![\"Jason](\"http:\/\/www.rhoadescamaro.com\/build\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/eastcourse_data.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhat do we see here?\u00a0 A few things, some encouraging, some a little concerning.\u00a0 Let’s start with the positive-<\/p>\n
The class winner Jeff Hurst ran a 78.2 on this course.\u00a0 My best scored run was a 79.9.\u00a0 But in actuality, my first run, which had a timer error, was a 79.3, 6 tenths faster.\u00a0 That first run started out slow, but from roughly the 20-second mark through to the finish, my first run was a full one second faster than my second timed run, the one I’d stand on.<\/p>\n
This sounds very woulda-coulda-shoulda, but the point is, the car as\u00a0it was then\u00a0had at least a 78.9 in it with me driving, and likely a bit more if the course were chopped up into a bit finer pieces.\u00a0 With an even better, who knows…I didn’t drive my\u00a0best, and am not a pro; seems like somebody really good could have done a 78.2.<\/p>\n
The concerning things-<\/p>\n
1. Why was the car so much faster on its first run?\u00a0 Well, I spun on the second, which made me extra-cautious in the braking zones of later runs, which shows in the data.\u00a0 Another thing is, the pushrod let go either on that run, or the one where I spun; sometime on that spin run is where I noticed the noise, which heavily distracted on the third and fourth runs.\u00a0 Also, maybe the tires were too warm?\u00a0 Was\u00a0a single driver on Dunlops, but it was warm out, and the car is a bit heavy, maybe they got over-temp?<\/p>\n
2. Oil pressure.\u00a0 The car has a high-end Milodon roadrace oil pan, with three trap doors, dual lateral kick-outs, and it all fits perfectly in a just-barely-enough-room sort of way.\u00a0 But if you look at the oil pressure graph, you can see it drops at times, sometimes into the teens (low of 14!) – and those drops correspond with braking events.\u00a0 The harder and more extended the braking, the more the oil pressure drops.\u00a0 In researching this, some have had this happen when the pickup comes loose from the pump; while that’s possible here, I don’t see it as too likely.\u00a0 More likely there’s too much oil up in the heads and whatnot, the pickup is getting slightly uncovered under braking.<\/p>\n
I added a bunch of oil for day 2, but the West course had fewer, shorter, and lighter braking zones, so it’s hard to tell if doing so helped any.<\/p>\n
{Nats Day 2- WEST COURSE}<\/p>\n
On this course, the story is overall less optimistic.\u00a0 This was more of a handling course, not the sort of place I would expect to do comparatively well on.\u00a0 Here, the class winner Hurst ran a 56.3; my best was again the first run, with a 59.2 – 3 seconds back.\u00a0 My third run was a dirty 58.6, which is still about 2 seconds back.\u00a0 Examining some sector times from this course shows I probably could have done a 58.1 if my own stars aligned, so a 57.x with a better driver in it.\u00a0 Still quite a ways off.\u00a0 The only thing that helps, is that I know my head wasn’t really in it this day, and a really good driver probably could have found a lot more time than I was able to.<\/p>\n ###<\/p>\n General observations from the data-<\/p>\n Looking at lateral acceleration – this is something I’m used to seeing from the DL1 in the 240sx and Viper days.\u00a0 I remember the trip to Heartland Park Topeka in 2006, the first time we ran Nationals there.\u00a0 Upon arrival, the 240sx was “only” good for about 1.05g in a corner, but as the surface got better, it was doing 1.25 during Nationals competition.\u00a0 That was on asphalt.<\/p>\n The Camaro is making quite a bit less grip than this, even though the surface is better at Lincoln.\u00a0 The data presented above is smoothed over 3 samples where is says f3 (so 3\/25ths of a second average), and while it shows spikes\u00a0around 1.25 in each direction, the more heavily smoothed values over the course of a corner are mostly right at 1.0.\u00a0 While I haven’t seen others’ STX data yet, I would bet the RX8, FRS, and BMW are making 1.2+ where I am only making 1.0.\u00a0 That matters A LOT.<\/p>\n Longitudinal acceleration is a bit happier tale \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Exiting the last big left-hand sweeper on the West course, the car goes from 35 to 55mph in exactly 2 seconds, even though there was some lateral acceleration in there to create drag.\u00a0 In other places, longitudinal spikes over .6 when lateral is minimized.\u00a0 When the car was running right, it was pulling quite strong.<\/p>\n Below is a g-g diagram showing the car’s “performance envelope” as it existed on its first east course run.<\/p>\n For comparison, below is a similar chart (from different software) from an STR MX5 at a BFG Rival vs. Dunlop Direzza Z2 tire test earlier in the year, on crummy asphalt (San Diego’ Qualcomm stadium southeast lot):<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n