Problem Cars

[Bill Miller]

But I have been told that aero is not an input to the 'codefied' process.

Even if it were 50# is a LOT to hang on cars with 90hp stock.

Chris,

I am only going on what I was told (a long time ago) when I asked why there was a weight difference between the Rabbit and Scirocco, given the same engine. Initially, I was told that it had to do w/ the ITB Mk II Scirocco being classified w/ the RD (103 hp, 10:1) engine. But that was tossed several years ago, so I don't know. Given that both the Rabbit GTI in ITB, and the Mk II Scirocco w/ the 1.8 8v engine saw weight changes as part of tGR, coupled w/ Jeff's and Kirk's comments about aero not being a factor, I have no idea why those cars have different weights. Maybe someone on the ITAC that was involved w/ tGR can shed some light on it.

[chuck baader]

Jeff, Eric...re.the 318 BMW with M42. I have done quite a bit of research regarding this motor with the thought of changing for a more balanced car. First, I could not find anyone that has done a full IT build. Second, those who have played with the motor have said it will not respond to tuning the way the M20 does...i.e., you can't really improve on the factory numbers. That being the case, the car is too heavy as classified. Chuck

[Flyinglizard]

The Rocco is about 50 or80# better than the Rabbit GTi. That is, add 50# and the cars will be very close. The windsheild angle and the lower Cg, makes for a lot better car.
Best is the Jetta 2.

[frnkhous]

See 88-91 civics vs. crx. The ITAC claims aero plays no part in the process, now you can find lots of people, including those who have driven what were supposedly identically prepped cars back to back on the same track and say the crx is faster. I believe the factory cf of drag is lower as well, but they weigh the same. At road atlanta the number has been said to be as high as 1 second in an identical car. The rocco should not be heavier end of discussion. Aero either is part of the equation or it is not. Now if wheelbase is an issue the civic vs crx thing gets interesting because you have a measureable by the itac difference.

[Knestis]

... Either way, since they just recommended a (small) weight change on the Golf, I doubt it was the standard - though I used to assume it was. ...

I explained the back story on all that, Chris. I'm rapidly getting to the point where I think you don't want to understand, or you choose not to so you can advance a particular point of view. Or you think I lied to you. Regardless, I feel like a stooge for taking the time to try to explain, and for making the effort to keep you informed about the status and outcome of your request.

K

[Flyinglizard]

Aero makes a huge difference ,with a 100hp at 100mph. My airplane flies at 38mph!!
The CRX is a lot cleaner and smaller total surface area, than the Civic.
Drop the rear end on a Golf,lowering the windhshield angle, and the car goes 2mph faster!! Try it from full high to full low.
Total front area is pretty easily estimated. Cd might have to come from the manufacturer. But you can do it the old fashioned way, coast down from 100mph with the "trackmate", will show right away. Same tires, etc... valid data tho.

[frnkhous]

I'm saying you can't fairly do it across the board and I own an effected car. 90 civic hatch. the way you describe would allow me to have tighter bearings(not easy with sealed bearings but possible), tighter tranny, maybe a little rear drum brake drag, not to mention the airdamn/splitter issue still exists. Now, I switch all those back, after getting a worse than true number in your test, to the loose/good parts and where am I at. Remember drivetrain loss on a dyno is measured in coastdown with the clutch in, would still apply here so car to car is also apples to oranges. Every rwd car would in theory have a worse cfd than an identical body fwd car if you were attempting to measure it in this manor because of the drivetrain. It may work fairly well to compare a 2 identical chassis volkswagens, maybe even the honda's assuming in either example similar bearing, breaks, rideheights, airdamns, etc.. But your example doesn't work at all to compare either to a pinto. Lots of things going on different.

[Flyinglizard]

Aero is such a huge percent of the drag at 100mph, the small stuff just doesnt matter that much. It does, but not enough. As long as the brakes were off, the tires the same, aligment the same. The time and G force, from 100 to 60 would show a good amount of very valid data. IMHO. MM

[shwah]

I explained the back story on all that, Chris. I'm rapidly getting to the point where I think you don't want to understand, or you choose not to so you can advance a particular point of view. Or you think I lied to you. Regardless, I feel like a stooge for taking the time to try to explain, and for making the effort to keep you informed about the status and outcome of your request.

