Saturday, October 27, 2012
51,000 Views on AZ and counting!
Passed another milestone on the Acurazine forum last week with 50,000+ views of the Elegant Aggressor build thread! A big thanks goes out to all the fans of the car (many here in the midwest) for their continued support!
Saturday, October 6, 2012
Project Progress
Started working on the new setup for my front doors recently. The plan is to remove all of the glass, related components and interior door steel and replace it with a quickly removeable Lexan front window. I am required to run with the front windows down while on track so it's a rather large waste of weight to carry them around the track for no reason. Basically the only time the front windows are not down is while transiting to and from tracks. Removing all of these things will total 45 lbs of weight loss! Stay tuned for more progress in the future.
Additionally, I have been removing all of the unneeded wiring running throughout the car. Wiring for the navigation, audio system, etc was still in the car and serving no use so I started removing all of it. Total weight so far is almost 10 lbs and I still have more to do.
Finally, I removed the primary radiator fan from the engine bay. Worth about 8 pounds. It really doesn't serve much use as I don't just sit and idle much anymore but I am going to hold on to it and re-install if the event and weather make it seem necessary.
Additionally, I have been removing all of the unneeded wiring running throughout the car. Wiring for the navigation, audio system, etc was still in the car and serving no use so I started removing all of it. Total weight so far is almost 10 lbs and I still have more to do.
Finally, I removed the primary radiator fan from the engine bay. Worth about 8 pounds. It really doesn't serve much use as I don't just sit and idle much anymore but I am going to hold on to it and re-install if the event and weather make it seem necessary.
Saturday, September 22, 2012
MAM Track Day Results
Went out to Mid America Motorplex yesterday and did some tuning on my
aero setup. It's awesome having the track so close to home and for most
of the day there were maybe 6 cars
there so I basically had the whole track just to myself. It was
straight up WINDY though. It was gusting 25-30 right down the damn
straight which wasn't a whole lotta fun but oh well... I did 4 sessions
in the morning, only 2 were really for time because I had passengers for
the other 2. Got the line pretty much ironed out and was managing
about a 1:49.9 but knew the car and myself still had plenty more to
give. Over the lunch break I pulled the front splitter off and the rear
wing off because I wanted to see what sort of difference in feel and
lap time the two made. I had to leave the diffuser and underbody panel
on because they are pretty much permanently mounted to the car.
Needless to say the lack of splitter/diffuser was HORRIBLE!!! My gosh I couldn't believe how bad it felt. Could barely get the tires anywhere near temp on the warmup lap and it basically took all my focus just to keep it on track. Braking was noticeably more unstable (I brake HARD lol), turn in had ridiculous oversteer and getting on the power made it instantly push/understeer mid corner through the exit. I was absolutely shocked by this and couldn't believe the difference it made. I had my lap timer running but I don't even think I got a "good" hot lap in because the difference was that drastic. But even above all of that, the thing that made the splitter not only effective but NECESSARY, was the coolant temp. Without the splitter feeding the radiator air through the hole in the bumper, there wasn't much of any getting to it and on my second lap I saw the water temp was damn near touching 250! Normally it'll never go past 210, even on the hottest of track days. So needless to say my aero testing was incredibly obvious, just not in the way I thought it was going to be.
The afternoon sessions after the no aero was pretty sad actually. I immediately put the aero back on and went back out and on my 3 lap picked up a bolt or pin or screw or something and punctured my left rear tire! My still damn near NEW, $260 Hoosier R6 tire! So needless to say my day was over and I didn't get the chance to really push the car and see what sort of a lap time I could manage my first day there. Oh well....I'll have to get some new tires and be back out when I can.
Needless to say the lack of splitter/diffuser was HORRIBLE!!! My gosh I couldn't believe how bad it felt. Could barely get the tires anywhere near temp on the warmup lap and it basically took all my focus just to keep it on track. Braking was noticeably more unstable (I brake HARD lol), turn in had ridiculous oversteer and getting on the power made it instantly push/understeer mid corner through the exit. I was absolutely shocked by this and couldn't believe the difference it made. I had my lap timer running but I don't even think I got a "good" hot lap in because the difference was that drastic. But even above all of that, the thing that made the splitter not only effective but NECESSARY, was the coolant temp. Without the splitter feeding the radiator air through the hole in the bumper, there wasn't much of any getting to it and on my second lap I saw the water temp was damn near touching 250! Normally it'll never go past 210, even on the hottest of track days. So needless to say my aero testing was incredibly obvious, just not in the way I thought it was going to be.
The afternoon sessions after the no aero was pretty sad actually. I immediately put the aero back on and went back out and on my 3 lap picked up a bolt or pin or screw or something and punctured my left rear tire! My still damn near NEW, $260 Hoosier R6 tire! So needless to say my day was over and I didn't get the chance to really push the car and see what sort of a lap time I could manage my first day there. Oh well....I'll have to get some new tires and be back out when I can.
Saturday, September 15, 2012
MAM scheduled for 21 Sept 2012
Now that Mid America Motorplex is my new home track and is all but 12 miles from my house, I will become a "regular" there for track days, testing, competing, and also instructing in the future. My first event will be on friday, 21 Sept. I will be testing with my new Aim Solo and looking at the aero and suspension setup currently on the car. MAM is somewhat ideal for testing both of these because it has a great mix of many tracks mainly with its longer straight, long sweeping corners, and tight, technical chicanes. Should be a fun time and look forward to pics and vids after the event.
Winter plans have started already!
Being I live back in the Midwest now and we have this little thing called "Winter", I am planning on making some improvements to the car over the off season. Most notably will be a redesigned front bumper/splitter configuration and some more modifications to the engine for more power and better cooling. One of the nice things about the engine in the TL is that the series has been in production for about 10 years and Honda/Acura is still using a version of the engine to this day. So many upgrades and improvements have been made over the years and they are directly swappable to my engine. One such upgrade is the intake manifold and throttle body of the newer 3.7L Acura engines. They flow more air than even a ported and polished version of the manifold I currently have, making the choice to pursue buying one almost a no brainer.
Also been throwing around the idea of adding some aftermarket cams to the car. Something mild enough that I could run it without a tuneable ECU but still more aggressive than stock. Stay tuned for more details on this in the future. One company that actually makes cams for the car is BisiMoto. He has an incredible reputation for quality and performance. Check out his site for more details - www.bisimoto.com
As standard, I'll keep this up to date with anything I do to the car.
Also been throwing around the idea of adding some aftermarket cams to the car. Something mild enough that I could run it without a tuneable ECU but still more aggressive than stock. Stay tuned for more details on this in the future. One company that actually makes cams for the car is BisiMoto. He has an incredible reputation for quality and performance. Check out his site for more details - www.bisimoto.com
As standard, I'll keep this up to date with anything I do to the car.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Welcome Everybody!
Welcome to the Elegant Aggressor Blog! I have large build thread that many of my fans follow on www.acurazine.com with over 40,000 views but thought an outside blog would be a great addition for the future! I will be working on this in the coming weeks.
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