Race Prepping
- Thread starter darreng505
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That is an understatement....
Turning low 2min times is serious for his powertrain. He definitely has what they call "driver mod"
Crazy fast - Made the lowly CMC guys seems like they cruising around in a Diahatsu.
Ahem.
Nice looking car though!
And Watson, obviously. Not sure who designed that cage (Ford? Multimatic? Watson? Roush?), but there is good reason to stick with it since it has been through FEA and is an FIA certified design. And it has had several years of hard testing...
That one just happened a couple weeks ago in Sonoma when the right rear went down coming into turn one. It moved the concrete barrier and hit hard enough to crack the engine block. Sadly it's the second tub we've had to scrap this season. Got taken out in the first corner at Barber and hit hard enough in the driver side to bend the door bars. Both wrecks Dean was able to walk away from thankfully!
Covini commented that the two front AIX cars probably covered 2000hp between them. Griswold commented that if it's crank horsepower, they should have it. I know a few years ago (2010? 2011?) when I asked Chris how much he was making at Miller he said he had it dialed back to only about 8psi and was around 850rwhp. He was running 188-190mph down the front straight.... He wouldn't turn it up because he didn't want to risk hurting the engine for no reason, since no one could touch him. IIRC he figured he could be close to 1200rwhp at 12psi...
Hey! No fair. That conti boss is not tricoat metallic yellow blaze paint is it?? Mine was originally a street boss and had the metallic paint (which is hard to see in the pics).
Been watching you guys all year. Some bad luck. Otherwise a real run at the championship.
Been watching you guys all year. Some bad luck. Otherwise a real run at the championship.
No, it's probably not that exact color. That was the first Grand-Am car with the Coyote, obviously campaigned by Multimatic. I'm assuming the same yellow blaze that we used in our first Coyote car we won the American Iron Championship with at Miller in 2010.
I don't remember who did our cage in that car. We may have been doing them ourselves back then. Ever since the caged tub has been offered from Ford Racing we haven't bothered with building cages anymore. It's just so much easier and cheaper to order something that is done in semi-production rather than a custom cage.
Yeah, it's been a really unlucky year. Even with the crappy results at Sonoma we are still in 4th for the championship. We may be able to pull out 3rd for the season, but I doubt we will get 2nd, even though I think it's statistically possible. We didn't have much of a shot at winning the championship with the way the Kias are running....
I don't remember who did our cage in that car. We may have been doing them ourselves back then. Ever since the caged tub has been offered from Ford Racing we haven't bothered with building cages anymore. It's just so much easier and cheaper to order something that is done in semi-production rather than a custom cage.
Yeah, it's been a really unlucky year. Even with the crappy results at Sonoma we are still in 4th for the championship. We may be able to pull out 3rd for the season, but I doubt we will get 2nd, even though I think it's statistically possible. We didn't have much of a shot at winning the championship with the way the Kias are running....
And for that matter, what's up with those kia's anyway? I mean, props to them and all, but aren't those front wheel drive? Are they running insane RPMs? Low power to weight?
LOTS of stuff. LOL
Yes to front wheel drive.
I'm not sure what the power to weight is, but I know it is hard to keep tabs on how much power turbo cars make. A very small spike in boost can create a significant difference in power. I'm pretty sure they have been popped at least once this year for a boost pressure/ECU violation.
They run an aftermarket ECU, I can't remember if it's Motec or Bosch though.
I believe they run some sort of sequential or dog-ring transmission, while we are stuck with syncros.
I'm sure the list continues, but I'll stop there for now because I'm not all that familiar with the cars. Since this series doesn't do pit stops, I'm not necessary, which means I only go to the "local" races (Detroit, Toronto, Road America, Mid-Ohio). So I don't pay attention to all the rules as close as I used to for Grand Am.
Yes to front wheel drive.
I'm not sure what the power to weight is, but I know it is hard to keep tabs on how much power turbo cars make. A very small spike in boost can create a significant difference in power. I'm pretty sure they have been popped at least once this year for a boost pressure/ECU violation.
They run an aftermarket ECU, I can't remember if it's Motec or Bosch though.
I believe they run some sort of sequential or dog-ring transmission, while we are stuck with syncros.
I'm sure the list continues, but I'll stop there for now because I'm not all that familiar with the cars. Since this series doesn't do pit stops, I'm not necessary, which means I only go to the "local" races (Detroit, Toronto, Road America, Mid-Ohio). So I don't pay attention to all the rules as close as I used to for Grand Am.
Sorry to shit up your thread but this is how the new tub looks for the upcoming race at Miller next weekend. Not bad considering the car previously pictured was wrecked in California on August 30th, hauled back to the shop. The guys were gone for a bit short of a week for NASA nationals at Road Atlanta, and now a new car is almost done....
Hey, its all good. I'm not a thread nazi. I like hearing about this stuff. There's a bunch of interesting subthreads in here I will pull out in a new post. One of interest to me is the huge HP gap from AI to AIX in NASA. I posted about this a year or so ago on the NASA forums.
You got AI at roughly 380whp and then you got AIX gods like Chris and Brian with 1000hp who appear to be just toying with each in the RA video I saw. lol. That's a 600+ gap in HP.
I will be around 500-530rwhp in my next phase which clearly can't compete at the national AIX level. It's a shame there isn't a class or two to fill the gap because (and no disrespect to those accomplished drivers) its basically a two-man league for the national championship.
Eventually I will add a procharger, but that's a couple years off. still.
You got AI at roughly 380whp and then you got AIX gods like Chris and Brian with 1000hp who appear to be just toying with each in the RA video I saw. lol. That's a 600+ gap in HP.
I will be around 500-530rwhp in my next phase which clearly can't compete at the national AIX level. It's a shame there isn't a class or two to fill the gap because (and no disrespect to those accomplished drivers) its basically a two-man league for the national championship.
