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American Iron - State of the Union


tacovini

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agreed. but no matter what the rules are that group that spends a lot will always be there. its the same in every racing series the big teams with the most money win a majority of the time. take Hendrick Motorsports for example 1 2 3 in the point in nascar, and its not all driver (and yes i know there are exceptions). making major rule changes isnt going to help the series, gradual change over a long period of time is about the only way to keep most people happy.

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actually, i think before we make decisions for today, we need to try and take into consideration where our cars are going. Do we really want to make a guy who wants to race a Camaro having to reengineer/retroengineer that car to make the rules?

 

This is why I suggested that it might be time to split the class.

 

Yes, because there's no difference in that then my 1985 V6 Firebird that came with 15" wheels and 10.5" brakes. If they want to race it in showroom stock trim with NASA, pick a PT class or someone else has a showroom stock class. There is little that can has to stay stock on any AI car, not to say you can't be competitive on stock parts, but this class has always had it in the intent to allow a place to use aftermarket components.

 

I'm completely against any other class splitting. I'd rather be 7th in a field of 15 cars then win in a field of 4 cars.

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What you write can be taken different ways. If you are saying that current pony cars are more car than we can allow to race with stock parts in AI, then by definition you are suggesting class splitting. It may not be technically that, but if you are saying current cars dont qualify for AI and belong in a different class, its class splitting.

 

I am fine with the rules as they are. I would, however, not want to see newer cars required to run parts not meant for them, such as the 12" brakes and 16" wheels and push rod/carburated engines that must be applied to a 2005 chassis in order to race a current Mustang in SCCA American Sedan.

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Hell, my car isn't even CLOSE to built to the rules, and someone is trying to get it outlawed because I did something that was perfectly legal, but they didn't like it after it was done. I do all of my own work, and it took me 6 months and missing half of the race season to do it. I'm not going to be happy if someone wants me to throw all that away and put it back.

 

The time to complain about these rules was 5 years ago, not now.

 

I'm the one that questioned a computer controled throttle body that maintains a nearly perfect HP and Tq curve at any position. Why?I knew someone would ask. Main reason, I don't think it belongs in AI. Jeff it has nothing to do with you or your car, I just need to know if this is going to remain legal, because someone will build a completely developed car and incorporate this and any other item to the fullest extent of the rules. I asked because it's not in the rules, so it's legal, but there are literally hundreds of things that are not in the rules. I need to know if I'm in the right class for me.

 

Personally I don't want to take 6 months to screw around with a damn computer. I'd rather be racing. But someone will improve upon it and have an advantage. This is why we need rules, and more details. Why the masses are against clarifying rules is beyond me. So what if it's a thick book. Read it.

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What you write can be taken different ways. If you are saying that current pony cars are more car than we can allow to race with stock parts in AI, then by definition you are suggesting class splitting. It may not be technically that, but if you are saying current cars dont qualify for AI and belong in a different class, its class splitting.

 

I'm not saying they're more car, I'm saying that they have the wrong parts. Rules are rules for a reason. If we have the class to have, people will build cars to come run this class. We can't make everyone happy, but hopefully we can have fun and close racing when we're at the track and not on the internet having a huge bitchfest. For the most part, the competition is really close and we all have a bunch of fun.

 

You want to have your cake and eat it too. I've run AI in every event I could afford for the last 3 seasons and been to 3 out of 4 Championships crewing on AI cars. I'm committed to NASA and this class. You seem to want to have fun and run AI, AS, and any other pony car class that seems cool with whatever flavor Mustang that you currently own even if it's not really legal/competitive by the rules. There's a class for people with this syndrome, it's called a catch-all. SU with NASA and ITE with SCCA. Seems like you're familiar with ITE...

 

I would, however, not want to see newer cars required to run parts not meant for them, such as the 12" brakes and 16" wheels and push rod/carburated engines that must be applied to a 2005 chassis in order to race a current Mustang in SCCA American Sedan.

