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PIKES PEAK 2007

Monday - Wake up early and take the car in for an alignment.  -1.8F, -2.3R with a bit of toe out in front and a bit in in the rear.  Big thanks to the Tire Source in Boulder!  Back to the house with just enough time to finish the rear skid plate.  Driver's meeting starts at 3pm so we've got to leave our house by 1pm just in case there's traffic.  Crap, it's 1:30 and the skid plate still doesn't fit...but 5 out of 6 bolts will screw in.  Good enough for the transit down to the host hotel (and hopefully tech inspection).  We get in 3 minutes before the rookie orientation starts, sit through that, and then take the car through tech inspection.  No problems there, whew!  We tow up to Green Mountain Falls and decide to pull the rear skid plate for Tuesday's practice.  Time for bed!

Tuesday - Up at 2:30am, to the Toll Gate by 3:30, then off to the middle section for our first day of practice.  We're running the section from Glen Cove up to Devil's Playground.  This section is newly paved, and there isn't any dirt to be seen on today's road.  A quick drivers' meeting in the dark at 5:15, and we get the green light to start running up the road.  This is the first time I've driven the car hard since the tune, and the engine seems to be running great.  On the last hairpin right, the car starts jerking as the ECU puts the car in limp mode, which is a 3000rpm spark cut.  A quick check of the coolant temp shows nothing wrong, temps are not even up to 80c.  I scroll thru the menu as I'm limping the car up the road and discover that the air intake temps are at 95c, meaning my intercooler isn't doing its job well enough.  On subsequent runs we have the same issue, but the workaround seems to be that if I lift and partial throttle thru a few of the hairpins I can make it up the road without the ECU jumping in.  Our best time of the morning was a 2:42, placing us ~7 seconds behind the leader of our class. Tuesday Afternoon - Back at the house I rigged up some dryer ducting in hopes of forcing some additional air into the intercooler ducting.  I also hooked up a Snow Performance Water/Alcohol Injection 2D kit.

Wednesday - Up at 2:30am, to the Toll Gate by 3:30, then off to the top section for day two of practice.  This section goes from Devil's Playground all the way up to the top of the mountain, and it is all dirt.  First car takes off around 5:20, an open wheeler with no lights...crazy!  We top off the water sprayer tank, fill up the water injection tank with denatured alcohol, and head out for our first run.  The car is bogging badly and running richer than 10:1.  The car makes its way to the top slowly, and once back in the pits, I make a few changes to the ECU Map, adding a few degrees of timing across the board.  Next run the car is running like it should again, but at Cog Cut (last haripin left before the summit) the ECU jumps in as we're still overheating the intake charge (sensor is pre-alcohol sprayer), so more work is needed on the intercooler ducting.  The additional ducting has helped, but apparently not enough.  We end the day with a best of 3:49, 20 seconds behind our class leader who's decided to run all-season tires, but only 1 second behind a 2006 STi, also running high performance summer tires. Wednesday Afternoon - Rain rain rain!  By 9pm, the rain stopped, so I headed outsde to make fixes.  I cut a 5x5" hole in the front bumper and boxed in the sides to force feed air into the IC ducting.  In addition, I bolted a 12" Spal puller fan to the top of the IC so that it would help move some additional air.  Got in bed by 12:30am.

Thursday - Up at 2:30am, to the Toll Gate by 3:30, then off to the lower section for day three of practice.  This section goes from the Start Line to Glen Cove, and it is tarmac, dirt, broken tarmac, dirt, and finally tarmac.  Thursday was the most frustrating day of practice by far.  After heavy rains last night, it appears that a bunch of water made its way into the engine bay, pooling in the spark plug holes.  First run saw the car firing on only 2 cyls, once we left the startline and tried to make boost.  A quick plug change and we were back in business, or so it seemed.  The car was idling smoothly in the pits, but as we revved up at the start line, the miss came back and we wound up firing on 3 cyl.  Back in the pits I swapped in my spare ignitor (running Miata engine harness and accessories), but the end result was the same story for run 3.  We were only able to pull ~60mph in 4th gear, so we just tried to be smooth around the corners.  Further diagnosis after the morning runs were over showed that my #4 plug wire is no longer making the connection from one side of the wire to the other.  We ended up qualifying in last place for Time Attack AWD with a 6:23 which was no surprise at all. Thursday Afternoon - we loaded the car on the trailer decided to tow the car back to Denver for repairs, and a good nights sleep!  Quick fabrication that evening had the car back up and running with a new #4 spark plug wire, and a spin around the block confirmed that the car was running on all 4 cyl again.  Time for bed!

