The final countdown to the year end, and as of this writing, there are 4 classes left!
The final countdown to the year end, and as of this writing, there are 4 classes left!
Highlights for this term are:
Street racing Amish teens: NEWS ARTICLE
Humourous columnist: Dave Berry
Do it yourself programmable electronic fuel injection (EFI): MegaSquirt
Electric barstool plans: Click Here
I've been pretty busy with school, learning suspension geometry, learning about turbos and blowers, and consequently haven't spent as much time here as I would have liked. Computers just waste too much time....
The Sinister Sentra Project 
In researching B13 Sentra suspensions, I found a company that is goign to produce an ideal spring for this car. (Unofficially) Hyperco, a spring manufacturer for NASCAR, F1, etc. will be producing a stock-shape spring for the B13, capable of being used on standard struts, except with 300/200 f/r spring rates.
This got me quite excited, as they can be ordered from High Performance Online for $239USD. A heck of a deal! I had intended to order a set, but found that my Tokico Blue struts would not be able to control the springs, which would require stiffer struts. All told, I would be spending $1100CDN for all new suspension parts, on top of the $700 I already spent on the Tokico kit. Then that weekend my computer monitor burst into flames, so I nixed the spring thing.
I decided to try to drive around the softer springs and bouncier suspension, assuming that that will make me a better driver. I still needed to overcome the oversteer.
I contacted Tokico to find out why my car lowered so oddly with their springs - it was supposed to go 1 1/4" all around, but went 1 7/8" front, and 5/8" rear. I was able to get the spring specs from Tokico, but the springs seemed to check out ok. I could not account for such vicious oversteer. My alignment was not out of wack; I was at a loss.
After some deeper thought and analysis, I decided that the "rake" induced by the Tokico springs (the front being almost 1 1/4" lower than the rear) was changing the roll centres such that the rear was effectively too loose. That is, the rear suspension was acting like it's centre of gravity was considerably higher than the front. I could not account for the odd ride height, but nevertheless, there it was.
I ran the CACC Championship Event #2, placing 3rd. Out of 3. (sigh). It was actually very close competition. We were all within 3/10ths of each other, and I lost 2nd by 8/1000ths of a second. Once again, I was hampered by the vicious oversteer of this beast.
I had thought of shimming the front springs, but had concerns that the springs might stack before the suspension bottoms, which would cause considerable damage. I decided to lower the rear.
I cut 1 1/2" coils off the "dead" coils in the rear, and re assembled the car. The rear dropped about 3/4" and removed most of the "rake." I am still testing the setup at the time of this writing.
If the car still oversteers, I will try changing to an NX2000 rear bar, or even a stock rear bar if all else fails.