Jason in Texas - ext. track - 09 SS/TC

[JBINTX]

Hot day for autoX in Houston today.

@Rttoys and I represented the Goblin community well.

My youngest, Cooper, left his Miata in the garage and drove his daily Scion tC - just to do something different. Although slower, he said it was fun to drive it so hard and find the limits. I actually think he had explored them on the streets already....
Since he was not running in our EM class, I got to ride along with him several laps. He was so amazed at how easy it was not to have to worry about shifting through the gears and being able to focus more on driving lines. And, we had the AC and music playing. Definitely not the same as the Goblin.

Our Goblins are now getting within 3 seconds of the fastest laps by anyone. That is pretty cool considering a lot of this crowd normally attends much more serious track events and have some really dedicated fast cars - C8 vette, Lotus Exige, new NSX, Dodge Viper, Porsche 911, and a whole lot more. We are way faster than the Mustangs, Camaros, and any Dodge Charger out there!!...

Goblin on Friends!!

 

[JBINTX]

Always nice to stay on the "right" side of the law...... :0

Turns out LEO's like ice cream too!

 

[JBINTX]

Got some autoX in today here in hot Houston.

The theme was "If you want to play hard, you got to pay hard". Or alternatively, "if you ain't breaking stuff, you ain't pushing it".

I changed out tires to some sticky slicks. Details here. Note that 15x10 are not easily fit over the brake calipers. These fit well.
They were amazing. At the limits of friction, the little bit of slide was predictable, balanced and gentle. No more surprising rear end swinging quickly around and frantic counter steering.
Shout out to @Dale E for being so kind and generous to all of us here on the forum.

Safe to say that I pushed the car harder than before. I bent the same front suspension bracket that @Ross had issues with.
I assume that anyone out there doing autoX should watch this part closely. I believe an upgraded version is available from DF.
Pretty easily fixed.

My son Cooper in his J32 Miata had new stickier tires as well. He knew his clutch was always a little borderline weak after the horsepower upgrade but lived with it. I guess today it decided to go to clutch heaven.
Will not be as easily fixed as my issue. Oh well. More garage time with my kid.

Against my better judgement, I allowed another driver to drive my car. First time I actually did that. He normally is in a turbo Porsche 911. Kind of like asking to dance with another man's wife, right????!!!! But, part of me wanted to see how a really good driver would drop into a Goblin and how he would do. He ran a few seconds slower than me.
Just so you all know, it was HIM driving back to the grid area with the cone in tow.......... :0
Thanks for documenting that Russell........

Had a really good friend bring his daughter and they got to ride along. He is working on an original mini to get it and run with us. That will be cool.

@Rttoys drug his new rear wing around the track with him. Looked good and he put up some good times as well.


Goblin on friends!, Goblin on.....

 

[Ark :D]

You've got guts, letting someone else drive the Goblin. I guess there's little harm to be done though, as you said, he's an experienced driver and it's an autox course, not the street. I let my friend drive mine once. Never again! I figured he'd be ok with acceleration, being as he has a Tesla model 3, but ..........

 

[Classy]

I saw some blue smoke coming out of your exhaust when you loaded it on the trailer today.

I got to work grid with Jason today, after we did it, I judged heat 2 poorly after our performance!

If it makes you feel any better, I had people making bets when I would spin my car out with the new setup, I proved them wrong! The only carnage my car had today was the front tires eating the fender liners.

 

[JBINTX]

I saw some blue smoke coming out of your exhaust when you loaded it on the trailer today.

I got to work grid with Jason today, after we did it, I judged heat 2 poorly after our performance!

If it makes you feel any better, I had people making bets when I would spin my car out with the new setup, I proved them wrong! The only carnage my car had today was the front tires eating the fender liners.

Turbo is letting a little oil in occasionally. Fix/replacement on the list.

 

[jamesm]

I killed some cones yesterday too... I hit the same cone 3 runs in a row. I even hit a cone during the parade lap...

I still haven't let anyone drive my goblin......

 

[JBINTX]

I killed some cones yesterday too... I hit the same cone 3 runs in a row. I even hit a cone during the parade lap...

I still haven't let anyone drive my goblin......

You should have picked up that cone and taken it home…..
It may come back and haunt you again!!!!

