First Autocross on the Rebuild!

 Mixed emotions here.  First, the good news:

1. No parts fell off.
2. No fluids came out.
3. I wasn't last place like in my first two years.
4. I had crazy fun.
5. I did the whole course in 2nd gear up to 60mph.  That sound is energizing!
6. BB was the belle of the ball.  In a field of late model Porsches, Z06's, Miata's, and some very well done home builds, she draws a crowd.  No one can believe she has a rotary.  A young man (maybe early twenties) actually recognized the Chitty Bang license plate!  He said he loves that movie.  I informed him that Ian Fleming wrote the book and he was amazed.

Now the bad:

1. In spite of new tires, new apex seals, etc. I'm about stuck in placement for the last 3 years.  Having said that, this was a tough group.  As listed above, there were roughly a million dollars worth of highly engineered cars there.  Several drivers were discussing how they did at nationals (top of the US in ability).  So, this was a tough field but damn!  I've been to high performance driving school!  I have triple the original horsepower!  I perfectly apex every curve on the way to work and back!  When I will reach Miata speed?!

Anyway, I'm still having fun with cars!  So here is the tale of the tape:

So there it is: dramatic improvements for the first three upgrades and slow declines for the last two.  Of course it's a different course and different competitors every time so it's hard to say, but tripling the horsepower should have at least nudged me faster!  Maybe I've gotten into my own head here: "Hello....is anybody home in here?"

Here's how it looks on video.  

As you can imagine, this is crazy fun!  I run the old Smith's tachometer one-to-one, so she has no idea what to do with a 9,500rpm Wankel engine!  The needle never comes off the right peg!  I guess I could write a program on the faithful Arduino to allow me to see the actual engine speed but, since I'm going to drive up to the rev limiter in any case, it would be only a distraction!

I tried chalking my tires for the first time.  This should help you adjust tire pressure by showing if the sidewall is touching asphalt (too low) or not enough of the tread is used (too high).  Here's what mine looked like before running:

I didn't take a picture after running but ended up reducing pressures by 3 psi.  That seemed to give good results until I did the comparison above.  Anyway, much lower pressures than I've ever run so maybe I was too high.

Here is a glimpse of the car show.  That was quite a stable!

And here's me ready to race!  I wore that smile all day!  The hat is from my daughter and the shirt from my son.

My results are not where I hoped but this is crazy fun!  We'll see how she does on a real racetrack next week!  Keep having fun with cars!