Sleepyhead's 2017 One Lap

Great to meet a group of the internet's finest in person today. 540 miles on the road today in homage to your week. Plenty of time to think of possibilities for next year. -Matt

chuckles wrote: sleepyhead is a good writer. I don't dock him for spelling because I know he doesn't have time to proofread.

thanks chuckles!

and thanks for chiming in GhiaMonster!

time was only a third of the problem. I typed out all the posts from page two to three on a Galaxy S3 that was almost always running googlemaps concurrently into a browser with no spellcheck with autocorrect turned off (my son has a non-standard name that is very frustrating to correct the autocorrect... among other writing difficulties w.r.t. android autocorrect and phone touchscreen keyboards)

Also: sleep, or really, the lack thereof.

I'm home now after 620-odd mile drive. I've held my 5month old for 20mins while typing, and I have a few odds-and-ends to do around the house before I tuck-in to bed.

I'll try and organize some thoughts, and numbers for a recap sometime in the next couple of days... and perhaps I'll go back and correct some of my spelling

I’m going to try and knock out talking about the “Topics for Later Discussion” before getting my “wrap up post” out.

~ Ego ~

This always plays a fairly large part in motorsports. And it’s not to say I don’t have one. But the endurance aspect of OneLap (imho) requires a certain awareness of your ego and how it might be influencing your decisions.

I got into this a little bit in the my post over here.

But to elaborate a bit more: Generally I find myself respecting people that have a small enough ego to bring out unassuming, well-sorted metal, and then drive it at their limit more than people whose ego causes them to grab a high-power car they can’t extract more than 40% of the limit from. Now, clearly, this is my own ego talking… since it is wrapped up in driving slow cars fast. But, hey, awareness.

That’s kind of the “big”.

The small is more along the lines of “I feel like I’m getting sleepy, but I think I can make it until {insert currently important milestone… finish, empty tank, dinner}.” I bring up the sleepiness part, but it could be going just a bit too fast on track, or any other myriad things that crop up during the week.

~ Communication ~

OneLap rewards teams that have an “open line” operating at all times. “Are you asleep?” “Hey, I’m getting hungry.” “Why don’t you take the car and fill up, while I wait out this inept barista.” “If you get a nap now, we’ll be better off for the transit tonight.” “Dude, we’re waiting on your groggy behind every morning” “Why don’t y’all go down and get breakfast while I get coordinated putting my clothes up, and remembering to put on deodorant… I’ll just grab a cup of coffee on the way out.”

Or, my favorite for this year:

“I hate this stupid trailer, why don’t we just run by the house after Dominion and leave it… it’s just slowing us down”.

If you're planning on doing OneLap... you should probably start practicing this now.

~ Highway Surfing ~

JAH29 made me realize I should probably attempt to put this down into words. I like to think about doing highway miles like surfing (not that I’ve surfed, but based on my understanding of it… and similarity to other sports like hang-gliding/sailplanes and sailing).

In my 20’s I drove hard and fast, and got bent out of shape with left-lane sitters, and the left-lane trains that develop around trucks on the stretch of I-81 that I’ve been traveling almost monthly since 2000 or so.

A number of friends’ pointed comments, OneLap, certainly age, and time commuting on the Autobahn have changed my perspective on that. I now try and move between the cars and trucks viewing them like the waves on the ocean. If I need to go into the right lane to jump a bunch of cars bottled up behind a truck, I do it, and time it to take advantage of that gap that’s going to open up as cars string out through differential acceleration. I keep an eye on trucks, the topography, and their acceleration rates to try and predict when one is going to want to pull out and pass another one. I’ll position the car so it’s clear I’m not going to force the issue and giving them a headlight flash to let them know it’s clear. If that truck clears the other one, and moves over promptly I’ll give them a “thank you” two-beat with the hazards.

If I get caught behind a truck, or a long line of cars, or something… I just shrug it off like I got caught by a bad eddy… or I didn’t read the wave right. It’s made my driving time a lot less stressful and more fun.

That being said... yes, I’ll still ride up and call out a 20-odd-year-old that’s going down the highway at night with an interior light on, without cruise control engaged, and reading facebook on their hand-held phone. {le sigh}

~ Brakes ~

I’ll sheepishly admit that I’ve heard Brock talk a bunch of times about how OneLap is one of the hardest events on brakes. Part of it being the competition, part of it being on tracks, and part of it being the fact that we’re often seeing a track for the first time and then putting the hammer down.

