2014 SCCA SOLO National Championship
 

Hi guys,

Just wondering who all here is attending this in September. I'll be there Monday Labor Day evening. I'll be running in C-Street which has 43 people signed up already. Should be fun.

The Sports Car Club of America - 2014 Solo National Championship

I'll be there! Also C-Street :-) Going to the ProSolo finale as well.

Nice man! I'm 70 CS stop by sometime.

I'll be there, #88 CS. Just cracked 100 miles on the car this week, hope to have it broken in, in time :)

Which tires and what size is everyone running?

275/35R19 square RS3 V2s for me.

I'm using these:

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5574/...e07d2a03_z.jpg

275-19 RS3V2 front, 305-19 RS3V1 rear. Car will probably push horribly, especially if it's hot out, but I couldn't bring myself to not up the tire size in the rear. Looking forward to not having to replace any pushrods on this trip :)

Are they pinched on the rims?

Don't have them mounted yet - others who have mounted the 275's on 9's in front can probably comment. The 305's on 10's in back will be a similar tire:wheel ratio.

I have 275s on my 9" fronts, the don't really look pinched at all to me. I mount them myself, it's only slightly more difficult to mount them than it is to mount the same tire to the 10" rears.

I'll be running 275's square ZII's. Should be a great time.

I'll be posted at: R13C04SB

I'll be there...37CS. Not sold on the Rivals yet. RS-3's seem to be best in our class, so I may be switching.

I autocrossed on Rivals for a year and was never happy with them. RS3s seem to be the fastest tires out now.

I will be there. Driving a friends DP Miata (#196) this year. I just got my 370z so I will look for you guys. Would be awesome to meet some fellow 370z AutoX-ers.

I'll be driving my brother's Mini. -Unless someone in a well-prepped Z needs a tire-warmer?

I'm actually prepping my 350Z for STU. Only two things left: Custom suspension and horsepower.

I just purchased an exhaust and found a tuner. I should get the go-fast parts installed and tuned after Nationals. I hope to have the car fully prepped (if not necessarily "dialed-in") by this year's state championship.

I'm moving on from BSP, so Nationals will be the last event for the car in that trim. Hopefully I can do it justice and send it off with a win...

Man, Jason R and Kit both with new 370's?! Have fun and goodluck all. I sadly won't be at Nat's this year.

Kit, I might have to hit you up to co-drive the 370 one time next year!

How the SoCal crew gets to Nats:
https://fbcdn-sphotos-b-a.akamaihd.n...84172052_n.jpg

I just noticed that there's 53 entries in CS this year, more than double the average of other street classes. Good luck everyone!

Open trailer...oh noes!:icon17:

Some $$$$ on that trailer lol. We're leaving Denver on Mon morning. This is my first trip to Nats and I'm looking forward to meeting some of the other members on here. Good luck to everyone this year it should be fun with fifty some-odd contestants.

The tires were fine - Jeff and Paul prefer the 275s in the rear - my own personal shortcomings (I like big tires) won't let me try that yet, even though it is probably better.
One weird thing I have is the Hankook RS3-V2s in the front and RS3-V1s in the rear. The V1s like (and tolerate) heat a bit more, so I was always trying big starting line wheelspin, which kinda hurt me. My V1s are only 140 treadwear, so I'll be going to V2s in the back for next year, assuming the car doesn't get moved out of CS. Overall I think the V2 is a better autocross tire though, which may explain part of why my car is actually not too pushy.
Here's some video of my runs.
Day 1 (west course) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiygL6aH_J8
Day 2 (east course) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9K_0GTwYZs
Day 1 had a big obvious mistake that starts with a massive miss of an apex, and a few other parts where I was just going too slow.
Day 2 there weren't any obvious and huge mistakes, just 4-5 smaller ones each .2 - .3. Add all of it up and you get the big delta from Jeff to myself.

Congrats to Jeff Stuart on his National Championship, and congrats to all Z owners for making CS such a fun and successful class this year!

