Yesterday we (Tidewater Sports Car Club) ran an autocross for the Porsche Club of America's South Eastern Region 45th anniversary weekend. It was closed to just Porsches and our club members. I've only seen one Boxter run an autocross and the driver was very inexperienced so I didn't feel like my beating his times was anything to brag about..... But yesterday there were 7 Boxters and one with an experienced autocrosser driving it. I beat his time by .2 seconds. His time was 47.820 my best was 47.601. The other 6 Boxters were more than a second behind us (mostly do to driver inexperience).

 

Great job Wes! I won TDS yesterday at the GLC event! I was proud of that! ... beat them with a 50.7 something.... but I pulled off the fastest time for me with a 49.??? but I hit a cone .... it was a good event though!!

 

Off the Subject,I went to a large Porsche Show yesterday at the Ventura fairgrounds,about 500 porsches of all years.

After looking at all,I got back in my Xfire and was very happy to see i was the only one in a very large parking LOT In a XF.

 

Congrats

...how did they put a 50sec course into GLC? It wasn't in the same place as before...was it?

 

yah it was... they put it the opposite way... and deleted almost all parking LOL... people were stealing peoples stops while people waited at grid... it was mad crazy... I wasnt super impressed by it... but I did well... and pulling in 49 was a good job for me those tires make an EXTREME DIFFERENCE!!! holy lordy.... ill post more times of everyone once I get official results

 

Great job, Derek!!!

I really think that next year the SCCA will be taking us out of DS. Our local SCCA compition director is starting to notice that nobody in DS except the WRX (with an awesome driver) can match our times. I think we will end up in CS at a minimum.

The Boxter is in BS and the Boxter S is in AS. The Boxsters that were running yesterday were all non-S versions.

 

CS...BMW Z3 4 cyl, Jensen Healey, Lotus 7, elan, elite, Miata 1.8, Porsche 914, Toyota MR2 Spyder, MR2 Supercharged.

Crossfire Coupe doesn't belong in CS. Too much HP, and 6 cyl engine...

IMO, SCCA won't change the DS class.

No one is running a Crossfire in Nationals and no one is campaigning a Crossfire...And the number of Crossfire entries are too small.

 

I hope they don't but my regional compition director, as I said before, has made several comments about us being in the wrong class. In my opinion the WRXs shouldn't be in the same class as 2 wheel drive cars but they are in DS with us.

 

I ended up 7th over all. I think it really shows how awesome our car really performs. http://stonehenge.pinn.net/~chad/pca.xls

 

I've run my Crossfire at Willow Springs Raceway a number of times, the first being with 1100 miles on the car on the "SOWS" (Streets of Willow Springs) track during a Porsche Owners Club sponsored event in May. That is when I decided to keep my Crossfire.

All due respect to Boxters, but ... Not one of the dozen or so on the track could keep pace with me... Could have been driver performance... The S version seems to have a bit more acceleration out of turn 8 through the 1200 foot straightaway, but nothing that I couldn't put 10-12 car lengths ahead of it through the rest of the course...

It appears that it is very non responsive (heavy) through the turns much like the 350 z's that I've run against on the track...

We will be running at SOWS again with Speed Trial USA on Nov. 27th. There should be a couple other members of the forum joining me and we will shoot some video to post for your enjoyment...

If you would like to join us, here are the web addresses of the sponsors and track...

http://www.speedtrialusa.com
http://www.willowspringsraceway.com

 

HDDP, was this before or after your suspension upgrades? Have you done any skidpad tests since your new springs, etc? I'm just wondering how much of an improvement it is over stock and if it had any bearing on your track performance. I remember Wes had some impressive numbers from a skidpad test a while back.

 

The first couple of races were before my springs / shocks and the car handled nicely. But with a a bit more front body roll than I would have liked, so I did the suspension work...

Now with the Eibach springs and Koni Sport dampers it is much tighter and much more responsive, but I have also noticed that the left front tire will now rub the wheelwel when I take a HARD right corner, at speeds 80+ mph. But never on the right, during hard left turns...

I can only assume that my weight 180lbs on the drivers side is causing the left wheel to dig in during hard right turns. I will be putting a spacer on the front left before my next race..

The upgraded suspension is much more like a STIFF sports car now and may not be something you would like if you spend alot of time on the highway, as your teeth will rattle out of your head... (gross exageration)

All-in-all, I'm extremly happy with the change, for the track, but then again, I rarely use the car on the highway... After the suspension changes we adjusted the front camber to -.50 and the rear to -.75

As far as your question about skid pad tests, the answer is no... All I needed out of the suspension upgrade was that it would tighten the front body roll... And it did. Although I may experiment with a bit stiffer front tortion bar (if I can find one) to eliminate the left wheelwel problem...

 

Could you explain, for us novices, what front body roll is exactly, when it occurs and why it's a bad thing?
I've also gotten confusing definitions of what Understeer and Oversteer are. If anyone could clear that up, it would be appreciated.

 

I've seen a tortion bar kit for SLKs'. Will they work?

 

Understeer is when you turn the wheel and the car keeps plowing straight ahead. Oversteer is when you turn the wheel and the rear end tries to pass you on the outside.

The Crossfire as delivered has a slight understeer at it's cornering limit which can be turned into oversteer by large throttle applications especially in 2nd gear.

This is classic front engine/rear drive behavior and is the way that most race car drivers prefer their cars to be set up.

 

Front body roll is when you dive the car hard into a tight corner and the body leans badly to the outside. You can't get the maximum tire contact if you have this problem. The car is rolling most of the car's weight to the outside tires and is trying to lift the inside tires. Not an optimum condition for going fast.....Anti-roll bars (sway bars) and shocks and springs can be used to correct this problem. The Crossfire has very little body roll right out of the box.

I won't try to expand on what John Webster said about Over/Under steer (push/loose). He explained it very well.