S2000 East Coast Road Trip - Day 2

Day 2 didn't start off any better than how day 1 ended. It poured overnight and it was going to keep raining until late morning. It wasn't going to dampen my spirits though as I knew the majority of the day was going to be nice and my destination for today was Florida so I set off before 7am and starting racking up the miles.

A gray, wet start to day 2 - North Carolina - 11/10/2015

I forged through North Carolina and it dried up enough just before entering South Carolina to drop the top and enjoy some open air action. It was still very chilly though so the heat was on full blast despite the sun being present. Since it was still early in the morning, there was no one at the South Carolina rest stop so I took the opportunity to whip out the old camera and tripod to take a proper photo with Lupa to commemorate this adventure.

A man and his car going on an adventure
South Carolina - 11/10/2015

I don't really have much to say about South Carolina other than they need to have better rest stops. The rest stops were a bit sad compared with North Carolina and during some parts of I-95, as I looked over and saw the heavy brush and swampy areas, I couldn't help but think of The Walking Dead. I'm sure it's a great state but if you only get the I-95 experience, you're not getting excited about anything. I was supposed to just pass through Georgia but since I was making good time, I thought it might be interesting to make a stop in Savannah. I'm a bit of a closet history and old movie geek so when I think of Savannah, Georgia, all that pops into mind are scenes from Gone with the Wind.

Savannah, Georgia - 11/10/2015

I spent a few hours walking through the historic district taking mental notes of the old architecture and snapping a few photos and had lunch at the Savannah Coffee Roasters on W. Liberty St. I know this is a blog about a car but as a foodie, when I get good food, I have to mention it. This was by far one of the best meat pies I've ever tasted. The beef stew was tender, rich and hearty. It tasted home made, the kind of food you'd expect to eat in the south. If you ever find yourself in the area, I'd definitely recommend it.

Lunch at Savannah Coffee Roasters - 11/10/2015

I killed a bit too much time in Savannah but thankfully the drive to the Florida border wasn't too far. There I was greeted with free super fresh Florida orange juice at the welcome center staffed with very friendly Floridians. It was sunny and warm just as you'd want a drive through Florida to be. I picked up some brochures for places I'm thinking about going to while I'm here. One crazy story from this rest stop...an old dude was parked right next to me. As I'm getting ready to leave, he walks up to me and says it's a really nice car. He then proceeds to say that the only problem with the car is that it seems to have a small trunk...not big enough to stick women into! WTF!?? Yes, I quickly got out of there. Crazy old man!

Finally in Florida - 11/10/2015

Things to do in Florida - 11/10/2015

Unfortunately, while I did enter Florida. I still had a good 4-5 hours left of driving before reaching my stop for the day in Palm Beach so I had to do the bulk of remaining drive in darkening conditions and watching the lightning in the horizon hoping I could make it to the hotel without having to put the top up. Tomorrow,  I get to check off the major milestone of this trip when I get into Key West but for now....sleep.

Onto Day 3...

S2000 East Coast Road Trip - Day 1

It was finally the day to kick off the road trip. Unfortunately, despite the very pleasant, warm weather last week, temps dropped abruptly over the weekend and I started my trip at 6:50am when it was 43F outside. As I mentioned in my previous post, the top was going to stay down regardless of temperature and so I bundled up, kicked up the heat to high and enjoyed the drive.

Starting the trip counter - 0.0 miles - 11/9/2015

The first leg of this trip would take me through NJ into Delaware, Maryland, Washington D.C., Virginia and finally making my first sleep stop in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Although it was cold, the sun was present through the first half of this leg but as I rolled into Maryland, I noticed the sun had disappeared and the cloud cover thickened. Little did I know, I was about to drive straight into a storm. I crossed the border from Maryland into Virginia and made a stop at the Virginia Welcome Center to stretch my legs and take care of other important business.

