Some of you may have seen some of this info in the tire/suspension forum, but the purpose of that thread was to review the Kumho Ecsta V710s (wow!). Now, here's my little story about the event along with statistics now that the official results have been posted.

For background info, I've only done one SCCA event, but I did about 8 autocrosses last year (my first year) with the Capital Driving Club in the DC area. It was a smaller group that had about 85 cars per event with no classes, an index system, and smaller courses (30-40s), so I do have some experience driving my Evo to the edge.

My mods sorta allow me to do BSP, but to avoid any contention as well as being able to enjoy some competition (only 4 slow cars in BSP), I decided to register for SM. I'm not really setup for SM, but here's what I had going for me:

- Power mods: most of you know what I have. My Warrtalon package plus Buschur ported/coated stuff, and alky running 26psi. 341whp/361wtq at sea level with no changes made now that I'm up here in Colorado. The race was in Denver at around 5280' altitude.
- Tires: 245/45R17 Kumho Ecsta V710 (brand new, installed Friday)
- Wheels: stock MR BBS 17X8 rims (17.74lbs)
- Suspension: stock with a fresh alignment on Friday to the following specs:
---Camber: -2.0f/-0.5r
---Toe: 0 all around

I went into this knowing that SM is way over my head, or at least it was during the _1_ event I attended in DC. That happened to be the Northeast Divisional where I don't think I was anywhere close to the worst cars in SM. I was only in AS and running small V700s, but I still was no match for the real SM cars. I assumed it would be similar here, but of course this wasn't a divisional. It was just a Winter event with no trophies (dammit!).

Well, after watching all day, I concluded that anything below 50s would be pretty good, so that was my goal on the first run. I accomplished this by going 49.71s with no cones. This was my first time on the V710s, and they were great. I could tell they were being underused, though, so I set my goal for 48.xx by the end of the heat. My next run was 49.4x, then 49.1x (+1 cone on the slalom), and finally I put it all together for a 48.8x on the last run. I thought I did well, but I feel like there's much more to be gained with these awesome tires as I become accustomed to them and my newfound power (never autocrossed at this power level).

Here are the results overall:
Novice class - 1st (out of 68)
SM class - 1st (out of 27)
Overall time - 10th (out of 194)
Indexed - 22nd (out of 194)

As a side note, only 4 vehicles finished with a 47.99 or better, so I think I was in pretty good company. I'm hoping to improve relative to myself in the next event, then hope to actually be competitive. In this same vein, I checked last year's final standings in SM, and the car that took 2nd to me in SM yesterday (LS1 SS w/315 V710s) finished 4th overall last season - 4 points out of 3rd and only 44 points out of 1st. To illustrate how close that was, he finished closer to the 1st place car than he did to the 5th place car (60 points back). The 3 cars that beat him last year were all E36 M3s, so he apparently made some improvements over the winter to hopefully take them out this season. to beat him by .75s and have only one run (my 1st) be slower than his best run, I might actually have a chance in SM up here, so I'm definitely stoked! After this year, I might get coilovers and maybe take advantage of the class by getting some big rims/tires like the real SM Evos.

Here's a tripod pic:



More pics attached, but they aren't the real high quality ones yet. I'm going to order one of them as a print, then get the high-quality files to post later. The Evo looked really nice, but I was hoping to see clear tripod shot with a 6" lift, haha!

 

cool pictures and sounds like fun time, I cant wait for the season to start here, its getting close !

 

Hey congrats the car looks great! SM is fun isnt, are you planning on coming up to the the Devens national tour in Massachusetts there are 2 or 3 of the best SM guys in the country that ran here last year Mark Daddio, and the fastest civic in sm. A friend of mine has an 03 Evo with evo 7 wheels and 275 hoosiers in A Stock and even that could have used more tire. 245's sound small for an evo I run 245 sized Hoosiers on my SM2 Miata and its heavy for the class at 2300 pounds I need to pull a few pounds out of it. I am jealous you got to start autocross already I still have to wait for another month or so. But good luck.

