Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 09:12:47

 From: Doug Hayashi dougha@EMAIL.MSN.COM

 Subject: [NSX] MIT Willow Springs NSX-Files Update

Todd had about 38 cars out at Willow on Monday for his MIT/RX7 event. (I think he should call it something different, as it seems there were about 3 MIT Alumni and 3 RX-7’s, and 32 other cars/people there…..)

This is the first time I have been at Willow Springs with the Comptech Supercharger and Techo rims. Unfortunately, Wayne was supposed to show up trailering his 944 Turbo with my race tires in the back of the truck, but he got stuck at work, and the tires never arrived.

Anyways, my fastest lap time on the Hot Lap timer was 1:35.41, with lots of laps in the 1:35-1:37 range. Since it is always hard to compare lap times with different go-fast parts on different days, here are the following general observations:

 
This is .59 seconds faster than I have ever run at Willow.

 
I was on street tires, the Bridgestone S02s (Pole Position on the rears). Bummer that I      didn't have the Hoosiers on the car, I am sure that would have helped the lap times quite      a bit(1-2 seconds maybe???)

 
Car felt GREAT!! I mean really great. It was stable, it pulled great, and the Brembos      were absolutely awesome again.

 
I was hitting about 133+ mph on the back straight going into the turn 8 sweeper turn,      which is about 6 miles faster than I have ever gone into that turn.

 
I was hitting about 136+ going down the front straight, which is faster than I have ever      gone.

 
I think the speedometer is off, since the rims/tires are bigger than the usual tires      that are on there, so my speeds could be 2-4% on the conservative side. So perhaps I could      add 3-5 mph to those speeds?

 
This was without the short gears, my short gear tranny is getting put in as we speak.

 
Suspension with the Ground Control shocks/Comptech toelinks+bushings/Dali-RM sway bars      was best the car ever felt going into the turn 8 sweeper.

 
Rick Wynne was there with his beautiful blue NSX. I took him for a spin, and he felt he      could really feel the supercharger pull compared to his non-supercharged car. (note: I am      dropping my car off at Comptech next week and leaving it with them for two weeks, as they      offered to check it out on their dyno and see if there is anything to tweak to get the      horsepower up. I currently have 10,000+ hard, hard miles on the supercharger)

My friend Jeff was there with his F355 with F1 shifter. We kinda argued about who was faster, as each of us thought we were faster than the other person.

 
He was running Hoosiers

 
He seemed faster through the twisties turns (3-4-5), probably due to he could really      dial in quickly the exact gear to be in, when I was in second gear through most of them,      sometimes dipping into 3rd going into 5.

 
I seemed faster through turns 8 and 9

 
Down the straight, it kinda seemed like we were pulling about even.

 
With the Brembos, I can out brake him

 
I tried to get him to duct tape some Hot Lap timing equipment on his car, but he didn't      want that hoky duct tape all over his car door. And he probably didn't want to take a      chance at actually losing to me! :-)

All in all, a good event, lots of people, real laid back, and a lot of track time. We even had some corner workers this time, since we finally have enough people showing up that we can afford them.

Todd will have another event in 4-6 months, be there or be square.

Funniest part of the day: Alex K. was there for his first track event in a Ferrari Mondial. Jeff was his instructor, and was telling Alex not to slam the shifter so hard into the metal shift gate. Going to dinner after the event, apparently Alex was still slamming the shifter into the gate(all that adrenaline still flowing), and the shift lever snapped off about 1 inch from the shifter gate. So for the ride home, Alex had the shortest shifting tranny of any car on the road….

-Doug Hayashi

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