 

I hope they start putting 19s and 20s on a Mustang and the AI rules allow them so I can laugh at you whining about $500/tire because you don't want to put parts on cars that weren't meant for them. Do you not see the ludicrousness of your statement? There aren't many parts on my car that were meant for it, but where there's a will there's a way.

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TJ...You don't know me and you are just wrong. If you did know me, you would know I was pretty attached to my Cobra R. It meant a lot to me and I was not going to do to it what was required to make it competitive. But I have a good time in the middle of the pack and getting the occasional podium trophy.

 

My work requires a new race car every year, but my preference was the R. The economy required me to cut down to one car and so, the S197 car is what I have left. It was my view from my work that the S197 was the way to go for the future and so that decision was fine with me. I am not a flavor of the month guy. I am committed to NASA. I run enduros which is not AI in the same car that I run AI races in. Does that mean I am not committed to AI?

 

If my comments are ridiculous, fine. The current AS rules are ridiculous to me. Making AI like AS with a calender just set 10 years ahead of them will be just as ridiculous 10 years from now.

 

I am fine with the rules as they are now.

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Class dilution in fields of 5 cars is just plain ludicrus....kiss your Toyo money to the curb.

 

All the "bitching and whining" is about containing costs to keep the series attractive, and having a detailed rules set that is enforceable. Period.

 

As for Pat's car taking all the lumps...well, all I can ask again is for a picture of the rear frame rails (anyone recall the top 5 cars having the ass ends in the air post tech? ) and a suggested answer why the car was 2 to 3 seconds slower after Todd slept with the ECU. Smoke...? Fire....? Let's put that behind us as it appears the car will need a ford engine in it within 2 years or just flop it into X and be done with it. Besides, I thought Pat was selling it to pursue other racing options and the car will probably no longer be a "problem". Yeah, it's a beautiful engineering study and 99.9% to the rules, but I see it more of a perfect example of how far AI has gotten out of reach of the average guy wanting to go a little faster than a CMC2 car or an HPDE mustang/camaro. But that is just my opinion.

 

Everyone has VERY valid points, except the class dilution stuff, but as Todd has said, the entire country is split right down the middle on most of the "allowable technology". It's time for someone in the driver's seat to make a damn decision for what NASA feels is the best interest to keep this class viable for years to come. That means lower costs and enforceable rules. 50% of the people are going to be pissed one way or another.....however, you MUST release the damn rules so we can put this thread to bed.

 

Too soon we are going to see AIX be set into SU as national car counts will get counted on one hand.

 

Relax, the rules are being fixed so we have a nice sandbox to play in that is crowded and hopefully not full of cat turds.

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05 cobra,

Go back and read the rules for AI and AIX

This is no place for a stock type Muscle car , but as the new model cars come out the rules will have to evolve to some degree to allow those that want to compete with one .

This is really not a series for low buck racing . 15k chassie packages and no limit shocks . electric gizmo's are going to find their way in. All that really has to remain of a stock car is shock towers for looks a stock firewall and rocker and floor panels. I felt for me , the reverse engineering was the way to go because I would rather have a good undercarriage than gizmo's .

How about abs and t/c and you must keep all stock pickup points on chassie . No sla conversions - just a thought.

We can include the hi tech and the older type cars . Just a matter of balance .

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My Cobra R was a stock R with a cage and some steeda suspension stuff from 1998.

 

I should say it was pretty stock til I added the Motons and the 14 inch Brembos.

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My Cobra R was a stock R with a cage and some steeda suspension stuff from 1998.

 

I should say it was pretty stock til I added the Motons and the 14 inch Brembos.

 

Rob, your shocks and brakes cost more than a fully prepared CMC2 car! LOL!!!

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Ya think? Bought the Brembo kit on SVTP for $1300. I wrangled the Motons through a contact as well. Beg borrow and steal is what its called.