According to Hankook, the only change from V1 to V2 was re-labeling the treadwear for rules compliance, but nothing changed with the tire itself. Then again even without a "V2", some tires subtly change over the years as mfg processes don't remain perfectly stable.

You're confusing the change from 140TW to 200TW that happened at the beginning of 2013 with the compound change that is the V2. I can say from experience at nationals, the V2s definitely don't seem to withstand heat as well as the V1s. I was cooling my tires after two runs. At the ProSolo Finale during the Super Challenge, the car got increasingly pushy as the rounds got closer together and the tires got hotter.

Thanks for the congrats guys, feels awesome to win one after 4 years of trying!

Here are videos of my fast runs from nats:

Pro Finale '14 (Both Sides)
Nationals '14 West Course
Nationals '14 East Course

Fairly major mistake in my west course run in the slalom along the back, but I coned my other two runs so this is the one I stood on. Data shows that the mistake cost me about 4 tenths.

Oh you're right, my mistake. I hadn't even heard about the real "V2". There was just so much drama about the TW rating change, I assumed that was what people were calling "V2".

I would like to take this time and congratulate Jeff Stuart on his awesome win! I mean, this is my 2nd year of autox-ing (3 local scca chapters and 2 non scca chapters, I'm already creeping' up on my 15th event this year :D) and I know how hard it is to compete in CS with 2700 lbs BRZ-Frs, even lighter miata, and various other competitive cars. To go out with a heavy (3350 lbs, almost 3500+ with driver) car, huge heavy 19" rims and still beating all those lightweight cars with national level drivers in it -- I sir bowdown to you! :tiphat: Thank you for keeping the 370Z name way on top there and making us (Z driver) proud. I also want to recognize some of the other drivers who pulled some awesome time too. Fantastic driving also by Jason Rhoades pulling in 5th position and did I just read that Z wasn't even broken in? haha nice :tup:. It's broken in now :icon17: . also, Paul Brown finishing at 6th, Mike Nakata 11th, Jason Minehart at 13th position and all the other Z drivers -- Congratulations. Thanks for going out there and representing the Z.

I got into autox last year and now it's all I do! I'm hooked. I started 2014 with EVO school and did as many local events as I could. My goal for 2015 is to setup the car (I want to add suspension and sway) and a set of tire (looks like rs3 is the winner. I'm currently on 285 sq re11) and possibly do a few national/regional events. I def. want to stay C street so my mods will be according to that. I may reach out to some of you guys via pm for help. :tup:

Oh btw Jason, I have never seen anyone turn their head totally 180 degrees to look at something as they are still on course! haha .. my question to you will be, what did you see??

http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/s...pse8789a00.jpg

Yes, way to go Jeff. Great showing for the Z. We had a couple from our local club win in their class, Lee in STF and Laura in STRL. The one local CS (350Z) driver finished 37th and he's normally about a second faster than me (on a mid 40 second course), so that make's Jeff's time was crazy fast.

Like you AK370, I started this year with a EVO school and have done every event I could so far. Being my first year I'm very please with how my times compare to other experienced drivers.

Congrats to all the Z drivers! Well done in a HUGE class!
http://scca.cdn.racersites.com/prod/...20Results7.pdf

Heh, yeah, um, they probably don't teach that at the Evo school...
I thought I probably hit the right-side cone in the braking spot just before the finish left-hander. Turns out I didn't, but didn't feel like waiting any longer to find out.

Having to adjust to the relatively small size of the Z after having spent 6 of the last 7 seasons in Vipers, which feel like aircraft carriers in size comparison. In the Z I am way off the cones (didn't hit any all week) because of a lack of adjustment to its dimensions, and familiarization with its sight lines.
As the proprioception builds, should start to do better.

Congratulations to Mr. Stuart and the rest of the Z drivers. You know this is my novice year which I've already pointed out of and my 5th event in the car. This was my first time to nationals and I'm glad to end up 44th out of 55 drivers.

