My 1985 Monte Carlo SS Barney...

[SSLance]

Well, I know this...forward bite grip is GREATLY improved... :D Not sure if my 1 year old Falkens were just heat cycled out or if the magic RE71s are just that much better...but I tried a couple of digs in first gear that would have smoked the Falkens and I barely even spun these.

I had stuff in the car with me both trips so I haven't been real aggressive in any turns just yet, but the steering response is much sharper than with the Falkens. May be due to the shorter sidewall, but I suspect stiffer sidewall and better rubber compound are as big of a factor.



Still hoping to make the race event this Sunday for a real test.

[SSLance]

Well, I still haven't raced the car yet with all the new updates, but I did machine polish and seal the paint again yesterday...

It cleans up pretty well for a racecar doesn't it?














I have the opportunity to race each of the next 5 weekends, hope to make it to least 2 or 3 of them then the CAM invitational in Lincoln Sept 2-4.

[KSScotton]

Barney "The Show Car" ;-)

[mc84_zz4]

The new shoes look great !

[SSLance]

We traveled to Lincoln, NE last weekend to race with the Nebraska Region SCCA club on the famed Lincoln Air Park facility (home of the SCCA nationals). It was the first time I've raced in over two months and also the first time on course with the new Detroit Locker in the rear diff, new extra stiff rear springs, and also the new Forgeline wheels wrapped with super sticky Bridgestone RE71 rubber. Racing on the concrete at LAP was the perfect test bed to see how all the new changes work and to get ready for the CAM Invitational coming up in a few weeks there.

We got 4 runs on a SCCA Nationals style course and after just the first couple of elements of the first run, I knew things with the car were MUCH improved. First, the grip from the tires is unbelievable... Second, the locker completely changed the way the rear of the car reacts mid corner to corner exit. I kind of snuck up on things, pushing the car harder and harder in spots trying to find the edge...in most places I never did find the edge which means I still didn't push hard enough.

The car still lifts the inside rear tire on corner entry, rear sway bar is disconnected and rear shock rebound is backed out way softer than I've ever ran it before. What is different though is in most cases it doesn't seem to upset the car. Only if I get back into the gas with one tire still up will is spin the other tire and slide a bit. I played with it in a couple of right hand turns in the later runs and was still able to be real aggressive with the throttle and the car never felt like it was getting ready to step out.

It's not optimum for sure but it's a lot better than it was before. Some sort of rear roll center relocation device is going to be the only cure for this I'm afraid, in the meantime I'll just keep dealing with it.

I never did get comfortable enough to really push it hard in the slaloms, and there were several long slaloms on this course. I'm sure there is more speed to be had there, probably enough to have got me the win this weekend. I thought about staying around for some fun runs after the awards ceremony to work on the slaloms a bit but we had been on the road for 3 days and still had to load up and had another 3 hour drive to get home...so I bailed. I think the locker has changed the way the car feels in the slaloms and I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I know this, the locker never did make the car feel pushy at all, the 40# Ron Sutton springs in it make it very autocross friendly with the sticky street tires.

Anyway, here are all 4 of my runs...watching them back re-enforced what I felt from the driver seat, it corners fantastic...sticks like crazy...and the driver needs to up his game to get the most out of the new setup. Just a bit of salty language at the very end...sorry 'bout that. :D I knew I was just a couple tenths short of the car in front of me and I didn't get it on that run.

[Streetbu]

For going out with a new set up, on different tires, with different springs, a different rear end, and no practice for the last two months, you did awesome! I think you're being too hard on yourself. Give it some time to get acquainted with the new setup and tweak what you have again. Then you'll figure out the RRC and have to start over again LOL

[Cobra 498]

We traveled to Lincoln, NE last weekend to race with the Nebraska Region SCCA club on the famed Lincoln Air Park facility (home of the SCCA nationals). It was the first time I've raced in over two months and also the first time on course with the new Detroit Locker in the rear diff, new extra stiff rear springs, and also the new Forgeline wheels wrapped with super sticky Bridgestone RE71 rubber. Racing on the concrete at LAP was the perfect test bed to see how all the new changes work and to get ready for the CAM Invitational coming up in a few weeks there.

We got 4 runs on a SCCA Nationals style course and after just the first couple of elements of the first run, I knew things with the car were MUCH improved. First, the grip from the tires is unbelievable... Second, the locker completely changed the way the rear of the car reacts mid corner to corner exit. I kind of snuck up on things, pushing the car harder and harder in spots trying to find the edge...in most places I never did find the edge which means I still didn't push hard enough.