K

Kirk your mixing topics. You and I never once discussed whether the Golf 2 was used as a standard, or reference for the ITB class (or at least I don't remember that). In the past I always did assume that to be the case. Some have told me that it was not, AND a small weight change was just recommended, which would be unlikely if it were in fact the class target. I just presented it as evidence that the previous poster should not assume it was a reference car.

I do still appreciate your explanation of what happened. Please understand that the cars I know and understand the best are the ones that I will talk about.

[madrabbit15]

The scirocco II is a faster car in IT trim then a rabbit GTI. The 50lbs is justified. We have raced both in ITB back to back with the same parts just switch chassis, same motor, trans, suspension, etc. The scirocco was faster. Now how the comp board came to that I have not idea, but seems correct to me.

Derek

[shwah]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It sounds like the Rabbit/Scirocco situation is actually classed accurately. The question then becomes, how do we do the same for future cases? As noted there is no provision in the process for aero, rightly or wrongly, and I think we can agree that you will not be able to achieve a power disparity between the two. So if they were classed today, what would be the mechanism to get them 'right'?

[Knestis]

Kirk your mixing topics. You and I never once discussed whether the Golf 2 was used as a standard, or reference for the ITB class (or at least I don't remember that). In the past I always did assume that to be the case. Some have told me that it was not, AND a small weight change was just recommended, which would be unlikely if it were in fact the class target. I just presented it as evidence that the previous poster should not assume it was a reference car.

I do still appreciate your explanation of what happened. Please understand that the cars I know and understand the best are the ones that I will talk about.

We did. Whether it was in a public forum or one-on-one through one of the offline PM systems, I can't say at this point.

Regardless, there is ZERO question from the IT BB written record and talking with key folks who were involved then, that the Golf II was used as a "bogey" car for ITB during the GR. That meant that it's then-current weight (along with the Volvo 142 and a couple of others) was left unchanged. The idea was to use the opportunity for alignment to reset the weight of some additional cars - but NOT all cars - such that the anticipated on-track performance would end up at the same place as the bogies.

Note here, Big Great Realignment Fallacy #1: Because the Golf II, 142, et al. were used as the bogies, they "went through the process." This is absolutely not the case. The Process is based on physical attributes of the car. No such comparision was ever made. Further, ask anyone who purchased a used 142 about what they've found in their engines (start with valve springs). The bogies were picked, from a very small sample (if one does the math), because they were frontrunners. Nobody made any comprehensive effort to determine WHY they were frontrunners.

Hot on the heels of that reality is BGRF #2: The cars that WERE adjusted during the GR all got treated equally by the then-new math of The Process. THEY DID NOT. There is plenty of evidence in the internal ITAC record that, when the resulting weight of a given car seemed out of line with the then-ITAC's beliefs of what should be fast and what should not - when The Process spit out a weight that "felt wrong" - they simply, and completly subjectively, changed it. The Giles/Underwood generation of Civic DX is the poster child for this. Prevailing fear of the CRX dictated a bunch of weight got added, ignoring the fact that the engines are substantially different.

Of cousre, BGRF #3: All cars went through the process, has (I think) been well discredited but I STILL see people base arguments on that assumption. Following the GR, we had in essence three types of car:

1. The Bogies - left unchanged because they viewed as "competitive"

2. The Realigned - based on often subjective predictions of how fast they "should be"

3. The Completely Ignored - mostly cars that for whatever reason were not popular, they were left with their then-current race weights, which might have been set by any number of philosophies, by any of a large number of members/committees, going all the way back to when minimum weights were introduced to the class (in the late '80s?).

As the ITAC pinned down the details of the now-current practices around the Process math over the past 6 months or so, it addressed requests by members that cars be reviewed. Chris asked us to look at the MkII Golf, which we did. Running it through the math and the policy standards that dictate how we USE the math, we recommneded a 10# decrease in the race weight - a great example of Current Fallacy #1: The ITAC thinks the process is so perfect, that 10 pounds is greater than the tolerances - the sloppiness - among the factors, our ability to measure them, and the math we do with them. Wrong. We absolutely recognize that, while 10 pounds over the course of a 30 minute race probably does might a difference in performance (irrespective of whether it's measurable), there's no way that we can have that much confidence that the resulting weight is "right." No way. No how.

