So about these Pony Cars for ITR...

[Xian]

Cool. Turn it around 90 degrees and fix it so it drives the correct set of wheels too!

Well played. Granted that would have one axle going out thru the front bumper... guess I could always attach some sort of saw blade wheel of death thing to it. May help cut down on lap traffic getting in the way

[JeffYoung]

Sharpen and use that passenger window Christian!

Kirk, you've got a noble goal here, which is (I think) to remove subjectivity and "here's my dyno sheet" from the process. I understand that.

But we are racers, and even if we come up with a 10 page formula for every type of engine architecture possible in order to "fairly" class all cars so that all are equally competitive, SOMEONE will still show up with a dyno sheet showing us why we are wrong.

To me, a more granular process has no real added advantage because the arguments -- including the one about what we know -- don't really go away, and at the same time we open the door for all kinds of lengthy discussion about what a 2V OHV motor has in the way of volumetric efficiency, or whether one 4V DOHC motor head is a better design than antoher, etc.

[Bob Roth]

An opinion to keep in mind is that though IT might not be broken, there are still reasons to look at the rules.
1) We now have 30+ years of diversity of engine performance that we are trying to equalize. Lets assume that the trend is to for modern cars to have substantially higher specific hp than the class, and that they do not benefit from IT prep like the present class, why should people build new cars? Tough question unless its ok that we all race 20 year old cars. Sooner or later where will the new IT cars come from if they are overclassed?
2) The root of the string illustrates the other concern, if you take a homogious class like ITR where most cars are in the 70hp/liter range, and drop a significantly different engine like a V8, my bet is there will some heartbreak is that the 225 hp at 45 hp/liter V8 may benefit more from IT allowed improvements than the 240 hp at 100 hp/liter S2000.

Both are problems worth addressing. As an example street S2000's are now selling for less than $15k. They might be a magnificent IT car to build, but my bet is any Honda tuner would tell you he's unlikely to get meaningful more power than honda did, so why build one?

Again I mention, there are more VTEC B Honda's than all the Miata's built. They represent the best in FWD, being excellent reliable cars. Yet they are notoriously absent from IT fields.

Although IT might not be broken, I think there are reasons to look at equalizing the different Hp/liter potential engines. I noted with interest the ITA's 240 SX owners comments that says his 1990 2.4L engine is 160 whp, 160 ft/lb torque and races in ITA at 2630 pounds, my 1995 to 1999 1.6L Sol VTEC is 155 whp, 115 ft/lb but I gets to race in ITS. I would love to race in ITA at 2660. but because honda gave me a race cam, 4-2-1 header and an intake that is every bit as good as any aftermarket upgrade, I'm in ITS. It would really help for the comittee to look at development potential when classing engines.

thanks

[Knestis]

<sigh>

I'm proposing doing away with pages, Jeff - not adding them. But like I posted in the FWD adders thread, if I'm the only one worried about this dynamic, I should set it free. I'll invoke Greg's warning that "we eventually get the IT that we ask for." I hope I'm wrong but 25 years of history tells me otherwise.

** We don't collectively appear to be interested in exploring more complex objective processes for adders/subtractors.

** Equally, nobody seems interested in establishing what constitutes evidence substantial enough to do something other than use the default 1.25 power multiplier.

** We DO appear to have something like consensus that we should try as best we can to get the weights to "within 5 pounds" of "right."

There's a an org theory term that I love - "strategic ambiguity" - that describes a situation where decision makers actively enact practices that leave them wiggle room. Some managers use it as a tool to enable micromanagement. In this instance, It's clear that this has been codified into The Process to allow for enough subjectivity that the ITAC can "do the right thing" and "use what they know..."

...but the exact same practice can - and will - result in situations like the notorious Civic DX listing, where WE (collectively) do what WE (one or two people) know (or convince others, or worse yet themselves, that they know). In cases like this, we eventually come to understand that we're too clever by half.

K

[erlrich]

<sigh>
** We don't collectively appear to be interested in exploring more complex objective processes for adders/subtractors.

K

Which then begs the question; are there any non-spec racing classes (or series) anywhere in the world that rely solely on objective, non-performance based processes for classifying cars?

[JeffYoung]

Kirk, I respect what you are trying to do, I just don't see it going where you want it to go.

We will by necessity have to add pages, and collective wisdom, to the classing process if we try to go to some sort of displacement based output formula because motors of different architectures (and even ones of the same architecture) produce widely varying power outputs. Take a look at the Ruck Prelude and tell me how the formula would deal with a 2.3 4 cylinder that puts out over 170 wtq?

For me, IT -- with its no guarantee of competitiveness and a history of NOT trying to ensure that all cars are 100% equally balanced (which is impossible anyway, and is truly what "leads to prod") -- needs a simple, repeatable process with some very limited "human" checks on it. Basically, what we have now. It works.