Virginia Welcome Center - 11/9/2015

Apparently Virginia is for lovers - 11/9/2015

As I was about to leave I noticed water droplets on the car. It looked like a mild drizzle and I wouldn't have to put the top up but the clouds were looking a bit too ominous so I hesitantly put the top up and was lucky that I did because the minute I merged onto the highway, I got hit hard with rain. This added quite a bit of action into this trip because Lupa did become a bit of a handful to keep straight. I would hit patches of standing water causing the diff to engage sending power to the wheel with grip causing the rear to step out a little (didn't help that I'm running very little rear toe for my autocross alignment). It wasn't horrible but you definitely couldn't be asleep at the wheel! Smooth inputs were necessary and quick reflexes were needed when she wanted to show you who was boss.

Damn rain - Virginia - 11/9/2015

The rain just kept getting worse and worse and eventually it was white out conditions but thankfully  it was a weekday with very few cars/trucks on the road so it was easy to maintain a safe distance from potential hazards. I eventually made it to the North Carolina border where I was able to stretch a bit and see how soaked Lupa was.

Arrived in North Carolina soaked - 11/9/2015

Unfortunately the night before I had trouble sleeping so I was pretty tired and after being on the road for 11 hours already (including stops), I had to pull over at the last stop an hour shy of Fayetteville to get something to keep me awake. The darkness, cold and massive concentration needed to drive her in that rain had mentally drained me. Thankfully a quick dose of Monster Energy Drink gave me the final boost I needed.

Re-energizing to complete this leg of the trip
North Carolina - 11/9/2015

For some reason I didn't look up what was around the motel to eat and I had assumed there would be nothing so I ended up eating dinner at this really empty Waffle House on the way there. It was "ok" but nothing to write home about (or take a picture of). Of course I realized as soon as I exited for the motel that I was surrounded by much better food options but I was already full so I ended up just resting.

Corner spot and visible from my room of course
Fayetteville, NC - 11/9/2015

The good news is that despite being generally tired from needing sleep, my body feels fine and my back doesn't hurt which was my primary concern. I did stop every 1.5 hours or so to take a walk and stretch and I think that helped tremendously. Also, as a side note, the Mugen exhuast is by the far the most awesome exhaust ever made for this car. No drone, with just a nice soft rumble at cruising speeds but with a solid grunt when you step on it giving you a solid smirk after being reminded what you have under there. I could enjoy music when I wanted and even talk to my brother over bluetooth speaker phone with no issues. I used up about 2 full tanks of gas during this leg. Tomorrow is another long day but I'll be ending up in Florida and will be enjoying some warmth again. The weather looks decent too so hopefully I get to drive the whole way with the top down.

Onto Day 2...

S2000 East Coast Road Trip

I live and work in arguably the greatest city on earth so what more could I want? What could I possibly be day dreaming about when I'm sitting in the office and looking out the window? Well, as a car guy, I often dream of being on the open road, with the top down, rowing through the gears, hearing the rumble of the engine, the grunt of the exhaust, feeling every part of the road through all my senses. When I realized I had some time off left to burn before the end of the year, it was clear I needed to check another item off the bucket list...a real road trip in a S2000!

The Road Trip - 11/9/2015

Inspired by Top Gear specials, driven by my love for S2000s (and in small part, by insanity), I decided to come up with a week-long trip that would give me the maximum time on the road while letting me explore places I'd never been before. At first I wanted to go west, cross country to California, up the Pacific Coast Highway and back but with it being very late in the year and with limited vacation days left, it wasn't going to be doable so instead I decided south...as far south as I could go...would be the next best thing.

This trip, I put together thanks to some tips from friends, will take me south from NY through NJ, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and finally Florida where my goal is to get to the southern most point of the United States in Key West. I'll then turn around, drive up north again making a quick stop at the Kennedy Space Center, then once I get to South Carolina start going north west back into Virginia right by the West Virginia border where I plan on driving the legendary Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive then back northeast home to the Big Apple. In total this trip is a little over 3000 miles and an estimated 47 hours of actual driving time over the course of 6 days giving myself ample time to stop and explore if I discover anything interesting and with only minimal night time driving. Unless I run into heavy rain, I also intend to make the entire drive with the top down regardless of temperature. "Top Down Always"...that's the roadster life!

