What about a BMW 1 M or M 1 whatever it is. :V It is a truly drool worthy car.

Did you not see what car he is replacing? Lol

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Prob not, but I may test drive the 1M just to be sure... it may be a very different beast from the 135 vert, who knows?

It's SUPPOSED to be a very different beast. :)

R8 would be fun. I'd definitely wait to see how the new Viper turns out.

R8 or GTR are both great options.

Have you thought about a six series?


Also, is your employer hiring? :p

X2, I'd wait on the Viper. R8 WOULD be badass, though.

It's a possibility, I suppose, but I don't like the idea of waiting until mid-2013 after they work through initial volume goes to previous viper owners. I'm leaning towards a 911 at this point.

Hey travis. I was looking at some different single exhaust setups to get some ideas for my car and I saw that you are running a single. At one point you mentioned that the tubing was done in aluminum, but it looks like your exhaust setup has changed. Are you still running aluminum pipe with the burns stainless muffler? How do you like it? Is it incredibly loud? I would like to run something similar on a street car, but I'm not sure if it would just be way too loud.

I'm wondering why aluminum exhausts are not more popular in general though. Someone told me that such lightweight material gives it a really bad sound, so maybe that is one reason, but I've never heard one in person to verify that.

Also, in my searching I found that vibrant sells all aluminum mufflers as well. Any reason you didn't go with something like that?
Vibrant Performance ::.

Oh, one other thing: do you have any pics of your laminova oil cooler setup? I searched this thread, but didn't see any. I'm interested in how you mounted it, routed the lines etc.

Offer someone a flying squirrel suit with jetpack?

Hi. After destroying two custom aluminum pipe sections, decided to redo the setup in stainless steel... any time I dropped a wheel and made slight contact, ended up with damage... the s/s work was done by precision chasis works in arizona, and I highly recommend that shop if anyone is in the area... yes, we continue to use the burns stainless muffler

bottom line, alum is fine for the street if there is little/no risk of bottoming out... yes, I think it is a bit louder, but if you are looking to save weight it is great... for me, I was willing to spend 10 pounds more for reliability, plus the weight is low and rearwards on the car

I've been on the road recently and my car is still at Z Fever Racing in Tampa... folks are welcome to go there and take pictures of whatever, but I won't be posting any until at least next week

Sorry to anyone that has PM'd me, and I haven't gotten back... just been super busy

Looking at your car right now;)

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Are you in Tampa?

Cool. Can't wait to get that puppy running again... this has been one amazing stretch of downtime.

Announcement... Job transfer... moving to Greensboro, NC... no more sunny Florida, but the upside is I will live <1 hour from VIR! My neighbor across the street has a kick a*s BMW race car and is an active NASA driver and VIR member. So, who's in Greensboro?

awesome! You will also be just a couple hours from Road Atlanta, CMP and only a little more than that to Barber

VIR = 1 hour
CMP = 3 hours
RA = 5 hours
Barber = 8 hours

I have a racing friend that just relocated to Greensboro a year ago! He loves being close to VIR and was just driving there this past weekend. You guys should hook up so he can give you the low-down on the area and what clubs are worth driving with and which ones are rolling road-blocks, although it sounds like your new neighbor is pretty knowledgeable in that regard.

He'll be joining us for the COM events at SP-Main in May and WGI in Sept (a long *** drive but totally worth it).

AMP also

Nice, Travis - we'll have to grab a TrackDaze event sometime at VIR or Summit Point! I want to go to a Road Atlanta one, but that's a significant trip I'd have to plan. In the future, no doubt.

WOW, that was allot or reading. My eyes hurt now. Lots of goo info..

Cool. I'll be on the north side of town in Stokesdale... if he's up that way shoot me a PM... he can caravan with me + neighbor across the street for next event at VIR

going there now, huh? look forward to hearing your thoughts on the track

Cool... if you ever want to go to RA and need a stop over point - don't hesitate to reach out... plenty of room and a lift in garage!

plenty of goo! :) glad you found it helpful! many, many lessons learned in all the mistakes I've made over these last three years!

Yep, he's in Stokesdale as well. I'll PM you with his contact info. I definitely want to make a VIR pilgrimage some day soon, it's only 13 hours of driving to get there :)

If everyone else is going, I will too! Lets all plan it!

Chin gives the most track time, but any group will do. I don't want to stray farther from home than RA, AMP or Barber, to save on travel $$, but I would be up.

I like where this is going...

But seriously, that would be pretty awesome, thanks!

Ooh. I've been thinking about a trip to VIR... :) Just have to get a trailer.

rent one from uhaul

That may be what I do. I rented a dovetail from a local company and while loading the car by myself I got high centered. :(

I had a good line on a nice enclosed trailer but I was too busy to go see it last week and it sold.

