Something Amazing – in France

Audi made history at this year’s Le Mans.  Its not that Audi has never won at Le Mans, they have, but this time it was done with a diesel powered car that dominated the race.  It finished four laps ahead of the second place finisher.  The comment from the competition was “The Audi was just too fast.  They were faster than us under acceleration, under braking, almost everywhere.”

I think most us have experienced diesel engines used in construction equipment and semi tractor trailers.  There have been a few diesel cars in the US such as some Mercedes sedans and after the second gas crisis Ford and other domestic manufacturers converted their gasoline V8 engines to diesel – with disastrous results. 

In the eighties diesel powered trucks were known for belching clouds of black soot from their stacks.  The average amount of particulates exhausted by a diesel truck was about 450 pounds a year.  Today it is a mere eight pounds.

Diesel cars in Europe have excellent performance, are as quiet as their gasoline brethren, and provide far better economy.  BMW has a diesel sedan that is faster than its gasoline powered counterpart.

And europeans have another advantage.  Cleaner burning diesel fuel than is available in the US.  This is about to change, thank goodness, and the US fuel will burn cleaner. 

Some day hydrogen and electric powered cars may have the performance we expect out of the current crop of gasoline powered cars, but the future looks like diesel.  The Audi race car was not only faster, it had better mileage.  It could do 15 laps on a tank while the competition could only achieve 13.

About the Photograph in the Header

Enough folks have asked about the photo in the header that I thought I had better explain about it. 

The red car in front is mine.  Or at least it was mine at the time.  It was a 1997 Mitsubishi Eclipse GSX which meant that is was all wheel drive and had a turbo charger.  I bought it in 1998 and spent several years modifying it to the point that I took it to Virginia International Raceway, a road racing track just over the state line from where I live. 

In this shot I had been running the north course and really doing well.  I had just passed the Corvette Z06 on the front straight after dogging him through most of the corners.  Later we met in the pits and he shook his head as he remarked how he found it impossible to hold me off.  Sure I felt more than a little smug, my 2 liter four cylinder had bested his 7 liter V-8.  By that point in the car’s development I had the engine at over 400 BHP.

The first time I went to VIR was in February of 2004 and was a HPDE (high performance driving experience) event using the full course.  The next month I ran the north course.  April was the south course.  End of April was the full course again!    

VIR is a beautiful track with three exceptional layouts.  With the four events I have experienced all three layouts, north course, south course and full course. 

If you live anywhere close you should find the time to visit this track.  It is right on the border of NC and VA near the town of Milton, NC.  The layout is very challenging as well as picturesque. The setting consists of rolling hills with large grassy areas.  The pit areas are very well laid out and all the supporting buildings maintain an architecture that is reminiscent of Virginia farm style.  The accommodations are top notch.  Nice rest rooms and a great snack bar.  There are drop off areas for recycling oil, brake fluid, and other waste fluids.  There is fuel available in the north paddock, even 100 octane racing fuel!

The car had done very well for it self on the road course.  Early on I had some problems with the brake pads, but the folks at Porterfield (thanks Tim!) have provided outstanding support.  The car had a bit more understeer than I liked, but it was easily corrected by making the tire pressures closer to equal between the front and the rear

Virginia International Raceway is not only one of the nicest looking tracks on the east coast, the full course is 3.27 miles long and technically challenging.  The north course is just over two miles long and has a challenging crossover that is all up hill.  The south course is the toughest.  It is only 1.67 miles long, has very tight turns and elevation changes of over 100 feet

My first time on the full course was a whole new experience.  After a tepid first run I began to really learn the line (about twenty corners to memorize) and work on being smooth and fast

The car handled beautifully.  It was clearly more car than it had for a driver.  By the second day I had improved to the point that I was the fastest car in the run group of thirty cars.   All the events at VIR have all been fun, exciting, and educational.

The fourth event was a reprise of the full course and two days of very hot laps.  The second day was beautiful as the track had been rinsed from a downpour from the afternoon before.  I had three runs and then…
The fourth run consisted of a couple of warm up laps before I came in because I had signed up to have Randy Pobst (http://www.randypobst.com) drive my car.  Randy was there to represent Audi (it was an Audi Club event) and drivers had been given the chance to sign up for him to do a couple of laps in their car.  The guy was amazing, jumping from one car to the next and doing some hot laps in a strange car.

