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mekilljoydammit
Jan 28, 2016

Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull
Interested to hear what you think of the STR NC compared to the FR-S and such. Threw the spec MX5 suspension package (valved Bilsteins, springs, sways) at our NC T4 wheel to wheel car, and it really feels like how it should have come from the factory now, even on street rubber on the street.

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Muffinpox
Sep 7, 2004
STR NC is a way better car than a stock BRZ, and edges out a STX BRZ in terms of suspension. They're similar enough cars overall that it really comes down to whether you want a roof, whether you want a 55 gallon drum of Spf 100 buried in your backyard and are in shape enough to be shirtless as much as STR requires to not get the worlds worst farmers tan, and whether you're really ready for the haha everyone thinks miatas are gay so we should make out as a joke to freak them out culture of Miatas.

BlackMK4
Aug 23, 2006

wat.
Megamarm

88h88 posted:

A friend of mine has a Golf R and it's pretty quick considering it's a Golf but the one thing that I really didn't like about it was the fact it was too quiet in terms of engine/exhaust noise. The noise is half the fun and that thing is too quiet for it to be any sort of 'experience'

Cut the intake snorkel to draw from the left side instead of being blocked off, remove the snow catcher from the intake box, remove the windstrip at the back of the hood, and put a downpipe on it.

Muffinpox
Sep 7, 2004
1965 Factory Five Type 65

AC Cobras and Daytona coupes are probably the number one car to own if you want attention from everyone, and I mean everyone. Cobras are good looking cars and Daytona coupes are gorgeous. When people come to Autocross to watch, they will almost always end up in one of the two. Most of the guys who own them describe having half an hour conversation with a random person whenever the car is stopped. Maybe only 15 minutes if you're on the highway and they have to scream out the window over the side pipes. Walk into your garage and someone is taking photos and gawking, this thing is rad as gently caress. How did you get in my garage you might ask but they'll just keep talking about the car. I used to love them too until I started racing with them. My love for the cars started to fade, I saw them all the time and they look great but they're not particularly fast, spin pretty frequently, usually are in a state of breaking, and the only time I've seen a car set on fire was an AC Cobra. Maybe a DSM. So when someone offhandedly mention I could drive theirs one time obviously I dropped all my Labor Day plans for it because holy poo poo I get to drive a Daytona coupe.

I'm more giddy than the nerdy band school girl being asked to prom by Johnny quarterback. A girl I dated owned a 1965 Ford Falcon once and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. The manual steering was heavy, slow, very boat like and objectively way worse than a E36 M3, but it was also he 60s. There's no excuse, BMW. It had a big honking metal steering wheel and even though it had lap belts, my first thoughts were about how hitting anything would cave my sternum in. But the interior looked awesome. And that was not just idle thought, the car had manual brakes which were absolutely horrendous. Godawful. Ever ridden a bike with a rubberized brake pad that clamps the rim in the rain? Pretty sure that does a better job of stopping. Going 20mph was all I dared and it was exhilarating. This coupe hits 60s on this course, I will never feel more alive.

It's time. The door swings open, it's the 60s all over again. It's like peering into an air bnb described as having a 70s aesthetic and finding yellow shag carpeting, faux wood panels, and a microwave with dials for temperature and time back when they were new and considered a real replacement to the oven instead of the 12 button Nuke my cold pizza machines they are now. Sheet metal everywhere. No interior, just sheet metal, gauges, and half bucket seats that only come up to your mid-back. Seat backs are for pussys, my friend. Everyone in the 60s had rippling abs, they didn't need shoulder bolsters. A big, long shifter sits in the middle. As culture has gotten more soft and coddled, shifters have grown smaller. The viper had a short, precise shifter in a car that looked like a giant dong. The sociologist in me wants to say this is culture moving towards people with small penises having to compensate with flashy, big, penis cars. But not the type 65, this is a mans car. Even the harness is the old school version with the Tetris like belt ends and latch that holds them together instead of the modern, easy to use CamLok safety star fish design. As a interesting note, dirt track cars still use the latch design since debris can foul up the camlok. What I'm saying here is dirt track is pure unadulterated old school racing.

The hood is long, the car feels long, but it doesn't obstruct your view. The hood doesn't fall away but it's not really present in your line of sight, you just know it's there. The windshield has an odd distorting effect at the edges, you get used to it but it's the first car I've noticed the bending of light around the edges. The interior is sheet metal and the motor and transmission take a priority, but it's not awkwardly offset. The clutch is offset well to the left, the gas is close enough to the tunnel that my foot gets pushed inwards toward the brake when I apply throttle. The brake is just close enough where I don't want to risk left foot braking due to mild foot overlap in sneakers. gently caress you, modern sole support. You're in a goddamn race car. I crank the motor and the v8 snarls to life. The lopey idle shakes the car. Not a little shake, the frame rocks. I don't know what kind of rigidity this has but I blip the throttle to hear the sidepipes sing and the chassis twists. The throttle isn't the precision mm that modern cars have, it's long and it's deliberate. The brake pedal doesn't load up with hydraulic force when pressed down. The shifter is somewhat direct but short and slotting it into gear can be a bit questionable. This isn't a car you drive delicately, you grab this by the horns and do everything with confidence.

