go down to California Speedway to drag. But Willow Springs I like its a very fast paced track and I love watching motorcycles race that track because they go insanely fast on 2 wheels. Just seems awesome! Damn maybe next time I will come out and support the CYM!

 

Great and valiant effort put out by all the guys in your crew. Sorry things didn't turn out so great, maybe I'll have to "enlighten" the judges on street cars and what is visually appealing. I have much respect for all the hard work and time put into this project and wish the best of luck to you next year, I'll be voting for the CYM 3 rotor for sure. Josh

 

nice pics!

I hope the article sheds some light on the issues that kept the FD out of the hunt

On a side note, nice to see 3 cars from Texas represented!

 

I'm sorry to hear about the unfortunate outcome of the event for us. I know i was really pulling for the RX-7 this year. I'm sure this has been quite the learning experience for you guys.

I'm also glad to hear the motor stayed together.

That said, please do enter the CYM next year. I'll vote it in. I think the CYM looks beautiful stock (reason i don't have a guady bodykit on mine either) but i guess if the judges really are looking for bodkits ( ) then you can never really go wrong with some RE widebody. I think the oldschool widebody (think older GT300 FD) would look really nice.
I'd probably keep it CYM. People LOVE CYM. I get compliments everywhere i go. Everyone says the same thing: "Wow i love the metal flake in the paint!"

 

My plans for the CYM is to paint to another yellow color. I don't remembered the name but if you look striaght, its bright yellow, look at it at the side, its orange/yellow. It's an awesome color in my opinion. I'm thinking about molding the pettit wide rear flare and C-west front bumper? some aftermarket headlight kit....etc...

 

I'm having a hard time imagining that color, but if you come across something on the web that fits the description you are giving, post it up. I'd like to see what color you are talking about.

 

At least there was an RX-7 there this year, it's a step in the right direction.

X...

 

"Car show: They didn't really care if the car was clean or new paint job. They want stickers and wild crazy body kits. The Sparco EVO won the car show. We got 36 points (I think?)."

"On a side note.. I looked at all the pics from the show; I'm sorry, but the Gotham car CARRIED everyone as far as looks. I don't know what they were smoking.. A clean FD is more appealing to the eyes than nearly everything on the road. Oh well.. "

fyi, the completely stock bodied MR2 won 2nd place in the show competition. well, ok... the caveat is that it was a 91 MR2 with 94+ MR2 taillights, front/rear spoiler with all side moldings and rocker panel painted. but there is not a body kit in sight. in fact, this is exactly what a stock 94-97 MR2 would look like. seriously though, did they dock points from the rx7 because it did not have sponsorship stickers? the '2 had sponsor stickers, but no useless "graphics" anywhere.

and i agree, the rx7 looks better in stock trim than most other cars on the road.


"At least there was an RX-7 there this year, it's a step in the right direction."

i know how you feel. there has been a different generation mr2 the first 3 competitions and none have lived up to expectations. the first (mk1) was put together in a big hurry and was destined to fail. the 2nd was the spyder owned by james chen (i think that's his name), which was sorely underpowered. the third was a beautiful mk2 which blew a headgasket the first day and didn't finish the competition. we were beginning to feel that mr2's were cursed in the USCC. it's nice to see that a respected member of the MR2 community was able to "break the curse". hey, there's always next year!

 

I think what impress the judges the most in the MR2 is the engine swap. It was a very clean install and a very clean car. That along scores alot of points in both the car show and Guru panel. Stickers and graphics do help the car show. We couldn't put any stickers on the paint because it was only 2 days old. Besides, we didn't want to show a ricey car to the event. now that we know what they're looking for, I'll do what it takes for next year's event. LOL

 

I find the color name from my painter. It's called Giallorion. It's the color off the lamborghini Murcielago

here's a link to the actual pic of the car

http://www.lambocars.com/highres/murroad3.htm

 

i just watched your 1/4 mile run and spinning was clearly evident through the first 3 gears. shitty track by far!

 

Steve - Good effort man. Sounds like you guys built a great car but just didnt have enough time to get it all finished up.

No biggie

Do you think you'll get choosen next year? If so, please dont put a bunch of stickers on your car. Its just not worth it. Course you know me.....I'm not much of a sticker kinda guy haha

STEPHEN

 

That pretty much sums up my thoughts. Thank's VRT.

Steve I know how hard you guys work at the shop, and for you to take on this over and above the regular grind is beyond my imagination. You and the crew at Gotham are turly an inspiration to the rest of us.