Is that a Muscle Car?

[Blooze]

The whole town is a buzz.  What in the world is going on down to that Blooze feller's garage?

That's what one of main topics over to the Daylight Donut yesterday morning.  There was speculation over at the Domino Parlor, but they was more interested in calculating if the onset of the Indian Casinos is going to take the local heat off their Texas Hold 'em game...

Did you see that truck?  Fanciest damn thing I ever saw...

What was that on the side?  Computer something...

I asked Blooze and he just said it was a new job, that the racin' ain't workin' out so good.

I hope to shout, the old fart cain't hardly see nothin' at all.  I spect them NASCAR folks told him they wasn't gonna renew his license, like the state done old George Last year when he had to call up his daughter to find out his middle name.

Blooze don't run no NASCAR car.

So what, you know what I mean, you ignorant bastard...

So I went by the shop last night for a visit, see if I could find out something.  They had the shop closed up tighter than a drum.  That Willis guy's one eyeball was hoppin all over the place like it does when he gets excited.

Whew, now that is one spooky sum-bitch, that Willis...

Hmmm, I shore do wonder what they got goin' on up there...

Yo, Louise!!  How about a heater on my coffee here and another one of them Bear Claws.  You better not tell Mary, she'll be feedin' me cereal for a week if she finds out...

 

[Blooze]

Where you been all mornin?  You looked like somebody peed in your Post Toasties...

Oh, that goofy old painter that works up at Blooze's shop cheezed me off good this mornin'.

Really, what happened?

Well I goes up there to see how much it would take for him to paint the ole fliver that fancy red colour like they got on that Mustang...  You know the one?

Yeah, the one that looks purple sometimes, and gold and blue... that one?

Yeah, so anyhow... he says it would cost me $3000 for him just to shoot it, didn't count fixin' none of the dents and dings.

$3000!!  Holy Smokes!

That's what I thought.  I told him Earl Schieb would paint it for $200 and he says I ought to take it to Earl Schieb then.  I just might, by golly...

Hey, did you see what's been going on up there?  What was on that truck?

They was a car over in the corner covered with one of them dust cover things.  I couldn't quite tell.  I started to wander over there to take a peek and that Willis guy come up and put the Evil eye on me...

George down to the UPS says they been gettin' lots of Corvette parts in there lately.

Well, hell that don't mean nothin'.  The way I hear it, Blooze wrecks two or three of them a week.

I sure wonder what it is...  What's good today.

I had me one of them Jelly filled donuts, got that crap all over my shirt...

I was wondering what that was...  Hey Louise, how 'bout a cup and one of them cream filled long johns...  Well the chocolate ones of course.

$

[Blooze]

"It's a what?!"

A Panoz Esperante GTLM.

"Where in the hell does that come from?"

"Georgia."  Willis likes knowing stuff that other people don't, he was having a ball.

"Well, it looks like a pretty damned fancy race car."

"That's exactly what it is."

"So what are you guys doin' with it.?"

So Willis set out to explaining it to them...  I decided that my stomach wasn't up to hearing this so I opted out, citing a case of the green apple quick steps, and went up to the house for a nap.

What he explained to them is that we had us a deal with Panoz Racing to do some R & D work with their race car.  Specifically, they wanted us to see if we could develop our transmission and suspension system to work in their race car.  The real kicker was that if we were successful that we would be in line to be the primary vendor for transmissions and suspension parts at their factory.

They wanted us to build the car, and then since all the records up at the FMSCAA got lunched when that computer had an upsee daisy, they want us to set about setting new times for the car in every venue that we can run in.  The minimum acceptable result is a top 1000 time.  And besides that - they want us to win North American Regional outright - we have to beat the R2 cars as well as be the top R3 car.  And there is the big Susuka race over in Japan, we got to win that too, and the World Cup... we got to win that too.

"How the hell you gonna do that?  Ole Blooze hasn't been doin' so hot on the Real World circuit lately..."

"Keep it up smart ass, an you gonna find out what if feels like to be a nut when I get my 24" breaker bar out..."

They don't care about none of that.  They like what they've heard about the new suspension and stuff and they're giving us a chance to prove it.  They're measuring stick does sort of piss me off though.  What they figure, is if we can get into the top 1000 with our times, then a real driver ought to really be able to kick some butt.

But things is what they is.  And besides that, we all three get one of their sports cars to drive around while we're on this project.  The red one out there is mine.

So all the curious looky-loos finally left, and we got to work on the car...

You could hear them as the walked down the drive...

"...Georgia?  Whoever heard of such a thing?  I thought all they made down there was peaches and paper.  How's he say that again?  Eespiranza?  Hell of a thing..."

$

[Blooze]

Well, time has passed and the good citizens of this little berg have gone on to debate the relative merits of the new City Manager and his support of the Sales Tax extension.  Just for those who might give a monumental crap - to come out in favour of a tax increase is tatamount to political suicide in this part of the country.