I get the point out from the starter, the shifter reminds me of the 348 and I default to the dog box and try to start in second. The car doesn't mind but I put it back in first with a big throaty blip because side pipes are loving sweet despite the guarantee of being literally being burned. The clutch doesn't have great feel but it's useable, in fact all the inputs are manual and don't have great feel but are useable. The steering wheel is wood rimmed and offers not a ton of feedback aside from I am turning, but it looks cool. It also is very light underway, the 348 seems to have more steering effort required. It also has bias ply slicks which are something that's hard to relate to when all you've driven are tires with radial construction. It's a trust fall excerise, they have as much grip as modern Autocross tires and they have it at slip angles from zero to ninety degrees. They have terrible feedback and you're basically just assuming the car will grip. And it will. I don't doubt the car would be as alive as something as raw as the 348 on the same tires, but on these, it doesn't feel that way.

I realize the car is rather spacious, essentially a giant tin can, while staring at the starter waiting for the go ahead. I tested the brakes on the way up to the line and also determined I will be taking it rather easy. Then I get the go, bring up the revs and start. The slicks spin up and I launch with the big v8 blatting next to me and bouncing off the echo chamber interior. The red mist appears. There will be blood.

Your boy, Muffinpox, despite being somewhat fast, also makes mistakes. There's no redline on the tach so I assume I short shift at 5000rpm to get into second. I then miss second and put it in fourth. I'm too busy trying to unfuck my gear selection to notice that the front end is soft but very grippy into the tight right hander at the start. I blip the throttle and default to the 348 dog box penis shifter and throw it into third thinking its second. I will not realize the error of my ways until the end of the run becuase I'm driving a tuna can with a big loving V8. God bless you torque, Ford, and America.

Even in third the acceleration is what we call, substantial. Maybe it's a product of the bias plies but the rear will walk around when on deeper throttle inputs. It's not a precise dance of holding throttle and steering angle like in modern cars. You generally aim the steering wheel where you want to go and the car heads in that direction. When it starts heading in a direction you don't like, you change the steering and the car sorta heads that way instead. The Charleston to the whip and nae nae.

We come through a little left and an open right into a high speed left sweeper. The front of the car is surprisingly soft, it has a very predictable and progressive grip ramp up. I know how much speed I can carry through and the only real unknown is those loving brakes. I'm hitting a gear limited 60 through this section in the frs with brakes that are comparatively like the pain that results from kicking the edge of your couch; immediate, unrelenting, and stopping whatever you were doing a moment before. In most modern cars I'll give myself an extra 10ft for the unknown of brakes. In the type 65 it was more like 50-60feet which is a huge gap at these speeds. The brakes really hold the car back, more than anything else.

The high speed left sweeper turns into a right with a left kink right before it. After trying to figure out the brakes I power on towards the high speed left to compensate for lost speed and lift to tuck the nose and the saying "walk a mile in their shoes" pops into my head as the rear unloads and the car tries to go for a spin.

Back in the 60s, I believe suspension design was more of a "well that looks ok" rather than actual testing because I need to put in some serious lock to catch this. It's not as viscious or immediate as the viper or Ferrari could be but I'm glad the slicks like big slip angles because that was a big whoopsie. I make a mental note, don't lift or left foot brake while in throttle to prevent this. I can't actually left foot brake so my options are severely limited to maybe dying. But a manly death. Once I get it all taken in I begin to really push, I felt more comfortable being precise but the car really came alive and was faster when you started to throw it around and drive ahead of it. Lift throttle, use that rotation. Slide that read, use that grip profile. The car will stick but it won't do it the way a modern car will. That's what I really loved about it.

To be honest, I wouldn't throw any car I've driven designed in the 2000s out of bed. Underwhelming is how I would describe the worst of them, they don't have bad manners; they're just boring or too safe at worst. The steering is moderately fast, the braking is always adequate; if you get into a bad situation it's easy to sort out if you have good car control or the presence of mind to get on the clutch and brake. Stated flatly, any car made past 2000 probably drives better than the type 65. But the type 65 is not that kind of car, it's from an era when brute forcing physics was the way you got around the track the fastest, when add lightness was the answer instead of add downforce. You know that scene in Jurassic Park when they see the lumbering brontosaurus for the first time and they're speechless, not because it survived because it's there in the lumbering glory? That what driving this is like driving this is like, a peer into the past of the glory days of motorsports. And they were everything.

