Took the Mini down to sebring this weekend. We maxed it out power/weight for NASA TTA now and found a signifcant chunk of time using the new RMW and group 4 parts. We were taking it easy on the car as there was still some testing and development to go and yet the increase was huge. Keep in mind due to some NASA rules changes I am now running it with out Alcohol injection and since we were testing we were trying the stock intercooler. Also the new rules knock me down a tire compound to hoosiers harder R6 vs last years A6's. Here's a little video of the Z06 hunter in TTA. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0eVcd91vCg]YouTube - RMW Product test Sebring[/ame]
I'm glad RMW's parts and tuning and Group4's aero package work so well together. Your driving ability is amazing. Mark Group4
So what's the difference between this class and the previous one you ran with? Also, from the amount of body movement it doesn't look like you have a harness. Does the car one and at least a roll bar? Sure doesn't look like there is a cage. Lastly, how about some pics of the car and these new aero bits please.
Lookin good, Ian. How did you spend your "points" in the move to TTA? They were moving you (and all other MINIs) up one class as a starting place if I remember correctly. Perhaps you can explain to the masses, the basics of NASAs TT point system. What was your fast lap compared to TTC with meth? Greg
Just to give you an example Nathan, with my MINI I run pretty comfortably in TTC. A moderately equipped MINI could run in TTD. The TT stands for Time Trial and the last letter is your class. Going from slower to faster the classes start in F and go to A. A cars are vette's, P cars and heavily modified E46's. You start with a base car and then all mods get you points, with enough points you move up a class, etc. All the points aside, there are also hp to weight ratios that can move you up classes. So you go by points unless you violate one of the ratios and then the ratio moves you up a class.
Thanks, great explanation. Does driver skill have anything to do with classing? Like a novice driver in an A class car being put in B till a certain level of competence is reached?
No, driver skill just affects where you place. Time trial is an intermediate step between DE's and racing. They allow open passing, but restrict actual racing, i.e. no drafting etc. The safety requirements are technically the same as that of the DE groups, but the Texas NASA region strongly encourages the participants to follow as many of the racing safety rules as possible. For instance, I have added an extinguisher and use a race suit when running TT. You also receive a racing license specifically for TT. Hoosier has seen enough interest in the series to issue a tire contingency, i.e. if you come in first in an event and there are at least 3 participants in your class you will get a free tire. A "normal" NASA event weekend is actually 2 events, one on Saturday and one on Sunday.
Nathan, The difference between Redline Time Attack and NASA is quite large. In NASA you modify your car based on a points system. Every mod is worth X amount of points. After 19 points you move up a class. The higher the class the faster the cars. The idea is He/she who spends their points the best / drives the best wins. With Redline Time Attack it's more unlimited. It's not as developed as the NASA rules structure. The Redline Series however fun and drawing some Big money teams lacks the rules structure found in other sanctioning bodies. However I think Redlines big draw is the lack of rules structure. Instead of spending lots of time trying to figure out how to make the car faster with the parts you have, In redline the rules allow you to just hang a big turbo on it and go. I did a redline event at Autobahn with a friend a few weeks ago in a 350z. We showed up in a virtually stock Z with lower springs and a couple OS Giken Goodies. We knew we were bringing a knife to gun fight in street class running aginst HIGHLY modified S2000's and cars with engine swaps, I mean there was a 520whp Supercharged V-8 M3 in our class till it was found to low. Our 220whp 3400lbs Z was hopeless. We started the weekend a mile back but spent the whole weekend working and bending the car to get faster. I found it interesting talking to other guys in the class that didn't even know the spring rates on their cars. Never once did I see someone working on the car with alignment plates (with the exception of the cobb team). We found 5 seconds working on the car over the weekend while other teams simply stayed stagnant the whole weekend. We were picking up a second every session. We ended up loosing by 3/10ths but we felt good that we got that close in a grossly under powered, over weight, softly sprung pig of a car. The way the rules are written I can run my car in anything from Enthusiast all the way up to Unlimited with just a tire change. NASA is a lot different to win, they give Power to weight ratio's for the cars to