Data Analysis Part 2 -- The Driver

I think that there are two groups of race car drivers – the ones with natural god given talent and those that need to learn the proper driving techniques in order to be fast. I would venture to say that less than 1% have the god given talent and the rest of us need to rely on our ability to learn to get the job done. I’m definitely part of the 99%. Also, I’m very consistent in almost everything I do but unfortunately that means that I could consistently be doing something wrong and not know it until someone (or something) points it out. That is where the data system comes in. Analyzing my data has pointed out some things that I should have been doing differently in order to go faster and as a result I believe that the earlier a driver’s techniques are analyzed the better the driver will be.

For example, below is a screen shot that shows some different traces over a given lap at Summit Point Raceway. The 2nd trace is speed and one thing to look for (especially with a new driver) is whether or not the valleys (where the driver is going through the corners) are pointy or curved. They are curved in the pic below which means that I was carrying decent speed into the corner and gradually picking up speed as I go through it. If they were pointy (which mine used to look like) then that could mean that the driver is too focused on braking as deep as he can and fighting the car to the apex which ends up slowing the car down too much. After he gets the car slowed down and into the corner then he mashes the gas to get the car back up to speed again. The result is that the driver who brakes a little earlier than the really late braker and is smoother (and quicker) through the corner is going to turn the better lap time.

Another basic thing to look at is the braking technique of the driver. The proper braking technique is for the driver to brake as hard as he can while the car is going the fastest and then gradually release the brakes as he approaches the corner. Easy to say but not as easily done. When we brake on the streets it is the exact opposite. As we approach a traffic light we initially brake lightly and then brake harder until we bring the car to a stop. So, for most of us that is ingrained in us. When looking at the front brake pressure line in the pic below, my braking technique is not that good and it is something that I continue to work on. When I hit the brakes for Turn 1 ( the first braking point in the chart) my braking technique was a little better because you can see that I hit the brakes hard initially but I eased off of them a little too quickly and had to get back on them again. But the braking for Turn 5 (the one that I have circled) is much worse – I didn’t get on the brakes hard enough initially and then had to increase the brake pressure as I approached the corner. The reason why this is not good is because every time you hit the brakes, the gas, or turn the steering wheel you are transferring weight from one part of the car to another. If the driver can minimize this weight transfer then the car will be more balanced, will feel more comfortable, and will most likely be faster as a result.

The chart below shows a couple of other tidbits of information as well. One, coming out of Turn 6 the car got loose and I have circled the two things that tell me this. I lifted off the throttle very quickly and my steering wheel went the opposite direction very quickly. And two, not long after that corner there is a big lift off of the throttle but my steering input didn’t change. This tells me that the car was probably had understeer through this part of the course. Either of these conditions could be caused by how the driver is driving the car or the set-up of the car but the point is you can’t begin to fix the problem until you know that there is a problem. The driver may or may not remember but the data doesn’t lie!

In the AIM data system, a User Profile is a set of saved charts that can be quickly recalled every time that you open a data set.  This means that you can quickly look at certain bits of information without creating charts every time which saves you tons of time.  Below is a pic that shows a User Profile which I recall almost every time I look at data.  (Btw, on the left, you can see all the User Profiles that I have saved.)  The purple line in the top graph shows the longitudinal Gs and the red line is a math channel called Combined Gs which combines longitudinal and lateral Gs.  This is a great way to see how well the driver is transitioning from braking to turning.  Ideally the car should be slowed down to the point where it will get through the corner at the limit of grip and the car should still be slowing down a little bit as the driver enters the corner.  So you should see the Combined G line "springing" off of the Longitudinal G line.  If the Combined G line is falling off the back side of the Longitudinal G Line then the driver is over slowing the car.  I have highlighted examples of each below.

The chart in the bottom middle is another very important one because it quickly shows what the driver is dealing with in regards to understeer and oversteer.  This is an X/Y Plot and Lateral Gs are on the X axis and Steering is on the Y Axis.  So one side of the chart is left hand turns and the other side is right hand turns.  If data points are showing up below the main line on the left side of the chart then this is understeer and if they are showing up above the main line on the right side of the chart then this is also understeer.  And likewise if they show up above the main line on the left and below the main line on the right then this is oversteer.  The reason why this happens is because if a driver enters a corner and continually puts in more steering input as the Lateral G's increase then he/she will reach a point of diminishing returns and the front tires will not turn the car like they should thus -- resulting in understeer.  If a driver enters a corner and the back end of the car begins to rotate more than the front then the driver will have to turn the steering wheel the opposite direction in order to catch the back end. Therefore the lateral G's would still be increasing but the steering input is decreasing, thereby showing the oversteer in the chart.  Again, these conditions may or may not be caused by the driver.  I actually like a car that has a little bit of understeer and what is shown in the above chart is what I like to see but I'm making this statement based on what I feel in the car and after looking at hundreds of charts from my data.

