Aside from a cat, what makes the CSP cars illegal?
My main point is that during the development of a class, you must err on
the side of caution. That is clearly not the case in SM. You take a
'mid-pack' CSP Civic and send it in against SM and you are in the hunt or
on top - currently. With more preparation, that should change - but when
does that preparation change? Is it going to take a year of a well
developed SM car killing the PAX to reset it for the FOLLOWING year? Who
does that hurt? Everyone but SM. Let SM feel the pain for right now and
then the majority doesn't suffer.
Besides, if you set the PAX artificially LOW, then how do you know when you
are where you need to be in terms of development? Granted, it is a
'best-guess' deal with a new preparation level but you at least have to
start ahead of where we have already established history - like CSP
factors.
AB
dg50@daimlerchrysler.com@autox.team.net on 01/17/2001 11:28:40 AM
Please respond to dg50@daimlerchrysler.com
Sent by: owner-autox@autox.team.net
To: autox@autox.team.net
cc:
Subject: SM PAX (was: 2001 PAX Index - Sirota - go to work!)
Andrew_Bettencourt@Kingston.com wrote:
> I disagree. You sort of make the counter-point in your text. If the CSP
> Civic isn't even the car for the class anymore, then it should be easier
> for one to dominate that PAX number. Go to full race cams, full head
work,
> bump in compression, etc. Grab the extra ponies and lower the PAX. It
> really is contrary to logic.
Uhhh... I dunno Andy, I'm with Kent on this.
The top CSP cars are not SM-legal. The SM-legal SM cars (in CSP trim) are
mid-pack cars. The effectiveness of extra power is very difficult to
quantify, especially for FWD cars.
The root cause of the problem is that the indicies address classes, not
cars within classes, so the Civics and other SM-legal CSP cars start off
mathematically "faster" than they really are.
There's a similar problem with the SS Supra. In Stock trim, the Supra is a
mid-pack SS car. In SP trim, it gets much better, and it falls sorta
halfway between ESP and BSP. Back when it was an ESP car, it got a slower
index when SP than when Stock - and that worked for years until the
development progressed to the point where its full potential was being
realized.
> I think that some 'fudge factor' must be used when developing a number
for
> a new class. The cars are not fully developed and you must err on the
side
> of caution as cars are only going to get better by leaps and bounds, not
by
> baby steps like in the SS example.
Well, I certainly hope so. :)
I can state with a certain amount of authority that making a car go faster
by increasing preparation level is not as cut-and-dried as one might first
suspect (or hope!) Every time you make a signifigant change to the car, the
handling changes signifigantly, or you discover another weak link. In this
rapid development phase, it's not unusual for a mod to slow you down, (at
least initially), even though on paper it's an improvement.
I'll give you an example or two: when we switched shocks to the ShockTek
Bilstiens (that's www.hotshox.com) for once the car got *easier* to drive,
and the cornering speeds went up. So much, in fact, that I started to get
serious fuel slosh problems on corner exit - bye bye exit speeds!
Or when we put in the ProEFI ECU, at first the thing was so badly out of
tune that we were down probably 50 HP at Nationals. And as the state of
tune got better, the power came on earlier and earlier, so that by the time
the last CENDIV rolled around, I could no longer do my usual "brake, turn
in, take my foot off the brake, clomp the gas, and let the turbo lag
modulate the throttle for me" No lag means Homey has to learn throttle
modulation like everyone else. :)
And I suspect Kent is starting to have trouble with the switchover point
between the small turbo and the big turbo getting progressively more
sledgehammer-like. :)
Of course, with time these sorts of problems will be overcome, and the
times will come down, and the indicies will change to reflect this. But in
the meantime... c'mon, it's bad enough getting beat by ESP and SS without
setting an artificially high PAX to try and live up to. :P
DG
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