He got in the drivers seat of the Eclipse and said, “I thought this would belong to a twenty-one year old”.  We lauged and I told him that while the brake pedal would be low (two days of track time will do that), the brakes would still be fine and that the car would understeer a bit.  He took off out of the grid and said “Got some power!”.  Then “Nice shifter, is it a short shifter?”  I told him it was a B&M and we headed for turn one.  He took it from practically track right.  Went around very smooth and at turn two asked if I had street tires and what kind were they.  I told him what they were and we headed for turn four.  He hit that turn really early and had to correct a bit, then we were quickly on to turns five and six.  He tapped on my boost gauge and remarked that I was using a lot of boost.  It was hitting 20 pounds.  We made short work of the straight section and headed up the climbing esses at a pretty good clip.  He took the left turn in third gear and proceeded down the hill to the entrance to Oak Tree.  He got into fourth as he went down the hill and then back to third.  He stayed in third as he exited the turn and remarked that it should have been a second gear turn.  He asked me if I took it in second and I told him that I used to do it in third, but had gone to using second to get rotation, to which he replied with a thumbs up.  On down the back straight and he took roller coaster with an early apex.  He went 5th to 3rd (which my instructor did not like me doing) and, as we were in traffic, hit second for a few yards and then back up to third.  His line through hog pen was, again, the racer line and off we went down the front straight.  Turn one was started from track left this time.  There was a Miata in front of us so he went from third down to second.  As we headed for turn two he told me that he race in Miatas for four years.  I told him that one of my instructors had taken me for a ride around the course in his Miata and I was surprised how early he took his apexes to maintain momentum.  He responded with a “That’s good, that exactly what you have to do”.  We passed the Miata after the short esses and headed for the climbing esses.  We screamed up the hill.  I think it was close to 115 mph.  He had to correct some, but he really enjoyed the way it reacted as he cackled with laughter as he crested the top of the hill.  Down to the entrance of Oak Tree which he exited in second this time as we passed another car.  He remarked at the sound the wastegate made as it bounced off the back straight pit’s concrete wall.  Up the straight and through roller coaster in third while he one-handed the steering wheel and had his left elbow resting on the sill. As we headed into the pits he remarked that he loved the Mitsubishi and thought they were great cars.  He parked it on the fence by the grid and thanked me for the chance to ride in the GSX.  He felt the understeer wasn’t too bad especially for the tires I was using.  That if I got a set of race tires it would disapear.

That was the high spot of the two days for me.  I was glad to have somebody of his caliber take the car to the edge.

Some Thoughts on Handling

Those of us that find joy in a country road’s curves and elevation changes often want to enhance the experience by increasing our car’s handling capabilities.

There are a lot of options out there these days.  Springs that lower the car’s center of gravity and give a tighter gap between the tires and fenders are everywhere.  Aftermarket shocks and struts offer a stiffer ride that promises to keep the tires in more constant contact with the road.  Body lean can be controlled with larger anti-roll bars.  Many options exist and because there are so many it can be confusing and complex to get the kind of handling you are looking for.

Add to this the fact that we all have to work within a budget, be it large or small.  The most “bang for the buck” in terms of handling improvements is by far upgrading the tires.  These days many factory sports cars come with some exceptional tires.  My Evolution MR came with Yokohama Advans that stick like nobody’s business.  They also wear as fast as they corner.  I was lucky to get 14,000 mile out of the first set.  Ugh.  My replacement tire?  The same Advans.  Since the whole car seems to have been designed around these tires it was difficult to go to anything that might be less sticky.  Aside from wear there are other drawbacks.  In winter temperatures the compound that provides such exceptional coefficient of friction the rest of the year, can turn to a slippery let down.  So in the northern climes people convert to a winter set of tires for their Evolutions.

Most cars come with tires that are a compromise in many ways.  Often car manufacturers shod their automobiles with tires that are quite inexpensive and are specially made just to keep the cost down.  In extreme cases tire companies produce tires for car manufacturers that are not available other than on new cars.

