IS300 in ITS?

[Bill Miller]

Originally posted by robits325is@Sep 21 2005, 10:35 PM
So in summary, after all of the proposed changes are in place, will a BMW driver be forced to have a 10/10th (big$$) effort to compete with a 8/10th competitor? It may not have been the intent but it will certainly be the result.

What will happen when a newly classified car is faster than the E-36?

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Interesting Rob. But I think you pretty much have the reverse today (10/10ths efforts being beaten by <10/10ths BMW efforts). Bruce Shafer has admitted that his car is not a 10/10ths effort, yet, as someone else pointed out, he holds the track record at Sebring, on the short course.

Several of the BMW folks lambast the ITAC for using supposedly &#39;hokey&#39; data, yet those same folks are quick to claim that the E36 325 will be an immediate dog, w/ another 200 - 300 # of lead, w/o one piece of hard data.

Another side note, and take it for what it&#39;s worth, two of the top EP cars, the 2nd gen RX7, and the 240Z, just happen to be the performance standards for ITS. When someone requested that the E36 be classified in EP, it was shot down. The reason being, that the car would be too fast for EP.

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by Matt Rowe@Sep 22 2005, 04:57 AM
This is only one data point but I hope the ITAC, CRB does a lot of research before they put o lot of cars out to pasture.

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The ITAC has no plans to recommend that anyone get put out to pasture... We feel this is a self regulating policy...

When parts are no longer available... the cars will put themselves out to pasture...

[C. Ludwig]

SIRs....


I haven&#39;t researched them and am going off what I&#39;ve read on this forum alone. But it sounds like a great idea to me. Off hand I can also say that it may be a great way to limit the expense of campaigning a BMW. If a guy right now is building an E36 and is looking to spend several thousand dollars for a top shelf engine and Motec system ($10k??) to get his 200+ rwhp and it&#39;s all rendered ineffective by an SIR that limits rwhp to (just throwing a number out) 190 won&#39;t he re-think the investment in that 10/10th engine? You can never mandate cost control in racing but at the same time a certain amount of common sense should kick in. If a guy can run to the limit of the SIR with a good header/exhaust, freed up intake, and maybe a chip he&#39;s probably not going to sink the rest of his tire money into engine development that&#39;s not making more power. Same goes for cheating. Why throw in a set of illegal cams if the SIR won&#39;t let you take advantage of them? And at the end of the day isn&#39;t that, or more likely shouldn&#39;t that be, the whole philosophy behind IT? Build a car on a relatively low end budget and have a reasonable expectation of being comeptitive? The $30-40k BMWs do not fit into that picture at all!

Another idea to mull...or not. But while the SIRs are swirling upstairs. Why not classify a car like the IS300 with an SIR that keeps it in check with the rest of the bogey cars of ITS? There are racing versions of street cars at the highest levels of pro racing that do not make as much power as their street counterparts because of competition restrictions. Who says an IS300 racecar would have to make 250whp? Throw an SIR on it to choke it down to 190whp with the Bimmer and call it a day. Again, if that&#39;s all the SIR will allow for HP, engine development just got cheaper for a great many of the people who choose to campaign that particular platform.

It&#39;s not as sexy in theory to limit the performance potential of the new breed of cars but what does that extra performance get anyone at the end of the day? Will the racing in ITR be any more entertaining that in ITB? No. Will the guy running wheel to wheel with a class competitor in ITR have more fun than the same guy in the same situation in ITC? No. Classify all the new cars you want. The more the better. But I don&#39;t like the idea of another class. Unless an existing class is sacrificed in the process. There are already too many classes under the SCCA banner. I like competition and these "Spec John Doe" regional classes are for the birds IMO. Lump as many cars as you can into as few classes as possible. It makes the racing more fun and meaningful. And it makes it alot easier for my Mom to follow the action trackside.

"Why is that one car running with you guys?"
"He&#39;s the only guy in his class Mom."
"Well what&#39;s the point in that. That can&#39;t be fun."
"You&#39;re probably right. But he gets to go "racing" and he takes a 1st place trophy home every week."

The fact is that classifying new cars most likely will not increase our total number of racers entered each week. What another class will do is dilute the number of people lumped into existing classes and limit the number of people we&#39;re actually racing each week.

[Ron Earp]

Put a year cut in ITS in the SE and you&#39;ll take away half the field. There are lots of Z cars that are contenders for wins that run in the SE.

Obviously I&#39;m biased as a year cut would remove RTP Racings&#39; entire ITS field - 260z, TR8, Jensen Healey - but regardless cutting ITS with a 25 or 30yr critera would remove a lot of cars leaving only about 10 folks I could name myself I think.

And why cut them? These old cars can compete with ALL the ITS cars EXCEPT the BMW. All the other cars in ITS are in the same boat, they can all compete with each other and win except when the BMW enters the picture.

