JPR AutoSports

We had a VERY Nice day at Lime Rock on Saturday. The weather had threatened some serious rain earlier in the week. While the Evo is no slouch in the wet, some dry weather would have been nice to get the car sorted out with the suspension changes. Real hats off to EFI Logics again, as Pete performed some coordination magic to get the car the attention it needed from Jack and Joe. Again, while the damage from Lightning wasn’t too bad, we took the opportunity to improve the suspension setup. Corner balancing with new front coilovers with heavier springs and new heavier springs in the rear were set to improve turn in and get the back end around faster. The new Seibon fenders needed some adjustment to fit the Eagle RS racing tires. Jack, EFI’s head Tech, ground out the inner edges to help prevent rubbing under heavy compression. All in all the car came together very well and looks great. Seibon does beautiful work and the carbon fiber looks great against the matte black and grey Evo. It’s been posted before, by us and others, but if your Subaru or Mitsubishi is not getting modified for performance or prepped for the track at EFI Logics (based out of Bethel, CT) you are missing out.

The suspension changes were considerable, or at least their affect was, requiring some patience and experimentation to determine the new limits of the car and how it would respond on turn in, oversteer etc. Lime Rock was very wet in the morning, requiring the new Hankook RS3s. It had been said they would make a good intermediate rain tire but the jury is out as the grip was low until they got hot enough. This is tough in the wet as they will struggle to get warm enough when it is very damp. The combination of a new and different tire, wet track and a new suspension made foe some interesting driving. We won the session with a 1:02 but had some spectacular unintended slides coming through the turn 2, 3, and 4 transition. Getting into 2 was fine, a heavy sharp brake, then bend the car left, stay out and then a light throttle to help turn in to turn 3. The front would grip, a little more throttle to bring the back end around and wow, the back end was there way too fast with huge power oversteer. A big ugly slide as the tail of the car would come around too much, tires breaking loose quickly, requiring three Hail Marys and quick hands to bring the car back into control. After the excitement at Lightning, these early slides were less then comforting.

The sun broke through and the track dried quickly, requiring a switch to the venerable Goodyear Eagle RS tire. We run a medium compound in a 275/35 and the fat racing slick has good grip and smooth sliding characteristics when kept at about 40 psi hot. These are great tires and so it was something of a relief to get them mounted up for the rest of the day. The car was running great and the next three sessions were a great opportunity to experiment with the handling. Oversteer and very fast car rotation was still on order that day, and while the re was considerable grip from the big Goodyears, it will take some time to find the right balance and get the lap times down to our best. Jack mentioned some changes to the sway bar might be in order to manage the oversteer.

Getting settled in the car was going to take some time and the lap times showed that patience and planning would be important. We ran several :59s and 1:00, but was almost a full second off our best Lime Rock time of :58.5. The NASA NE TT series has some fast competitors and the :59s were only good for second place on Saturday. While a win is always preferred, a podium finish is great given all the changes to the cars setup. The car is back and better than ever and is a testament to its and EFI’s capabilities.

Next up, New Jersey on Halloween weekend.