MSNE Autocross Test and Tune (3/9/08) - March 14, 2008

This was the first event of the 2008 season. I was planning to have the March 22nd event at Englishtown be the first event that I would compete in, but I decided that doing the first few MSNE events would give me some practice driving and expose any problems with the car.

Everything was fine with the car until the water pump started leaking severely after the sixth run. I had just replaced it about a month ago, so it must have been a defective pump. I already changed it (still under warranty), and the car is ready to go for the next event.

As for handling, the car felt more stable and predictable in relatively high-speed corners and under breaking. I attribute this mostly to the strut bars keeping the chassis from flexing as much under the high loads of braking and high-speed cornering.

The car still understeered as usual but to a lesser degree than what I remember. This improvement in balance is probably due to the reduction of front weight from the air conditioning removal. Also, I mounted slightly wider tires on the front than on the rear (205/60R15 front and 195/60R15 rear) to see if I could reduce the understeer. This probably also helped handling slightly.

The biggest handling problem was the inside wheel spin coming out of corners. I'm hoping that this issue will be reduced when I mount the grippy Falken Azenis RT-615 tires.

I had some fun during a couple of the runs practicing drifting. These pictures were taken by John Flynn of Moonlighting Photography Studios.

My 240SX in the March 9th MSNE Autocross - Picture 1 My 240SX in the March 9th MSNE Autocross - Picture 2
My 240SX in the March 9th MSNE Autocross - Picture 3 My 240SX in the March 9th MSNE Autocross - Picture 4
My 240SX in the March 9th MSNE Autocross - Picture 5

More Photos from John Flynn

More Photos from Hector Rodriguez

Considering I was on skinny junk all-season tires, my fastest time wasn't too bad. I ran a 54.687, which was good for 10th place out of 20 cars in my class (class F).

  1. Ted Descovich: Mazda Miata - 50.488
  2. Yun Ng: Toyota MR2 - 50.657
  3. Chien Wu: Toyota MR2 - 51.757
  4. Tim Kong: Subaru Impreza 2.5RS - 52.002
  5. Eric Simmons: Mazda Miata - 52.071
  6. Rob Szczesny: Acura RSX - 52.550
  7. Patrick Huxley: Honda Civic - 53.557
  8. Chris Elwell: 2005 VW GTI - 54.237
  9. Kelvin Morel: Honda Civic - 54.613
  10. Miroslav Ovcharik: 1992 Nissan 240SX - 54.687
  11. Maciek Samsel: BMW 328 - 54.984
  12. Ben Wagman: Mazda Miata - 55.047
  13. Eric Oswald: Lexus IS250 - 55.110
  14. Jeremy Eisen: Subaru Impreza 2.5TS - 55.462
  15. Adam Casatelli: Honda Civic EX - 55.571
  16. Craig Gordon: Subaru Impreza 2.5RS - 56.942
  17. John Wilson: BMW 328 - 61.030
  18. Hugh Smith: BMW 328 - 62.042
  19. Rich Pascatori: BMW 328 - 75.649
  20. Zak Wilson: Ford Mustang - 92.695

    21. Full Results

    The fastest time of the day was a 47.565 put in by GJ Dixon in a Porsche 924S.

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