hamflex

iTrader: (18)

Well I headed out to NASA nationals and competed in TT-S, I got 5th over all but we had many problems. The specs on my car was 8.9 to 1 at home in the hp/wt area. I ran a stock evo 8 turbo, the car hits the scales at 3180lbs and I made 351 hp and 353 tq.

The key to the evo winning in TT-S is going to come down to driving and tires! What i did was ran a non dot slick (michelin blue) in a tread width under 9.6". You loose .8 points for the non dot, but you get back .75 for being under 9.6"

For example here is my Evo at Blackhawk farms, this was this year and the vette in front is Geff Sawtelle, He is the 2009 NASA TT-S champion! The evo will have a hard time out at Miller though for nationals, especially on a stock turbo. It was almost impossible to make the same power as my turbo was maxed out in the midwest. At high elevation it did not have enough flow to make the same power no matter how many psi I ran. And I could only run so much boost or the car ran to hot....

Hamflex evo and 2009 NASA tt-s champion

MSP608

iTrader: (11)

Sorry to bring this very early post up, but I wanted to chime in. I run an 04 STi and as I'm sure everyone knows the stock turbo on the STi can't do jack compared to the stock Evo 8 and 9 turbos. I'm no where near 8.7:1 for TTA and really can't compete with C5Z06's when there's a good driver behind one, so I emailed the TT director about re-classing for a bigger turbo. I could stay in TTA on a bigger turbo if I wanted, but I'd be limited to options that are all ~10:1 lbs/hp. But yeah, I was basically also met with "you might as well stick to points or go to TTS"

Boomn29, I'm sure if you picked a small enough turbo with little to no sacrifice in spool characteristics, it'd give you a nice edge in TTA.

Anyways, sorry to bring up TTA business in a TTS thread. /rant

boomn29

iTrader: (47)

Ah, so you share my pain!

With anything in the TT pts class (TTA-TTF) you need to be smart with your mods without doubt. If you wanted to run an Evo VIII/IX in TTA; you could have enough pts to get near the modified 8.7:1 ratio on the stock turbo. Now will you have enough left over to run the suspension/tires/aero you want - probably not! lol. But you can get a roadrace tuned 360-380whp - with a nearly maxxed out turbo that'll run extremely hot probably!

I might take a run at a TTA build next year... Haven't decided yet.


In TTS you could run the same exact build, but TTS/U/R are more $$ classes. Being they are unlimited aero and suspension. Like we've said, you'd be better off with an upgraded turbo and detune it if needed to be at the modified 8.7:1 limit.

MitsoKid

iTrader: (4)

im just hoping that the Red will not be too laggy. I think I need a new downpipe, the one I have now is restrictive and killing my spool/response

hamflex

iTrader: (18)

I am thinking the red will be to laggy for TT-S. I am using a Red most likely for TT-U. I know you can run less boost and comply with power but it is not efficient. Red's run best in there flow chart at higher psi.

go green or stock turbo....

MitsoKid

iTrader: (4)

I may but I'm not able to put much money into the car. I'm probably going to run my current setup with some stickier tires. Atleast for a season or two until I learn how to really drive this car

hamflex

iTrader: (18)

sorry if you posted this, do you currently have a NASA TT License?

What kind of tire do you plan on running again? Like I said in my other post I highly suggest a skinny NON DOT slick for any Evo in TT-S

MitsoKid

iTrader: (4)

I do not have my TT license.. Too many mechanical problems and tight budget last year prevented that..

turn one and hpde is in my future, lol.

I was thinking of running the NT01 or an equivalent. Something more affordable then a real race tire and its gotta fit on my wheels.. So its gotta be a 245/45/17

racer145

iTrader: (1)

I can second that. I recently purchased an EVO for next season TT competition and had it on track for the first time yesterday. The green is an excellent turbo with a great powerband down low, yet plenty of power of top. I was totally impressed with the powerband of this turbo.

I made the mistake this past season of running too large a turbo on my 2G Eclipse (GT3076) for TTB and had a turbo that was too laggy off the corners for the allowable power for the class. Don't make the same mistake by going too large and giving up corner exit speed.

MitsoKid

iTrader: (4)

maybe in the next couple of seasons I can afford to downgrade.. Right now thats just not possible.. Maybe some cam adjustments can help my mid range torque but for now Im stuck.. really its not too laggy to be honest. I think I can manage.

Im also thinking of running 245's instead of 275's and using more of the power that my car has to keep up off the line and out of the turns

Bueller

iTrader: (1)

245s will not work in a competitive environment unless you detune your power and run non-dot slicks. Its about balance. You have to find the balance between power, speed, braking power, cornering speed, and so forth. With excessive power youre going to need enough braking power to match all that straight line speed. And your braking power is a combination of your overall braking system and tires. And 245s, simply put, are too narrow. Straight line speed isnt worth anything. Your top speed down the front straights will increase, but you will be slow everywhere else, and your lap times will suffer accordingly. Whats important is lap times, not top speed. And if you do simple math, your lap times are a result of your distance divided by your average/overall speed.

boomn29

iTrader: (47)

^^ Yep. Go wide......

hamflex

iTrader: (18)

^^^ go skinny, and NON-DOT slick style!


