Great Sept event!!

[Davis K Powers]

Tough competition, great weather, good turnout= fun

Thanks

[evilnissan]

interesting course.


silly High school kids.

[gtfour77]

One of the cheerleaders cheered too hard the night before... :lol:

[administerturbo]

yes, it was a great event....FTW thanks to all

[sts 50]

Thanks for the kind words - and MANY thanks to the many folks who helped out, starting first thing in the morning with the trash pick up. The lot was the messiest I've ever seen it. The run groups seemed to work well. Sorry to here about all of the misery - I knew about April's misfortune, but was unaware of the others. Yes, Martin, the pivot was probably a bad idea, but I couldn't let that much pavement go unused. :roll:

[SentraWV]

What's wrong with pivots? That's the only time I can match speeds with Sean, Davis, Brad, et. al. Gotta give us low-horsepower people a bone every now and then.

:P

[gtfour77]

Scott, It was a great course!!! Just don't listen to us heavier cars... :lol:

[camry3sfe]

I had a lot of fun on the course this past weekend. I hope I'll be able to go to the benefit event on the 30th as well. But I wont know until the last minute. My folks are supposed to be coming to visit me that weekend. I'm just going to have to convince them to come along with me I guess! :)

anyhow, I see that there are pictures up for some events that you all have had in the past. I was wondering if there will be pictures for this past event posted up anytime in the near future? It would be cool to show some of my friends how fun this is! and hopefully get them out too!

[ShortysTRM]

I haven't seen pictures for a while it seems, but then again, I'm wayyyy behind on the videos, too. There will be a big video of the event eventually, and I know I have footage of you, but I now have 4 events that have to be edited, so it may be a year or two lol.

[Davis K Powers]

While I had my camera with me, i was just too busy running around to take a bunch.

However, for a benefit event, i usually try to gets lots of pics and post em online the next day.

Post up if you want pics of your car at next event. Me (or perhaps Marteen) can try to get some pics on the 30th.

There's a 100% chance a TON of pics and video will be going on at the October 28th benefit event at the airport in Parkersburg. (shameless plug)

[Jason V]

What's wrong with pivots? That's the only time I can match speeds with Sean, Davis, Brad, et. al. Gotta give us low-horsepower people a bone every now and then.

:P

Never have I seen a pivot that helps a low HP car ... you need lots of low end torque to pull out of such a slow manuver.. a momentum course where a small nimble car never slows down is the best bet for low HP... but we don't really have the room at riverside for a true momentum course... 8) as always YMMV

[Chaos_CB7]

Iv got alot of video from the event i just havnt got a firewire card yet to upload it to my computer. :cry:

[gtfour77]

What's wrong with pivots? That's the only time I can match speeds with Sean, Davis, Brad, et. al. Gotta give us low-horsepower people a bone every now and then.

:P

Never have I seen a pivot that helps a low HP car ... you need lots of low end torque to pull out of such a slow manuver.. a momentum course where a small nimble car never slows down is the best bet for low HP... but we don't really have the room at riverside for a true momentum course... 8) as always YMMV

Good point Jason! ...momentum courses....no other region really uses a one cone pivot point....the only ones I have seen is a multi pylon larger radius turnaround. This is just an observation as we have had these past two events....

[Davis K Powers]

On subject of single cone pivots only:

In entry and mid-turn single-cone pivots, I believe light/low-powered cars have an advantage over heavier cars with more hp.

In final exit of a single-pivot cone, I believe a heavy/higher powered car can have an advantage and accelerate quickly to next series of cones.

Note:both examples is considering that traction, tires, steering ratio/lock and driver are equal

So perhaps I could say that 2/3 of a single cone pivot section a light car has an advantage and the other 1/3 a hi-hp/heavy car has advantage.
True or Untrue?