The car still lifts the inside rear tire on corner entry, rear sway bar is disconnected and rear shock rebound is backed out way softer than I've ever ran it before. What is different though is in most cases it doesn't seem to upset the car. Only if I get back into the gas with one tire still up will is spin the other tire and slide a bit. I played with it in a couple of right hand turns in the later runs and was still able to be real aggressive with the throttle and the car never felt like it was getting ready to step out.

It's not optimum for sure but it's a lot better than it was before. Some sort of rear roll center relocation device is going to be the only cure for this I'm afraid, in the meantime I'll just keep dealing with it.

I never did get comfortable enough to really push it hard in the slaloms, and there were several long slaloms on this course. I'm sure there is more speed to be had there, probably enough to have got me the win this weekend. I thought about staying around for some fun runs after the awards ceremony to work on the slaloms a bit but we had been on the road for 3 days and still had to load up and had another 3 hour drive to get home...so I bailed. I think the locker has changed the way the car feels in the slaloms and I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I know this, the locker never did make the car feel pushy at all, the 40# Ron Sutton springs in it make it very autocross friendly with the sticky street tires.

Anyway, here are all 4 of my runs...watching them back re-enforced what I felt from the driver seat, it corners fantastic...sticks like crazy...and the driver needs to up his game to get the most out of the new setup. Just a bit of salty language at the very end...sorry 'bout that. :D I knew I was just a couple tenths short of the car in front of me and I didn't get it on that run.

It would be difficult to develop a push with one rear wheel in the air, need to keep it planted. Are you still running high travel low roll set up?

[SSLance]

Photographic evidence seems to show it wasn't lifting the inside rear tire after all, these were all taken at the hard right hander at the end of the fastest part of the course.











You have a private message Bruce...

[SSLance]

Both taken right before entering that turn,




On the binders hard there...

[Ron Sutton]

We traveled to Lincoln, NE last weekend to race with the Nebraska Region SCCA club on the famed Lincoln Air Park facility (home of the SCCA nationals). It was the first time I've raced in over two months and also the first time on course with the new Detroit Locker in the rear diff, new extra stiff rear springs, and also the new Forgeline wheels wrapped with super sticky Bridgestone RE71 rubber. Racing on the concrete at LAP was the perfect test bed to see how all the new changes work and to get ready for the CAM Invitational coming up in a few weeks there.

We got 4 runs on a SCCA Nationals style course and after just the first couple of elements of the first run, I knew things with the car were MUCH improved. First, the grip from the tires is unbelievable... Second, the locker completely changed the way the rear of the car reacts mid corner to corner exit. I kind of snuck up on things, pushing the car harder and harder in spots trying to find the edge...in most places I never did find the edge which means I still didn't push hard enough.

The car still lifts the inside rear tire on corner entry, rear sway bar is disconnected and rear shock rebound is backed out way softer than I've ever ran it before. What is different though is in most cases it doesn't seem to upset the car. Only if I get back into the gas with one tire still up will is spin the other tire and slide a bit. I played with it in a couple of right hand turns in the later runs and was still able to be real aggressive with the throttle and the car never felt like it was getting ready to step out.

It's not optimum for sure but it's a lot better than it was before. Some sort of rear roll center relocation device is going to be the only cure for this I'm afraid, in the meantime I'll just keep dealing with it.

I never did get comfortable enough to really push it hard in the slaloms, and there were several long slaloms on this course. I'm sure there is more speed to be had there, probably enough to have got me the win this weekend. I thought about staying around for some fun runs after the awards ceremony to work on the slaloms a bit but we had been on the road for 3 days and still had to load up and had another 3 hour drive to get home...so I bailed. I think the locker has changed the way the car feels in the slaloms and I'll get used to it pretty quickly. I know this, the locker never did make the car feel pushy at all, the 40# Ron Sutton springs in it make it very autocross friendly with the sticky street tires.

Hey Lance, Glad you're seeing improvement.

The next phase should include:
1. Lower ride height all around ... probably 1/2" to 3/4"
2. Stiffer front sway bar ... we can bump up the wall thickness on the ridetech bar.
3. Rear lateral locator ... I.E. Watt's link ... so we can bring your RC down & increase rear grip.

You can do #1 now. But I'd wait on #2 until we can do #3 with it & have tune-ability to dial in balance.

[Ben@SpeedTech]

The car looks smooth and very manageable, can't wait to see more!

