We ran a back to back test of the uprights on a 1M race car at the NASA event at Utah Motorsports Campus this past weekend and had great results! Struggled a little bit with getting the same conditions for true back to back testing but still the car was faster under all conditions. We ran Hankook F200 C52 slicks with a target of 30 Psi on the UMC West Course.
As expected the car was overall quicker (by about a second), easier to drive, had better braking with less ABS intervention and achieved much better tire wear. In particular we noticed the car was much quicker in lower grip (hotter ambient) conditions.
Main result in the most similar ambient conditions was 1.6 seconds faster:
1:35.156 at 57F ambient on 6 heat cycle slicks with new parts vs 1:36.766 at 63 ambient on 2nd heat cycle slicks.
Full Data:
Friday Without Uprights
Ran test sessions on Friday and were able to get good laps with minimal traffic and low ambient temps.
Session 1- 1:38.71
Throw away session with junk tires that had run the whole previous weekend.
Session 2 - 1:35.31
Sticker Hankooks - 55 ambient with sun just hitting the track. Perfect session.
Session 3 - 1:36.76
2nd Heat Cycle Hankooks - 63 ambient - ran into some traffic but mostly car picked up a lot of understeer.
Client ran the car for the rest of the day.
Saturday With Uprights
We changed the uprights that night, took out 0.2 front camber and reset the toe.
Session 1 - 1:35.156
6th Heat Cycle Hankooks - 57 ambient. Took 8 laps to get through traffic and achieve this time. Was super impressed by how quick the car was on used tires. Needs more rear grip. To take full advantage of the uprights on this car we found we really needed more rear camber but this car had stock rear upper arms and we were maxed out. Increase in front grip was substantial.
Session 2: - 1:36.511
7th Heat Cycle Hankooks - 64 Ambient. Tire shop could not get our new slicks mounted in time. Gave up after a few laps due to traffic. This was supposed to be the sticker run to try and get as close as possible to the conditions of the Friday sticker tire run. For those who haven't run slicks the very first heat cycle is worth 0.3-0.8 seconds.
Session 3: - 1:34.927
Sticker Hankooks - 73 Ambient. Fastest lap of the weekend but disappointing. The track and ambient temp came up very quickly and we way overshot on tire pressures. I came in at 34 Psi on the right front. Previous session had also dumped coolant on the track from turn 6 to 9 so made it
Session 4: 1:35.982
2nd Heat Cycle Hankooks - 83 ambient. Achieved in a 30 minute sprint race on lap 6. To me this was really where the new parts showed how good they are. Again I needed more rear camber to balance how well the front was sticking but to run 0.8 seconds faster on the same number of heat cycles in 20 degree ambient higher temp was fantastic. Unfortunately forgot to download the data after this session as I was still supporting a client and we were in a hurry to catch flights but lap times are on racehero.
