Final event of the year! Unfortunately, a stark contrast from my performance last year – didn’t get a great run in and finished 27th overall – though we had about 10+ nationally competitive drivers at the event today. The course standard fair for CCSCC, starting from the south and running in the typical M configuration.…
Swapped these tires from our NB Miata, as we were planning to sell the car anyway. Right away noticed that, even though the tire is the same 205, runs much wider (nearly an inch) compared to the 205/45-16 RS3s. Thanks to the Miata being kind on the tires, the flipped side had very little wear,…
These tires were leftover tires on the OEM wheels that came with the Evo when I bought it. True to form, they were still pretty grippy, though dated, and had a lot of tread. Compared to modern, fresh tires, they probably give up 1s on any decent sized course. Just trying to finish these off so I…
This nearly confirms to be that the increase in moly is what the Mini really likes. This is a “thinner” oil than the Euro 5w30 – though, from the tested numbers, it’s actually thicker over all temperature ranges. I was mistaken in my autox run count as you may note from the report – it…
Guess I should have changed the oil sooner on this run. This was actually an earlier oil change than I had originally planned too. Was originally going to stay on this oil through the winter until 15k miles or so to more closely match the previous run. Good thing that I did not. This run…
Like many autocrossers, I’ve been hunting for a solid action camera that will record good, clear video without the pricetag of the GoPro. I’ve been using my own point and shoot for the last couple of years, which takes great video. However, it fails when it comes to sound (wind noise), and in general it’s…
I enjoyed my RS3’s on the Evo, and like these very much as well. The tires were very grippy and handle heat well. They also seem to handle bigger slip angles much better than the Dunlops. They performed admirably while I had them, but really fell off after 140, 150 runs, as you could expect.…
Irony. The Amsoil Euro 5w30 turned out to be the worst so far, despite having less runs and less miles than the previous sample with Amsoil ZROD. My suspicions concerning the Mini liking molybdenum are strengthening. With this sample, there’s about a 50% spike in iron wear – not good IMO. The rest of the…
A few changes planned for 2015 but nothing major… I guess the biggest change is that I now co-own a 1993 Mazda Miata. Pretty random and I don’t imagine I’ll be driving it too often, but I’ll definitely take it for a few runs, help set it up etc. It was mainly for my other…
A big year of me focusing on the Mini & autocross, but some of the Evo impressions were captured here. The setup was Ohlins, stock bars, WL bushings, and my first year of trying the ER ACD tune, which helped turn-in. It was only later that I found out the car’s massive understeer was due…
QL Motorsport & Car Journal 