The point of recommending that small change was to demonstrate that we were going to be consistent - that we weren't going to impose our own subjective judgments about "how close is close enough." This was a reaction to the unwritten - so inconsistenly enforced - rule that if a car was within 50 pounds (or 100, depending on who you asked), it was close enough. That policy had the potential to yield a 100 (or 200) pound delta among cars that HAD been re-examined. That was viewed by the ITAC as simply not good enough for the membeship, AND as a yet another opportunity for committee members to impose their own biases on the outcome: Almost but not quite a big enough difference to make the change? No problem if we just tweak one of the not-carved-in-stone "adders" somewhere.

Back to the Golf - we also recorded the factors considered, including the 1.3 power multiplier in the Golf's case (a figure in which we had substantial confidence based on the evidence provided), ensuring that the next time someone asked, we'd get the same number. Any process that yielded different outputs at different times (even from the same members) based on the same inputs is NOT a process.

The CRB voted to not make the 10 pound change that was based on Chris's request and the ITAC's recommendation, citing Current Fallacy #1. By doing so, it resoundingly dismissed the assumption strongly (though not absolutely) held by the current ITAC, and equally not accepted by most expressing opinions here: That it is better to be consistent and predicable than "right" where IT spec weights are concerned, if "right" is measured directly by observations of competitiveness on track.

That's the bottom line right there, and it's about a fundamental belief. If you look at at a "too-fast" example of a make/model and assume it needs weight without asking about mediating variables like legality, driver talent, etc., etc., etc., then there's no way you'll ever accept what the ITAC has tried to do. And if that's the prevailing belief among members, it's probably time for those damned elites who think they know what's right for the category to let the majority Joe Racers of the Club have what they want.

We call those "competition adjustments" [bleah!] - defined simply as different specifications based solely on observed or anticipated on-track performance. The Golf II has, by the CRB's rejection of the ITAC's process-derived recommended race weight, received a 10# competition adjustment. ITB Audi GT Coupe got one approximately equal to one large man in the passenger seat, for the same reason.

I am absolutely positive I know what will result when we go down this path, but am all-but-absolutely-positive that we've finally reached the point where there's not a damned thing that can be done to keep us from heading that way.

HOWEVER, if your ("you" as in everyone, not Chris) support for the position that on-track performance is in and of itself evidence enough for weight adjustments is based on one or more of the fallacies above, your argument is based on incorrect facts. It makes no difference if those adjustments are a priori, post hoc, at least display the intellectual honesty to argue from what is really motivating the position, rather than by invoking untruths.

You'll LOVE competition adjustments [bleah!] when they fall in your favor but you'll hate them a lot more when they don't. And if your goal is "stability...?" LOL. Good luck with that...! You'll REALLY know what it's like to chase a moving target, particularly if you put together a good program and go fast.

So long and thanks for all the fish!

K

[Knestis]

Thanks for the feedback guys. It sounds like the Rabbit/Scirocco situation is actually classed accurately. The question then becomes, how do we do the same for future cases? As noted there is no provision in the process for aero, rightly or wrongly, and I think we can agree that you will not be able to achieve a power disparity between the two. So if they were classed today, what would be the mechanism to get them 'right'?

In the new reality? Lobby. And hope you have friendly ears among the decision makers - or at least that you haven't pissed any of them off at any point.



K

[seckerich]

or at least that you haven't pissed any of them off at any point.



K[/quote]

Damn Kirk--I am really screwed!!

[shwah]

We did. Whether it was in a public forum or one-on-one through one of the offline PM systems, I can't say at this point.

Didn't read your whole post yet, but if that's the case, then I'm sorry. Again, just pointing out that we should not assume what the 'target' cars are for a class. I thought I had a sensible example. I guess I didn't.

[shwah]

Reading your whole post Kirk. Thanks for putting that out there in one place. It will make a good reference whenever we enter a discussion with someone who doesn't even know what TGR is.

Also, looking at the big picture presented, and turning off what I think I know, or have preconcieved, it seems to me that the result you got on the Golf II being very close to its current and original weight is a validation of the process.

As far as the details about this particular car, I don't really care one way or the other on a 10# change, BUT if the goal is to run the whole active field, failing to set them all will introduce an added error factor, so I guess I can see the ITAC point.

I do wonder if the data the 1.3 is based on is as accurate as the 142 data, but I can't ever truely call that one out, as I do not have 100% stock data that is comparable to my own. I would be surprised if this existed in the original case, and continue to be concerned with the legitimacy that seems to be assumed in dyno sheets. Regarldess a while back I filed this under 'it is what it is', and made a commitment that if there is any way legally possible to get 1.3, I will. If I hit it, I will be happy to share, if I don't it won't matter what I say, but all the stones and all the grains of sand will be turned over in the process.

