POS13 - A Nostalgic RallyCross Project

Does this need a new thread? Hood cowl horticulture, perhaps?

So driving the last event, I decided the front tires weren't helping me try to drive around the welded diff, so I went out on the search for some new tires.

I looked at several options, but kept coming back to the Acceleras 

It's like a plastic fork: Looks like the real thing, works in a pinch to get the job done, and is priced at a fraction of a real fork.  However, it's not going to last too long...   but when you're used to eating with a plastic fork, why bother buying some Fancy AF cutlery? 

I just bought a pair for the front, the rears were holding up OKish.  This'll get me through the season, and let me look out for sales over the winter.

There's another event this weekend, this time at Summit Point instead of Panthera.  Did some last minute prep to the car: replaced the brake booster vacuum lines, changed the oil, zip tied the skidplate back on, and watered the plants in the cowl.

And blew the most of my tire budget on the 'tow rig'.  The OEM Nittos were kinda garbage, and SWMBO drives this thing cross country.

Another event this past weekend!

The tow into the event was uneventful.  This was my first time towing to Summit Point, so I tried to maximize interstate driving by taking 66 to 81, as the 'normal' way that I'd go when driving the car there was through some janky back roads without centerlines and sharp corners.  Fun in the rallycross car, not so much with a wide trailer.  It seems like the route I chose wasn't any better with a narrow bridge, 20mph corners, and an eroded shoulder from idiots like me driving trailers down skinny roads.  Still, arrived with plenty of time, and ate the breakfast of champions(... or DFL) a pop tart and some gatorade.

This was the Barn Course, one of my favorites, and I was curious if the gearing would work out like Panthera, or I'd be shifting up to 3rd.  The clay track was actively drying, with a few random muddy puddles, and wet grass if you got too far offline.   So there was tons of grip to be had on the packed clay... as long as you didn't drive way off line through any puddles and get the tires wet!

Ok, so maybe that was an auspicious start for my first run, but I was still in learning mode around the diff.  The fresh new tires gave lots of grip on the packed clay surface if I kept it on line, but I was still struggling to drive around the push when the back end would grip up.  Typically hitting a cone or 7 when it'd either push in or out.

picture (too expensive to buy) of me hitting cones

So yeah, 27 cones on this day, so I think I owe all the corner workers a beer again.  At one point, I came back to grid with several tree branches in the bumper...  

The corners were close enough to link in several sections, so I'd shoot out of the corner, likely shouting POWER! like Clarkson.  Then I'd abruptly come off the power to start a small Scandi-flick into the next corner and then steer around that next corner with the rear end and throttle.  This worked (sort of) in the S sections, but transitioning onto the short straights would turn those into S's instead of straightaways.  This is where I got most of my cones, and gave up most of my time.

But as the course started to clean up, and I started to get the hang of throttle application. (apparently flooring it all the time isn't the right answer?!) I started to get a good rhythm and was able to actually place the car well.  However, the course was narrow, with plenty of outside cones, so I wasn't able to put this technique to full use.

The front end grip was way better, and brakes seemed more consistent, and I was able to modulate lockup in the heavy braking zones.  The gearing again was spot on.  While working the course, many others were needing to drop down in first, and I was in the powerband in second the whole day.

Looking at the great pictures taken by Black Flag Photography, I can tell that none of the fast cars at the event had the ridiculous angle of my line, so there's a another place I can pick up time.  Comparing times, and doing enough math to subtract all the cones form my times, the raw times were in the running in the morning, and a couple seconds off the pace in the afternoon.  Again, I just need to work on my driving, as the car seems to be in the running of this competitive region.  As it sits, I was second from last, and the region is so competitive at the pointy end that even if you subtracted the 54 seconds of penalties, I'd only be in 8th!

But hey, it's more than just the time on the clock, I mostly do this for the ability to pay a few bucks, then drive like a total hooligan out in a field.  That feeling when you're sliding a car at the edge of control, and get it *just* right for that next corner is always worth chasing, and I'm having a blast.

Car drove onto the trailer, and I'm looking forward to the next event, a doubleheader, in Nov!

After the event wrapped I tried a random new mod to Slimer:  SWMBO was less than impressed with a rallyxPOS13 sized dirt spot on the drivers seat and brown seatbelts after the last event, so she grabbed some spam from the 'gram

They're fitted towel that have a pocket at the top so they grab the headrest, and are wide enough to stay over the shoulders of the seat.  I think it's made for active sportsing people, but works well for us dirty bastards too. They stayed in place the whole drive home, even had matching seatbelt covers.

Lol....wow, didn't realize you had all those cones. I'm a bit guilty since I set the course (but still got a few myself since I never test-drove it). And yeah, I can't think of anyplace on the course where I was really stepping the tail out too much, felt like there was a ton of grip especially as the day went on. Almost too much grip in some areas. 

Have you considered doing what I do when I feel a bit tail-happy? put weight in the back (sometimes I run with 2 spares back there). Seems counterproductive to going fast, but the real time you're losing is too much tail-out, especailly entering the long straights

Next event on Sunday, if you're interested we could do a run or two car-swapping if you just want to get a reference point (either my times in your car, or your times in mine!). 

Last event of the 2024 season!  Doubleheader out at Summit Point.  (Thanks to FormerInstants for the epic pictures)

When I rolled up to the course, there were a bunch of people who had camped the night before.  I got to meet some GRMers, including Motojunky. I was looking forward to running the Barn Course again, this time without any puddles to try and see if I could master driving with the welded diff!