Lets do a comparison of 2 differently set up TT-S cars....

My car and Ed's ( bueller ) were both at the NASA nationals in utah... Ed chime in on your basic set up tires, size and compound.... Power set up..... suspension set up......

we can both compare times as you and i went different routes. Ed's car made more power and ran a wide DOT slick a hoosier R6 i believe and I went the less power route and ran a skinny NON-DOT Michelin blue

Bueller

iTrader: (1)

Ryan, i agree with what you said, and if you look at my post youll see that is exactly what i said about the 245s. 245 sized tires are way too narrow for us. However, if he wants to run 245s, the only route would be to detune his car and run 245 sized non-dot slicks. Which is what youre doing. Otherwise, 245 sized dot-slicks with all that extra power is not going to work given the issues i addressed.

As for comparing our lap times, here is my perspective:

It would be interesting to be able to compare our lap times, unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, there is no way we can make a solid comparison from Nationals between you and me. The biggest reason is due to the problems i was having with my brakes, which we associated as a failed master cylinder. All the details are posted in my thread on my website. I even have in-car footage from my first race when my brake pedal fell to the floor. If you know what to watch for, you can tell that my brakes were gradually deteriorating in that race. Besides, you can see that i was not being aggressive. So my lap times from Nationals are not a representative of what sort of lap times i can run at MMP with my setup.

Even if my master cylinder hadnt have failed, there is no real way that we could have compared our lap times because im racing. The way i drive in a race is totally different than how i drive in a time trial session. When im racing im trying to win. And in order to win you have to finish. So when im racing, im never trying to set my absolute fastest laps. Furthermore, in a race there is always traffic, and a whole bunch of strategy. You get held up, you pass people offline, you drive a defensive line, and so forth. Beyond all that, there are a lot of other things going on in a race. But when i compete in time trial events, all im focusing on is trying to lay down the fastest laps i can, which is completely different from racing.

If you want to make any sort of comparisons between ST2 and TTS lap times from Nationals, the only person we can look at is Ken Smith. Ken is the only person that was racing against me in ST2, and was also competing in TTS against you. Here are Kens fastest lap times in TTS and ST2, and your fastest time in TTS:

Ken
TTS - 2:02.993
ST2 - high 2:05s to low 2:06s (about 3 sec slower)

You
TTS - 2:05.932 (about 3 sec slower than Kens TTS time)

We cant assess any concrete conclusions between his ST2 and TTS lap times, but for what its worth, you can see that his fastest lap times in a race were a good 3 seconds slower than his fastest lap time in a time trial session.

As for me, with my braking problems, my fastest lap time was like a 2:09 flat. About 3 seconds slower than Ken. I cant make any concrete estimations, but i know myself and my car well enough. I suspect that if my brakes were working properly, i was capable of running a good 3-4 seconds faster in a race. Beyond everything i noted about how racing is different from time trial, keep in mind that i was racing on R6s. Ken, like all the other Vette guys, runs on A6s. A6s, as we all know, are faster than R6s. On top of that, you cant compare R6s with non-dot slicks. As you know, non-dot slicks are much faster than R6s. If i were competing in time trial, i would have ran A6s. A6s may not be as fast as non-dot slicks, but they are faster than R6s.

The configuration we were running at MMP was a little over 3miles. I cant say for sure, but i would imagine that the A6s on a 3mile course would be at least 1 second faster than R6s. So who knows, if i were to compare myself to Ken (which i cant realistically since we have different cars), i could potentially estimate that in a time trial session while running A6s, i would be capable of running in the 2:02-2:03 range.

As for the power comparison, unfortunately we will never know. As you know, the dyno for us AWD people was not working at Nationals. And im not sure if we can compare our power because RRE had set me up with their 3076 kit, and we were shooting for around 360 whp. Since the dyno wasnt working, i dont know how much power i was making at Nationals, but i know i was down 2psi due to the higher elevation. We had removed my MBC and my new setup at the time was ECU based. Like most others, my plan was to test/tune my car on the dyno at Nationals. But since the dyno wasnt working, i was stuck making the power given the amount of boost my car was set to in Socal. And since i was down 2psi, who knows how much power i was actually making at MMP. IIRC you said youre running the Evo9 turbo with a MBC? How much power did you say you were shooting for? Around 360whp? Hopefully they will have a working dyno for us next year. Until then we can only guesstimate.

hamflex

iTrader: (18)

Agreed, I ran into all sorts of problems myself especially with power. I believe I posted here or in another forum that while maxing the stock turbo out at my midwest elevations was fine. In the mountains I could not get the car to make the same power on reliable psi. I already run 26psi as it is and at that elevation the car was a dog, as I increased the boost to make up for it the turbo was way inefficient. So i was way down on power and I had many suspension set up problems! Anyways back on subject.....

Running tires like Hoosiers is really good as there contingency program is awesome! So many free tires!!!!

Hell if I were gunna run TT-S again I would run this for optimum power and more importantly torque....

FP green, S1 cams, E85...... good power loads of torque!!!!