The XY plot on the bottom left has Lateral Gs on the X axis and Longitudinal Gs on the Y Axis.  This is basically showing what is known as the traction circle.  Again, there should be a smooth transition between braking, accelerating, and cornering and this chart highlights the smoothness of those transitions and whether or not the driver is getting the most out of the car.  It is really a half circle because the G forces from accelerating aren't nearly as great as the ones experienced in braking and cornering.  This chart isn't a very good example of what it should look like because there should be fairly straight lines in the center that then curve to each side of the char where the Lateral Gs are the greatest.  So, a half circle with a line going from to the top to the bottom would be ideal.

The XY plot on the bottom right has Lateral G Velocity (a math channel that is the derivative of Lateral Gs) on the X axis and has Steering Velocity (a math channel that is the derivative of Steering) and this shows how busy the driver's hands are.  In looking at the chart above, there aren't any lines shooting out from the center so my hands weren't especially busy -- which is the way I like it.

In contrast, below is a pic of the same chart from a lap where the car was loose and I was not happy with the handling.  And btw, the lap was 1.5 seconds slower than the lap above.  Later I had discovered that I had a setup issue which was that one of my rear wheels was slightly toed out.  Notice that the chart in the bottom center shows that the oversteer condition was only present in left hand corners and there is more understeer in right hand corners.

Btw, any data system worth its salt when generate a track map that you can look at.  I know the lines generated from driving Summit Point so well that I don't have to look at it but here is the map generated by the AIM software. The software will come up with its own corner numbers based on what the car is doing but I have changed those to reflect the actual corner numbers at the track.

Another extremely useful tool is Split Times.  The pic below shows all my times from the session with my best time being a 1:16.12.  However, it also combines all my best segment times (shown in blue) and combines those to come up with my best theoretical lap time, a 1:15.384. It is impossible to match all of those segment times because chances are if you are much faster in one segment there is a good chance that there you are going to be slower in another.  However, it does give you something to shoot for.  The other measurement that is a little bit more useful to me is the best rolling lap.  This is highlighted in yellow and it starts a lap from somewhere other than the start finish line and combines the segments across two laps to give you your best time.  It is possible to have your best time equal your best rolling lap but it isn't very likely.  My best rolling lap was a 1:15.983 which was only a couple of 10ths off of my best time so that is totally achievable and definitely something to shoot for especially since I should get faster with this car.  In fact this chart has given me some very good insight about how to get into the 15s.  If you look at corners 6 through 9 (the carousel at Summit), my segment times were the fastest on the first lap shown.  So I obviously did something different on that lap then I did on any other lap.  I was able to figure it out using my data but I'm not sharing it.  :)

Everything that I have discussed so far still fall in the category of "the basics" and that is really all I can do in this blog.  There is just so much to it that anyone that wants to learn more than what I have discussed needs to go to other professional sources, such as John Block and Bob Knox.  I do plan on doing one more posting on data analysis and I will discuss some of the things that I look at to see what the car is doing but it will probably take me a little while to get that published.  I hope these posts are getting those racers that are following me to want to learn more though!  Btw, I'm always happy to answer any questions!

Data Analysis Part 1 -- The Basics

I have been wanting to write a post on data analysis for a while now but there is so much to it that I have had difficulty figuring out how to approach it.  There is no way I can cover everything so hopefully these posts give a basic understanding of what can be accomplished with data and just how important it is for getting the most out of the driver and the car.  Plus, there is lots more detailed information out there already if you know where to look. 

If you have a data system in your race car then you really need to take John Block’s (www.auto-ware.com) online seminars.  John is an engineer that has A LOT of experience performing data analysis for professional race teams.  John offers a basic course and an advanced course.  They are 1 hour a week for 5 weeks and I believe that they are only $125 for each course.  John also allows you to re-take a course at no additional cost.  I actually re-took the advanced course after I had started using some of the principals taught which helped me better understand what John presented.  You can’t beat that!!  Chances are that if you haven’t taken his courses then you aren’t getting the most out of your data system. 

