Attended another Thunderhill event this weekend.
Shaved two seconds off my best time and 1.1s off the official TT time.
2:10.6 and 2:11.8
At last some progress :-)

Took out the coilovers last weekend and inserted the shims.
It helps but the left one is still pinging a bit.
Very annoying.

Changes for 2010:
- B&M short shifter and new shift linkage.
- Shims to correct "ping" from front coilovers. :-)

So I figured out why my front suspension is making creaking noises ...
The top heim joints aren't moving as they should.
The right one isn't moving at all and the right one barely.
Bad quality most likely.

Not happy since JIC told me I needed some washers installed (which I had to pay for).
And now I found out the real cause, which they most surely must have been aware was the cause.

Thinking of my camber settings, I was checking the settings from the latest alignment and found they had printed the corner weights on the receipt!

Left front 588lbs
Right front 598lbs
Left rear 1048lbs
Right rear 1020lbs
Total 3154lbs

Cross weight 1646lbs, 50.5%
Left weight 1637lbs 50.2%
Right weight 2067lbs 63%
Front weight 1188lbs 36.5%

The last section must be mislabeled though.

Long time since last update ...
Just back from another day at Thunderhill. Love that track.

New tires (RE11) this time, didn't help that much, I just haven't driven enough this year to keep up the "skills". In the end I managed a 2:12.8 which is better than before but not much. I had plenty of laps at 2:13.0 though so there is an improvement but I make lousy turn in's. Gotta work on that.
When doing the Time Trial I got a time of 2:12.999 on the 2nd lap but I completely destroyed that lap by over driving turn 14 and getting a slow entry speed onto the straight for the 2nd lap.
The car I was following (and catching up to) did 2:11.3. So that should be doable with this setup.

The RE11s are so different from the PS2s. They start squealing immediately but that means nothing as you have plenty of grip left after that, just floor it and trust the tires :-)

Overall, it was two fun days with a good set of people.

And btw, the 996 is a fantastic car!

The season is over, I won't pay $800 for LS in December!

Plans for 2009
- Fix front sway bar, one step stiffer
- New tires, NT-01 or RA-1?
- Front spoiler lip

Went to Laguna Seca for the ALMS event. Had an opportunity to get a tour of the Penske and Flying Lizzard paddocks. Amazing to see!
128 pictures below.

ALMS Laguna Seca 10/17/08

Summary

Went for another weekend to Thunderhill, excellent weather, nice people and a new track surface!
Had a blast of course.
The main thing was to dial in the new coilovers, went with the recommended settings 3 front and 3 rear to start with and decided that was too soft and not good front-rear balance.
But what a difference the new coilovers made in how the car handled!!! Like having a new car. So much easier to handle the car at the limit when the car isn't wiggling around.
Managed to get a new lap record (for me) of 2:13.7. ~ 1.3 seconds better than before.
Also had a problem breaking hard before turn 1, the car got all squigly. Looks like I need to tighten the front sway bar with this new set of coilovers. That might help.
I tightened the front to 1 (since I couldn't fix the sway bar easily) and left the rear at 3. Now the car handled much better, set a new record of 2:13.001. The car felt really good with these settings.
I still wanted to know how the car would feel with max stiff suspension, it felt like the rear was moving a bit and could need to stiffen up a bit. Well that didn't work at all, now the rear just got loose to easily.
I did a 180 in corner six as a result, was going in fast and the rear let go a bit, couldn't feed more throttle since there just wasn't track enough for that. So I had to let the rear go and travel backwards a bit :-) .
Managed to keep it on track at least ...
Talked to another guy about it and he said he had to get on the throttle even earlier when he stiffened the rear. So what he usually did when changing settings was to dial the speed back a bit, focus on getting early on the throttle and start picking up
speed as he got confidence with the new settings.

So, for next time I'll stiffen the front sway and dial back the front to 3 again and stick with 3 in the back. It's fun when you have settings to play with.

First session without instructor.

So here is the first video from Buttonwillow.
It's the second session, with an instructor showing me the lines and giving some hints.

So here is the first track video, sorry about the sound and the wire to my lap timer :-)
I'm chasing a silver 996 S, having a hard time keeping up with him, pissed off.
Afterwards I discovered he had RA-1s, and 60hp extra.

I did install a new light weight battery!

1:50:8 was the best time of the day for me. Still plenty of time out there. Corner 5 needs a lot of work!

Some cars parked at the Marina autox.

The results form the Marina autox event is in:
http://www.pca-ggr.org/acresults/110407.html

24th time overall or 12th place based on the PAX ranking (handicap system).
There were 61 cars and many of them good, fighting over who should win or place in the 2007 series so I'm happy.
It was difficult driving on concrete, the car didn't slide as I'm used to, need more practise for sure.
There was one curve I failed to do correctly 12 times in a row, 130 degrees decreasing radius.
Have to look through the curve (which is hard).

Next planned event is an autocross this Sunday down in Monterey.
Then there is another one on November 17.

Next track event is Laguna Seca in December if nothing else comes up.
Perhaps something at Thunderhill.

Here are the results from the Autocross I did 10/13/07 at Candlestick.
36th place of 95 drivers. Not too bad but not great.
Less than half a second slower than my instructor in a brand new Boxter S though :-)

http://pca-ggr.org/acresults/101307. html

My daughter explains about paper animals she made. Not really car related of course.