[SSLance]

I spent some quality time under Barney again this weekend, race one weekend, chase issues and make improvements the next...the repeat...

I started out by lowering the ride height, over the years for some reason the rear had crept up about a half inch. Ron originally spec'd the rear to be a half inch higher than the front and when I measured it Sat morning it was right at an inch higher. I lowered the rear 7/8s of an inch and lowered the front 3/8s". Hopefully this will help tame down the rear body roll some and overall body roll. As I've increased grip, pictures show the body is rolling quite a bit once again...never ending battle, hopefully this helps.

Then Sunday I tackled installing an adjustable proportioning valve in the rear brake line. First I disconnected the hard line from the distribution block and put a plug in the hole.



This let me pull the front half of the line away from the frame once I had all the clips loose. This extra room let me get my pipe cutter on the line near about the B pillar, or right behind the rear footwell.





I slid a fitting on the line (yeah me for not forgetting it) then flared the end of the line. I had picked up some 3/8s to 1/8" flare adapters which went into each end of the prop valve then I marked the front half of the line and cut about 2.5" off the end of it. Once that half was flared, I installed it all again, tweaked the line a bit here and there, fixed a leak or three...and here' show it sits now.



It's tucked up behind the footwell so I think it'll be safe and I can reach it easily from outside the car, just kneel down, reach under and twist the knob. Once I'm certain it's all good I'll probably fab up a bracket to make sure the valve stays in place and maybe protect it a bit as well.

Now just need to clean on it a bit, do some parking lot test n tuning and then head to HPT to race it again next weekend to see if the changes helped...

[SSLance]

So, here is a pretty good illustration of how my Ron Sutton Optimized front suspension geometry works...and why this car turns so much better than a stock geometry G body.

I recently lowered the front ride height 3/8" and the rear 7/8" and it had been at least 2 years since I've had Barney on an alignment rack. The jigs I built to do my own alignments at home...don't fit the new wheels...so I figured this was as good of a time as any to do it right and get some real accurate readings on things at the same time.

Here's what she looked like when I first rolled it up on rack.



Previously I had set the camber at -0.75 and caster at +9.75. Changing the ride height added camber, but not enough to the driver side for some reason. Caster on the right front was also off.



We decided to shoot for -1.20 Camber, +9.75 Caster at ride height and an 1/8" toe out (more on this later). We got it pretty close with two small adjustments.



We then put a pull down jig on the rack and pulled the cross member down 1". This shows what the geometry is doing under braking, like on corner entry.



Cross member 1" down, wheels straight ahead.



Notice it gained right at 1 degree of camber under bump.

We then turned the wheels 20 degrees to the right.



Then left



Check out the camber gain now! 1" dive and 20 degrees input puts the outside front at almost 5 degrees camber PLUS the caster puts the inside front at + 1.3ish...exactly what one wants to get both front tires digging.

Ron then explained to me clearer that he wanted 0.26 degrees toe out ON EACH TIRE...so we made some further toe adjustments.

Ride height, wheels straight ahead.



We figured out that about one half turn on the steering wheel is close to 13 degrees of steering input...which is about all I typically use on an autocross course. So we took one more reading, 13 degrees right at ride height.



Notice the toe is now 0.90 degrees and it was 0.56 with the steering wheel straight. This shows it is picking up almost a 1/4" of toe out with 13 degrees of steering input. It also shows 3 degrees negative camber on outside front and +1.00 camber on the inside front...at ride height.

I'm sure if I am interpreting any of this incorrectly, Ron will swing by to correct me.

To say I'm stoked to get this thing back out on track and see what it does...would be an understatement. I had a little taste of the improvements made a couple of weeks ago in Lincoln but I think these latest changes are going to make an even larger impact on performance. Being able to dial back the rear brake force to stop the inside rear tire from locking up, the much lowered rear ride height, and the dialed in alignment should make it be like a new racecar all over again.

I'm heading to Heartland Park Topeka Sunday for a Kansas City Region SCCA Solo event which should be a fun fast course and the weather looks to be absolutely perfect for racing... I can't wait!!!

[SSLance]

So I spent the day Sunday racing at the SCCA Kansas City and Kansas Region joint event at Heartland Park Topeka. It was a good day to put all of the recent changes to Barney to the test. I enlisted a friend Jeremy as a co-driver to help shake the car down...and we did just that. Two drivers in the same heat at an SCCA event gives little time for any tuning so all we did between runs was bleed tire pressures and later in the runs watered the tires down to cool them off. Otherwise we just drove the wheels off it.