Bob Knox is another data analysis expert and he has a book out called “A Practical Guide To Race Car Data Analysis”.  Bob has tailored this book for the amateur racer so it is easy to understand and as a result I have referred to this book quite a bit.  It costs $100 and it can be found on amazon.com.  Definitely well worth the money.

Ok, here are some basics.  A data system is simply a small computer that is gathering information from various sensors.  The G (lateral, longitudinal, and vertical) sensors are built into the main unit and the other sensors are manually installed.  Since the Honda Engine has an ECU, I’m able to get a lot of information directly from the ECU which is great because you only have a certain number of “channels” to use to gather data.  Generally you hook up one sensor to a channel but with the ECU interface it is possible to get lots of info through one channel. 

Now, here is the real power of the data system.  Not only do you have the raw data from the sensors, you can create virtual sensors by creating what AIM calls “Math Channels”.  Math Channels are simply formulas that use data from the installed sensors, constants (such as your cars wheel base), and/or data from other Math Channels.  Some Math Channels can be quite complex but a lot of them are quite simple.  For example, I have two wheel speed sensors installed on the two front wheels.  Obviously there is a chance of me locking up one of the wheels under braking and although I want to know about this, I also want a smooth speed trace so that I can see how fast I’m going anywhere on the track.  Therefore, I created a “Selected Speed” math channel that simply says: use the average speed between the left and right front wheels but if one wheel is locked up then use the other wheel speed instead.  Obviously the formula looks very different than what I just wrote but in order to write the formula you have to be able to describe what you want it to do.  Here is the formula:

IF(LT(LFspeed,.97*RFSpeed),RFSpeed,IF(LT(RFSpeed,.97*LFspeed),LFspeed,(LFspeed+RFSpeed)/2))

The AIM syntax is a little different than what would be used in Excel or most other software programs that I have used before but once you get used to it isn’t difficult to understand.  If I saw this formula for the first time then this is how I would describe what it is doing.

If the Left Front Speed is Less Than 97% of the Right Front Speed than use the Right Front Speed.  However, if the Right Front Speed is Less Than 97% of the Left Front Speed than use the Left Front Speed.  If neither of those two conditions are true than take the Left Front Speed and add it to the Right Front Speed and divide that total by 2 to get the average. 

Hopefully all of that makes sense!! J  What I really hope is that you can see the value of using the math channels feature of your data system.  I’m not going to show all of my math channels but I have over 50 and I will say that you can learn about all of them by taking John Block’s courses and purchasing Bob Knox’s book.  There are very few products that I shamelessly plug but these have definitely helped me a great deal and deserve the plug.  Although, I shouldn't be giving it because I know I'm helping my competitors. J

Reflection

Looking back on my first season (really a partial season), I still feel good despite the crashes.  I converted the car from a Formula Continental to a Formula F with Honda power and I learned a lot in the process.  I wanted some different challenges and I got them.  I'm getting more and more comfortable with the car and I know that a lot more speed is there.  The one thing that I still haven't gotten used to is how quickly this car brakes compared to a FV.  There is definitely a lot of time on the table there.  The car is really a blast to drive but certainly not cheaper than running a FV.  It will be a little of a challenge to manage the costs and I will be seeing if I can find some additional sponsorship.  If I can't then I will just have to see how much I can do with the budget that I have.  But I'm still glad that I have gone through the process and I hope that everyone has enjoyed the blog!  A number of people have come up to me during the year and have told me that they have been reading my blog and have enjoyed it so that makes me feel good.  One of the things that I wanted to get across to everyone is that although racing a car like this isn't cheap, it can be done without a lot of high dollar shop equipment and a large professional team.  However, there is no doubt that I am at a disadvantage against those large teams.  That is ok with me -- I'm doing the best that I can with what I got and I will continue to get better!!  I also plan on continuing this blog although I probably won't be updating it as often as when I was building the car.  I hope everyone keeps following and I welcome questions from anyone that has them!

Watkin's Glen/Thanks Terry!