EDIT - and no I do not beleive that on track performance should be used to make classing decisions directly. Both for selfish reasons of not wanting to hurt my own case, and understaning the realities of all the uncontrolled variables. I do think it can and should be a trigger to go back and see what went wrong in the process - whether that happens after the fact, or in the case of a 'reset' is known before a change is decided. What went wrong could range from dramatically better prep and driving (thus nothing really is wrong), to illegal prep, to incorrectly assumed legal gains. I'm sure there are others. The point is performance can and should make us look at something, just not make us decide something. It can't be the 'root cause' of a change.

[Charlie Broring]

Interesting that the Volvo 142 is one of the model cars for ITB. I know that the 142 makes a lot less horsepower then many think. I suspect that Volvo may have been a little optimistic with the published specifications, as was common back when the car was built. It does however benefit from a very wide, flat power band which makes it accelerate better then its peak horsepower would suggest it could. It may be a perfect example for the imitations of classifing cars based on published peak horsepower.

Possibly using the 142 as a "bogie" explains why the newly classified ITB cars were a second or so faster then all the older previous front runners at the Labor Day MARRS races. And why the ITB lap record that stood for over 10 years at Summit is suddenly being reset every race by the same newly classified cars. From my limited perspective the "Process" has resulted in a loss the long standing parity in ITB.

Charlie

[Knestis]

A little additional info: The ITAC recommended that EIGHT ITB cars get new weights in the Great Realignment. In hindsight, maybe we should refer to it as the Mediocre Realignment.

>> ... I suspect that Volvo may have been a little optimistic with the published specifications, as was common back when the car was built. ...

GR Fallacy #1 rears its head.

Since the 142 did NOT go through the process published spec's were NOT a factor. At all. Consider for a minute though what would have happened if, say, during the period just before the GR, there were a few cheated-up examples out there winning races..?

The net result could have been that cheater 142s established - quite incorrectly - that the car was "competitive," but increases in enforcement and fear of discovery have put that car back in line where it should have been in the first place.

K

[lateapex911]

>> ... I suspect that Volvo may have been a little optimistic with the published specifications, as was common back when the car was built. ...

GR Fallacy #1 rears its head.

Since the 142 did NOT go through the process published spec's were NOT a factor. At all. Consider for a minute though what would have happened if, say, during the period just before the GR, there were a few cheated-up examples out there winning races..?

The net result could have been that cheater 142s established - quite incorrectly - that the car was "competitive," but increases in enforcement and fear of discovery have put that car back in line where it should have been in the first place.

K

#1: See also, chasing your tail. also known as putting too much stock in on track performance.

#2: One would think that the vast amount of Volvos were legal, though, ......right? Or ???

#3: Go back to #1


Kirks post above (the big one) is a great summation of the history and current status. It's all been posted before, but not in one post, I don't think.

The "other side of the coin" is that BI, (Before ITAC), we had a system of, well, I don't know. I once joked that a bunch of guys got together, had a bunch of beers, put post it notes up on the wall, blindfolded one guy, put him on a stool. spun him, then handed him a dart. Then they all ducked. The number he was closest to was "the weight". Obviously that's not the case, but it's also obvious that there were gross inequities in existence.

Now, establishing a process, then creating the protocol to use it hasn't been easy, and has taken time. The big ships don't turn fast. But, looking back, there has been significant process. I'm hoping our current bumps are things we can work through. I think we can, but we need to be patient.

[Charlie Broring]

This is a little wacky. The ITAC asks for differing opinions, but if they are not in line with their own, you argue against them.

#1: See also, chasing your tail. also known as putting too much stock in on track performance.

I just ask that you just put SOME stock in on track performance. The Process is a great piece of work, however from my perspective it is may not serving ITB very well at present. And if this observation is consistent thought the country a little extra weight on the new overdogs may be indicated. But what I hear from the ITAC is an unwillingness to even consider this. I personally would feel better if the ITAC just kept the door open for review of on track performance to use adjustments if needed.

What if, just for example, MK3 VW's, ex ITA Honda's, and Porsche 924 are "Problem Cars" that showed up the older previous top dogs in ITB most everywhere. Would you rather fix this problem, or say "ITB changed, get with the new order and build a WV".

Jake, did you watch the ITB races at Summit Labor Day Weekend. How bout those Honda's and WV MK3. How about the lap record being set twice! Shame about those slow old BMW 2002's.