Fortunately the aftermarket provides some fantastic tires to choose from.  One of the first areas to improve the handling of a car is to explore tires that have better performance and likely are wide in their profile.  Your stock tire might be sized as a 215/50-16.  If you are lucky you could have room under your fenders for a wider tire in a size that offers higher performance options.  So you could move up to a 235/45-17 sized tire.  What do all the numbers mean?  The first number is the width in millimeters.  The number after the slash is the sidewall height.  Not in millimeters.  This two digit number is a percentage.  In the last tire size it means that the sidewall is 45% of the width of the tread or 45% of 235 millimeters, or about 160 millimeters high.  The last number refers to the diameter of the wheel that the tire mounts to.  In this case we go from a 16″ diameter wheel to a 17″ diameter wheel.

Why go to a larger wheel?  Well, this can help as well as hurt.  A larger diameter wheel can move your tire size options into an area where there are a lot of great choices in the way of performance tires.  It can also provide you with room to upgrade to larger diameter brakes.  All of this sounds positive, but there can be a downside, and that is added weight.  Weight is the enemy of handling performance.  Make your car lighter and it performs better.  It stops easier, accelerates faster, and corners better.  Most of the car’s weight is suspended by springs, but perhaps the most important weight is not.  That is called unsprung weight.  It is the weight that consists of wheels, tires, brake components, and everything that are not supported by the springs.

Why is unsprung weight so important?  Ask the people who make their money at it, the race car engineers.  Reducing unsprung weight will improve acceleration, braking, just about all aspects.  The exotic race cars have ultralight wheels, tires, move the suspension springs into the body and operate them with rocker arms and linkages.  They have carbon fiber brake rotors and try everything they can to get rid of unsprung weight. 

I have seen many “formulas” that claim getting rid of a pound of unsprung weight is the same as getting rid of 100 pounds of sprung weight that may not hold up to scientific scrutiny, but there is truth to the fact that unsprung weight reduction pays off.

So what does all this have to do with tires?  As you go to wider tires guess what?  You can increase your unsprung weight.  Wider tires will require a wider wheel.  Changing to a larger diameter tire will require a different wheel as well.  So while you are looking at all those choices in replacement wheels try to find the lightest wheel you can afford.  Unfortunately the sources for aftermarket wheels don’t generally make wheel weight easy to find out.  I find that Tire Rack (http://www.tirerack.com/) does have that information for most of the wheels and you can call them directly if it is not listed on-line.

Eighteen inch diameter wheels will weigh more than seventeen inch diameter wheels.  So before you go crazy with the bling factor of having 20″ diameter wheels on your ride keep in mind the price penalty you will have to pay.  With huge brakes you will need the space of larger diameter wheels, but don’t go any larger than you really need. 

Keep to a tire and wheel size that will effectively give you the same total diameter as your factory wheels and tires.  A handy site to find out what choices are open to you is http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html.

For the tire size I picked in the paragraphs above and eight inch wide wheel is ideal.  Seven and a half inch is acceptable, but not desirable.  Assuming you go looking for a seventeen inch diameter wheel that is eight inches wide you will have another factor (besides weight) to deal with.  That is offset.  What this refers to is how much the actual mounting surface of the wheel is off-set from the center-line of the wheel.  This is important for a couple of reasons, not the least of which is being able to fit under the fender.

 Often you will have to do quite a bit of research to determine what offset you will need.  Many car forums will be able to provide you with this information.  I wish there was a general rule here, but while a 38mm offset will work for one brand and model of a car another will require a 48mm offset to clear things.

While picking the “right” wheel you should keep a couple of other things in mind as well.  You will have to clean these wheels from time to time so think about how complex a spoke design you want to live with and what it will take to get brake dust off it.  You might want to pick a grey wheel color so that your brake dust doesn’t show up as fast as it would on a white wheel.  Chrome can really set off a wheel, but often mean that the wheel is brittle compared to a painted wheel.  And we do live in a world of pot holes.

Tires have many qualities that you need to consider.  The trouble is that you cannot have a tire that has every quality you might want.  I guess the ideal tire would last 100,000 miles, have a coefficient of friction that would allow you to park on the ceiling of your garage, shed water so well that you could transverse 10″ deep puddles at 120 miles per hour and get you through snow like and Artic Cat.  All costing you less than $30 a tire.  Unfortunately no such technology exists today that can provide all those extremes.  There are some amazing tires out there that will allow you to corner with confidence through the summer and spring, but will have to be replaced or at least treated with respect in the off seasons.  An ultra-high performance all-season tire is usually a great compromise.  If you just want to have the best cornering possible, dam the wear and cold weather, then extreme performance summer tires are it.