Now, to be fair I've driven close to 3000 miles myself before towing Bumblestook from NY/NJ to Lincoln, Nebraska for the SCCA Solo National Championships and back but that's driving a super comfortable Touareg with all the amenities you'd expect from a luxury SUV.  In two of the three times I did that, I either had a passenger or a codriver with me that helped me pass the time. The longest I've ever driven a S2000 in a single day is a little over 5 hours when I bought Lupa in DC and drove her home early last year and my back wasn't all too happy with me afterwards. This trip is significantly longer. It'll just be me, my S2000 (well one of them) in full STR trim (yes, that includes driving on Bridgestone RE-71Rs), a duffel bag of clothes and the open road for almost a week. I raised the front driver side ride height a bit to get better clearance for road obstacles and dialed the Motons back a few clicks to avoid unnecessary roughness. I also packed a few tools, my racing jack, spare, tire repair kit, air pump, emergency LEDs, jump starter kit and oil just in case something happens in the middle of nowhere.

I'm looking forward to getting away from the hustle and bustle of city life and having plenty of time to be alone with my thoughts and enjoying every moment driving Shigeru Uehara's masterpiece, one of the finest examples of Japanese/Honda engineering, the Honda S2000. This is one of those trips where the destination doesn't matter so much because the experience alone, which I'm sure will include some moments of regret, choice words and yearning to see my chiropractor, is an adventure that I'll remember for years to come.

Onto Day 1...

Double Header...winner winner chicken dinner

We had enough testing on different surfaces that it was time to go back to home turf to go up against more regular competition to see how she would stack up. I wanted to continue dialing out the slow speed push coming out of turnarounds so we dialed the front bar down from 6/6 to 5/6 (rear bar at 5/7). I also raised front rebound up a click to keep the weight on the front tires after hard braking coming into a sweeper. We ended settling on 29/27psi tire pressures and this greatly helped with transition stability.

NNJR SCCA - 10/10/2015

Hez and I codrove as usual and Jon came up from PA as a third driver to give her a test run since he would be running Lupa the next day with the Philly SCCA. After some tweaks to tire pressures, we were getting happy with the handling. Jon was able to get Lupa to 3rd fastest STR time, only 0.3 seconds off the top STR time.

NNJR SCCA - Meadowlands, NJ - 10/10/2015

I wasn't going to be able to make the Sunday event at Warminster so Hez and I swapped cars and he drove Lupa down for the race with the Philly SCCA. This time Hez, Rad and Jon would be codriving.

Jon driving Lupa
Philly SCCA - Warminster, PA - 10/11/2015

Warminster is known for being very transition heavy so they opted to run a 1psi pressure differential front to rear (29/28psi) to get the rear to swing around faster. Jon ended up taking the win in STR and ended up 5th in PAX overall out of 140 drivers, collecting enough points to secure the Philly SCCA 2015 Driver of the Year award (congrats Jon).

Philly SCCA - Warminster, PA - 10/11/2015

I do have to double check the rev limiter settings. She's hitting redline like a stock S2000 which isn't right since the redline should be set to 8500. That makes it even more fascinating that she's doing so well since we're leaving plenty of speed on the table if we're not able to rev her up all the way.

Lupa's first win

This past week we were threatened to get hit dead on by hurricane Joaquin but somehow the storm system moved far off shore and so I seized upon the opportunity to take Lupa out to the Meadowlands to do more testing instead of just sitting home to watch Netflix and chill.

MotorsportsNE Autocross - 10-4-2015

The major problem we had today was the cold. Temperatures in the morning hovered in the 50s and the strong winds at the Meadowlands coupled with overcast would make it difficult to keep heat in the tires. Luckily, there was very low turnout today and with Hez and I codriving, we were able to get almost back to back runs, keeping the temps right in the sweet spot. The course was nice and long and had both fast and tight elements. It lacked a bit of flow in the 2nd half of the course making it not the best course possible but it was good practice and more importantly ideal conditions for testing car setup.

The first thing I noticed on my initial baseline runs was that transition speed had improved a lot with the increased bar settings front and rear but she was still a bit too stable and on the pushy side. I reverted the rebound changes I made to the front shocks at Nassau Coliseum and put them up 2 clicks again. This helped keep the weight up front after braking to get better turn in. We then fiddled with the tire pressures, running a bit higher pressures in the rear. Our times kept improving and Hez laid down a nice class-winning run on this setup (Go Bumble Jockey!).