To answer your specific questions:

** We don't collectively appear to be interested in exploring more complex objective processes for adders/subtractors.

See above. I think at the end of the day it causes more trouble than it eliminates, and we will stil have guys sending us dyno sheets and saying our calculations are wrong......

** Equally, nobody seems interested in establishing what constitutes evidence substantial enough to do something other than use the default 1.25 power multiplier.

I am, but think this is a tough call because that line will be different for each individual. I'm not sure if it is possible to come up with a completely objective criteria to do this.

** We DO appear to have something like consensus that we should try as best we can to get the weights to "within 5 pounds" of "right."

Within the parameters of the process, yes, ok, let's make this effort (and we are).

<sigh>

I'm proposing doing away with pages, Jeff - not adding them. But like I posted in the FWD adders thread, if I'm the only one worried about this dynamic, I should set it free. I'll invoke Greg's warning that "we eventually get the IT that we ask for." I hope I'm wrong but 25 years of history tells me otherwise.

** We don't collectively appear to be interested in exploring more complex objective processes for adders/subtractors.

** Equally, nobody seems interested in establishing what constitutes evidence substantial enough to do something other than use the default 1.25 power multiplier.

** We DO appear to have something like consensus that we should try as best we can to get the weights to "within 5 pounds" of "right."

There's a an org theory term that I love - "strategic ambiguity" - that describes a situation where decision makers actively enact practices that leave them wiggle room. Some managers use it as a tool to enable micromanagement. In this instance, It's clear that this has been codified into The Process to allow for enough subjectivity that the ITAC can "do the right thing" and "use what they know..."

...but the exact same practice can - and will - result in situations like the notorious Civic DX listing, where WE (collectively) do what WE (one or two people) know (or convince others, or worse yet themselves, that they know). In cases like this, we eventually come to understand that we're too clever by half.

K

[Knestis]

>> For me, IT -- with its no guarantee of competitiveness and a history of NOT trying to ensure that all cars are 100% equally balanced (which is impossible anyway, and is truly what "leads to prod") -- needs a simple, repeatable process with some very limited "human" checks on it. Basically, what we have now. It works.

I'm quoting that for posterity, emphasis mine. We'll come back to this in January 2010 and see what that looks like.

Between now and then, do you think I should let things go the direction I smell them going, throw myself bodily in front of any listing not following the default assumptions, or...??

Or I'm just paranoid and should quit worrying.

K

[JeffYoung]

Throw that body around man!

Seriously, in my limited time on the ITAC it already seems to me that different folks fulfill different roles. You are VERY good at giving us context to what we are doing, history on past mistakes and our ability to repeat them, and strict adherence to certain fundamental principles. THis is necessary stuff.

I also fully agree wtih you that the limited human checks part is where the danger is with the existing process. That thing can go to hell if "what we know" starts becoming complicated formulas on aero, or brake size, or even FWD handicaps.

The simpler we keep this, in my view, the better off we are. Power/Weight/Torque mod (50 and 100)/ FWD mod (50 and 100) and that is IT -- I think the suspension modifiers are a mistake given what can be done via the rules to MacStruts and live rears. 25% power adder, except for rotaries, and my car, and any other where we have conclusive (subjective still, I know that) evidence to the contrary.

[dickita15]

[quote=Knestis;281434
Between now and then, do you think I should let things go the direction I smell them going, throw myself bodily in front of any listing not following the default assumptions, or...??

Or I'm just paranoid and should quit worrying.

K[/quote]

Kirk,
Just because you are paranoid does not mean the world is not out to get you.
Your goal of removing subjectivity is worthy. I am not sure if it is possible, but keep trying to find the way. In the meantime keep questioning “what we know” when others claim we know it. I would rather have a few cars that cannot be raced well than have an political classification process.

[esuvee]

There is a discussion going on in another forum about ITA racer satisfaction and in responding 'very satisfied' I stumbled across what my fear really is about these potential changes and I though I would paste it here as well. It also applies to the FWD/RWD thing.

"Some of the IT.com discussions about refining the weight/power/adder process are well intentioned and have meaningful, correct, engineering based answers available. However, I see that we may be correcting one or two factors that currently offset some equally incorrect factors that we don't fully understand. Therefore, by correcting what we can and ignoring what we don't understand we put the whole thing off it's current balance.

A specific example is the discussion surrounding the IT power multiplier being modified by engine specific output. Certainly it makes some engineering sense to utilize this data and I think it could be done correctly. However, what if we don't understand the ties between a high specific output engine and a generally well engineered car for the track. In that case when we 'correct' the IT power factor 'problem' we eliminate the currently unintended but important 'it's generally a shitty car' factor that is working in the opposite direction to keep things balanced currently."

The 'it's generally a shitty car' factor is just an example I used for things we don't fully grasp that contribute to what is already working well, I think there are many of these.

Alex