Eventually I will add a procharger, but that's a couple years off. still.
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There is a place for your car to run in NASA, have you looked at the ST classes?
Yeah. I need to look at them closer. Good idea.
Darren - the reason behind the power gap as I see it is simply because of what people wanted the classes to be.
CMC - almost completely stock cars. Cheapest way to go racing. Allow some very basic changes in order to keep the different cars "equal".
Spec Iron - an offshoot of CMC that is supposed to be the cheapest, easiest way to race a 4.6L S197 Mustang since the stock chassis was that much better than previous CMC cars. Before this class, you actually had to run smaller tires (and some other stuff) to slow down the S197 to make CMC competitive for the older cars in stock form.
AI - allow guys to make modifications but still keep cost relatively in check so that it doesn't come down to whoever has the most money wins.
AIX - where the big boys play, almost a run what ya brung class, where throwing a crap ton of money at a car has a pretty good chance of giving you a win, how fast can you really make a fox chassis go?!
There has been some debate about the cost of AI in the last couple of years because of guys showing up with $80,000 Ford Racing cars. As seen at this years Nationals though, the new expensive cars can be beat with older iron and good drivers. Why do you insist that you are going to run AIX instead of AI? Other than the power/weight, why isn't your car AI legal?
CMC - almost completely stock cars. Cheapest way to go racing. Allow some very basic changes in order to keep the different cars "equal".
Spec Iron - an offshoot of CMC that is supposed to be the cheapest, easiest way to race a 4.6L S197 Mustang since the stock chassis was that much better than previous CMC cars. Before this class, you actually had to run smaller tires (and some other stuff) to slow down the S197 to make CMC competitive for the older cars in stock form.
AI - allow guys to make modifications but still keep cost relatively in check so that it doesn't come down to whoever has the most money wins.
AIX - where the big boys play, almost a run what ya brung class, where throwing a crap ton of money at a car has a pretty good chance of giving you a win, how fast can you really make a fox chassis go?!
There has been some debate about the cost of AI in the last couple of years because of guys showing up with $80,000 Ford Racing cars. As seen at this years Nationals though, the new expensive cars can be beat with older iron and good drivers. Why do you insist that you are going to run AIX instead of AI? Other than the power/weight, why isn't your car AI legal?
And I get how those classes are designed. But you have to admit, if someone sets the bar impossibly high with a 1200hp car it sort of evaporates the field, or everyone has to move up to that. Because at that point, its just mashing the gas pedal and drag racing on straights (just my opinion). People have been saying to me for years after I said I wanted to go into AIX to "don't do it", "there's only 2 cars in it", "etc etc". Well, how is anyone supposed to join this class then? Is it essentially dead because no mere mortal has a shot at the title? That's BS. I generally do things especially when people say I can't or not to do it. lol. I might lose and that's ok for now, I can add power to the car if I decide to stay and play the power game.
But like I said above, at least at the regional level, I can (and will) outperform AIX cars with my bone-stock N/A boss 302 motor. So at least on some level HP does not equal wins.
Now, I _could_ make my car AI legal. Swap the tires/wheels and cork the tune. And maybe I do that someday, but I also like the idea of running my particular configuration based on my own testing and research with some more leeway in choice of parts, etc. Also, I'm a big guy and would be challenged to lose another 100lbs off the car to get down to the same weight as the horse jockey racers in AI with their cars. So that's a huge disadvantage right there. Hard to go faster carrying 100 extra pounds around.
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The AIX field isn't meant to be filled with 8-10 cars. It's there to give the guys that wanna road race 1200 hp a place to go, it's an accepted class and it's not gonna change. I understand you're thinking but that's why there is AI.
18x9.5s all around, toyo RRs and a 9.5:1 power to weight ratio. Good group of guys racing pony cars. There's always places to remove weight you just have to search for it. Turn the wick down on the motor and it'll last longer too. I don't see much else on the car that's not AI legal. It might be too pretty but that's all I see.
18x9.5s all around, toyo RRs and a 9.5:1 power to weight ratio. Good group of guys racing pony cars. There's always places to remove weight you just have to search for it. Turn the wick down on the motor and it'll last longer too. I don't see much else on the car that's not AI legal. It might be too pretty but that's all I see.
Yeah. I hear ya. But there's a lot of empty space between AI 380hp and 1200hp.
Why not break AIX into two groups. Naturally aspirated and forced induction.
I mean a frickin Sprint Cup car can't compete in AIX nationals. CG's car has a weight to HP ratio of like 2-2.5:1! Which is flat out obscene.
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They do that it's called ST1
I probably do that too.
It's a crazy gap between the two. A few years ago when the championship was at mid ohio CG was running times faster than Daytona prototypes.
When I first started racing agent47 was doing their AIX outlaw series which I liked the concept of. It was similar to ST where tires and mods carried points, more mods =less hp.
Even they have come back to racing under the AI rules.
When I first started racing agent47 was doing their AIX outlaw series which I liked the concept of. It was similar to ST where tires and mods carried points, more mods =less hp.
Even they have come back to racing under the AI rules.
And as awesome as that is...and believe me, I have nothing but respect for CG and he dominates. But that car has scared off people who would otherwise get into that class. Is that good for the class?
Is the class just there as a novelty? Does NASA want or expect to grow the class? There are tons of 450-600hp mustangs with no where to go.....lol...ST1...sure.ok. but then they're racing against Corvettes....Fine with me...but still....not the same.
And they will have to do something eventually because with the new GT350's coming, it doesn't fit in anywhere either.....except AIX...lol...and the problem continues....
One idea is to have a range, say 600-650hp. Then the CG's of the world tune down and the rest of us add power and we all play together.
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