Although Lupa was working, I didn't like the higher rear pressure setup since I prefer equal or lower pressures in the rear so I wanted to do a bar change but the quick driver changeovers made this very difficult. I also felt that a bar change was warranted as she was still not rotating in the tight corners under power the way I wanted. We got a short break in the action due to a minor incident and we were able to quickly adjust the rear bar up to 4/7 and then brought the tire pressures equal all around. Unfortunately, the downtime had cooled the tires and the pressures had dropped to 28psi in the front. We didn't have time to add more air so we set the pressures to 28psi all around. This new setup worked great, she was rotating better around the tight stuff but introduced a bit of instability in the high speed transitions. To get the rear to settle, I lowered the rear pressures to have a 1psi split front to rear and achieved what I felt was a good balance. Personally I feel a good test for car balance is when even small pressure changes in the tire pressures can change the balance of the car very easily.

It's hard to gauge Lupa's true pace when we're not at an SCCA event with other fully prepped STR car so it's very easy to dismiss a win as an artifact of just having low turnout but thankfully Evan was there in his BS National event winning Corvette to use a reference point and Hez was only off by 0.2 in PAX against his fast time which isn't bad at all considering we actually ran in the earlier heat when the course was still not very clean and the sun hadn't come out yet so that's very encouraging.

Lupa taking her first win
MSNE Autocross - 10/4/2015

In short, she's feeling pretty awesome. She transitions really well and does so in a very stable, confidence inspiring way. You can get very aggressive with the the throttle early, and power out of sweepers. In the tight stuff, she can tuck in nicely with just enough rotation to let you dance around under power. The direction so far is great and I'm very pleased that we're slowly approaching the similar balance characteristics to Bumblestook (minus the added power and insane grip of Hoosiers). For the next event, we'll be running higher pressures but with the same 1psi different front to rear since both Hez and I felt a bit less responsiveness in the tire at these lower pressures.

On a personal driver note, I pretty much hit a cone every run. This is oddly very encouraging as over the years I've found myself driving less and less and as a result I've been getting further from the cones. Hitting cones means I'm actually trying hard enough to get close and I can go faster. I'll have to clean up my driving though if I want to actually do well in real competition. Right now I'm just too focused making sure the car feels and behaves exactly the way I want.

Some things to think about over the winter:

• My front shocks are already at full soft compression. Even though they're working well with this setting, maybe I should revalve them and remove some of the gas pressure so the dial is more in the middle
• I need to raise the car about 0.25". The springs have settled to a very low ride height that I don't like. She needs more height to let the suspension work.
• We need to shift the front subframe so we can get a proper alignment and squeeze out another 0.1-0.2 degrees of front camber.
• Ugh, I wish we had the faster AP1 steering rack (can't do anything about this)
• After checking out Skaria's 18" Advans at the last event at Nassau Coliseum, I think I may go with an 18x9 and run a 255/35/18 to get an even more crisp steering repsonse. 

The season's almost over but I'm glad I was able to get even this limited amount of testing done to Lupa before the winter. She's very close to what I envisioned in my head and she'll only get faster from here.

Testing at NYR SCCA Autocross

After yesterday's alignment it was time to get some testing done. With no other events within a reasonable distance, I decided to make the NYR SCCA event at Nassau Coliseum. While I don't have anything against the NYR courses, the Coliseum doesn't provide a good surface to actually do any kind of tuning that would work anywhere else except maybe FedEx field in DC but if anything I'd get some data points running on a low grip bumpy surface.

NYR SCCA Autocross - 9-20-2015

Right out of the bat, the bumpiness of the lot was giving me problems with Lupa skipping all over the place making it hard to time the turn in and brake points. I remembered that I had done some funky shock settings last event to compensate for the weird alignment so I dialed the front compression down 1 and front rebound down 3. This greatly improved the front end response but she was still neutral with a slight leaning towards being pushy at the limit.