You can definitely see the experience in the other drivers and it was amazing to see Stuart put that time of a 64 up on the east course. I'm looking forward to next year and to keep learning the car/seat experience. Very fun time.

My woulda, coulda, shoulda 54.7 run from the West course. Hit the second to last cone in the finish offsets (pass side). Still would not have overcome a bad day one, but would have put me about a tenth out of the win instead of .6ish. Pretty happy to PAX 7th overall with the crappy day one and sitting on my safety run on the west. Still only good enough for 4th in BSP, though. BSP was mega fast this year.

haha no they do not! I did similar thing this year in one of the event. I "felt" that I clipped a cone. Of course my eyes goes straight to the rear view mirror to see if a cone worker ran out. Of course that threw off my whole run bc I took my eyes off from front. I actually out "wtf are you doing Kaiser??" haha .. Let say from that event, I keep my rear view mirror folded up. Also, do you know you can fold our side view mirrors forward? Let me see if I can pull a pic. I think it allows slight more view of the course looking through side. I think I saw a few nat guys do it last year.

http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/s...ps57b261f2.jpg

http://i576.photobucket.com/albums/s...psaf5934eb.jpg

Just curious, what made you go from glorious, rare, hey-look-at-that-viper to 370Z?

I think I'm in the same situation here. I want to prep the car even more for C-Street and attend some National events this year.. Maybe we will see each other. I see you got some mods.. do you run ASP?

Fantastic driving. Couple things just blows me away are

a. How can you guys add so much speed in turns/sweepers and don't end up doing 360? every time I try to add speed in turns/sweeper, my rear end goes sideways and I must counter steer. Does that have to do with aggressive alignment? I mean, in your run (or jeffs or jasons) I rarely saw you guys counter steer. What's the secret ingredient?(alignment? shocks? sway?)

b. you guys (pro Nat level drivers) can carry soo much speed through slalom and stay so close to cones -- it's just amazing. I backside the cones too but I think with shocks, sways and more aggressive alignment (oh and practice), I will start to carry much more speed.

BSP is a very different animal than CS....I dorifto'd the whole first sweeper and the following straight. When in doubt, throttle out.

For C-Street anyways, there's no "secret" for car setup that will "fix" your problems. It's just not possible to get the car to handle well without changing suspension components. IMHO, the trick to being successful in Stock/Street class is learning to drive around any given car's limitations.

For example, to address your issue of oversteer while power out of/through corners: In my car, I am rarely at full throttle. The diff just gets pissed off if you try to use full throttle with the wheel turned at all.

In our car, you've gotta be super smooth rolling onto the throttle, especially powering out of corners, and unless you're going dead straight, you pretty much can't ever be 100%.

I wish I had data to support this claim, but I would imagine a majority of the time I'm on the throttle, it's between half and 7/8ths.


Here's are all the setup details for my car:
Eibach front bar, stiffer setting.
Koni Yellow off-the-shelf shocks (rebound adjustment only). 6/10 in the front, 8/10 rear
Stock front camber (~.7°)
Minimum rear camber (~1.2°) to help the diff not suck as much
0 front toe, ~1/8" rear toe in
stock wheels, 275/35R19 Hankook RS3 V2 tires on all 4

Perhaps the rear camber is the odd thing out there... I set it that way on the initial alignment and never changed it. The theory is that standing the rears up more would help even out rear grip while cornering, making the diff have to do less work.

No I never have run any prepared classes. I'm still trying to gain confidence in the car lol in stock class. For now I'll probably just stay in stock class to get my experience up.

My videos, I'm almost embarrassed to post lol:



&

14BlackCherry: Did you find stock pads to put on for Wednesday? Did your ice mode issues go away? I never got a chance to catch up with you again.

No brother never got stock pads. I spent all morning threshold braking to practice lol. So in my video you can see me braking early and too hard imo when it wasn't needed.