When reviewing your tire choices you must be realistic about the environment you really have to deal with.  Keep in mind wear rates and how noisy a tire is.  Some tread designs are quiet to begin with and get noisy later on.  Tire Rack offers customer feedback and ratings that can be very helpful

To sum it up the most rewarding place you can invest your handling improvement money is in tires and wheels.  Get as much tread on the road as practical and keep things as light as possible.  Be realistic and enjoy the vast improvement.

Helping Out

One of the guys at work was looking for a new car.  He was interested in finding something sporty with performance.  He had heard about the Subaru WRX and the Evolution from Mitsubishi.

I told him I could take him for a ride in my 2005 Mitsubishi Evolution MR.  He enjoyed the experience but kept looking.  He dropped by local Subaru dealership and tried out the WRX.  Both of them were great performers but a little too taut in the handling department.  It became clear that he was looking for a car that had some luxury to go along with performance.  This can be a tough combination to find, especially if you were looking for a four door sedan in the $35K range.

He eventually settled on Subaru’s Legacy GT spec. B sedan.  Turbocharged, all wheel drive with Bilstein struts, it was a great choice.  Within a week he was frustrated.  He felt it was a great car, but the handling was was not what he was expecting.  Body roll was excessive leaving him frustrated and feeling that he had made a big mistake.  He asked me my opinion.

I took the car for a drive.  Yes, it had a lot of body roll, but the basics were there.  I told him that I felt that it had great tires, perfect shocks (struts), but a little too much body roll and that we would fix it.  I did a little research and came up with an aftermarket anti-roll bar, up rated end links, and a front strut tower brace.

The guy took my advice and wanted to go farther.  He ordered the parts I suggested but added a set of springs to lower the car and stiffen things up.  I understood his attraction to a more aggressive stance and the lowering of the center of gravity, but warned him against going too far too quickly. 

When ever you take on a car modification it is important to stage out the changes.  It not only prevents you from going too far too fast, but it also allows you to easily determine if you’ve introduced a problem along with the change.  It finally sunk in and he returned the springs.  We scheduled a Saturday at Jim’s Garage.

 It took about an hour to remove the rear bar and replace it with the larger, adjustable bar and new end links.  The front strut brace was pretty simple to add and really did a great job of firming up the front end.

I took him on a test drive to see how the changes worked out.  There is a little circuit I use that is made up of public roads.  It goes through a mall, the perimeter actually, and has a nice ninety degree left hander.  Then it takes a quarter mile straight that ends up with a tight right hander that delivers you to the on ramp of the highway.  It gives you a chance to see what all aspects of your car’s handling has to offer.

The guy was shocked at the level of improvement with these few changes.  He was delighted.  A few weeks later he dropped by my office to gush about what a great transformation had been accomplished.  Now he wanted me to do much the same for his son’s car.

More to come on that.

Jim’s Garage

Welcome to Jim’s Garage.

This is mainly about cars, but not just cars.  It is also about life.  That’s because, since the beginning of the twentieth century, our lives have become more and more intertwined with the automobile. 

I grew up in a small village in New England where the roads were cut from original hunting trails of the natives and colonists.  That meant that they had a lot of elevation changes, tight corners, and off camber turns.  What a great place to learn to drive. 

Additionally there were dirt roads that were known as “ancient ways”.  These were some of the greatest roads for rally training you could ever have found.  I thrilled and scared the poop out of many a passenger on these roads.  I also learned a lot about driving and myself on these roads.  Most of the ancient ways are gone or have grown over so I count myself lucky to have had the experience.  

I am as passionate about taking care of as well as modifying cars.  Take care of your car and you will earn dividends in the form of reliability and pleasure.  Modify it the right way and you will enjoy driving like you never have before.  Do it wrong and you will feel like a prisoner in a torture chamber.

So that is the introduction.  More to come.  Visit often.  Jim Leonard