'I should have done this years ago' - Jeff's FCM Mazda RX-8 for SCCA autocross (A dramatic reading!)

Very special thanks to Jeff for joining the FCM Elite and giving me creative freedom to share his comments in a rather unusual way, and to Brendan Sobers for his great photography!

Tuning for SCCA Street class demands working with a limited number of variables to get a well-handling car that can deal with the different demands of an autocross course. That usually means a setup that also has nice street compliance as Jeff discovered.

This video isn't a 'prank' as Jeff's testimonial is real, but the embellishment are my own. You can see the first part (what I read in the video) below and also the second email with his wonderful comment 'I should have done this years ago.' Better now than never!!!

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www.fatcatmotorsports.com/img/portfolio/fullsize/FCM_Elite_Stage3_Testimonial_Jeff_H_Mazda_RX8_C_Street_KBO_Ripple_Reducer_part2.PNG

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"The mechanical process of doing the install went fine. Unfortunately things kept coming up, so I didn't get it finished until Wednesday. I took a long look at the rear before taking it apart, and determined that accessing the shaft to install/remove packers is probably impossible with everything assembled on the car.

I started with no packers on the front, 3 per corner on the rear. I might be able to throw a 4th on the rear if needed and not exceed the stock length.

I drove the car on Saturday for a short trip to gas up before an event on Sunday. Just on the street, I was rather quite impressed with the mannerisms of the car. Most noticeable was how bumps were basically a non-issue. My neighborhood street is kind of terrible - there are frequent cracks where the road sinks like an inch or two. Before, these were quite jarring. Now you can tell you've hit something, but the car (and passengers) don't take a "hit" by it. Also, there is a nasty transition off a busy road to a side road for the gas station where the side road is like 6 inches higher than the main road, so the transition is like going up a speed bump without the back down part. Its terrible because you want to creep up it to not feel like you are launching into space, but at the same time, you want to clear the busy road for cross traffic. I went over that like it wasn't even there.

This is all probably KBO, which I'm quite happy about. The car is just so much more enjoyable in that its not harsh when driving around in the non-course tasks.

The upgrade sucks - said all my competitors :)

The course Sunday was fast and "flow-y". Mostly sweepers, nothing too tight. Get up to speed and try to maintain it as much as possible with minor lifts or taps on the brakes to shave just a bit to make a slightly tighter turn. From the get go, I was quite impressed. Overall I would call the balance neutral. Generally the rear felt stable, but I didn't feel like I was fighting the front. If I was ham-fisted with a hard steering input, I could get rear to step out, or initiate a controllable drift (oops). The rear would rotate on trail braking. I'm not quite comfortable with that. I think its how the car should be, I just need to get better at it as the car really never used to do that.

Even on my first, conservative, run to see how the car would react at the limit, I ended up ahead of my competition where I usually am a bit behind and trying to catch up. I was able to hold the lead for the first 5 runs which surprised me. For the 6th (final) run, I was sitting on a class wining time, and one that I thought was fairly good when looking at other classes (BS and DS mainly). Up until that point, I felt like I wasn't quite getting the car to the limit. It certainly seemed like my lack of confidence in really pushing the car was the problem in driving to the limit. So, I decided to do a "hero run" - see if I could really push it in the spots where I was lifting or taping on the brakes to see if I could get the car to hold. If it did, the run would probably be a good one. If not, I'd probably end up spinning somewhere.

Well, it held, to my surprise. I ended up dropping 0.6 seconds off my previously fastest time. I ended raw timing AS, BS, and DS. In fact, I ended up 5th overall on index, with a 988 for points, which is my best ranking/points ever. I'm an extremely happy with that :)

I did not touch the front shocks, and don't have any plans to do so right now. I'm still 0 toe front and rear. I'm contemplating putting a little toe out in the front per our previous discussion and seeing how that changes the behavior. Obviously, that should make the initial turn in a bit sharper, but I'm wondering if it will have an effect on behavior anywhere else. Our local points series starts up on April 6th, so I'll give it some thought before then.

-Jeff"