Hey, wanted to pick your brain on coilovers and spring rates. Been trying to do some research on the subject in general, happened to notice some recent commentary you've made on the subject over in your profile comment thread.

The stock suspension is now clearly too soft on the track for the way I'm driving and how hard the brakes are biting. I see it now in braking nosedive, and I see it now also in the car being too slow to react in transitions at the speed I want to make them (e.g. brake, turn-in, straighten, brake more, turn in hard - it's all happening lightning fast and the suspension hasn't even finished rebounding and settling from the first action by the time I'm wanting to do the 3rd, so I have to slow it all down just to keep the car under control).

I thought maybe I could fix that temporarily by getting better at progressive and properly-applied trail-brake-steering in some of those transitions, but it seemed to make things worse instead of better so far (probably just me sucking at technique so far, but I'll get there before I get any new coilovers installed regardless, at current budget rates).

So - advice on a coilover vendor, and more importantly a spring rate setup?

I really don't care about sacrificing ride quality on the street. The car does more miles either on the track or on the way to it than it does for my little trips around the corner to parts shops or whatever. What I do need to be concerned about, though, is my home track is rather bumpy (ripples, pavement seams, etc), even in some of the fast sweepers and such. I can't have a suspension that's just locked down for perfect pavement; it has to be able to react to the bumpiness and maintain grip. I think my super-soft stock sport suspension has probably been helpful in that regard so far, especially in the rear, and I'm a little nervous that if I go with a poorly-tuned coilover setup with a very high spring rate, I'm going to be skipping and bouncing and losing traction all over the place.

Sooo... quoting your TL;DR from your profile thread: "Tl/dr 18/12 spring rate for track cars, 14/10 or 12/8 for street cars... get adjustable sways and try different tire pressures... for street with some track, front -2 camber and 0 to 1/16 toe out".

I'm pretty comfortable now with adjusting my traction a bit via tire pressure, and at least my rear sway is adjustable (I run it on the stiffest setting for now, but I could soften that to offset traction problems if necc). What should I be looking at here rate-wise given all the above? Would you still recommend BC ER? The JRZ's look nice too, but outta price range at this point. KW V3? Tein Monoflex? There's a lot of other cheap options out there, but I'm worried a lot of them are just targeted at lowering and looks for street driving and may not really hold up in practice.

I have Travis' original (his actual) setup of BC ER coilovers with 12K/10K springs. It's pretty firm on the street if the pavement is rough but works well on the track for me. There is a wide range of very progressive damping controls.

The KW V3's get great reviews from people that use them on the street, my understanding is these usually get revalved/resprung when used exclusively on track with anything beyond a street tire.

If you brake hard over bumpy stuff you can get the rear end to dance a little bit, but that is as much the fault of the stock brake balance as anything else.

Any news In the sc?

You guys pick the date and we can rally at my place beforehand...

car should be done at ZFever this week... I'll ask them to take some pics

Hey TravisJB I just want to know how many HP are you packing total?

I told the guys to tune it to 380whp.... more to come on it later this week

I switched to the smaller blower, by the way... quicker spool up

That's defiantly perfect HP for a car that's lite like yours. And extremely reliable.

I use UHaul trailers all the time with my car. A few tips, since they are almost all the same:

-If you keep the 2 little bolt-on spoilers on your bumper, you'll need to get some wood to make the angle of the ramps less aggressive.
-Make sure to check the stoppers at the end of the rails - I had one that was bent back somehow and didn't notice it. It grabbed onto my bumper and gave it a good yank, almost ripping a corner of my bumper off. Was a PITA at the track, but I did ok...
-Enjoy climbing out the window, and don't forget to use your key inside the FOB, to automatically close the windows from the outside :)

I may have problems with a UHaul trailer due to my height. I'm ~1" lower than stock right now (but probably should come up a little).

Window? Heck the UHaul trailer I rented to tow the lemons car had a folding fender! Wish I remembered the key/window trick before climbing in and out of the rear hatch. :)

Update from shop... engine is running, car goes to dyno next

Woot

great news

interesting update from shop... when they started the motor, there was insufficient oil pressure to the engine and they shut it down within 30 seconds because it wasn't getting enough... they think the new oil cooler system has an issue with delivery/pressure, which would explain a lot!! in any event, first thing tomorrow they are going to run some bypass tests and troubleshoot and I'll have more to report later

on the topic of fuel starv... they are also going to get rid of the two secondary pumps in my fuel tank - they've convinced me this is a potential safety issue b/c when the pumps are no longer wetted they get extremely hot... he put more foam in to help control slosh, and he's going to make a secondary hose going to driver's side from which the primary (passenger side) pump will pick up to help control fuel starv

unrelated note, here's my new garage with high lift kit!

http://i656.photobucket.com/albums/u...426_131315.jpg