I raced at the last F1600 series weekend of the season at Watkin's Glen, NY a few weeks ago.  I ran a test day at Summit Point a couple of weeks before Watkin's Glen and after making some set-up changes I was able to take another .7 seconds off of my previous best time there on tires that had 8 heat cycles on them.  That really boosted my confidence and I came into the WG weekend with a great attitude and ready to push the car and myself harder.  I hadn't been to WG in quite a few years but I at least know the track and I drove a number of laps on iRacing in a Lotus 79 as part of my preparation.  Unfortunately the WG weekend turned out to be a mixed bag.

We only had two practice sessions on Friday before qualifying in the morning (11:30 am) for Saturday's afternoon race at 4pm and the same qualifying and race schedule on Sunday.  On my second lap of the first qualifying session a metal piece that holds a rod end for the shift linkage broke away from the frame so I couldn't shift the car.  The piece had been brased to the chassis and I suspect that it breaking away from the frame was a byproduct of the wreck that I had at the beggining of the year.  In order to get it fixed I had to find someone that could weld it back to the chassis but in order for someone to get to it I had to remove the right front suspension, the right sidepod top, and the right side panel.  I also had to disconnect the electrics.  Not a small amount of work and there was no hope of getting out again on the test day.  My only hope was to make qualifying.  The weather was also interesting that day.  We had rain, sleet, high winds, and temps in the 40s.  Not exactly great conditions!  But I was there to race so I got the car stripped down and found someone to weld the piece back on.  Unfortunately since it had been brased before it was not able to be welded because remnants of the brass from the brasing was still infused in the metal.  The same group that had the welder had some torches and brasing rod so that it could be brased.  Unfortunately I couldn't find anyone to brase it until I happened to find out that a friend of mine who I had raced against in FVs was able to brase -- he doesn't race FVs anymore but he was there to see the action.  So he got the piece re-attached and I could then put the car back together.  I wasn't able to start re-assembly until late in the afternoon and my wife, Terry, and I were there until 8:30 that night.  It was supposed to be 25 degrees Saturday morning so I wanted to get as much done as I could that evening but our flood lights stopped working and although I did a little bit of work using the lights from the truck, that really wasn't cutting it.  Terry was a real trooper because the conditions were pretty lousy along with my mood.  :)

I finished up getting the car ready for qualifying in the morning and although I qualified 16th out of 22 cars, I was penalized 2 spots for missing a black flag.  A number of other cars also missed the flag and were penalized.  Although I spun once in the race, I had a good race and finished 14th.  It was the first time that I really got to race against others in this car so it was good to experience that.  Here is a video from the race up until my spin.

Watking Glen Race 1

After looking at my data, I decided that I needed to change gears for Sunday's qualifying so I did that Sunday morning.  I also made a couple of small set-up changes.  I had a good qualifying session and took anothere 1.2 seconds off my previous best time which put me 15th on the grid.  I was reasonably happy with that.  One thing that I noticed though is that my car was a little too low in the front so I planned on raising it.  Unfortunately the front corner of my car hit some sort of pipe cover that was located where we came off of pit lane and was sticking up over an inch.  Unbelievably it ended up bending the front right corner of my belly pan away from the car so I had to take a cut off wheel and remove that piece of belly pan.  I now have to replace the belly pan on the car over the winter as a result.  Again, unbelievable.  

For the race, I knew I could go faster and I was just looking forward to it.  I again made some small set-up changes so I just wanted to get through the first few laps so that I could tell how the car was feeling and then I could push it harder if it felt good.  A good plan but rarely do races go as planned.  Coming onto the front straight to start the second lap one of the cars running in the top 10 lost the back end of his car and hit the outside guard rail and then bounced into the oncoming traffic.  The car in front of me hit him pretty hard and I tried to squeeze between the crashing cars and the guard rail.  The gap closed and I hit the car in front of me as well as the guard rail.  Six of us ended up being involved in the crash and there were cars and car parts strewn accross the front straight.  My race was obviously done.  The left corner got the brunt of my crash but I also destroyed my nose and shock cover as well as some other bits.  Obviously dissappointing but if you can't accept crash damage then you shouldn't be racing.  At least I have all winter to fix it.