Ron

[Andy Bettencourt]

See Darin&#39;s reply on de-classing old cars. It&#39;s current ITAC philosophy but any letters with better ideas are welcome!

AB

[robits325is]

Originally posted by Andy Bettencourt@Sep 21 2005, 11:44 PM
1. If the E36 is still head and shoulders above the rest of the class and something (not sure what COULD be faster we are even considering) comes in that proves faster, BOTH cars should get reined in.

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So thats it - ITS times have reached their peak?

[dickita15]

While I am hearing cool thing about the SIR&#39;s from the GT guys they do not have that much real world experience yet. this will get better fast as they run more cars with them.
also as to the savings on development costs to have a 10 10ths effort there will still be lots to due to improve the lower part of the hp/torqe curve. my understanding so far is the SIR has no real effect untill you hit the magic CFM number so you can stiil spends lots of time and money improving the power band thru the rest of the revs.

horse power gives bragging right. torque wins races.

I think SIRs have the possibilty of becoming a cool tool.

[Matt Rowe]

Originally posted by C. Ludwig@Sep 22 2005, 06:46 AM
SIRs....
I haven&#39;t researched them and am going off what I&#39;ve read on this forum alone. But it sounds like a great idea to me. Off hand I can also say that it may be a great way to limit the expense of campaigning a BMW. If a guy right now is building an E36 and is looking to spend several thousand dollars for a top shelf engine and Motec system ($10k??) to get his 200+ rwhp and it&#39;s all rendered ineffective by an SIR that limits rwhp to (just throwing a number out) 190 won&#39;t he re-think the investment in that 10/10th engine?

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I don&#39;t think it is a simple as you might think. For one, I&#39;m not convinced that with the heavy restrictions on engine modifications in IT that an SIR would be as simple to implement. GT can use the formula, come up with the theoretical size and then the engine builders have a lot of latitude to optimize to meet the theoretical goal. We are far more limited and have to live with stock manifolds, port designs, valve sizes etc that my gut and engineering sense tells me will muddy the SIR waters.

But putting all of that aside, I think the best engine development people will tell you that it&#39;s not about peak horsepower, it&#39;s about area under the curve. And while a SIR might be able to control peak, people with money will still spend whatever they have to get the flatest torque curve they can. That means MOTEC&#39;s, chips, hours on the dyno and for the dishonest, illegal cams and so on. There might be a good argument for using SIR&#39;s in IT but I don&#39;t think cost is a realistic part of it.

[Bill Miller]

Andy,

I think it&#39;s good that nobody gets told that they can&#39;t race their car anymore. If you can&#39;t get parts for it, that&#39;s one thing, but to tell people they can run their cars anymore, just because they&#39;re xx (xxx???) years old is not right. The one thing I would add though, is something similar to the SS language, that once the ITAC goes through all the cars in the ITCS, cars more than xx (20? 25? 30? ??) years old are not eligible for any PCAs, short of reclassification (at which time specification changes could be made).

[Andy Bettencourt]

Originally posted by robits325is@Sep 22 2005, 09:08 AM
So thats it - ITS times have reached their peak?

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Yup. Anyone who goes faster is going to get a HUGE weight penalty. We have loaded all the track records into a data base and as soon as one gets broken, we get an automatic e-mail from MYLAPS.

Seriously....

Is there not a difference betwen development that results in the slow evolution of lowered lap times and a classification that results in an instant overdog?

Can we TRY and see the forrest through the trees?

AB

[Andy Bettencourt]

Originally posted by Bill Miller@Sep 22 2005, 09:13 AM
Andy,

I think it&#39;s good that nobody gets told that they can&#39;t race their car anymore. If you can&#39;t get parts for it, that&#39;s one thing, but to tell people they can run their cars anymore, just because they&#39;re xx (xxx???) years old is not right. The one thing I would add though, is something similar to the SS language, that once the ITAC goes through all the cars in the ITCS, cars more than xx (20? 25? 30? ??) years old are not eligible for any PCAs, short of reclassification (at which time specification changes could be made).

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Bill,

I think we are on the same page. I may not agree with the last idea but as long as people are willing to police their classes as parts get scarce...it should be a self fullfilling prophecy. One of teh reasons I race Mazdas is because of MazdaComp. You can still buy any bracket, nut, bolt - whatever - from them for a 19 year old RX-7. Makes racing a safe and fast car much easier.

AB

[Bill Miller]

I hear you Andy. But, I thought things like 12A and 13B rotor housing were getting scarce if not impossible to get new?

[Bruce Shafer]

Originally posted by Bill Miller@Sep 22 2005, 06:10 AM
Bruce Shafer has admitted that his car is not a 10/10ths effort, yet, as someone else pointed out

How many times are you going to repeat this BS? It&#39;s pretty clear you&#39;re out of material and have been for days. From now on state that I don&#39;t have MOTEC, not that my car is not a 10/10ths effort. Sheesh...