I’ve done this event a bunch of times, and worked my way up from HPS to HP+ and onto DTC-60’s last year with the MINI (which has integral brake ducts). I was going to try and work my way up on the brakes with the Acura, although I waited a little too long before getting them dialed in before OneLap this year. Which meant that I was behind the curve on learning the limitations of its system… and the impact of driving a car that is 700#s heavier than anything I’ve put on track before. I’m still working on a calculation to put that weight difference in perspective, yeah I’m a dork like that.

These brake issues definitely caught me out, and despite the on-going support and assistance from G-Loc, I ended up with brakes the could stop the car well, but only for about 7 miles before the rotor got too hot and the available braking was reduced. It’s not the fluid, because we did bleed the front brakes once, and the fluid was perfect. There’s a chance that the master cylinder needs a rebuild/replace, and possibly the same for the calipers… these pieces are almost certainly 12 years and 160 kmi old. Beyond parts, there’s clearly a need for cooling ducts if I’m going to be able to run the car for an extended HPDE session using maximal braking. The PWC Accords run ducting, Sonic had some on the C63 last year, etc. The car is clearly fast and heavy enough to warranty their necessity.

This braking lesson was further enhanced by watching the tribulations of the mazdeuce and the civic. I’ll probably be a more vocal proponent of braking system stress-testing prior to OneLap in the future, and making sure that high-temp pads and fluid are in the car, and that brake cooling is addressed in the future.

That whole braking thing I don't think is stressed nearly enough. Even coming into OLOA with some TT experience it's fairly unusual for me/my driving style to do 3 full hammer down laps, in a TT setting if I botch a turn or blow an apex I dial the pace down a bit, I know the lap is already shot so I'll wait till start finish to give it another go.

At OLOA you don't get that luxury, you subject the cars to the max pace you can comfortably push all 3 laps despite any mistakes that occur along the way because the clock is ticking.

The flip side to that is you can't run full on endurance race type stuff because they'll be downright scary on the street which means you wind up wasting all sorts of time swapping pads at the track before/after each event, which means less sleep.

I like your solution of working up to the brakes required and stress testing them. I think the sweet spot is about 1 tick up from the most street friendly pad you can get away with on track (leave yourself some emergency head room) helped along by brake ducts for keeping the setup cool on track.

We ran PFC08's with brake ducts, no track fade and the only street time they sucked was Virginia in the rain.

In reply to sleepyhead:

The traffic part.... it took me a long time to get there as well. But you are so much more relaxed when you can just let the dumb ones be dumb ahead (or behind) you and do all you can to be aware of the traffic and it's ebb and flow. I've turned it into a personal in my head game of reading the traffic and being in the correct lane to take advantage of it.

What's funny, when I push I find I make way more poor decisions and end up farther back than if I'd just been patient.

The brake thing was interesting this year, and we're frankly lucky that things worked out. My co-driver had only done DE events before. Even when driving "hard" it's unusual to spend more than a lap or two free of traffic. I think that was the root of our problem. He simply hadn't driven hard enough to test the brakes. We should have pulled the wheels after the first session at Road Atlanta when he first felt fade. Never let a brake problem go uninvestigated.
Luckily both of us come from a rallycross background so lack of grip/braking/control is just something you deal and without even thinking about it we're constantly adjusting as if we're on a changing course instead of a static track.
On top of that, part of our track walks were always identifying and discussing the parts of the tracks that were likely to hurt you and how to deal with those.
I will always be more serious about brakes in the future.

I think I mentioned it before, but I figured it'd bear repeating that I ended up with G-Loc's R10's up front and R8's in the rear (I'll note that I'm not being compensated by them, and I bought all the pads with my own {SWMBO's} money). I haven't driven Performance Friction or Carbotech pads (although I'm aware of the story between G-Loc and Carbotech, and the similarity of compound). I've mainly driven on Hawk pads (as explained briefly above) from a performance perspective.

I was quite surprised at the G-Loc's initial bite (even when cold on the street), especially compared to the DTC-60's I had last year, which definitely required earlier braking when cold. You know, I should really mount up the phone and Harry's and try and grab some data on that some time.