meet in each class and gives modifiers for things like Front wheel drive, or 4 door sedans in order to try to balance each class to keep competition close. NASA requires drivers to turn in Dyno sheets from which they can be classed. The Power to weight classing structure goes a bit like this... (power to weight goes off which ever number is higher, hp or tq) TTA 8.70:1 TTB 10.25:1 TTC 12.00:1 TTD 14.25:1 TTE 16.50:1 TTF 19.50:1 The Mini Starts in TTE but the moment you change anything on the car your in TTD. In other words a TTD Mini Weighing 2700lbs could make no more then 189.47 whp or tq on a dynojet, before you take into account modifiers. And they put GPS data on the cars to double check to make sure your not cheating the dyno. So the key to being fast since all the cars have essentially the same Hp/weight is to build a power curve that may not be the highest but gets you the most bang for your #. So the difference in the cars comes down to who used their points the best. This is where it came in last year for the National Championship. RMW gave me the most use able power curve and the car was effectively much faster then the dyno number it actually made. AST gave me the best shocks for the least amount of points, and OS Giken gave me the best LSD. This year we've got group 4 on board helping the barn door aero of the mini to compete with cars like 911 GT3's and Corvette Z06's. TTA is known as Spec Z06. We knew moving to TTA is was going to be tough and we've still got a long way to go. Very excited that the car hit the Dyno numbers we needed on the very first try. The Tq is absolutely through the roof! We weren't even running the car very hard as it was mainly a test of reliability on the new parts. My big concern was the extra power coming out of the corners turning the little front tires to mincemeat. The Group 4 parts allowed me to set the car up a bit looser in the slow stuff and the extra downforce helped keep the car planted in the highspeed stuff. OS Giken worked with me on some different diff settings to help reduce the on throttle understeer from the extra power. We've still got some work to do and more info will come with more results. We didn't win this weekend but what we saw was very promising. She'll find another 3-4 seconds very soon. Comparing afternoon laps to afternoon laps we found 4-5 seconds already in just a shake down run. Couple photo's I took on my cell phone..
Thanks for the clarifications on the differences between the two series. As one can plainly see there is no way to compare the results from one series to the other. Great to see more MINIs getting out on the track. Looking forward to seeing more results.
Thanks for explaining the classes and points been wondering how all that worked. Keep up the GREAT work/driving!!!
Yeah, It's pretty hard to compare and contrast. Redline bascially divides up into 3 classes. Street, Modified, and Unlimited. Street allows for bascially unlimited power so long as you have a cat, some interior, street tires and pass a 3.5 inch ride height requirment. Modified allows again bascially unlimited power, no interior but you have run a 50 or higher treadware tire. Unlimited again allows unlimited power but you run a full slick. If I saw a Dyno sheet and knew the mod's I could tell you what TT class they'd fit into. Basically from what I know on the ABF cars the power/weight due to the tq on the JCW would probably put their JCW car in TTB and depending on other mods maybe enough points to move to TTA. The Turbo car if they make the power they say it does would be to fast for TTU at a 4.7:1 power to weight. They get modifiers to help that but they'd probably need to pull 80 or more HP out to be TTU legal and run DOT tires instead of slicks. So currently the car is TTR legal. So if you'd like to compare... The TTR lap record at Calclub is... TTR 4 Bart Carter 05 Radical SR-8 1:36.46 3/14/10 The TTU lap record at Calclub is.... TTU 3 JC Meynet 06 Subaru STI 1:43.56 8/2/09 The ABF turbo car ran a 1:52.141 The TTA lap record at Calclub is.... TTA 212 Patrick Lindsey 01 Audi S4 1:50.24 3/12/06 (note set a few years ago, so things are faster now and it probably hasn't been updated) And TTB TTB 81 Keith Parker 72 Chevy Corvette 1:52.52 3/13/05 (again very old record) and TTC (my old class) TTC 77 Greg Greenbaum 04 Dodge SRT4 1:54.05 3/18/07 (again old record, that car is now in TTB) The ABF JCW car did a 1:58.049 But the TT time's was done on Race tires, and the 1:58 was on street tires. Hoosiers over the Street tires would probably at Cal club bring him to a 1:56 or a 55 or so. That's about the best you can do on trying to compare. But the cars are built for a totally different set of rules. I'd probably pull the midrange boost back on a JCW car and try to sneak it into TTC, Add camber and race tires.
That had to start doing it off which ever is higher because some of the camaro mustang challenge guys were showing up with 500ft/lbs of tq and 200hp and running in a low low class.