The Slow Lane

In this season where I was doing fairly well in my goal of attending as many events as I could in the beginning of the season has really gone to hell in the second half. After missing two events trying to get my coilovers in I ultimatly missed a third event b/c of them. I wanted to get the car properly corner weighted and it had been a while since she had been aligned. I could have taken it back to Firestone where I have a lifetime alignment, but I was afraid of them giving me crap b/c of the suspension being so modified now, and the fact that I wanted as close to zero toe in the front as I could get. not toe’d in like they usually do. So I took the car up to Phoenix Auto of Palm, where they have a great rep prepping Corvettes for road racing, and wanted to ge more involved in working on imports. Well it turned out to be a mistake.

First they wanted to align the car, then corner weight it. NO. When you raise and lower the suspension you will throw the alignment out of wack. After getting the car up on the scales the tech askes me what adjustments I want!? I was like “You guys are supposed to be the experts.” Then he starts explaining how they usually set up the Corvettes and how it’s easier than my independent suspension. Well maybe it is easier but shouldn’t they know how to set up double wishbones or struts. I mean the Covette has a special transverse leaf spring rear, but all imports are with strut or double wishbone so if you want to work on imports houldn’t you learn how to work on what’s out there? After stuggling to get the car in balance, and only getting to within 1.6% with driver’s weight in it (it was less than 1% w/o driver’s weight when I rolled in) we gave up and did the alignment. As he was adjusting the rear toe he stared really cranking the rear toe in. It seemed really excessive. When questioned he just said rear toe helps the car turn in and that is what Honda’s specs where. OK. I’ll bite I thought. The rear was set to 2 degrees total toe. Well on the way home the rear of the car was all over the place. It felt kinda dangerous. And it was raining.

When I got home Irene and I decided to go out to dinner. After only a few blocks she made me turn the car around b/c she said the car felt unsafe. Looking in my shop manual I saw the specs were actually 2mm. Some reserch on the internet and some math told me that 2mm translated into 0.2 degrees!!! Obviously the machine falied to convert from 2mm into degrees. And the tech was too oblivous to know any better. The toe was so bad the rear tires were rubbing over big bumps. I was pissed b/c the shop was not open on Saturday or Sunday. So I asked Irene if I could take her car down and drive it. She obliged. and met me down there later that day (I went down early b/c I had already volenteered for am tech. My friend Scott was going down in his 350Z and brought Irene down. The Miata was fun. I spun my first run. It is defintly a car that likes to brake before the turn. Some trail braking does help her rotate but you have to be careful. She was twichy in the slalom. To be expected with the stock springs and shocks. I finished in 3rd place, and to and to add insult to injury on the weekend they only gave trophys to the top two spots instead of the top three. I was mad again.