I have completed my baseline run finally - like Fit, I been draggin' ass the last few days with seasonal cold type crap and getting little sleep at strange times thruout the day.
The baseline run was with the car exactly as it comes from the showroom floor. My initial impression of the car is that it is a little quick in the rear end, forcing me to spend too much time waiting on the car before even slightly bringing the throttle up. Unlike Newt, my impression of the car after it hits a rumble strip is that it goes piss-limber-squirrelly. I think the extreme spring rate is the primary contributing factor, an issue that should be improved by a low 70's SWR. From the positive side of the ledger is the car's turn in, and the g@120 score of 1.31. The car tracks quite well, example: I can pull the hill on Road Atlanta with the Line a brilliant red without a hint of squeal (I have tire noise turned up so that I can hear scrubbing when it occurs.)
Like Newt, I destroyed my previous run - this due to my having run the car on all of the other tracks before hitting the Time Trials with it. I came up with a
228.574 and ranked at
836.
NOTE - Our good friend Flying Scot is ranked #17 on this Trial with a 214.296 
Now, where in the hell does he find 14 seconds on that track? I mean, I suck - but I don't suck that bad.Anyway, to continue - I've invested quite a bit of time in this car and sort of got used to the balance of it. Additionally, it is balanced similarly to the 330 P4. My plan is to preserve as much of the stock balance and turn in as I can while bringing the ass end of the thing under control.
The gear set intrigued me and there are no engine parts so there is no power graph so I went ahead and made a dyno run, additionally, I made a run with the thing in Auto to varify the shift points (redline across the board). Shifting at the Redline with the transmission tuned as it is has the "Next Gear" entering at or just past the Torque peak. However, there is quite a bit of "headroom" between the redline (6500) and the actual rev limiter (7400). First and Second can be run to 7200 and produce substantially more torque at that point than can be found in the "Next Gear". 3rd, 4th, and 5th can be run to 7000 rpm. (an easy way to remember is the first two gears are just past 7000 rpm, the others are right on or just before 7000 rpm) The problem is that running the current gear out to that rpm also changes the entry point by 400 rpm, thereby giving up some "lug" space, something that can be valuable on twisty tracks, especially in the Snakes. The car has a terminal velocity somewhere in the 165 mph area, and since there is no adjustable aero on the thing, that is about it. However, it takes most of a trip around Nissan to get there.
So, I will build an ersatz 5 speed that extends the run in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Then it will change hats and get the car to 156 or 158 as quickly as possible - 6th will be used to gather in the remaining 7 mph. A transmission constructed in this fashion will have a problem with down shifts from 5th to 4th, and perhaps the top of 4th into 3rd. If you build one and go racing with full damage, you can blow your engine if you are not careful.
I like this car, and if I can do it, I want to turn it into a U-Class Mongooser, as well as S Class. This means another vehicle, and a paint job that cannot be painted. Custom paint jobs for this car should be interesting.
Here's my numbers vs. my current top S car (the only other car with equivalent numbers in my garage at this time.)
| Car | QR | OT | TR |
| Stealth 998 AWD | 174.037 | 119.576 | 135.249 |
| Stock Cupra | 180.590 | 122.818 | 139.767 |
