And, it was a *very* wet weekend, to start with. Sears Point was so flooded the first day, that it was shut down after only 30 minutes of driving per run group. In addition to the water coming down the hill, up the hill, and the mud floating across the top, visibility was getting very poor... and the track is surrounded by walls. Probably a good decision to shut down. At least the 2nd day, after the track dried out, I got to really try the suspension! Sure enough, every click of each of the 12 adjusters makes quite a bit of difference, even with 17 rebound clicks, 15 high speed compression clicks, and 6 low speed compression clicks.

Getting the parts onto the car was quite a task. As some know, I found a set used - supposedly recently rebuilt and ready to install. It turns out they were leaking, broken, missing a number of required components, and as a motorsport part, built so short that there was insufficient droop for use on roads around here. After a lot of consultation with Jerome and Lex, a lot of new parts from Holland ordered, and a lot of labor put in by TC Design, they were finally almost ready to install.

I'd like to thank the people and vendors who helped pull the effort together, especially Dan at Vivid Racing for getting parts to me at the very last minute, so that I could keep the installation on schedule.

It's going to be a lot of fun setting this suspension up for the next Time Trial season!

 

Man, glad to hear everything worked out ok. Although i still can't believe what happened, even more so how you were able to keep your cool. Everything is fine now and I'm still angry, and it didn't even happen to me. LOL!

Anyways, I can't wait till season! Looking forward to seeing your times drop. You in TT05 yet? BTW I plan on smashing Potter's TT05 record next year!

 

Well, there was nothing wrong that enough dollars couldn't solve! It sure did break the budget though. That purchase was definitely the biggest used parts scam I've ever experienced. I've tried to bury the final price into some irretrievable location in my mind. I'm just glad I didn't turn around and resell the parts to someone on this board, not knowing just how bad a shape they were in before TC Design started work on them. But, they're just about good as new now.

The car falls into TT9 with the Motons on. There is some tough competition in this class, so it will be fun to try for a win. It's going to be a much more difficult series than TT10 was!

 

If life were always that simple

I would too. I definitely admire your persistence

You think you've got a tough, i've got to drop 10 seconds just to be competitive. LOL

What's the TT09 records for TH and SP?

 

like to hear your laps times under the same conditions for your previous set up and the motons. also since it was wet I guess you were not running Hoosiers. like to here same tire for tire the lap times.

hope you kick some non Porsche *** with the new set up, good luck.

I have JIC's full race suspension and I always wonder "how much" faster I would run with full motons?

 

Tom, you know there is a thread over on RL under the Racing and DE forum answering your exact question. Check it out.

http://forums.rennlist.com/rennforum...ferrerid=41046

 

Any impressions on how they compare to moton dual adjustables?

 

I'll definitely have some lap time comparisons coming up in the next few months. Camber is quite different now too, though ride height has not changed too much, since I still drive this car on the street everyday. I'll keep tweaking alignment throughout the season, in addition to damper settings.

I'm hoping for at least a 4.5s reduction in my best lap time (once dialed in), over a 3 mile course. At least 1 second of that was possible on the stock suspension, just from fixing driver errors. Many of those were amplified by input delays through the stock suspension, so improved steering response will really help. If the extra camber and a proper setup can squeeze an additional 3.5s out of my times, I'll be very happy!

Regarding Motons vs Jics: I don't know that Motons on their own will do anything to make you faster than you already are, from what I read about your driving! These triples introduced no fewer than 14 variables to setup (assuming left/right symmetry), so there are going to be more ways to screw things up than to help! It will definitely take a lot of tweaking to extract more than a just lower center or gravity and quicker steering response can yeild on their own. I'm looking forward to some "pre-season testing" next month. =)

 

None from me, as I haven't used their two-way dampers... But, the main difference in the 3 way setup is the addition of a low-speed compression damping circuit. Damping of low speed shaft frequencies (< 2 or 3 in/s), can be used to control chassis pitch and roll during weight transfer, like springs would, w/o affecting the bump compliance that would be set by the high speed circuit. You can effectively stiffen or soften one axle or the other, to tune balance.

 

oh dont worry I already read it!! but thanks

 

Ok... just read that thread too... I can't really tell what the experiences of those who commented there are.

It seems very difficult, however, to project one's own experiance with a particular performance part, onto the public at large. So many other variables on the car and with the driver come into play. If one isn't reproducing a very narrow range of lap times, for a given setup and conditions, then attributing any change in lap times to a particular part is impossible.

Again, from what I've read of your driving, Tom, you would most likely benefit a lot from having full control of your suspension setup! Just the act of seperating rebound and compression damping would allow you to first tune both to optimize grip at each end of the chassis per track conditions, then to tweak the balance to manage front-rear weight transfer on accelleration or decelleration. At least from my motorcycle experiance, it would have been impossible to setup a bike properly with only 1 **** per damper, as they so heavily rely on getting weight over the appropriate contact patch at the appropriate time. And, adjusting setup is fun! Still, I forsee a lot of wrong turns on the road to setup bliss!

 

Glad you got everything sorted out... great setup!... only problem I can see is the time it's going to take to get these 3-way dialed in for whatever track you do... It's going to take some time to get it right... remember to take note pad and pen with you to write down settings.

 

well I am at the point were I win or loose time trials by .01 seconds so that would be big for me.
a 3 sec decrease over 3 miles would be near impossible for me that is a huge difference
also I have a crew that travels with me. for the guys with the motons they bring the nitrogen tanks and are constantly tweeking the motons at each track, something I didnt want to bother with.

thanks for sharing your opinions, I may go that way next year.

 

.01s difference in times makes for much tighter competition than we see in the PCA around here! At least a few tenths is usually the minimum buffer between different times run within a class. I would guess your car is very optimized already! =)

I'm at the point where I can reproduce lap times to within a couple tenths on the stock car, but definitely not to within 1/100s. Maybe, someday in the future!