So yeah... didn't work out that way.  33 cones on that day   The car just wanted to oversteer, always.  I was sawing at the wheel, trying to get weight on the back of the car to grip up and go in whatever direction the car was pointed

I think I started getting used to trying to look ahead and see where the grip might be, and placing the car to get some grip on the way out of each corner.  But as the day went on: the dust was so bad my windshield was covered every run, and there were outside cones, areas of hidden fluff, and other terrible excuses. At this point I just embraced driving like an idiot, and tried to to get the car to behave like I wanted it to.  Sorry Cornerworkers!

At one point, I'm pretty sure The Mummy's dust storm was follwing me!

There was a series of RH corners on the back of the track, and I was able to link them all a couple times with a glorious powerslide... the tires were not appreciative!

The next day, I tried to get some weight over the rear wheels, I filled up the gas tank with super expensive racetrack juice ballast.  I also noticed a crazy frost pattern in the dust in the taillights.  I feel bad for those camping at the track!

 Sunday was not much better, we did the other course back in the woods, not quite as long, but very fluffy!  I schwacked 18 cones.

The day saw a few cars drop out from Saturday, but some new ones show up, including a Lemons Valiant! 

Josh (irish44j) did take a stab at driving the POS13 on Sunday.  It's crazy to just jump into a strange car and try to drive it hard right out of the gate, especially one with as many idiosyncrasies as this heap.  But I felt more than a little bit vindicated as a driver when the car jumped right out at the first corner, and tried to bite his head off, spinning almost into a corner worker!   He said that in a section that was flat out in his car, he could barely even touch the throttle.  

So I've got some work do to as a builder to get this car back into shape handling wise, and add some rear grip to the thing over the off season.

With almost two whole minutes of cone penalties throughout the weekend, I lined up for the last run of the year, cleared my head, cleaned off the windshield, and laid down one helluva run: 5th fastest, clean of cones, and felt great!  This car's got it in there somewhere to be fast, I just need to extract it for next year.

Best of all, it drove onto the trailer and into the sunset.

Do you have any suspicions as to what is causing your handling woes? It's interesting to hear how big of a difference Josh felt behind the wheel. Is it new behavior? I can tell you that it makes for excellent spectating! 

Lol.....I've driven a lot of other peoples' cars at rallycross over the years here and there, and can only recall spinning one other time (Brian Battochi's stage rally Impreza, which is intentionally setup to rotate hard, which he didn't tell me). Aside from spinning 270 degrees in yours, I'm sure you noticed I was damn close to taking out that whole cone wall on the back end (and/or the trees right behind it) and a few other spots. I've never worked so hard to do a rallycross run, and never been so truly worried about crashing someone else's car, honestly lol....and yeah I totally forgot you had a welded diff, which is what bit me on the first turn. 

And yeah, on that course my car was mostly WOT, hard brake, WOT. I think I put the pedal to the floor exactly once in yours the whole run. 

You'll work it out eventually. For the e30 it wasn't too hard since there's a lot of rally experience in them to build on by researching....the 240 seems like you're mostly just having to do it off the cuff at this point. IDK. strap two spare tires in the back would have been my first order of business (I do that on my car when I want more rear end traction, and my car has a much heavier ass). But I think the welded diff is the killer. Not sure if the open would be "faster" per se, but would definitely be more controllable until you can get an LSD in there. 

But, it does make for some great pics :)

SR was won at Nationals with a 240SX. There were great drivers with Boxsters and MR-Ss in attendance.  Just sayin'.

I was amazed that there was a Stock legal 240SX still in existence!

Pete. (l33t FS) said:

SR was won at Nationals with a 240SX. There were great drivers with Boxsters and MR-Ss in attendance.  Just sayin'.

 

I was amazed that there was a Stock legal 240SX still in existence!

The great MR-S driver at Nationals finished 9th in MR in DC this weekend in his usual car...... Just sayin' ;) 

You know full well how some of the top national RWD folks do when they come to DC and run in our MR class, lol..... Different courses, different surfaces, we have quite a few great drivers here....it's not a real comparison in any case. Plus we all know damn well that a lot of National success is the people with the "right" tires (or lots of different tires). Here in DC, most people just run whatever they have sitting around. It's rare to see Eurocross tires or any of that stuff. Mostly just worn-down gravels and old maxsports. 

Matt's not slow, but in this region you're out of the running with a couple mistakes, or a couple cones. And if the car is hard to drive and/or to repeat consistent fast runs, you have no chance in DC. It's why Nick wins a lot- consistency across 10-15 runs at each event, and still fast.  And having driven many, a stock 240SX is lightyears easier to drive than Matt's :)

The surface at Nationals was very much a dusty hardpack.  It felt very familiar to me, and may have been familiar to you too.  

I was pleased that an Evo didn't win SA or MA.  SA was a 1-2-4 Focus RS run.  Nobody's perfect 

MA was won with some form of rally tires, then after he destroyed one on Saturday (the only debead of the event), snow tires for his four Sunday runs.  He lost time at first but regained his lead as he learned the tires and the surface.  An excellent showing.

I almost want to show up with grooved A7s next year, if I cared to spend a bunch on single event hoops.

When a car is easy to drive stock but a pain modified, I think the first step should be to backtrack and start over.  S13s are a wonderful chassis, something has to be goofy like seriously out of kilter alignment.