 

I have an $800 a month budget for my racing. I am not defending big dollar cars. In fact if my current car required a lot of retro fitting to make rules changes, I would not be able to afford to do it.

 

This is a factor in why I had good brakes and good shocks on that car and not other things.

 

But that is in the past. The new car is the current gen mustang. Its my writing subject for 2010 and we will see what the rules say as to what we do with it.

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...Does that mean I am not committed to AI?

 

If my comments are ridiculous, fine. The current AS rules are ridiculous to me. Making AI like AS with a calender just set 10 years ahead of them will be just as ridiculous 10 years from now.

 

I am fine with the rules as they are now.

 

Maybe I'm wrong, but I watched as you tried to get the Cobra into AS, up until a couple months ago. Nothing wrong with it, but trying to get both rule sets to bend to accomodate is a little bit of a stretch.

 

They're ridiculous because the street car stuff in 10 years could be better then our racy stuff. Writing rules for 10 years ahead is almost impossible. 10 years ago in AS, 1LE brakes (12" x 1" rotors, small 2-piston caliper) were the best you could get. Today, most F-body CMC cars run the stock brakes from 98-02 Camaros (12 x 1.25" rotors, better 2-piston caliper). The stock brakes on a '98 V6 car were better then '91-'92 Showroom Stock "race car". Not even 10 years.

 

No one saw the FR500S ABS Module, the center point of the ABS controversy, on the horizon until a year or two ago. How could anyone have seen that coming? The older ABS systems were crap (at least on F-bodies). Thinking ahead doesn't always work and it's hard to do writing rules, unless your way to do that is to leave them open like our current rules.

 

How about abs and t/c and you must keep all stock pickup points on chassie . No sla conversions - just a thought.

We can include the hi tech and the older type cars . Just a matter of balance .

 

I like that idea, but it would be a witch hunt on the Foxes and SN95s. Anyone with an aftermarket K-member or WC rear control arms would have to choose which to keep. S197 would get the best of both worlds though, I don't think they move geometry much.

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Glade you liked it TJ, kind of a momentary laps of reason. I went with an sla on my s197 and getting down to ride height totally destroyed the geometry and had to cut up and move some parts in the front . The rear required moving everything . Control arms had horrible angles.

So my conclusion is its not all so rosy for the s197.

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I have a Haltech on my car. I would much rather have a stock ECU, frankly. ......As much as a 13" rotor rule seems to make sense, you don't want guys having to "downgrade" factory brakes to participate and end up looking like AS with the 12" rule. It has to evolve. OTOH, the more I think about the ABS issue, the more I want it gone as a driver's aid in this series.

Bruce,

I really liked you until you suggested to take away my sacred ABS...

 

Marshall, don't get me wrong, I like ABS. I know I can go faster with it, tear less stuff up, spend less on tires, avoid crashing in the rain, etc. I also think it's important to let the new cars come in with it. It's just that my current car doesn't have it

 

Not a big deal either way for me. Overall, I think the cost containment within a stable ruleset is key. A lot of guys just aren't going to buy fancy shocks and big dollar brakes, etc. I used to run two pc. rotors. I think they were $200+ a rotor and they didn't last any longer or stop any better than $20 parts at my level. If a guy wants to spend more on the same size brakes, great. But $6k shocks, 6 piston calipers, and some of this stuff could be checked up and that's what I would hope any rule changes/clarifications accomplish. No class splitting or drastic changes please.

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I am not an expert on this... The 2005 ABS is different. Its completely integrated. That means that if you "turn off" the ABS, the entire brake system will not function correctly... The 2005 brake system has one computer running the entire system with the ABS being one function. Eliminating the ABS requires changing the brake system, not just unpluggint the anti lock function. I could be wrong, but this is my understanding.
Well, I am an expert on this, and you are wrong. Unplug the ABS on a S197 and it stops working. It's that simple. You do, however, lose rear proportioning, so you'll need to add a way to manually proportion the rear brakes as you do on any non-ABS car. If your intent is to never run the ABS, you would just take the two rear lines and tee them together so you could run a single prop valve. If your intent was to be able to run the car both ways, you would put a prop valve in each line, and you can set them up so they adjust together. When the ABS is off you set your prop valve to your desired setting, when it is on you set it to full rear. That's all there is to it.