My wife's and my anniversary happened to be October 16th so we stayed in Watkin's Glen an extra day and enjoyed the fall foliage and the winery's.  :)  I'm really lucky to have Terry as my wife and crew.  As I mentioned before, she was a real trooper and she sticks with me through thick and thin.  She also does a great job as my crew.  Some of the things that she does is documenting the tire temps when the car comes off the track, documenting pressures, and taking notes when changes to the car are made.  She is also on the radio to me giving me much needed info while I'm in the car.  Not only is someone like that absolutely necessary but it wouldn't be as much fun without her.  Thanks Terry!!

Making A Scoop Part 2

Now that I'm not frantically trying to get the car back together for the next race, I have some time to write this second post on the scoop.  In Part 1 I showed how I was applying bondo over the foam and sanding it smooth.  Here are the two main pieces (top and bottom) after that process was completed.

It was then time to cut the pieces apart again so that I could make five different "plugs" that I could fiberglass.  I used a hacksaw to cut the pieces.

I wanted a lip around the top and bottom pieces so that I could join them together using 10-32 screws.  In order to create that lip, I fastened each of the pieces to flashing that I bent so that it had a 90 degree angle.

I used some 1" long wood screws to attach the pieces to the metal.  The foam is dense enough to allow the screws to take hold of it but I had to make sure that I didn't overtighted the screws.  I used modeling clay in order to fill the gaps between the pieces and the metal.

Once all the gaps were filled, I could then lay out the fiberglass cloth and cut my pieces.  Even though this process can take a long time, I have found that it really pays off when laying out the fiberglass with the resin.  I used several layers of really thin cloth, one layer of fiberglass matt, one layer of heavy cloth, and then finished up with another layer of really thin cloth.  Here are a couple pics of me laying out the cloth.

The pic on the left shows the thin light cloth and the pic on the right shows the heavy cloth.  The thin light cloth obviously conforms to the curves and sharp turns a lot easier so it is important to start off with that.  Frankly, all of these pieces would have come out a lot better if they were vacuum bagged but I don't have that equipment so I made do with what I had.

After I had all my cloth cut, I then applied mold release wax and the mold release liquid.  The liquid is green and dries to a very thin film.  I applied two coats of wax and two coats of the liquid.  The pic on the left below does not have the mold release materials applied and the piece on the right does.

Ok, let the fiberglassing begin!!  Btw, I ALWAYS wear proper respiratory gear and have fans running when I do this in the garage -- fiberglass resin fumes are not good for you! 

After the resin dried, I could then use plastic wedges to remove the pieces from the plugs.  Here are the pieces before being trimmed all the way.  Btw, the red is just magic marker that I used when drawing my "cut" lines on the cloth.

I then trimmed them and glued them together with high strength epoxy.  I also laid a strip of fiberglass matt along the main seams.

The flat panel filter needed a ledge to sit on so i made some pieces out of aluminum and pop riveted them into the bottom piece.



One problem that I ran into was that the scoop was a little too long and wouldn't fit between the throttle body and the main bulkhead.  So I ended up having to cut off the front part of the bottom piece and in order to get it to fit in a short period of time I fabricated a piece of aluminum to fill in the front part of the bottom piece.  I also ended up trimming the front part of the top piece a little more.  But I eventually got it to fit.

I think it actually came out pretty good.  There is only one problem -- I don't like it very much.  :>)  Although I think it is much better than just using a cone filter, my helmet actually ends up being directly in front of it so I think I would be better off having a scoop that is in the air stream.  The wheels in my head are already turning as far as other possibilities and I just might be able to use the bottom piece of the scoop.  Changing it will probably end up being a winter project.

Mission Accomplished!!

This is another quick post to give an update on my first F1600 Series pro race weekend.  I'm happy to say that the car was pretty good right off the bat and I accomplished a number of my goals for the weekend.  1) I brought the car home in one piece, 2) I got down to a 1:16.xx lap time, and 3) I finished in the top 10 in one of the races.  I didn't go faster every session but I wasn't too far off from doing that.

All things considered, the weekend went very well.  I turned a 1:17.2 in the first session which was the fastest that I had ever been around SP.  I turned a 1:16.8 in the only qualifying session on Friday so that made me happy.  However, that time only grided me in 12th position (out of 18) for Saturday's race.  5 cars were underneath the 1:15.5 track record and 3 of them were in the 13s!!  The competition in this series is unbelievable!!  In Saturday's race I got pushed wide at T1 on the first lap by another driver and he got by me as well as another car.  However, the car that pushed me wide went off in T5 a few laps later and the other car that got by me spun in front of me at the same time so I got both of them back.  Unfortunately we were totally broken off the rest of the field by that point and I ran by myself the rest of the race.  The car didn't seem to have the grip that it had on Friday and the only dissappointing part of the weekend was that I wasn't able to get down to the 16s again.  The fast times from Saturday's race gridded us for Sunday's race and I was grided 14th for Sunday's race.