Friday - I was hoping to get that pesky rear skid plate attached to the car, but once again, the clock was ticking.  We had arranged the use of a tire groover in the afternoon, so we had to get back down to Colorado Springs.  We pulled the tires off the car and I started grooving up the Falken Azenis RT-615s.  I extended some of the partial cuts all the way out to the edges, and put one extra groove all the way around the tire on the outside edge.  I made a few changes to the water sprayer system, added hose clamps to all the larger connections, and put two mister nozzles on the radiator and two heavier spray nozzles for the intercooler.  I also tweaked the ECU map just a bit so the timing advance would only go into effect when the alcohol was spraying, not sure if this impacted performance, but I think it should make the tune safer.  I also dialed the boost back to 14 psi in hopes that it would help with the intake temperatur issues.  A quick run around the block and everything seems in order.  Off to bed.

Saturday - Race Day - Woke up and headed out to the mountain at 7am.  Got to our pit assignment only to find spectator cars taking up our spots.  We got lucky and the spectators were still in the area.  Off to the driver's meeting, then back to fire up the car and head off to the start line.  Vroom...still running on 4 cyl.  We decided to run the water sprayers and water injection off the same 5 gallon tank, so we filled it up with 3 gallons of denatured alcohol and 2.5 gallons of water. After what seemed like forever, we finally pull up to the start line and get the green flag.  All systems go, turned the fans, water sprayers, and cameras on...I hit the gas and pulled 1st, 2nd, and most of 3rd before we even hit the start line.  A right 4 uphill and now we're in 4th gear, very quickly topping out at 7000 rpm and ~80mph.  I tried to stay smooth through the tarmac section, but had a few mistakes, as in practice we weren't seeing any of the corners quite so fast.  We hit the first dirt of the day, grip levels are lower than what they were during practice, maybe because of the lack of rain on Friday, maybe because we're sweeping the road clean (being one of the first 10 cars on the road).  We make it through the dirt without too much drama, and head into Glen Cove.  We posted a 5:53, ~30 seconds faster than our 3 cyl run on practice day.

A glance down at the LINK keypad and I'm starting to feel that the car is going to hold up.  Intake temps are staying low, as are the coolant temps.  No real issues on the section from Glen Cove through Devils Playground.  A four wheel drift through that hairpin left would've been cool, but I don't have the power to pull that off.  Its crazy to see all the spectators lining the road, especially at this hairpin!

As we transition from the tarmac at Devils Playground to the gravel leading into Bottomless Pit, I do a quick tug on the wheel to test the available grip, and the car pitches sideways (think summer tires on ice) and we're in for a wild ride.  At this point, with the car running well, I don't want to be the reason that we don't make it to the top, so I dial it back a notch, making sure to get all the braking done in a straight line.  Doesn't seem to matter, even with the car pointed straight, a tap on the brakes sends the back end around.  The best turns of the day were had through Boulder Park, a series of S turns with no runoff room, but no gigantic drop-offs either.  A few more turns up the mountain and we're at Olympic, the last hairpin right before the finish.  I set the car up and pitched it into the corner and squeezed on the gas, and the car started backing up for a split second.  All of a sudden we regained traction and rocketed off towards the checkered flag.  Whew...the 18 year old car actually held together!!!  We ran a 13:25.082, missing out on third place by less than a second to a 2006 STi. We hopped out of the car to get some spectating in, headed down to the Olympic hairpin.  Rhys swung by and advised that we head to the outside of the turn, where we were greeted with a great view of the mountain.  You can see cars at three spots, entering Bottomless Pit, making their way through Boulder Park, and finally the close-up at Olympic. Special thanks goes to my sponsors, 9SecondRacing.com (engine and power                       department) and Salta Motorsports (roll cage and misc. fabrication), and also to those of you who have helped me get and keep the GTX running!!! Dave Kern #323 Time Attack AWD