SuperSkyline89's Timeline

I went to an autocross event in Barrie today, I forgot my SD card in my laptop because I was working on the video from the track so I didn't get any today but I had a great time and did really well. They ran using SCCA rules, I was in STX and came in 6th in class and 20th overall, I think 64 cars showed up.

STX Class
1st. Subaru BRZ - 48.686
2nd. Scion FRS - 49.072
3rd. Mazda RX-8 - 49.500
4th. Honda Civic Si - 49.881
5th. Nissan 240SX - 49.995
6th. Volkswagen GTI - 50.348








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I finally got my videos uploaded, even on the internet at work it took a few hours. This one is from my last session so I was really in the groove. The Cobra Mustang that let me by is a friend from work, we were going to play around passing each other but some guy in a 996 Turbo was going so slow he was even holding me up in the corners. I let cars past as they came up behind me because they had the power to get past in the straights so I spent most of the session staying as close as possible to the pack. It actually felt like I was in a video game since I was always close to someone so I had fun.



I put my GoPro on the bottom of my door for this one to see how the suspension worked. I'm going to try a stiffer setting next time but I'm really happy that the camber totally got rid of the rubbing I had before.



This is from my third run

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It rained all weekend and it was way colder than it should be in June. Didn't let that keep me inside though, I went autocrossing with the BMW club on Sunday. The course was really tight but I think that was to keep the speeds low on account of the rain.



I met someone taking pictures and got these from him. I don't have many action shots, these came out really nice.





My friend at work uploaded his video from the last run at last weekend's track day. He was recording on a DSLR mounted to his roll cage. I let him by at 4:00 and he holds onto the 996 Turbo with half throttle. He lets me by within a minute and follows me as I slowly reel the 996 in through the corners, until we get to a small straight and the Turbo gets away.


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It was a busy race weekend. I went to two autocross events and I was planning on going to CSCS but ended up going home and crashing instead. On Saturday I went to a local autocross meet at a bus station parking lot. I'm really starting to get familiar with the new suspension now so my times are tumbling. I spent the day competing with a buddy in a MvIV Jetta. Over the course of last year I went from being 10 seconds off his times to 0.2s behind. Over the winter he also upgraded his suspension drastically so we're actually very evenly matched now. We spent the day trading places and at the end of the day he took 2nd in class with me 0.016s behind in 3rd. A striped and newly supercharged Acura Integra was 1.5s ahead of us in 1st.





I had a funny moment during my 4th run when my GoPro was mounted on the bottom of my door and it hit a cone. I felt the knock and though my rear wheel hit it but when I got out of my car I noticed my GoPro was pointed at the clouds.



On Sunday the BMW and Porsche clubs co-hosted an autocross event on the Mosport Driver Development Track. This is the same track I did my track days at so I signed up. It was a really good event, half the cars were BMW's, another fifth were Porsche's and the rest were from other brands. They were also having a BMW meet so some really nice stuff showed up and there were a few great food trucks.



It felt a little weird being on the track and driving a completely different line. They built the course so a BMW 325i wouldn't exceed 100km/h so they had slaloms, cone walls, and a bus stop on the straights. The slaloms were brutal and the stop box was downhill but the rest of it was really fun.



On my last run I had a bit of a moment where I turned in and the rear stepped out but I managed to catch it. It was a pretty big milestone for me since it was the first time I managed to recover from a slide. I spun pretty close to the same place on my first track day there and by the time I realized what was happening I was already standing still facing the wrong way. The second time was over a month ago when I went too fast in the rain at an autocross, I managed to react and stop the initial slide but ended up losing it in the end.



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Here are some of the pictures I got from the photographer






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I haven't done much to my car over the past month. After the track day I got the pictures above from I've done a few autocross events and another track day. The coilovers are working great. I wasn't getting the initial turn in bite I wanted so I got under the car a couple weeks ago and had a look at my damper settings. Turns out that the compression was set to 9 clicks from hard instead of 5 (rebound is supposed to be 9 clicks so I think my mechanic just mixed them up in his head during the install) so I turned them to 5 all around. I also lowered the front to 25" ftg but when I tried to lower the rear they wouldn't go down because there was some dirt stuck in the threads. I was going to clean them this week but some tire issues just got in the way so I'm focused on that right now. With the suspension stiffer the car actually rides more comfortably because the rebound and compression are matched better.



Before my latest track day I finally got around to trying the sticker layout I've been thinking about since last year. With my wheels, brakes, and now suspension taken care of I finally felt like I had my car to a point where I could pull off the look I wanted. I wanted a mixture of race car and JDM style sponsor stickers. What I didn't want though was to represent something I didn't actually own or just plaster brands that are already really obvious on my doors since my wheels and brakes already have blatant branding all over them. In the end I decided I'd go with stickers for my mechanic's shop (AST - Auto Select Tuning) and the supplier (JRP - Johnston Research and Performance) that most of my parts came through. I was unsure about the look at first but everyone I race with said they loved the look and it's grown on me since then so I'm keeping it.