 

Regarding all the new car/old car BS:

AI is built on a simple concept-- power/weight, torque/weight, spec tire, and enough modification allowed that the cars all have the same potential. The idea that a S197 is somehow superior to others cars in ways that can't be overcome with the rules we have is just ignorant. Is it a better car out of the box? Absolutely. Is it much easier to make a competiitive car out of one? No doubt. But in the end you can take an old Fox body or 3rd gen and completely rework to the suspension to the point that it is competitve. You could do the same to a S197, but you just won't get as much improvement because of the starting point. There will always be some advantages and disadvantages to each platform. The S197 is wider than a Fox, which is a handling advantage. But along with that width goes a a larger frontal area, which is an aero disadvantage. And so on... It all depends on how you want to get there, but my belief is that taken to the extent of the rules, any of the commonly run cars has the same potential.

 

Bottom line is that the formula works, and as long as we keep the rules written in a way that it allows us to address the weaknesses of each platform it will stay competitive. This 18" tire thing cracks me up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The 18" tire is not an advantage. It has the same width and OD as the 17", weighs more, and the wheel will inherently weigh more compared to a similar 17". It was made legal because on S197s there are no off-the-shelf race-quality 13" brake packages, and to fit a 17" over the commonly available 14" packages would require allowing them significantly more track width, which is the wrong thing to do from a competition standpoint. I'd rather have the S197's have to run a heavier wheel and tire then let them be wider still.

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Why? Pat's car was significantly more developed. The S197 cars cost about half has much and have just a year or two of use in this class. This is not about Pat's car. I have nothing against his ride.

 

My point about splitting things up is that there is a segment of audience/participants here that are trying to back off the tech and engineering advances of the newer cars. Throttle by wire, ABS, 14" brakes, 18" wheels. The "its not a stock car, its a race car" point of view is primarily targeted toward the newer cars or that is how it reads to me.

 

If you want to take the brakes and basic operational electronics off the new mustang and camaro and challenger and require them to retrofit the 10 year old tech and engineering to the new cars, I say just reclass them.

 

I agree with the classing thing, but I believe they are saying the car numbers are too low now, much less for mulitple classes. Personally I'd like a Vintage class, 75 and older, maybe do another 76-1999, then 2000 to current. The line between AI and AI/X may blurr to the point of disappearing though, which maybe it should?

 

There's no point for me to run with AI-X just to get car counts up.

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Bottom line is that the formula works, and as long as we keep the rules written in a way that it allows us to address the weaknesses of each platform it will stay competitive. This 18" tire thing cracks me up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. The 18" tire is not an advantage. It has the same width and OD as the 17", weighs more, and the wheel will inherently weigh more compared to a similar 17". It was made legal because on S197s there are no off-the-shelf race-quality 13" brake packages, and to fit a 17" over the commonly available 14" packages would require allowing them significantly more track width, which is the wrong thing to do from a competition standpoint. I'd rather have the S197's have to run a heavier wheel and tire then let them be wider still.

 

What I find funny is that you argue S197's NEED 14's because there is no off the shelf package, yet you tell SN95 and fox owners to go build entirely custom suspension setups....I think TJ would argue he could put 13" brakes on an S197 for less than 700 bucks with 2 piece rotors...

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Good assessment Jeff , although I have to agree with 97 on the brake deal , fitting a 13" is not a problem. Bolting on a 14" "kit" is probably not the right choice.