Thinking about klod's comment has me musing that OneLap, because of it's transit requirement, is in someways a better proxy for testing out the best street/track cars (cough, battery company)... since you have to thread the needle between high-performance on the track with a less-punishing/compromised behavior on the road, subject to each persons' health/masochism determinations.

The more I think about it, I wonder what the right way to test the effectiveness of your braking system is, in advance of OneLap... particularly from the perspective of creating a test that:

• isn't on the road

• is available anywhere in the country

autocross is too short, and the speeds too low to stress the system, not all tracks have the same demands on the braking system, and attempting to test this on the road is a legal/ethical non-starter. Drag strip or Runway rental?

~ TL compared to Si ~

So we’ve alluded to some open laps that we ran back-to-back between the TL and the Civic after the last timed session on Friday at Gingerman. Mazdeuce’s co-driver is the faster driver, and once the Civic had equivalent pads, could easily take a 4-sec chunk out of the TL’s lap time. I haven’t done very much autocross, and the brake overheating I was experiencing made me more cautious, so I was braking around the ‘3.5 pole’ at Gingerman (and the 5 off the back straight); while the Civic was braking around the ‘1.5 pole’ (~3 pole off the back straight).

Our mid-corner speeds were within 5mph of each other... if I had to guess. Which seems a little surprising given the 500lb penalty the TL was carrying in weight with only 235/45R17 compared the the 225/40?R17’s on the Civic.

The Civic took a set quickly, and you could feel the inside of the car twist in response and the outside tire feel like it was rolling over... thanks (we think) to the limited camber gain of its McPherson strut suspension. The TL, on the other hand, need more time and a more gentle touch to transition and let the softer springs compress and take a set. However, the TL’s double wishbones kept the tires planted… and while the body was rolling more, the inside wheel was clearly in touch with the pavement (although I did lift the inside tire slightly when I overcooked the first left-hand lap of the dry-skid pad).

Despite the extra weight of the TL, the extra torque of the J32 was able to really push the car down a straight and muscle on after we cleared 100mph. The Si would race up to about 100mph, and then would struggle a bit to continue accelerating at the same pace. The TL doesn’t have a wing, and the Si was missing a bunch of flow-conditioning plastic right-behind the front bumper (#rallycross). So, those might be the more likely culprits behind this mismatch.

I’m really glad to have been able to perform this exercise and compare notes with mazdeuce and the co-driver. It’s given me a bunch to think about, both in the development of the TL, and track cars in general. This is probably more common in some autocross programs, but is missing from most HPDE/Track environments I’ve experienced… and as we’ve noted there’s a distinct difference in the test given to a car in autocross compared to the track.

Its hard to pick a brake compound for One Lap. Most of the miles are street miles, where a pad like a DTC70 will just annihilate your rotors. (I know, trashed a set of Stoptech BBK rotors, $$ ouch!) A more streetable pad will be better on the transits, but then might not be enough pad to hold up for the 6 laps per day on the track.

Gotta thread the needle there. As far as a car, I'd much rather have a fast street car for One Lap vs a track car, that's just a miserable way to spend a week...

Riding in the TL made me want to find an Accord that shares the suspension. I understand why people don't make track cars out of them, they're heavy and have small brakes and relatively weak engines in the lighest and most desirable bodies, but the wheelbase and width and better suspension makes them a better freeway car than the Civic or the Mini. The brakes of the TL should be capable with venting and good pads. The four cylinder cars are K24's and the potential with that motor is almost limitless. Probably a lot of better cars, pretty much any pony car for instance, but if playing with and developing cars is the real goal, it might be an interesting platform.

would y'all consider a 2005-07 RL ?

759NRNG wrote: would y'all consider a 2005-07 RL ?

Even heavier car on the same sized brakes? Ah hell nah.

I'm surpised you ran the 235/45. I personally would have gone 255/40's to keep the speedo right but get a little extra tire. the stock 8" wheels would have accomodated those nicely.

759NRNG wrote: would y'all consider a 2005-07 RL ?

if someone came up to me and said: "I want you to spend my money and help me take my 2005 RL to OneLap"... first I'd ask how much they wanted to spend, and where they wanted to finish... and what my limits were for removing weight from it.

would I spend my own money to buy one to run at OneLap?