The car did great, the new tires are super sticky and the suspension changes really helped tame the excessive body roll it gained with the grip back down again.

A friend manned my good camera from the sidelines during a run and it always good to see what it looks like from the outside.




Here is my co-driver Jeremy's best run finishing 2nd just to a 2011 Camaro with 335 Rivals




Here is my best run we got on video (a 64.598) we had camera issues with my fastest run of the day (64.386) which was the first of the day.




This is Jeremy in the top frame with a 64.186, me in the bottom frame with a 64.598.



It looks like he got me in that last turn of the last slalom and the finish. Sure wish I could have done this with the 64.386 I ran on my first run.

Speaking of times, you can see in that video above just how slight a 4/10s of a second difference is on a 64 second run...imagine this. We ended up with 2/10s of a second separating 2nd place from 5th place!! Jeremy finished 2nd with a 64.168 and I finished 5th with a 64.386... It's crazy how close we all were given the differences in our cars and driver experience.




Super fun day racing with the KC guys again, glad I got to go out, hang out in the camper for Sat evening then spend all day Sun racing and hanging out with them.

The CAM Invitational Sept 2-4 in Lincoln will be the next time Jeremy and I roll Barney out onto the track again.

[SSLance]

So I added one more part to the autocross package to help out in Lincoln at the CAM Invitational this weekend... SoloStorm...

I have wanted some sort of data logger for a while now, especially ever since CAM Challenge in Peru last year where I saw all of the top drivers using some sort of system or another. I put Harry's Lap Timer on my phone this spring but was never able to get it to work properly for autocross (it's fine for track days). I finally checked out SoloStorm on a friends phone at the last event was put the plan in place.

I pulled an old Motorola phone out of the drawer, charged the battery and did a hard reset on it...then picked up a Garmin Glo GPS receiver and downloaded SoloStorm to the phone. With just a little bit of setup, it is now functional...



Since this is an older dual core phone, I also installed SoloStorm on my new phone as well for backup...since the software suggests using a quad core phone. Hopefully that won't be an issue.

I have the software setup for 2 drivers, set to control the GoPro via Wifi, and set to Bluetooth connect to the GPS receiver. Hopefully this is the last piece (HaHa) needed to bump my driving up to the next level, finding a way to squeeze every last little tenth of a second out of a course in between the scant few runs we get in SCCA style events.

It should be especially helpful with a co-driver that is faster than myself...because I'l be able to digest his runs as well between runs to see what he is doing and where to be faster.

Here is a little video that shows some of what one can do with SoloStorm collected data.

[KSScotton]

You are going to like that set up!

[SSLance]

Expect me to lean on you a bit this weekend if I have any issues with it... I'll be running in T so you won't really be helping a competitor!

[KSScotton]

lol, I would help you regardless! the nice thing is you are going to be able to compare yours and Jeremy's runs right after they happen!

[SSLance]

My Dare to Dream Motorsports team member Jeremy Salenius and I headed to Lincoln NE last weekend to participate in the SCCA CAM Invitational. The Invitational format changed this year to a match tour style...we each ran 3 runs on the CAM only course Sat morning, then 3 more runs each Sat afternoon. The best morning time and best afternoon time were used to determine the class winners for CAM C, CAM T and CAM S. We were racing in CAM T this year.

During the morning session, the car felt good...we were getting used to the course and all the changes to the car and ended up 10th and 12 overall in class out of 17 cars. Then it rained... In the afternoon session in the wet, we finished 4th and 5th in class just .001 of a second off of Robbie Unser in 3rd place and overall Jeremy ended up 8th in class and me 10th. I was very happy with how we did in the wet, a true testament to how well this car handles in the turns. Now we just need to get it to stop better so we can make better use of the little bit of go power it has.

Here is a video of Jeremys best run in the rain. My phone with the Solostorm on it acted up right before the heat and wouldn't connect to the GPS for some reason, so I don't have any data on the wet runs which is a huge bummer.



Sunday morning we started out fresh, brand new event on the same course. The format was 3 runs each, top 16 CAM C drivers and top 8 T and S drivers would advance into the shootout where they would be paired off and run head to head until only one driver was left in class. We did much better on Sunday with me finally beating a co-driver and finishing 9th, 0.010 seconds off of 8th place and the final spot in the Shootout and Jeremy about 0.100 seconds behind me.

Here are our best Sunday runs...



And here are the two Solostorm videos of those same two runs, I still haven't figured out how to overlay the Solostorm data over the GoPro video.

