First event of the year in the Evo was the annual CCSCC school & Test n Tune. Had a great time out here last year in the Mini and I thought it’d be a good chance for me to take out the Evo, get more seat time in the car and get more comfortable with the car overall.

My instructor for the school this go around is very familiar not only with turbo AWD cars but suspension tweaking and tuning as well. He gave the Evo setup his approval, saying he wouldn’t change a thing, which is good enough for me. This was my first event with the Evo after changing the springs from 10/8 to 8/10, caster plates, and rear bar. The car felt great, neutral to oversteer-y on most elements, and some understeer when taking certain corners too hot. Really happy with the car and so glad the balance is good now. If anything I’d almost consider going back to the stock bar, as I didn’t really explore either of the looser ACD maps this event. I’ll probably leave it alone for the time being. The only thing that came up was, with the rear diff refreshed and being basically brand new, the gear oil had gone from yellow to a deep gray by the middle of the event. Ran to Autozone during lunch and flushed the fluid, and the car felt much better. I’ll probably give it another flush soon until the wear settles down a bit. The new camera mount on the bar worked great, no hiccups there as well.

Times ran pretty similarly on Saturday and Sunday, running just a hair quicker on Sunday. The only disappointing thing was that I was hoping to get a total of 40 runs this weekend, but I got half of that – 13 runs on Saturday + 1 from the instructor, and only 6 runs at the TnT on Sunday. The course was the same both days, so the 6 runs for the TnT is a bit of a mystery. I’m actually really tempted to drive the Evo for events a lot more now, this thing is a blast.

Just for fun:

Fast run (51.031) which I apparently coned quite a bit…

Things to work on (Evo):

• Continue getting comfortable in the car
• Experiment with getting on the throttle very early to induce power oversteer
• Closer to the cones for better line

2015 Run Count: 52

Notes (Evo):

• Set up is now good!! 8/10, caster plates, rear sway bar and adjusted diff and the car is behaving very neutral.
• Played around with psi a little, 38 all around felt decent – will try lower next few events
• Shock settings – daily driving : 8 from soft all around
• Shock settings – race: DF – 17 from stiff, PF: 20 from stiff, Rears: 17 from stiff, but could go 16 from stiff
• May set up for more rear grip and then employ the ACD maps