NYR SCCA Autox - 9-20-2015
Photo by: Rev Match Racing

For the afternoon runs, I opted to raise the rear bar up another notch to 4/7 and this worked magic. Finally she was giving me that telltale jiggly butt behavior you expect from a S2000. It was a bit too much though since it was a tiny bit too loose under power. To fix this I dropped the rear pressures down a 1psi and finally we hit the perfect balance of twitchiness and stability. With the times fairly stable, I started dropping pressures equally on all corners and dropped a good 0.8 seconds simply by dropping the pressures around 1psi. I ran out of runs to do more pressure testing but I'll be doing that in NJ instead where I can keep more variables constant. For my own notes, I ended up running at 30/29psi. I don't think I had a single clean run but it's all good. The important thing is that Lupa is feeling better and better to drive. The transitions, especially slaloms, are much better than last event and I can actually use the power to get that rear rotated now. Looking forward to the next NNJR event to give her a go on some higher speed, higher grip corners.

Not sure if autocross or rallycross lol
NNJR SCCA Autocross - 9/20/2015

Go Fast Alignment

We're fresh back from Nationals and with the lull of general frantic scheduling of work on cars, I wanted to take advantage and have Steve at SJF Performance implement the changes I jotted down after the first event with Lupa. (As a side note, HUUUUUUGE congratulations to SJF for the awesome 1-2 victory in the new CAM-C class in that beastly F-body)

Lupa's 2nd alignment for 2015 - 9/19/2015 - SJF Performance

I could already tell that my alignment had shifted after the first alignment after we did the transmission swap but the question would be by how much? Unfortunately it didn't look good. We could only get -2.8 max camber from the front driver side but could get a whopping -4.2 camber from the passenger side. Clearly the front subframe needed to be shifted in order to get the specs I wanted. This proved to be a bit tricky but with some help from Pete and a crowbar, we were able to get -3.0 camber on the left side which Steve then matched on the right. We probably really need to actually do this correctly one day so it's even left and right but it'll do for now since we hit the target settings. Caster was set to 5.5 degrees.

Trying to get frame alignment holes lined up - 9/19/2015

Crowbar + wood + BFH - Working that front subframe - 9/19/2015

I had initially wanted to reduce my rear camber down to -2.2 but it seems that with the current ride height, the minimum rear camber was -2.4 if we wanted to get the rear toe the way I want. This was an ok compromise since the rear toe is super important on the S2000. Get this wrong and you might as well pack your bag. Too little and you got yourself a jigglybutt monster, too much and you're basically driving a FWD car with massive push. I was thinking of doing 1/8" (0.12) total toe in but with the slight increase in rear camber from what I actually wanted, I opted to dial this down to 1/16" (0.06) total toe in. I definitely would not recommend going down this much without the correct spring and sway bar combination or things might get a little too exciting on the street. The final alignment specs and other fancy tidbits are shown below.

2nd Alignment Specs - SJF Performance

Wheelbase 0.1" off due to front subframe alignment

SJF Performance

While the car was on the lift anyway, I figured I'd take the opportunity to adjust the sway bar settings and endlink lengths since it's much easier than doing it on site (even though it's still relatively easy to do with the Karcepts bars). The front bar has now been cranked up to full stiff (6/6) up from 5/6. The rear bar I dialed up to 3/7 from 1/7.

Adjusting rear sway bar to 3/7

Adjusting front sway bar to full stiff

Lastly, I have enough miles on the diff now that it's finally broken in so it's important to get a fresh fluid flush to make sure she's in tip top shape.

Fluid flush on the ATS Spec III diff

So there we have it. All the changes from last event put into place I'm going to try and run higher pressures again with the reduced camber. It should make her faster in the transitions and be closer to the optimal pressures for this tire. It should make her easier to use power and the diff to get the rear rotated around tighter spots too. Luckily, tomorrow there's a NYR SCCA event at Nassau Coliseum so I can give her a quick spin to see how I like the new settings. Nassau Coliseum is definitely not a lot you want to be tuning your suspension on so I probably won't be making massive changes but I do expect tighter corners than NJ events so that will help me pinpoint any slow speed corner weaknesses.

Some good news though is that I ended up not needing any of the new aligment bolts, washers and nuts I ordered for her so now I have a spare set (to my other spare lol). No seized nuts! We can all celebrate that.