Beverly Cleavage
Jun 22, 2004

I am a pretty pretty princess, watch me do my pretty princess dance....
Damnit.. I was hoping for a picture. Great read as always!

For what it's worth, it took me a paragraph to figure out that you were referring to the FERRARI 348 as opposed to a stroked ford motor - which is a possibility in these cars. BTW - what motor? :)

Muffinpox
Sep 7, 2004

ssjonizuka posted:

Damnit.. I was hoping for a picture. Great read as always!

For what it's worth, it took me a paragraph to figure out that you were referring to the FERRARI 348 as opposed to a stroked ford motor - which is a possibility in these cars. BTW - what motor? :)

Whoops, posted an earlier draft without photos included. I believe this one has a 351 Windsor. We're near FFR so I see quite a few, it can be a bit hard to rememeber which one is running which motor.



kimbo305
Jun 9, 2007

actually, yeah, I am a little mad
Did the owner choose those tires as part of a conscious to cause the car to handle the way it does?
Put another way, would you run the Daytona on modern tires if it were your car?

BlackMK4
Aug 23, 2006

wat.
Megamarm
I hope you're saving all of these to put in a book. I'd buy it.

Muffinpox
Sep 7, 2004

kimbo305 posted:

Did the owner choose those tires as part of a conscious to cause the car to handle the way it does?
Put another way, would you run the Daytona on modern tires if it were your car?

I wouldn't mind the bias plies, the car didn't handle badly and they weren't bad tires per se, it just drives differently from how modern performance cars go about their business. The tires were a lot more gradual about everything and tolerant, it's a bit more like driving an all season that makes a ton of grip versus the high performance tires.


Edit: For clarity; the car didn't have vague kinda go that way handling; that's was only on power on oversteer. With modern tires you'd snap in a steering angle really quickly and hold it and then the car will sit at that attitude. The bias plies sit around that attitude but will shimmy a bit.


BlackMK4 posted:

I hope you're saving all of these to put in a book. I'd buy it.

I should start my own magazine.

Muffinpox fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Sep 5, 2016

mekilljoydammit
Jan 28, 2016

Me have motors that scream to 10,000rpm. Me have more cars than Pick and Pull

Muffinpox posted:

STR NC is a way better car than a stock BRZ, and edges out a STX BRZ in terms of suspension. They're similar enough cars overall that it really comes down to whether you want a roof, whether you want a 55 gallon drum of Spf 100 buried in your backyard and are in shape enough to be shirtless as much as STR requires to not get the worlds worst farmers tan, and whether you're really ready for the haha everyone thinks miatas are gay so we should make out as a joke to freak them out culture of Miatas.

Thanks for the perspective - I always get to wondering when I hear people fawning over the BRZs about actual merit as opposed to just people not being able to handle Miataness. I'm building an NA generation for roadrace duty and already have the T4 NC shared with my dad, so I think it's clear I'm not overly concerned about people's opinion regarding my farmers tan. ;)

The FFR 65 sounds like a hoot. It also brings to mind running an EProd car in roadrace duty, and how split people's opinions were on the radials that Hoosier was starting to introduce when we stopped running that car.

drgitlin
Jul 25, 2003
luv 2 get custom titles from a forum that goes into revolt when its told to stop using a bad word.

Muffinpox posted:


Coming out of the corner is where the AWD really shines, the car doesn't one tire fire out of the corner despite a good amount of torque being put down, and it doesn't push the way fwd would with a diff, but that's really the only note about the AWD and then it hits me. Marketing. Marketing made this car.

Turbo and AWD will never get away from the evo8/9 and early STis in America. The big, stupid loving park bench spoiler. The hood vents and scoops. The stare and drive. They are amazing cars to this day, but they are performance cars. They handle and perform well first, AWD and turbo second, and comfortable third. They were compromise cars based off of a base model but livability was the compromise. The golf r was built in the reverse order. It's a hotted up GTi that still handles like a GTi, but is just the answer to a focus groups "Well this car is great but what if it was more money and all wheel drive?" The extra 100hp and AWD don't really add anything to the GTI that wasn't there before. You don't need Daniel Day Lewis as the main lead in a third grade play, sometimes you just need to be proud you did something great with what you had.

It's not just America that demanded "a Golf GTI but with 300hp and awd," to be fair. Those cars really did change the game after a diet of European hot hatches.

drgitlin fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Sep 8, 2016

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bsamu
Mar 11, 2006

Thanks for making me jealous of your FRS with it's real power and actual suspension. Warranty is up in 9 months...

One of the scariest moments at autocross was a time when one of those FFR 65s came into the finish but the throttle stuck open. The brakes struggled with the task to slow the car down. Good thing the finish was competently designed and not aimed at anyone!

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