Probably not. Although, the thought of them, and their sh-awd had crossed my mind in thinking about things.

But... For one, I like driving a manual transmission. My TL's about the same price, and you can get the same engine as the RL in a 6spd in the TL-S (but those are closer to 10k around me). The 6spd TL's, the TL-S' and the RL all share a substantially similar front caliper.

There's an off-chance that it can handle more tire... but I don't think that and the AWD would easily overcome the 400lb weight penalty the RL carries without some significant Chapman mods. Then again, the HMA engineers took 1500lbs (?) out of an MDX... so, there's a chance you could get the RL down under 3000lbs. And, it'd be classed against a bunch of V8 M3's.

However, a 03-07 Accord coupe starts around 3000lbs before dropping weight. Theoretically you could build up an k24 hybrid motor and swap in an SI lsd transmission... or you could swap the J35 and 6spd out of the TL-S. The TL caliper should swap over too.

I should probably admit to idly trolling co-part for one of these coupes... but I think I'm not in a position to explore that path right now.

Bobzilla wrote: I'm surpised you ran the 235/45. I personally would have gone 255/40's to keep the speedo right but get a little extra tire. the stock 8" wheels would have accomodated those nicely.

that was the result of a comedy of errors of sorts... or trying to limit how much risk I was taking on (where risk here was "not doing OneLap", or "spending more to get there than swmbo would have agreed to").

I picked up a set of 235/45's back at the beginning of march to make my first hpde day with the idea that I'd have the 9" 949's with 255/40's on 'em for OneLap. Then those didn't fit "out of the box"... and I decided to cut my losses and come up with a setup where I was taking a fullsize spare with matching rubber to "easy swap on" if required... which meant sticking with the 235's.

I don't have a lot of experience with crowding more tire onto a rim... so I was trying to keep a setup I "knew should work" in my back pocket.

In reply to sleepyhead:

Gotcha. We put all manner of interesting sizes on those wheels over the years at the dealer. I remember the first time we tried aftermarket wheels on the brembo calipers. they didn't fit.

the 949's technically fit... with 3mm of clearance between the spoke and the caliper. I'd put a spacer in, but then I'd lose lug engagement.

So, I'm being anal about things... then again, the only problems the car had at OneLap were two blown fuses, some brake overheating, and running into a large mysterious item in the dark on the highway.

Would the 949's have taken the hit? Probably. Would the lugs have stripped 'cause of the force, or something else? Dunno, but I'm glad I didn't have to find out, or worry about that after the fact.

And now I can do it slow, and right, and learn along the way by picking up new hubs and putting longer studs into them myself. Once I figure out where to pick up M12x1.5 ball-seat open ended lug nuts to put the OEM wheels back on for a winter setup.

Bobzilla wrote: In reply to sleepyhead: Gotcha. We put all manner of interesting sizes on those wheels over the years at the dealer. I remember the first time we tried aftermarket wheels on the brembo calipers. they didn't fit.

So, I just looked up the specs on the Conti Extremesportcontacts in 255/40R17 on tirerack: it shows a "rim width range" of 8.5-10"

a "measured rim width" of 9"

a "section width" of 10.2"

a "tread width" of 8.8"

so, I think that was part of my back-of-the-head concern with slapping those on the OEM's. I think they Conti's are a little "oversized" compared to some other 255's (ditto the 235's).

hmm, supposedly the 275/40R17's fit on a 9" rim. Might have to make that jump to keep up with the rubber attempting to be stuffed under a little blue civic.

I just sent 275's home with the Civic. Arms race.

You can pick up Honda lugnuts at Advance if you dont want to pay dealer prices. I think I paid ~$2.20 each vs $6 at the dealer.

If it was me I would run the wheels with no spacers ... 3 mm is plenty.

sleepyhead wrote: Once I figure out where to pick up M12x1.5 ball-seat open ended lug nuts to put the OEM wheels back on for a winter setup.

Here: www.amazon.com/B-D14R-Open-M12x1-5-Ball-Seat/dp/B00G040ICK

Why open ended? Especially for winter. I'm very happy I chose closed end nits for my rallyx car. Threads look brand new and easy to put on.

bluej wrote:

sleepyhead wrote: Once I figure out where to pick up M12x1.5 ball-seat open ended lug nuts to put the OEM wheels back on for a winter setup.