 

[Rttoys]

It was a fun (hot) day. My goblin was running well, I just was not. Some days, you just ain’t got it.

 

[k.rollin]

I've put everyone who helped me with picking my chassis up from the freight terminal or getting it to powder coat in the driver's seat on county roads. Fortunately no ill consequences, and some decent feedback on alignment set up or suggestions on mitigating the light steering at speed. We've been playing with each other's toys since we were in middle school with dirtbikes though so maybe we're a bit different lol

 

[JBINTX]

So it has been quite a while since the good 'ol Texas flag hood has been off my Goblin. It has been running and performing well.
I noted above that I bent the steel brackets on the lower control arms at the last AutoX. They will be getting changed out and a fresh alignment done.
That is really not notable to post here.

The real point of this post is to publicly thank @Lonny for sending me the upgraded brackets. In my mind, I am one of the important people in the Research and Development department of DF. Or not - Haha.

Lonny and the DF crew are just good folks. Great community to continue to be a part of here.

 

[JBINTX]

Plenty of discussion has taken place here on the forum about torque values. I think we have a pretty good repository for addressing those.
In the past, there was a related discussion of torque and powder coating possibly causing a failure. Now, I know that almost never will the powder coating cause an issue. Until.... There was a video about the Sierra Pikes Peak race car that had a brake failure related to powder coating allowing torque to loosen.

I bring this issue up now since I am replacing my lower control arm brackets which failed under stress in autoX. Now I know that most people are NOT driving on the roads like we do at autoX. At least I hope not - unless you are more of a professional than the rest of us.

Keep in mind, the actual steel bracket bent for me. But, notice that the powder coating had seemed to "slip" as well. I do not think at all that the two failure modes were inter-related. I did not have any lost nuts or bolts. But, it did cause me to think before I painted the replacements. Not sure how thick the powder coating was. So, I only put a light coat of black paint on the new ones. I followed up with re-torqueing all the other bolts on the suspension as well.

I thought it might be a good discussion topic. I know there are plenty of builders out there doing a super fine job building and powder coating more parts than I did. So, just a thought as you grab that torque wrench and listen for the click tightening a bolt on a powder coated part!!......

 

[ATMironov]

Plenty of discussion has taken place here on the forum about torque values. I think we have a pretty good repository for addressing those.
In the past, there was a related discussion of torque and powder coating possibly causing a failure. Now, I know that almost never will the powder coating cause an issue. Until.... There was a video about the Sierra Pikes Peak race car that had a brake failure related to powder coating allowing torque to loosen.

I bring this issue up now since I am replacing my lower control arm brackets which failed under stress in autoX. Now I know that most people are NOT driving on the roads like we do at autoX. At least I hope not - unless you are more of a professional than the rest of us.

Keep in mind, the actual steel bracket bent for me. But, notice that the powder coating had seemed to "slip" as well. I do not think at all that the two failure modes were inter-related. I did not have any lost nuts or bolts. But, it did cause me to think before I painted the replacements. Not sure how thick the powder coating was. So, I only put a light coat of black paint on the new ones. I followed up with re-torqueing all the other bolts on the suspension as well.

I thought it might be a good discussion topic. I know there are plenty of builders out there doing a super fine job building and powder coating more parts than I did. So, just a thought as you grab that torque wrench and listen for the click tightening a bolt on a powder coated part!!......

View attachment 26240View attachment 26241View attachment 26242

The brackets that bent/broke were the smaller original brackets or the upgraded ones?

 

[JBINTX]

The brackets that bent/broke were the smaller original brackets or the upgraded ones?

original brackets

Jason in Texas - ext. track - 09 SS/TC

Hot day for autoX in Houston today. @Rttoys and I represented the Goblin community well. My youngest, Cooper, left his Miata in the garage and drove his daily Scion tC - just to do something different. Although slower, he said it was fun to drive it so hard and find the limits. I actually...

dfkitcar.com

 

[JBINTX]

Russell @Rttoys and Scott @SACTX and I did a "practice" day with the local SCCA group. It was same format as an AutoX day, except only 40 or so entrants versus 150. Timing was taking place, but no record keeping. We got to run as much as we wanted to over a 4 hour period. I think we all took about 20 or so laps each. Lots of strangers coming up and asking for rides with us - of course..... We had time to really dial in air pressure, add/remove aero items, uninstall sway bars, and much more. More relaxed atmosphere and actually more productive kind of day. I even got to ride along with both Scott and Russell in their cars. Pretty cool! Such a treat actually. Right seat in a Goblin is borderline insane - even for me. Not being in control of the steering wheel and pedals leaves you at the mercy/judgement of a different person's inputs and their idea of when to brake and what line to take through the course. But exciting and helpful too!