Sunday's race was much more interesting.  It was raining on and off all day.  Our race was at 11 am and at 10:30 am it was bone dry.  We had slicks on the car and they wanted up to the grid early so Terry (my wife and crew) strapped me in -- and then it started pouring.  I sat in the car for about 30 seconds and then decided that we needed to change to wets so I got out and started changing.  I almost had the left rear off when it stopped raining!  So we looked at the weather map on Terry's phone and it was showing that there was no rain over us.  So I left the slicks on, got back in the car, Terry strapped me in -- and you probably guessed it, it started raining again!!  But now it was about 10 till 11 and since it was just Terry and I we didn't have time to change to wets so off to the grid I went.  I got up there and all but 3 cars (including myself) were on wets.  A friend and long time racer, Tim, came over and asked Terry if we had rain tires.  She said yes but didn't have time to change.  I motioned to Tim to lean down and talk to me and I asked him if I was making a big mistake.  He said yes and that we should go change to wets.  So back to the trailer I went.  I got out of the car to help and Tim told me to get back in the car so Terry strapped me in for the 3rd time while he was changing the tires.  One of the guys from Hoosier came over as well as a couple of motorcycle competitors so it was really pretty amazing how quickly the tires got changed.  I got back to the grid when the cars were going on track so I started dead last (17th).  But at least I was on track with the right tires on the car!!  I was back up to 14th or so before the start finish line and I just decided to keep the car on course and finish.  I didn't turn any real fast times but I did make a couple of good passes on other cars.  However, a lot of people went off track and brought the car home in 9th.  I'm happy with a top 10 finish in that group -- I don't car what the conditions are!!  Here is a pic of the start of Sunday's race as we were approaching turn 1.  I'm deep in the spray and couldn't see hardly anything!

The one thing that I still need to work on is my shifting.  I was trying to go from 4th to 1st in the braking zones and I think I will be better off to go through the gears.  Once I'm shifting without thinking about it I think it will all become much easier and I will get faster as a result.  The weekend was obviously a lot better than the regional and the F1600 series is fantastic.  So all the hard work paid off and it is nice to not have to be working on the car in the evenings and long hours on the weekends. :) 

Off To The Races!!

This is just a quick post and I have to apologize for not updating my blog recently but I have been a little busy getting the car ready -- which it is!! 

I even managed to finish my scoop (at least in a workable condition) so I will be posting on that later.

The F1600, F2000, and Formula Atlantic races will be at Summit Point this weekend and practice and qualifying are tomorrow.  I will be loading up the trailer this afternoon.  I feel good and I at least met the challenge of getting the car ready!  The schedule and links to results and even live audio can be found at www.f1600series.com.  Wish me luck!  I hope my luck is WAY better then the last race weekend! :)

Making Progress

I haven't had much time to post blogs because I have been working on the car in the evenings after work and of course on the weekends but I am making progress and I'm confident that I can make the F1600 Pro Races at Summit Point this month.  K-Hill Motorsports really helped me out as far as getting the frame fixed.  I dropped it off with them two Sunday's ago and they got it sand blasted and had a welder replace the bent bars.  I got the car back the next Saturday!  Luckily the frame was not twisted so it was a little less work to fix it.  Here it is after I got it back.

Good as new!!

In order to save some time and some money, I painted the chassis with some chassis paint that is brushed on.  I can't say that the paint job is a good one but most of the frame is covered by the bodywork anyway.

You can also see the side panel to the left of the frame.  While the frame was getting repaired, I was working on that.  That repair was pretty straight forward.  Just fiberglassed and put some kevlar on the backside and filled in the cracks with short strand fiberglass putty and bondo on the front. 

A fellow racer genorously offered to sell me some used sidepods (tops and bottoms) at a good price so I purchased those.  The tops were just like mine but the bottoms were actually a different shape at the back. I didn't expect this so this meant more work. You can see that my sidepod (on the left in the pic below) is straight in the back and the one I bought is angled.

