Road America after-action report

[anyonebutme]

I met up with the Maddog crew at Road America for the MFBA/Midwest Domestics track car May 4-5. Brought out the Stealth for some testing. Goals were to have fun, learn the track, and do some testing on the car. Was taking temps of various parts with IR gun, while the main focus was testing the cooling system mods to rid overheating issues on track. Coolant was under 20% glycol, 2 bottles of water wetter, tap water. Only new additions to the "cooling system" was front splitter, a ghetto front turbo heatshield made from a license plate, and 2nd water wetter bottle.

Before I move into the videos and other bad news, cooling system report was positive. Cooling system never rose over 95*C throughout the first day, barely reaching 90*C on the sessions I limited to 100MPH due to [possible] driveshaft vibrations. 2nd day tested the cooling system without the splitter, resulting in temps climbing to a tad over 100*C, but stable. Much better than before. I'm satisfied that at my current power level, overheating issues have been resolved for me. My new datalogger, however, decided to give me fits. None of the sessions where I drove through the driveshaft vibrations recorded. The vibration was violent, so I guess it's not surprising.

Day 1: Started out cool, partly sunny. Got decently warmer for later sessions. Think high around 60-65. After a session was cut short due to 2 accidents resulting in 2 cars being totalled (both drivers OK), and our class being scolded for over aggressiveness, day settled into routine. Suprise visit from Jesse results in drooling over his "dirty" engine bay. Also results in convo about lack of action here. Last session car stumbles and dies coming out of turn 5, results in argument with safety personnel who are convinced that towing my car on 2 wheels is acceptable. Also results in flatbed unable to hook onto my car from the front, so in desperation I get in the car, floor the throttle, and attempt to drive it on the bed. Works. Back to pits aboard tow truck to the enjoyment of gathered 3S owners. Turns out intake pipe blew off the rear turbo. Also got some line mod advice from lead instructor.





Decided to try to drive though vibration, worked. Scary.







Day 2: full sun, warmer. Started out bad and got worse. I crashed first session, totally my fault. Missed the downshift into 3rd, upsetting me and maybe the car a bit, entered too hot for the cold tires and cold track, and M5 behind me reported I locked up the rear tires possibly. Almost recovered but biffed the ending. No controls were datalogged so I can only guess at what I did wrong. Intake pipe came off from impact, but safety crew unplugged MAS and I drove back to pits to the relief of safety crew. Anyways, not gonna stop me. After removing the broken headlight and stabbing myself in the process, resulting in a chunk of glass and piece of glove imbedding itself into my thumb, proceeded to make car drivable. Ducttape thanks to brent, went back out. Got cheered by the flagman I crashed next to. Splitter then detached at 120+MPH due to unseen damaged mounting bolts and broken support rod from accident. Come in, remove splitter, go out, all in same session. Most flagmen are watching my car closely by now for shit falling off. Noticed loss in front end grip and cooling ability. All is well in my world again....... 2nd to last session of day, engine looses 2 cylinders on first hot lap, come back in, coil not firing, called it a day. Got a ride in another instructor's car, turns out I was underbraking everywhere, and the datalogs confirmed. Too much dirty autoX driving got me used to lower braking ability before lockup I guess. I was still outbraking street tired cars, but wasn't braking to the ability of my race tires. Something to work on. Results in no flat spotted tires at least, lol.

[videos in next post, 5 video limit WTF?]


Other information gathered:

Oil temp: 90-110*C depending on how long I was WOT.

Front rear brake temp delta (355mm front brakes): 12-15% rear brake rotor hotter.

transmission temp: 180*F
Rear diff temp: 180*F
Xfer case temp: 210*F

All temps are case temps, guessing oil is about 50* hotter due to case cooling by airflow.

[anyonebutme]

Footwork vid I made during last ran session, you can hear the dead cylinders:

[anyonebutme]

BTW, Lambo and the Fbody following him were driven by instructors, not lowly class C guys like me. Fbody had to have over 600HP, the acceleration from him was awesome.

[B-Man]

I have one more vid to get uploaded, then I'll post them up.

From the vid, it looked like you had it, then you just shot off towards the wall

Nice footwork vid. Did you use replay/contour?

[j2k4]

In for the RA memories...

[Maximal]

Saw the pics on Facebook and was wondering what the story was....glad to hear you're alright and the damage wasn't all that bad.

Do you have any ducting around your intercooler/radiator/oil cooler?

[J. Fast]

Sounds like racing to me. Despite the string of events I bet it was fun! Thanks for sharing. What next for Presto Tuna?

[anyonebutme]

I have one more vid to get uploaded, then I'll post them up.

From the vid, it looked like you had it, then you just shot off towards the wall

Nice footwork vid. Did you use replay/contour?

I did thought I had it, then the car just casually slid off, lol. I probably should have stayed in it longer but my car has a bad habit of snapping the opposite direction after recovery, and wan't about to pay for new sod, lol. Contour HD with suction cup mount. In the footwork vid it's suctioned to the door right under the opener.

Saw the pics on Facebook and was wondering what the story was....glad to hear you're alright and the damage wasn't all that bad.

Do you have any ducting around your intercooler/radiator/oil cooler?

I have very minimal ducting, since the only thing that requires a seal on my car are the sides, the ducting sides are held into place by the bumper when installed and the bottom is sealed to the IC with the splitter forming the bottom beyond that:

Sounds like racing to me. Despite the string of events I bet it was fun! Thanks for sharing. What next for Presto Tuna?

I'm good to go.



Before:

[green-lantern]

Oh wow, looks like you had it for sure. Almost looked like something broke and sent you into the tires.

200mph tape FTW!

[Chris@Rvengeperformance]

hood looks to fit pretty good