Here: www.amazon.com/B-D14R-Open-M12x1-5-Ball-Seat/dp/B00G040ICK Why open ended? Especially for winter. I'm very happy I chose closed end nits for my rallyx car. Threads look brand new and easy to put on.

The OEM lugs are 1.85" long, iirc. Next largest I can find on ARP are 2.85"... which could be nice if I decide to max out to a 10mm spacer, or find some other wheels that have a 'thicker than honda oem' hub flange (like the MSW's). There's also the issue that there's only 13mm of clearance between the outer lip of the wheel and the upper extension of the upright. Probably a low

IF I end up with 275's, or even 255's, on the 949's... I'd be a bit worried about the tire rubbing on that.

I'm pretty sure I'll bottom out the OEM lugnuts if I put the OEM wheels on... even if I leave the spacers in place.

Right now I'm up to 5 cars (still need to clean up and sell the MINI), so the Mazda5 will get the minor amounts of 'winter driving' that I'll need to be doing.

mazdeuce wrote: I just sent 275's home with the Civic. Arms race.

ah, crap.

Guess I'm going to have to just sell off the 949's, get some proper 5x114 to 5x120 conversion spacers, and find some 17x10 corvette cast offs so I can run some Goodyear Eagle F1GS-D3's in 315/35R17's.

...now I'm off to go to watch mightycarmods' fender rolling video.

Alright, now that I’ve got most of my “delay, and write later” topics finished up, I’ll try and bang out a proper “recap” type post to seal up this thread before I start up a new build thread. Hopefully I can get this done in reasonable time, before I’m preoccupied with one of the not-so-Sleepylings.

The first is my satisfaction at having completed OneLap this year. There is/was a lot to say that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish it, and I reckon that there were some people in my life that didn’t think I’d be able to carry it off.

This year was definitely something of a “shot-in-the-dark”, signing up with a co-driver I found on GRM, and only met a couple of times before we packed up and headed out to OneLap. I’m not going to say that’s uncommon in OneLap… it’s probably more common than is generally known… but was still a first and an experiment for me.

I’m quite satisfied that the car held together… a 12 year old, 160,000 mile car with “just brakes” (it was even running on the original wheels and stock-size 235 width tires) and a bit of trunk/engine stripping. It ran as good as an awd rabbit conversion, and was in-and-out of being faster than a “factory supported” Toyota Avalon and a claimed Roush Mustang.

We ended up 56th overall with 1745 points (31.3%), compared with 63rd and 1440 points (25.6%) last year, 60th and 1955 points (29.5%) in 2011, and 55th with 1390 points (26.65%).

My 25th in the wet skid pad was the highest I’ve ever laced in “open competition” (the bracket drags create a truncated results listing). So, that’s something that I’m proud about.

The TL ran a cumulative 3 laps with standing start at Sebring of 8:30.658 in the morning and 8:37.451 in the afternoon compared to 9:38.281 in the morning and 9:43.657 in the afternoon for the Fit back in 2009.

With the bike on the back, and running 75, we were getting far enough that strategically swapping drivers was more important than getting gas (i.e. In excess of 300 miles). At the same speed the phone was showing 75dB… easy for conversations (should we swap in the newly arrived STR shocks? How bad will a 3” hole saw massacre the front fascia… and will it give enough cooling to the front brakes to be worth it?). That is to say, it’s fast-ish when I need it, has legs enough not to slow down a transit, and doesn’t beat you up at the same time.

All of which is to say, that I’m glad with my decision to buy the car and begin its journey at OneLap and on track.

Futures for the car? First off, I need to get the back seat bolted back in. After that, well, I’ve already documented the need for brake ducts, and some work to go w/ wheel spacers/studs/hubs… and I might swap in the STR shocks while I’m in there. I need to do some research on springs as well, linear rate higher stiffness springs at or slightly shorter than OEM.

Theoretically I should look into a different intake of some kind... since the oem one is coming apart. And, while I'm at it, maybe an MDX intake manifold. More weight needs to come out of the car, but that’s probably going to get a little expensive in short order. And, I just made the mistake of looking up how cheap ‘05 RL J35A8 motors are on car-part !