Delete now if you don't want to read this stuff. In the continuing saga of PeeKay the Wonder Car and given the theorem that if you aren't actually driving on the track reading about it is the next best thing, I thought I'd file this:

Got PeeKay out on SIR yesterday for an absolutely perfect day. Weather was partly cloudy and 75 degrees. Track was virtually empty. No trace of the four quarts of oil some hapless novice had dumped on the chicane during the conference race the day before when his oil pan went south ("I knew you shoulda put all them little bolts back in, Dwayne...").

In Our Last Episode we had loosened the swaybar endlink mounting bolts (if I were writing about computers I'd immediately dub them SEMBs) so the rear swaybar wouldn't be binding against the endlinks. Seemed to soften the rear dramatically. (BTW I'm still waiting for Korman to send the hardware they were supposed to include with the bars and promised me over two weeks ago. As always, I'll report my experiences--good or bad. You make the call.)

However, subsequent track experiences made me think the car had too much push. So before this event I dropped the front swaybar from full hard to full soft. Now both bars were full soft. I was nervous the car would be too loose and dragged along the tools necessary to make an on-track change.

However, they were unnecessary, which is good, since I remembered the jack but not the handle... The car felt really good. I was able to rotate it pretty consistently into a couple of hairpins we have that are just real tough on M3s. A couple of times the rear end got out on me but never caused me any problems. By the end of the day we had cut several seconds off our previous fastest lap times. We got clocked at 1:42 on one timed lap. A very experienced friend in a RX-7 TT with Konis and R1s runs 1:39s and this is a horsepower track so the time looked really good to me.

However, it's not good enough and we're still doing this setup ass backwards. You're _supposed_ to get the car balanced before adjusting swaybars. The car still isn't corner weighted and I'm suspicious that the spring rates are too stiff. As a result we're losing tire compliance. So the next step is to get the corner weights balanced and then try some more. Also if I can get some softer springs I"ll slap them on and see what happens. Right now the tire temps say too much negative camber, which isn't right because it's only about 2.5 degrees. So probably what that really means is that the suspension doesn't have enough travel because the springs are too stiff.

One side note. I read somewhere that Fangio kept a constant mental picture of how much each tire weighed as he drove. At least I'm pretty sure it was Fangio. I kinda got that image stuck in my mind and I've been trying to do it. It's pretty hard but interesting. It makes me a lot more sensitive to weight transfer and balance and I think that helps. I'd be interested if anyone else does this or if they try it what they think of it.

Cheers,

John Browne
BMW ACA Puget Sound Chapter
BMW CCA
95 ///M3 LTW (PeeKay)
95 ///M3 (gone, alas!)
91 iX (Spunky the Brave Little Car)
96 Suburban 2500 (Godzilla; thanks for the name suggestions!)