[gtfour77]

I can understand your reasoning Davis...but in my opinion a single cone - tight radius pivots are simply unnecessary....bottom line. Even at NOVR region with half the size of our lot I didn't see a tight 180 degree pivot point..... All I am trying to say that we have enough space to do a nice flowing course without anything too obrupt... :wink: After all this is autocross, not gymkhana... :lol:

[Davis K Powers]

oh, I agree, I'm not a fan of a pivot cone, but do find them challenging.
I totally understand the reason why we had one on Sunday.

[RobbieNelson]

steering ratio/lock

The turn radius of my car is horrible. The only time it really bothers me is at autocrosses with pivot cones. I hate pivot cones.... _HATE_ them.

[administerturbo]

you guys....all you gotta do is yank the e-brake :shock:

[gtfour77]

From what I remember the e-brake method has actually been proven faster on an extremely tight 180 degree pivot turn, but who wants to slide around on a $1000 set of tires??? :bs: :lol: Oh yeah, gymkhana and an old set of worn out tires works... :rock:

[administerturbo]

you pay $1000 for tires :poke:

[gtfour77]

$209 a tire plus shipping plus mounting....any new sticky set of tires will be very close to that figure... :bang:

[Davis K Powers]

From what I remember the e-brake method has actually been proven faster on an extremely tight 180 degree pivot turn:
There's a video of us doing that at Riverside in the wet...I can try to dig it up, wayy funny vid.

[ShortysTRM]

One of these years, I'll have a video of Nate doing it an one of the recent events. It already happened, but the video is yet to be edited.

[administerturbo]

...next time it rains...it rally style!

troy, what's up with april's car?

[Jason V]

A pivot once in a while is fine... the do require patience on entry and yes a light car can cary more speed going in... but pivots are almost always followed by a longish straight section.. making the overall advantage go to the high HP or should I say torque machines...

I had NO problem with Scotts course and it was fun for sure... its autocross, you run the course laid out in front of you!! Now if anyone ever has a saftey concern over a course element by all means let the saftey chief or event organizer know!! they may or may not agree but all concerns need to be voiced when talking saftey!!

We have more room at riverside than we give it credit for. There is plenty of room for a good flowing 30 to 45 second course that does not use much in the way of laps.

All of the above is IMHO only and does not constitute fact in any way, no animals or people were harmed in the making of above statements....ect

[ShortysTRM]

Thus far, we have two of the four rod bearings out, one was spun, the other just ran dry. In order to get to the other two bearings, we need either a balance shaft holding plate or balance shaft alignment tool designed for the GM Quad Four engines to get the balance shafts out of the way. We're kind of stuck, as the only place I've found them ANYWHERE is http://www.etoolcart.com/browseproducts/Balance-Shaft-Holding-Plate-(2.3L).HTML (cut and paste the link...it won't work as a hyperlink), where it is $42. I need it for 2 minutes.

Nothing seems to be torn up beyond repair, so if that's all we find wrong, we're going to replace the rod bearings and see what happens.

[gtfour77]

Troy, make sure you get on some forums and find out if there is another way. I am sure we could just use large channel locks or a pipe wrench although it would be nice to do it properly.... :wink: At the same time,I am sure there are other ways to do this....

[AchTTung]

One of these years, I'll have a video of Nate doing it an one of the recent events. It already happened, but the video is yet to be edited.Brave guy. TT e-brakes pop loose on hills. ;)

[ShortysTRM]

I just joined Quad4forums.com a little bit ago, and posted the question there. No responses yet, though.

[administerturbo]

jeez, sounds like you've at least made a lot of progress.

[ShortysTRM]

Still no responses on the Quad 4 forums.

[evilnissan]

Oh god its a quad-four motor.. I was almost sure that thing was a Eco-tech.....


Do what I did. Look at the cost of parts, then look at the cost of a used motor..


I went with the motor for $600 beacuse the parts to do the bottom end of mine was going to be more than that.

[ShortysTRM]

Rod bearings = $50..?

If I have to buy that stupid tool, add another $42 to that.