So I had several choices.  I could 1) either repair the crashed one, 2) modify my tail section to fit the side pod I bought, or 3) replace the crashed front part of my side pod with the front part of the sidepod that I bought.  I decided to go with option 3. 

I took some measurements and made a template out of cardboard in order to trace the same cutting pattern on both sidepods.  It would have been easier to cut in straight lines but I decided to cut a jagged edge because I figured it would be stronger and the two pieces would fit together like puzzle pieces.

Here are the two pieces being fitted together.  I made sure that I fitted them with the sidepod mounted on the bellypan of the car.

Unfortunately I didn't do a very good job of determining the point to cut on side of the sidepod. 

No worries though, I filled it in with spray insulation foam that I bought at Home Depot.  The pic below shows the foam as well as the two pieces joined together. 

I mounted a piece of aluminum to the bottom and used a construction adhesive between the aluminum and the sidepod as well as between the edges.  I used 1/2 inch countersunk wood screws to attach the aluminum to the sidepod.

I ground down the points of the screws on the topside and put a piece of fiberglass on top.  Once I had the two pieces joined, it was just a matter of fiberglassing the remaining cracks and applying some bondo on top.  Here is the finished frankenpod with the smashed up bit next to it.

And here are the pieces mounted to the chassis.  They just need paint now!!

And here is a pic of the chassis after today's work.

So, decent progress but it is full steam ahead until it is done!  I would actually like to have my scoop done before the pro races as well but I'm not as confident about that -- it certainly isn't as important either.



Fixing the car!!

I must say that my tune has changed quite a bit since my last post.  I have to admit that I was quite depressed and dissappointed but I have received quite a bit of encouragement and support from friends and family and I'm now very motivated to get the car fixed before the F1600 pro race at Summit Point the weekend of August 24th.  The main thing that needs to be fixed is of course is the frame and here are some pics of the damage.

And here are some pics of the other damage.

That's the bad news but the good news is that I have been tearing down the car in the evenings and today and have gotten it down to the bare frame so that it can be welded.  I will be dropping it off with someone tomorrow to have it sand blasted on Monday and then it will be given to a welder that has a surface plate and the necessary tools to repair it.

I can re-glass the side panel and a fellow racer has offered to sell me some sidepods and radiator shrouds so I will be getting those in a next couple of weeks.  I have the A-Arms and I might have a steering link and I might have a lead on a used radiator but if that falls through then I can order a new one.  I have actually already repaired the fuel cell cover by pounding the aluminium back into shape. When stripping the car, I tried to do it by undoing the least amount of stuff as possible so that it will be faster to put it all together.  For example, since I used the weather pack connectors, I was able to remove all of the wiring with the engine and without disconnecting all of the sensors attached to the engine.

So, it is a good start and I have a month to get the car ready.  As long as the frame is repaired pretty quickly then I have a good shot of making it.  I love a challenge!!

Bad News

I know that there is a risk to being on the race track and that crashes are inevitable but I was really hoping not to experience one so soon with this car.  I entered the regional race at Summit Point this past weekend.  It was a small group of cars but there were a couple of cars that should have been much faster than my car but the drivers didn't drive them fast enough.  One of them was a Formula Atlantic (the fastest open wheel car that we race with).  At the beggining of the race, he was taking the corners way too slow and I was right behind him.  Him being slow in the corners was bunching up the cars behind me and going into Turn 1 a Club Ford launched over another Club Ford and into the right side of my car.  Here is the video and a couple of screen shots.

I haven't taken a real close look at the car but I can see that the frame rails on the right hand side are bent in about 4 inches and the welds are broken at the rear bulk head.  The right side pod is toast along with the radiator, an A-Arm, and a steering tie rod.  I think I can fix the side panel but I'm sure I will find more stuff once I strip it down.  The good news is that the car did its job and protected me.  I have a bruised arm and a couple of other bruises but I'm fine otherwise.  Just dissapointed.  I always said that racing teaches you perseverence and I will persevere after this and will get the car fixed.  Unfortunately I think this ruins my racing plans for this year and the pro races that I was planning to enter are probably out.

Before this happened, I was run off the road by a C Sports Racer on Friday during the test day.  The driver didn't think he did anything wrong.  You make the call.

The only good news from the weekend was that I made good progress with the car on the test day and got down to a 1:17.8.  I was at least heading in the right direction.