It was the first time back out on the course with the new upgraded front suspension brackets. Thicker is better. They seem to have survived.
Again - Thank you DF crew and @Lonny.

It was the second time out that I was running the slicks. I can safely say they dropped 3-4 seconds off lap times. The crowd was absent of some of the faster cars yesterday, but the fast little Lotus was there. I saw him get a few 45s runs. I had two in the 44's. Look out world here I come!!!!.... :0

Goblin on friends!

 

[Classy]

I had too many customers this weekend… I really wanted to go, I might try and hit the one in October

 

[Rauq]

Right seat in a Goblin is borderline insane - even for me. Not being in control of the steering wheel and pedals leaves you at the mercy/judgement of a different person's inputs and their idea of when to brake and what line to take through the course. But exciting and helpful too!

I had this experience yesterday as well, video to come. Autocross co-driver was a passenger for the first run and admitted to being intimidated. Drove his first run just fine and said "I mean it's still fast, but it's downright scary from the passenger seat," to which I agreed, that having been my first time in the passenger seat for a run!

 

[ccannx]

Russell @Rttoys and Scott @SACTX and I did a "practice" day with the local SCCA group. It was same format as an AutoX day, except only 40 or so entrants versus 150. Timing was taking place, but no record keeping. We got to run as much as we wanted to over a 4 hour period. I think we all took about 20 or so laps each. Lots of strangers coming up and asking for rides with us - of course..... We had time to really dial in air pressure, add/remove aero items, uninstall sway bars, and much more. More relaxed atmosphere and actually more productive kind of day. I even got to ride along with both Scott and Russell in their cars. Pretty cool! Such a treat actually. Right seat in a Goblin is borderline insane - even for me. Not being in control of the steering wheel and pedals leaves you at the mercy/judgement of a different person's inputs and their idea of when to brake and what line to take through the course. But exciting and helpful too!

It was the first time back out on the course with the new upgraded front suspension brackets. Thicker is better. They seem to have survived.
Again - Thank you DF crew and @Lonny.

It was the second time out that I was running the slicks. I can safely say they dropped 3-4 seconds off lap times. The crowd was absent of some of the faster cars yesterday, but the fast little Lotus was there. I saw him get a few 45s runs. I had two in the 44's. Look out world here I come!!!!.... :0

Goblin on friends!

View attachment 27166View attachment 27167View attachment 27168

Where did you end up with your pressures ? Are you running just a rear swaybar ? Is the Goblin working better with it disconnected ? I wish we had more practice autocross here feel like when we make a change we have to drive a different course and have no concrete results.

 

[DCMoney]

Where did you end up with your pressures ? Are you running just a rear swaybar ? Is the Goblin working better with it disconnected ? I wish we had more practice autocross here feel like when we make a change we have to drive a different course and have no concrete results.

Came for this info as well, my goblin does not give me any confidence in highspeed corners. I would kill for some feedback from the rear of the car without throwing a bunch of different springs at the suspension.

 

[Rttoys]

Dc. What tires are you running? I’m a firm believer that anything over 200tw is an accident waiting to happen. I use the Toyo r888r’s. And although I can get to slide and spin, it’s very controllable. I’m running 13psi rear and 11 front at autocross. The rear sway bar does help a good bit (Jason is not running one). In my test, I ran 48.3 with sway bar, 48.9 without and 48.4 with sway bar (with a small hiccup) in back to back to back runs. Without the rear sway bar I was “fighting” the car, with sway bar, the car is much stiffer and roll is a lot less.

when my new GoPro decided to work, I’ll post some videos here:

Houston SCCA Autocross

My best run from today.

dfkitcar.com