 

I'm certain I won't be driving to Massachusetts to autocross, haha!

245s are perfect for our stock rims. I don't have any suspension or any plus-size rims, so this was a perfect size. The next size up is 275, which is very nice, but I won't go to those until I have some nice, light dedicated race rims for autocrossing, and I will only do that if I find out that I'm good enough to actually compete in SM. I shouldn't be able to with my setup (or lack thereof), but it appears I might be able to at least in the Rocky Mountain region. When it comes time for divisionals and/or nationals, I'll be left in the dust for now, so we'll have to see how things progress.

 

Nice job, but didnt you already brag about how well you did in another thread?!

Im really liking the last 2 pics you posted, but why do you have a passenger?

 

congrats man, i may have to look into those tires for autox

 

great job.. keep it up.

n

 

Nice, i was waiting for a review on those tires, i will be ordering them next month. I hope they are the step i am looking for this season.

 

Thanks, Nils, but any constructive criticism would be appreciated. I'm only just getting into this side of racing and have a ton to learn, but the Evo appears to just be awesome, so I'm gonna milk it for all its worth.

 

Congratulations! I'm still unclear about the alky and auto-x. I had read on scca forums that it isn't allowed in any class. Is that still true?

 

Yeah, sorry, that was supposed to be a tire review, but this is the section to discuss autocross results. I apologize for the near double-post.

People like to do ride-alongs, so I was getting swamped. I took my first run solo so that I could learn the course and get used to my tires, but then the last 3 were booked. I had to turn people away. I almost always have a passenger every time, but I guess I'd refuse it if something was on the line. In this case, I won easily, but I'm not sure how much a passenger makes a difference. It looks like they may have been keeping from tipping over. I actually had one spectator come up to me and say that he actually feared that I was going to flip over on some of the turns. I thought he was kidding until I saw some of the pics.

 

No, I don't know the temps, but they probably were low, since it was so cold. I will have a pyrometer for future events.

I don't know about the alky restriction. If there is one, then I'll be SOL.

 

Wartalon!

This is Norm in Fort Collins.. You MUST let me know when the next event is.. This is the reason I bought my evo.. I will be joining SCCA & joining you in the fun this year, cool?

Edit..: You ain't had fun till the SNOW auto-x's happen.. haha.. They rent the parking lot for a day, lets just say march, & then it snows that day. We AWD guys live supreme!

 

with that setup you won't survive against the big boys. heck even with a good setup, you'll still get stomped on. top 3 sm drivers are vick sias, bob tunnel, and mark daddio. you would need 10k in mods, shave 400lbs. off the car, and practice for another ten years to catch those guys! and no i am not kidding. if you're in colorado you should look up tunnel. everyone knows him. he's won like 10 to 15 nationals in solo2 (really not sure but he's won a ton). here's his company. http://bimmerhaus.com/

again, you're not even close with your setup.

 

I know I'm not, and I said I'm not, so I don't know why you're rolling your eyes at me. I have said it probably 5 times now that I didn't even expect to be competitive LOCALLY in SM, much less at the divisional or national level. No need to get all crazy on me. I did well in my class in my region, and that's good for now, especially since I'm not even setup for SM at all.

Btw, Bob Tunnell was there at this event, and I beat him in his crazy-looking M3, for what that's worth. I'm guessing that wasn't his SM-prepped car, but it was certainly a fully race-prepped M3 nonetheless. I guess it was setup only for BSP, though?

Here are our run comparisons:

Run----Bob Tunnel-------------Warrtalon
1-------48.675+1---------------49.711
2-------51.325+3---------------49.424
3-------51.287------------------49.105+1
4-------48.460+1---------------48.896

So, as you can see, he and his M3 had faster raw times by as much as .5s on one run and .2s on another run, but he was inconsistent and hit far more cones than I did. I had all 4 runs under 50s and only barely clipped one cone during the slalom. For it being my 2nd SCCA event, first time in SM, first time racing at 6000' altitude, first time on a set of brand new tires, and first time with my car aligned, I am happy with how I did, even if I have no chance in my class at higher levels of competition.