I wish those folks well, and I hope they are behind me at the Un-employment line...

But along with a change in tax structure has come a curiosity about how modifications to R? cars announce themselvews on the leader boards.  My latest tune has run from .003 detail to 1.0 - more or les, it has turned into a "show me if you dare..." type of thing.

$

[Blooze]

I been chompin' on the bit wanting to get back to this.  The current challenge has me mired in building A classed cars and running the new tracks.  But I took a day out, one - to whack some hours off my hotlap time (top 1000 was the goal - I made it, thank you ) and to try some ideas.

Some time ago, Fit asked for some advise concerning the Blooze Toon.

[Aside]
For those of you that are wondering, "Toon" is a noun, and the word "Tune" is a verb.  This is my rather lame attempt to clarify the language rather than muddy the waters any worse than There, Their, and They're have already done...

Examples:

• I spent the day tuning my Boss 429.  It is probably the best Toon I have ever created.
• How many Toons do you have for the Boss 429?
• There are many that doubt my tuning skills because of my age.
• What sort of valid Toon can an old fart like you come up with?  Leave left turn signal on and proceed at Speed Limit - 15 mph?

[/Aside]

Anyhow, fit was asking about the McClaren R2 car.  I found the car to be a bit too intense (the damned thing drives faster than I see) for experiments so I decided to work them out with the Acura #42.  They have the same Wb pretty much, and I figure that what I find for the Acura will translate to the McClaren when the time comes and I have the Acura dialed in.

Now, the Acura 42 is the Red Headed Step child of R4 cars.  It is relegated to the back row if it gathers the balls to enter a race.  It is almost guaranteed to finish last if the Computer has any say about it.  So, I started working on it.  I have changed almost everything that can be changed and I think I have come up with a workable unit.  The computer don't think much of it still - you bet, back row baby...  but, it runs much, much better than that in my opinion.  Here is the setup - hopefully some of you will have a chance to try it out.  I would ask you to drive the car stock on a few tracks first, then follow up with this build - let me know if it is better, or, let me know that I am in error and the new Toon suques.

$


Gears

• FD = 4.18
• 1-6= 3.50   2.23   1.59   1.26   1.03   0.86

Setup

Parameter	Front	Rear
Weight Bias	54.5%
Tires	29	29
Camber	-1.1	-0.7
Toe	0.0	-0.3
Caster	5.2
ARB +0%	12.71	15.28
Springs +0%	400.4	334.3
Height	na	na
Rebound	8.4	6.8
Bump	4.3	3.6
Aero	88	160
Brakes	48	104
Front Diff	na	na
Rear Diff	48	48
Torque	na

Hopefully I can get this to make a good showing in the face of the AWD Audi #1 that seems to be the sheeple car of choice for this class.

$

[Spiny Anteater]

I'd agree that the NSX seems to be the worst of the R4 cars (at least in my garage). If you want more confirmation of this, you can sort your garage by PI and it puts the R4 cars in amongst the S Class cars. While I don't have enough S Class cars to get an accurate breakdown, I can say that the NSX is the only one in my garage with a PI of under 935, the rest are between 935 and 952 except for the #3 Fairlady which is between 952 and 963 and the Viper which is between 963 and 979 (note I haven't got all the R4 cars). And I thought we were told that the R-Class cars had been balanced within the classes

[Blooze]

I dint know it would do that - sort the R cars for ya like that.  I will doing that post haste.

I managed to run a 54.291 on Road Atlanta Short with it last night.  That time is currently ranked 397 in the R4 class.

I created a ficticious user named Top1000 and populated his time sheet by taking the top 1000 time from each of the tracks (it takes about 15 minutes to do this for the RWT and Original tracks we use for ranking) - Anyhow...

Rankings

Car	Quick	Flow	Twist	Power
#42 Acura	181.230	141.109	141.357	177.652
Top1000	180.020	141.579	137.033	174.350

[Blooze]

I was having a little trouble with the Acura pushing so I pulled 'er into the shop and told Willis not to even talk to me until he had it right.  That pisses him off, but it also gets him rollin' - just to show me...

The things in red were changed from the first post above...

Gears

• FD = 4.18
• 1-6= 3.50   2.23   1.59   1.26   1.03   0.86

Setup

Parameter	Front	Rear
Weight Bias	54.5%
Tires	29	29
Camber	-1.1	-0.7
Toe	0.1	-0.3
Caster	5.0
ARB +0%	12.71	15.28
Springs +0%	400.4	334.3
Height	na	na
Rebound	8.5	6.8
Bump	4.5	3.6
Aero	91	170
Brakes	48	104
Front Diff	na	na
Rear Diff	48	48
Torque	na

I think she's running pretty good now.  The #22 Viper has more power and can probably put the Acura down, but the little outfit isn't gonna roll over - it will be counted at the end...

$