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I just checked the results, it seems that Evolutions dominated in ESP and Mark Daddio won SM, too.

Imagine when he gets the car sorted and with about 100 more WHP.

 

Congrats to Mark for the win and everyone who did well in ESP. Looking at the times though, I think Mark is going to have to turn it up a notch to really take it to the M3 guys out west. I'm sure he had a little in reserve. Tom Pulliam was only .1s slower than Mark on Sunday in Joel Fehrman's ESP STI. That STI was the fastest in ESP on Sunday by about .4s. Weather played a part on Saturday.

Did you shift into 3rd in the EVO Mark? I heard Johnson's Elise was hitting 70mph for decent stretches of the course.

 

Well, just back from the Toledo tour. Learned lots of stuff this weekend. After reviewing some data logging, and trying the 285/30's all the way around, I have decided to go that route. I am encouraged by the fact that the car will be much better than it was in Toledo, as some of the things I was trying made it way loose. It seems as though as the traction goes up, the car gets looser and looser with the staggered setup. I believe that the active center diff is compensating for lack of rear traction by just sending more power to the front. When the 285's were put on the rear, (so4's on the rear by the way), on Sunday, the car was still really loose for my first two runs. On my last run, I finally had some heat in the rears, and the car was much better. Unfortunately, I was way under it, expecting the back to slide out and it never did. I left a minimum of half a second, but probably more like 7 or 8 tenths out there. We were also running in the first heat, and the grip level was not very good reletive to those running after us. (Anyone who has run at Toledo is well aware of this.) I was also running on my pump gas map, as I need to redo my race gas map because I had a boost leak developing during the race map tuning, making that map not usable for now. So I will be making about 30-50 more HP in the future once I get that sorted out. As for course design, I would say that Saturday was a HP course, while Sunday was more of a speed maitanance course. I will be making several changes to chassis setup to take advantage of the fact that added rear grip with the active center diff doesn't seem to affect mid corner and corner exit all that much. I was trying to loosen the car up in the middle of the corner to get early throttle application, but the incredible technology of the ACD overrides(quite effectively I might add) and will make best use of the available traction up until 50% is going to the rear. I surmise that I will be playing with sticking the rear until it starts to hurt mid corner off, and then back of just a tick.
Mark

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh that car sounds like a dream. Hearing you talk about how your car handles I think should make anybody that is modding there evo dive into Coilovers/other suspension stuff before anything else. To have the evo's tail just barely loose from the apex out must make it a dream to drive...

Scorke

 

Mark, nice job in Toledo. I see you are finding the awd cars tend to compensate for chassis changes....

One question for you: did Dennis have his exhaust fixed for this event?

Eric

 

It looks like it rained throughout the day on Sat. Especially during ESP since the f-body's were off the pace. On Sunday the times were back on. Advantage: AWD.

Dave

 

Dennis's car seemed to be fine as far as power is concerned. I know he was trying a new wheel/ tire combo though. He seemed to feel as though he didn't drive very well. (A common complaint this weekend.) I will be making some major changes before the devins tour, and will see what that brings.
Mark

 

Dennis' wastegate exhaust dumps in the center of the car by the engine which is not legal in SM.... I had informed him of this fact in Atlanta and asked to have it fixed by the next event.... just curious if he has blended it into his main exhaust or not. I'm sure I will see in Oscoda...

Eric

 

Let's hope for cooler weather from now on, Toledo NT was hot and muggy w/ a little wet thrown in. Anyway, I can say that Sunday's course was not necessarily Nationals representative and it might take until Peru NT to really size up the Evo to STi (aka Stompy). The top times in ESP on Sunday were within 0.4sec for the Mustang/Camaro/Sti/Evo which was really interesting to see. I'm confident an Evo could have easily challenged for the top time for the class on Sunday if not for a certain knucklehead driver having to play it safe due to hitting the very last and first apex cones on prior runs. I guess it's a good problem to get used to when your car turns in better than expected.

Anyway, it was good to see Mark making positive progress on the SM car and to finally get to run against Stompy.

 

Is it true that Stompy's engine is relatively stock, 340whp ish....

Scorke

 

Congrat's John on your ESP win. Good to see you and Andy doing well considering how late Andy received his car this year.

Dave

 

I don't know how stock it is but the last curve that I saw was ~300 whp. I know he was considering other downpipe options that would increase the power.

Nice running this weekend John! Always good to have an Evo come out on top of ESP.

Eric

 

Based on data I've seen, it's clear that Stompy makes good power and can in fact put down power more efficiently given it's greater ability for rear bias on power (the way it was intended IMHO, I'm jeaous). I wouldn't conclude that they make 340 whp but it's not underpowered for sure. I think both Mark's and my terminal speeds on course were slightly under those of Stompy's but a lot of things could factor into that, particularly given the nature of this course. Stay tuned, the last chapter hasn't been written on this, it will be an interesting season.....

I did get a good chuckle out of Stompy's passenger seat, it was clever. It got us to thinking if an aluminum lawn chair could pass rules on our SM/ESP cars.

 

Anyone got picture?