This is it! The LAST MONTH of school!
This is it! The LAST MONTH of school!
The Grade 8's are finishing their Wood Projects, and plastic Picture Frames and readying their Bottle Rockets for the final launch! We had a bunch of really cool projects made this year, check out the Applied Skills 8 section for details and pictures.
The Level 1 Electronics students are finishing their major project, the 10 LED sequencer, and readying their WordPerfect Presentations. Very high quality products were made this year - excellent work!
The Level 2 and Level 3 Electronics students are finishing their Sumo Wrestling Robots - Competition begins , BE THERE! There are some wicked robots being made, and the students have learned fabrication, critical thinking and problem solving skills that will benefit them the rest of their lives! I am so proud of these students!
Check out some of the robots in progress at the (evolving) Battle Bots page!
The Heinous Honda Page
(or, The Adventures of the Crate that was Trying to Die)
May 05 I ran my first Solo I event. Solo I is a high-speed slalom race, which can be a sinfully large amount of fun. Especially if you had some horsepower on tap.
In-Car Video of the May 05 Solo 1 event!
My little beastie unfortunately, is not so well equipped, and the Solo I was a rather boring affair. The Civic has only 75 horsepower; not enough to enjoy the thrills of a fast course. In fact, I find the slower speed, tighter course of a Solo II much more exciting. The Solo I was "slow" by comparison. Yes, I got into 3rd gear, and yes, it was kind of fun drifting the back end through the sweeping turns, but through the slaloms, by the time I built up enough speed to have fun, it was time to slow down for a turn. Sigh....
May 06 I ran the CACC Championship #1, the first one of the season. I was able to rattle off some wicked fast times, but I'm sure that once the season gets under way, I'll be smoked by everyone, I'm sure! I was just lucky!
As I am getting more and more used to the Toyo Proxes RA1 race tires, I am pushing harder and harder. The pressures I ran before were no longer adequate, especially since I had really tightened up the Lightspeed Racing rear sway bar. Instead of running 33/28 psi front-to-rear, I was running 40/38 psi f/r. The car drifts nicely and controllably around sweepers while raising the inside rear wheel off the ground. It is super nice and tight in the slalom. Very nice handling. Very nice! Now I just have to leave it alone and drive it!
Well, I did break down and buy two new Toyos to replace the worst of the used ones. Unfortunately with these new ones on the front and running the aforementioned pressured, the front plowed heavily. I ended up changing the pressures to 44/30 and I still wasn't bringing the back end out at the VCMC closed club #3. Seriously bummed, I decided to put the new ones on the back for the next event (which, at the time of this writing, is tomorrow), and may just buy two more new ones just to keep the car balanced.
After the closed club event, when I put my street tires back on, I noticed that one of the front tires was worn through to the cords, and the rest were not far behind (details below). These tires were my dissapointingly pedestrian Yokohama Avid T4's (an excellent NON-Performance tire). I was so displeased with these tires in the few years I had them, that I even considered running 13" wheels again just for the street, as my winter tires handled almost as good as the T4's.
I aquired a complete set of Volkswagon 13x5.5" rims in exchange for fabricating a harness bar for a fellow racer, and looked into some performance 13" tires. Strangely enough, after my tire guy went through book after book of tires, it seems that a relatively benign performance tire in a 13" variety is only slightly less expensive than an ultra-high performance 15" tire. Fool that I am, I decided I would be ultimately happier with the 15's so I bought a set of P195/50R15 Kumho Ecsta Supra 712 tires. They are a considerably better handling tire than the T4's! Wow! And ironically, $85 CHEAPER than what I paid for my Avid T4 set!
Now, why did the Avid's die after only a few short years? Two reasons. First, when I was turning a warped brake rotor, I noticed that the right front tie rod end was shot. This makes it difficult for the steering to do it's job, as there is excessive play. I put in a new rod end and felt better. The second reason, is alignment. Toe. Toe is the measurement of how much the front tires are pointing in or out from the front of the car. Toe can affect the vehicle's stability and "turn-in" (responsiveness).
I measured the front toe setting with a tapemeasure, and found that it was over 1/2" out. This is significantly huge! Honda specifies that the wheels be set to 0 toe, +/- 1/8". A bit of toe out is good from a performance standpoint. A streetable car would have 1/16" toe out, while a more aggressive one would have 1/8" and expect to have some tires eaten quickly. I set the toe as accurately as I could with a tape measure (*choke choke*) to 1/16", and took it to an alignment shop. The toe was still out by 1/2" - this means I must have had upwards of 1" total toe out!!
No wonder the car wasn't very sure-footed on the street! Especially in the rain! No wonder the tires had the inside edges eaten off, while 60% tread remained everywhere else! No wonder the car darted all over the road! No wonder it felt like the inside front tire was being dragged around the course!
I had the alignment shop set the toe to 1/16" out. I'll get another alignment done next spring! (Just to make sure!)