Lance with a 40.435



Jeremy with a 40.539




Overall we had a great time, the weather was fantastic, the fellowship was off the charts, the car ran great...and we finished okay. I'll take it. We did discover a brake line leak after the Sunday runs and I spent a bit of time chasing it down yesterday...and right now have the rear brakes just plugged off to keep it from continuing to leak. Looks like I have some decisions to make before going forward with a repair...

Huge thanks out to those that helped me get to where we are today with this car, Ron Sutton and Ron Sutton Race Technology for the awesome setup and tuning support, ridetech for the grippy shocks, UMI Performance for all the super nice suspension pieces, Forgeline for the beautiful yet very functional at the same time wheels and mostly my patient and understanding wife Terri for letting me take the time to pursue this crazy hobby of mine!!

[SSLance]

So the thrash to build a new brake line happened last Friday night, I got the new line pretty close but could not get the last bend that went through the frame and down to the flex line short enough to fit...so I ended up cutting the new brake line I had purchased in half and using it.






Once that decision was made it only took another hour or so to tidy the new lines up and bleed the brakes. Barney was now ready to race on Sunday at a local Kansas City Region SCCA autocross.

The day started out looking very wet and since I had relatives in from out of town that wanted to attend, I decided to drag Barney to the race with the RV to give a place to escape the weather. It worked out great as I was able to park it where there would be a great view of the track as well as let us use the awning as cover while we worked tech during the rain before heat 1.





It rained pretty hard for heat 0 and heat 1 but had almost stopped before heat 2 was to start, the heat I and most of my CAM competitors were running in. I love it when we all run the same heat and get to race with each other chasing each other's times run after run. Since the track was very wet at the start and slowly dried out as we went along, we were all picking up time on every run, typically a second or two a lap which is huge in autocross. Every time a CAM guy made a run it was faster then his last and usually good for the fastest overall...it made for great racing!

My first run was a "feel out" lap to test the grip and get used to the unusual layout we were racing on for the day. The course had 4 very fast sections (50-66 mph each) one sharp hairpin and a few other technical elements in play. Here is my first run...



I had issues all day with my data collection which I'll explain a bit later, hence the video not starting until 10 seconds into the run. This run was a 54.7 second run which the fastest of all first runs...but that wouldn't last long. Here all all of the results in class...



One my second run, halfway through the run I said to my Mom who was along for the ride... "Something is broken"

The car was rolling over on the outside front on both sides something fierce. Once back in the grid I looked the car over and the only thing I found was both of the rear coil over springs were unseated on the bottom retainers. I borrowed a jack and reset them then went out for my third run. It wasn't any better... Here are some pics of the car on course for that third run.







I was in third place in class by this time almost a second behind the leaders and had a car that was rolling over like a car without a front sway bar installed...which is what I found after the run. The bolts that hold the sway bar bushing bracket to the frame had started to come loose! The front bolt was about 2 full turns loose and the back bolt about a half turn loose. I borrowed a wrench quicklike and was able to snug them back up for my last run.

So not only was the track really drying up on each run, but I had to go out for my fourth and final run with a newly repaired car AND drastically changing conditions...to try to run down the guys in front of me that also picked up almost 2 seconds on their last runs. I picked up almost 2 seconds on my last run but it wasn't enough as William Agnor laid a whooping on the field on his last run and Keith in a borrowed car also picked up a bunch of time for a second place finish in a borrowed car. I was happy with third given the day I had...but sure wish I hadn't had car issues to try to give William a run for his money on the day.

I also learned something about my Solostorm app that I use to collect data. On my first run that I posted above, it stayed logging during the whole run. On the rest of my runs, it would stop logging on the hairpin after the first cross over and I didn't know why. What was happening is I had the "stop trigger" set at 20 mph and on runs 2-4 I was slowing down to ab out 17 mph for that hairpin and shutting off the logger. This is why data collecting is so cool. In the wet, I took that corner at 22 mph, later as it dried up I was going much faster entering that corner and slowed down to around 17 mph mid corner to make the turn. Had I noticed this after my second run, I could have adjusted my driving and I'm certain picked up more time by entering the corner slower and earlier.

Here is the first half of my last run...



And here is the last part after the logger started back up again...



Super fast and fun course, saw tremendous speeds several times...including the last straight at 66 MPH which also led to me almost not making the final turn before the timing lights... Had a blast at the event, this is what autocross racing is all about... Making adjustments on the fly and getting what you can when you can and seeing how it stacks up. Love racing with my CAM brothers and can't wait to do it again...