[Ron Earp]

Originally posted by Bruce Shafer@Sep 22 2005, 01:45 PM
How many times are you going to repeat this BS? It&#39;s pretty clear you&#39;re out of material and have been for days. From now on state that I don&#39;t have MOTEC, not that my car is not a 10/10ths effort. Sheesh...

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I think 10/10th in the minds of many = Motec since that is what Chet and the other "fast" ones use.

If yours is the car that made 195rwhp on the Mustang dyno then it is already making more power than any other car type in the class. Using the Motec will definitely pick you up some peak hp and improve that area under the curve a bit, you&#39;ll have an even larger edge on the class.

[Bruce Shafer]

Originally posted by rlearp@Sep 22 2005, 10:05 AM
I think 10/10th in the minds of many = Motec since that is what Chet and the other "fast" ones use.

If yours is the car that made 195rwhp on the Mustang dyno then it is already making more power than any other car type in the class. Using the Motec will definitely pick you up some peak hp and improve that area under the curve a bit, you&#39;ll have an even larger edge on the class.

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I’m simply asking for accuracy around here, nothing more, nothing less.

Instead of this phrase, “Bruce has admitted that his car is not 10/10ths”, which I never said, use this phrase, “Bruce has admitted that his car does not have MOTEC”, which I have said.

The second quote clearly doesn’t carry as much weight. There are a lot of people around here that are skeptical about the benefits of MOTEC on an IT car, and I’m one of them.

[Greg Amy]

I understand what Bruce is saying.

In my case, it&#39;s not that I don&#39;t have a 10/10th car, it&#39;s just that I didn&#39;t increase the compression 1/2 point or go to 40-thou-over pistons yet...so stop trying to accuse me of not doing a 100% (10/10 = 1.00 = 100%) effort. While we&#39;re at it, let&#39;s talk about getting some weight off my car; it&#39;s obviously uncompetitive this way. - GA

[JeffYoung]

Rob said:

So in summary, after all of the proposed changes are in place, will a BMW driver be forced to have a 10/10th (big$$) effort to compete with a 8/10th competitor? It may not have been the intent but it will certainly be the result.


Jeff says:

The reverse is true now. Only 10/10 RXs, 240s, etc. have a chance against an 8/10 BMW. Is that fair?

WEIGHT...IT&#39;s the WEIGHT. JAKE....ARE YOU LISTENING? lol

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by GregAmy@Sep 22 2005, 02:35 PM
I understand what Bruce is saying.

In my case, it&#39;s not that I don&#39;t have a 10/10th car, it&#39;s just that I didn&#39;t increase the compression 1/2 point or go to 40-thou-over pistons yet...so stop trying to accuse me of not doing a 100% (10/10 = 1.00 = 100%) effort. While we&#39;re at it, let&#39;s talk about getting some weight off my car; it&#39;s obviously uncompetitive this way. - GA

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:P

[Banzai240]

Originally posted by Rob
So in summary, after all of the proposed changes are in place, will a BMW driver be forced to have a 10/10th (big$$) effort to compete with a 8/10th competitor? It may not have been the intent but it will certainly be the result.

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One of the most rediculous conclusions I&#39;ve heard so far...

The 240Zs, RX-7s, etc., are already making 100% efforts... exploiting every possible allowance to try to gain some ground...

Meanwhile, some cars are able to decide to leave the MOTEC out, and leave that extra 1/2 point of compression on the table, and are still able to run up front...


I can summarize this much better, and from a position to understand the proposed changes MUCH better...

If the proposed changes get implemented, only a 10/10ths car will be able to compete at the front...

That is a whole lot more accurate statement, and is the way that racing should be... You&#39;ll also note that MAKE was not mentioned... Also the way racing should be...

The car of the month club needs to end...

[Bill Miller]

Originally posted by Bruce Shafer@Sep 13 2005, 04:41 PM
Yes, I provided data. Data that didn&#39;t fall into line with the preconcieved notions of this website and the ITAC.

I do feel it&#39;s possible for an IT M50 to be over 200 hp, but not much. I say 205 max with Motec and everything else including the kitchen sink.

Case in point, I have dyno sheets somewhere from my old &#39;95 M3 3L that pretty much had a motor in IT trim, intake, header, FF exhaust, custom dyno tuned Conforti chip (burned by Jim himself). 224 hp at the rear wheels and that car was rocket ship. The HP numbers quoted by some folks just don&#39;t add up.

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Bruce,

You can spin it any way that you want, but if you&#39;re leaving 10hp on the table (that&#39;s your number, not mine), how can you say that you&#39;ve got a 10/10ths effort? You could say "10/10ths excpet for the really fancy stuff", but point of fact is, it&#39;s not a 10/10ths effort. You may not like the reality of that, but that is a fact.

BTW, I&#39;m still waiting to hear how the restrictor plate impacted your lap times. Did you set that Sebring record before or after putting in the restrictor plate?