Firebird man - the line between AI and AIX will never blur , think about a tire burning 1000hp which is a 2.7:1 power to weight ratio. The only blur seen is the AI drivers view as they get lapped. A more liberal use of composites and rear chassie design and hp/wt keeps a large gap there.

There was just not enough vintage support to keep this alive or that's where I would be running. Your car should be AI legal unless your under the hp/wt .

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I would like to suggest that in the future (after the 5-year sunset on the new rule set (PLEASE)) that the process occur at a different time then the car building season. All of us here should be out in the garage working on our cars instead of sitting on our butts typing in our complaints about all the perceived advantages and disadvantages.

 

I'm going to get my car today, cause I told the dyno guy not to waste time on it until the rules are settled. It'll sit in the race trailer until you folks sort yourselves out. What a cluster fuck. I'll go work on the LeMons car, cause that's still fun, or the track whore Miata that we just beat the shit out of and it still keeps ticking.

 

STFU and race.

 

Let us know when the overdue rules are out.

 

Bob

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What I find funny is that you argue S197's NEED 14's because there is no off the shelf package, yet you tell SN95 and fox owners to go build entirely custom suspension setups
I didn't tell anyone to build anything. Call MM or Griggs and they will send you a big box with everything you need.

 

Good assessment Jeff , although I have to agree with 97 on the brake deal , fitting a 13" is not a problem.
So you've done it? I have put 13" brake packages on S197's, and it's not as easy as you think. Go study a S197 spindle, and let me know what you figure out. A few years back I tried to design a 13" brake setup that would bolt on without having to modify or weld on the spindle, and because of how the stock spindle is designed I couldn't do it and still keep 17" wheels tucked in enough to make the track width requirement, even if we had custom wheels made. When I discussed this with the rules makers at the time, they agreed that allowing 18" wheels was a better solution than allowing wider track width. Note that the 14" brakes were already legal, and have been since at least 2004. Once again, I don't see why everyone thinks the 14" brakes are such a huge advantage. Weighs more, costs more. If you can get it done with 13's stick with that.
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I would like to suggest that in the future (after the 5-year sunset on the new rule set (PLEASE)) that the process occur at a different time then the car building season. All of us here should be out in the garage working on our cars instead of sitting on our butts typing in our complaints about all the perceived advantages and disadvantages.

 

I'm going to get my car today, cause I told the dyno guy not to waste time on it until the rules are settled. It'll sit in the race trailer until you folks sort yourselves out. What a cluster foo-fiddily-diddily. I'll go work on the LeMons car, cause that's still fun, or the track whore Miata that we just beat the shoo-shiddily-diddily out of and it still keeps ticking.

 

STFU and race.

 

Let us know when the overdue rules are out.

 

Bob

 

several series are experiencing delays, not just you guys

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Jeff, with all suspension parts being open in AI, sounds like you limited yourself to the stock spindle. There are companies out there, like Racecraft for instance, that are building aftermarket spindles to whatever you want. I love my drop spindles and they are holding up fantastic. If a "proper Race quality" 14 kit is going to cost $4000 (see brembo add in Grassroots..LOL), sounds like it would be beneficial to build a control arm and spindle to put a $900 2000R brembo kit on the car. Afterall, you say the 13's are an advantage right?!

 

also the arguement of not being able to get an S197 down to a decent weight is bogus. We had one in 2006 down to 3150 with driver and still had a ton of steel in it. Just got to get rid of those heavy ass 351's which is about to happen I guess with the allowance of the motorsport block.

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also the arguement of not being able to get an S197 down to a decent weight is bogus. We had one in 2006 down to 3150 with driver and still had a ton of steel in it. Just got to get rid of those heavy ass 351's which is about to happen I guess with the allowance of the motorsport block.

 

Agreed. I think the people who complain about the S197 must be related to the people who used to complain about F-bodies being heavy.

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Matt,

 

Why don't you spare us all the agony of waiting and tell us what the revisions are. You obviously know what's coming. Is it all of Texas that knows or just you?

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