Making A Scoop Part 1

Note:  I actually wrote this blog yesterday in Word because I couldn't publish it due to not having an internet connection -- we were without power for two days as explained below.

For the last few weeks I have been working feverishly on a scoop that I wanted to have ready before the regional race at Summit Point on July 15th.  The scoop design has been bouncing around in my head for months so it felt good to be able to focus on making it.  However, the storms that blew through the Washington DC area Friday night have greatly hampered my planned weekend progress.  A tree fell on the garage roof and we have been without power since about 10:30 pm Friday night.  Luckily I had the generator that we use for racing in the shed so we have some power and I bought a portable Air Conditioner Saturday morning so the house isn't too hot.  On reason I bought that is so that I can use it in the garage after power is restored.  :)  I can't do much work on the scoop without power but I can get to the internet with a mobile broadband stick so I figured I would update the blog -- it has been a while anyway!

Before I get into the making of the scoop, the reason why it is important is because air intakes work much better if there is a low pressure area (created by having air go through a small hole into a larger chamber) and you also want the air to be as cool as possible.  The engine came with a K&N cone air filter and I can certainly run the car with just that filter.  But I think the engine should create a little more hp with a good scoop/cold air box and I’m going to use a rectangular panel air filter.  When the scoop is finished, it will be comprised of two pieces – a bottom piece that holds the air filter and attaches to the throttle body and a top piece that will be in the air stream.  The two will be joined in a manner that I haven’t decided on yet but most likely 10-32 screws.  There are a few ways to create pieces like this.  One way is to shape styrofoam (the type used for packing things) cover it with clear packing tape (this is necessary because fiberglass resin melts the styrofoam), fiberglass over it, and then use laquer thinner to desolve the styrofoam after the fiberglass has hardened.  It is a good, quick way to make something but the piece ends up being pretty rough and a lot of work needs done with bondo to make it look good. 

I'm mainly using the two part foam that I have used in other areas of this project.  This foam does not dissolve when coming in contact with fiberglass resin or lacquer thinner.  The scoop is going to sit in the engine bay behind my head and will be underneath the tail section in the engine bay.  First, I took some measurements and got a rough idea of how big of a piece of foam I needed to work with.  I created my own box, filled it with foam, and let it harden.

I then sanded it down to look more like a cube and marked grid lines on it to help me shape it symmetrically. 

I soon realized that I was going to need some more foam for the scoop opening.  I had some pink foam laying around so I decided to use that.  However, I wished I had used more of the two part foam because the pink foam has a much lower density and working with it was a little bit more of a challenge.  I joined the two pieces with some ¼” wooden dowel pins and some bondo.  I made sure that I only spread the bondo in the center where I wouldn’t be sanding.  Here are the pieces joined and sitting in the engine bay.

It was now time to start sculpting it.  I drew out some guide lines and cut big chunks out with a knife but sanded the rest.

The top part is narrower than the bottom because there is a ½ inch piece of rubber around the panel filter and the top piece will be on top of this rubber section so that it holds the filter in place.  Here it is in the car again.

Once I was satisfied with the basic shape, I needed to start cutting it in sections.  The reason for this is because I’m going to cover it with bondo and make them into molds which I can fiberglass over.  I will then join the fiberglass pieces together after they have hardened.  When making molds, you can not have any areas that curve in because you won’t be able to pull the fiberglass piece off of the mold.  For instance, the very front part of the scoop (the pink foam) has curves going in towards the center of the scoop to help guide the air so the mold needs to be such that I can pull the fiberglass piece straight off the front of it.  Here are the pieces that I cut apart but I also realized that I need to cut the bottom piece in half as well – which will make five separate pieces.

However, after I applied bondo and started sanding the top part of the scoop, I soon realized that I needed to join those pieces back together so that all the lines matched up and to insure that the fiberglass pieces matched up correctly.  For the front part of the scoop, I re-cut the separation line with a razor blade each time I bonded over it.  I did this before the bondo hardened all the way.  The pic below shows the challenges that I was facing with the pink foam.  Almost everytime I sanded it I ended up sanding too much and getting into the foam.  The only way to fix it is too remove some of the foam in that spot, fill it in with bondo, and re-sand.

The pieces are a little bit further along than this right now but not much.  I was really hoping to get started on fiberglassing them today this weekend but you can’t fight mother nature!