One auto-x down… kind of. The event was actually a practice event with the SASC at Ft. MacLeod last Saturday. The actual competition was on Sunday, but other obligations forced me to miss that.
So how was the car? My first runs were about as uncomfortable as any runs I have ever taken. I chalk that up largely to a lack of familiarity, and an irrational fear of doing damage. The performance seemed quite underwhelming. In recent years everything that I’ve driven hard has had at least 300lbft. 120lbft seems quite inadequate. Balance wise, the 1″ Hotchkis front bar I’ve installed works very well. The car tends heavily towards understeer, and I like the stability that creates. Typically, an aggressive rear differential would allow me some ability to work around that understeer. The stock torsen completely fails in that regard though. That diff, which can’t make up it’s mind ever about where it wants to send power (left, left, left right left) is easily the feature I hate most about the car (120lbft included!), and it makes smoothly creating and eliminating angle a nuisance.
All this aside though… the times I was setting were good enough for top PAX. Keep in mind this was a practice event with smaller attendance and lots of guys running on old rubber, but more than a 1second lead is a good sign for future events.
As for the real break in… I hit two cones all day… a small number really, that indicates I was driving conservatively. These two cones however, made their mark. The first, left a huge 2′ long orange smear in my 3M that doesn’t buff out. (I despise 3M more every day that passes and am very close to removing it altogether.) The second popped my front grill out (breaking tabs in the process) as well as totally smashed the front under tray and cracked my fender liner. These were both middle of 3rd gear hits (120 plus kph), and hopefully not that indicative of future cone hits… I did though, order multiple copies of the replacement parts.
Wow, those are some brittle plastic bits; makes me feel good about my flexible front lip on my S2K.
And I hear ya about the 3m 🙁 Mine is coming off in the next week or so. Rocks chips will look better than the horrible black cone marks smeared all over the front and sides of my car.
yah. If I hadn’t spent $1600 on it it’d be gone now. As much as I drive the car, rock chips really aren’t a concern… but having dealt with it recently on a couple of other cars as well, I can’t think of any application where I’d actually buy it again.
1. It makes doing any body repairs a total PITA.
2. It costs as much to cover the panel in 3M as it does to repaint the panel.
3. Unless you cover the whole car, it detracts from the appearance of the car.
4. It looks like hell as soon as it starts taking damage.
The FRS panels are as cheap to replace as they are made at least. $15 for that under tray!?! WTF? Of course I’ll order a couple.
Interesting that you hate the Torsen diff. My S2000’s Torsen doesn’t give me the same grief that you describe — perhaps because of my huge front swaybar?
You probably modulate the throttle better. Or… you don’t want the car to be sideways everywhere. 🙂