I had an audio/video issue at the last track day where the mic I had mounted on my rear bumper fell off and got dragged for a lap before they flagged me into the pits. Thankfully the wires are intact and it still works but I need to get some brackets made to solid mount the mic to my rear tow hook so it never happens again. Until then I'm going to try capturing audio from inside the car.



Otherwise, the track day went great. I picked up 10km/h on every straight because I could charge out of corners so much better with the stiffer suspension setting. There were a bunch of really cool cars like this Espirit that used to belong to the head of Lotus Italy, an M3 with StopTech's all around, a Radical, and a beautiful Z/28 Camaro.






As for the tire issue I mentioned, my right front is destroyed. I was at an autocross event yesterday in a parking lot with horrible pavement and at the end of the day I noticed the tire looked like this all the way around. A couple friends I autocross with are getting quotes for Hankook RS3's and I'm going to see if I can put in a warranty claim through the tire shop I got these from to soften the blow. My friend with a MkIV Jetta said the belts in one of his tires also got damaged and someone else we autocross with destroyed a brand new slick when we autocrossed at the same lot a few weeks ago so I think that might be the last time my car ever runs there.

I went to a VW show called Vagkraft today so here are some pictures of stuff that stood out. I didn't take a real camera so they're all phone pictures, 16MP to be fair so they aren't crap but the colours aren't as rich as I'd get with my DSLR.








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While I was cleaning up some files on my computer I stumbled on the pictures from the first time I tried autocross two years ago. My car wasn't completely stock at the time because I had already done my exhaust and some stuff on the inside but it's a bit crazy to see how far my car has come in just two years.



In contrast here are a few pictures from my last track day. I've picked up a ton of speed this year to move comfortably into mid-pack pace in the advanced group.






After my right front tire started falling apart last Sunday I decided to step up from my Michelin Pilot Super Sports to a set of Hankook Ventus R-S3's. The Super Sports are amazing tires that do everything very well but on the track it's becoming obvious that they're my limiting factor when entering corners. I also changed sizes slightly by going from a 245/35-ZR18 to a 245/40-ZR18. As it is right now the fronts are within a few millimeters of having no gap whatsoever so I'm going to raise them a little tomorrow to get rid of the minor rub I get over big bumps. Otherwise they ride great so far (I havent been on the highway with them yet so I don't know how noisy they are) and look nice and chunky.





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I drove my car to and from work most of the past week to heat cycle the new tires. They're very comfortable on the street but they are a lot louder than Pilot Super Sports. At speed they make a slight whining sound but since our cars are so well insulated it isn't loud enough to bother you unless you're driving with the windows closed, have a stock exhaust, and aren't listening to anything. I have a loud exhaust, I always listen to podcasts while driving to work, and have the windows open as long as it's warm enough so I'm not bothered by them. I can hear them but just as a background noise. Tomorrow will be the first time I run them hard at an autocross event.

I have a really cool update that's slightly car related today. I'm not a fan of winter but ever since I bought my car and especially since I started racing it I've developed a real hatred of the wretched season. This year I decided to put together a racing rig for my Xbox One so I could play Forza Motorsport over the winter. Yesterday I picked up the first piece of the puzzle from the local FedEx depot.



A company called GamePod in Leicestershire, England makes adjustable gaming rigs that use FIA certified race seats. FIA certified seats obviously aren't cheap so I spent some time looking for rigs online that I could buy within Canada but none of them grabbed my attention the way this one did. And since GamePod actually ships for free to America and Canada I had one less expense to worry about.



Opening the box with the seat in it was a lot like opening the boxes my car parts came in. I knew exactly what was in the box but it still blew me away to see it in person. I knew the seat would be nice but it wasn't until I saw the Cobra stampings that the reality of FIA certified really hit me. This thing is a full bucket race seat that I could literally drop in my car and enter a real race with.





I assembled the rig today and couldn't be happier with it so far. Every single piece is painted or powdercoated metal. The pedal mount moves back and forth and tilts. There's a shifter mount, a TV support, and console holder all attached to the wheel mount which moves up and down. The seat slides and has multiple mounting holes so you can adjust it's position also. I don't have a single thing I need to actually use it yet but I'm aiming to have this thing up and running by the time Forza 6 is released. Since the demo is out this Tuesday I'm going to order a wheel off Amazon so I can buy and test fit a TV. I also need to cancel my pre-order of Forza 6 on Amazon so I can buy a digital copy instead because if I use a disc I can't have the console sit vertically in the holder.


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