Time to CAGE my S13... NitinJ is back!... PICS!...

[longdy]

cant wait for the next UPDATE!!!...lol

[ssteve]

ok you win pal. Everyone stiffen their chassis as much as they want. I'm wrong and have no idea what I'm talking about as well as anyone associated with me. Track records in unlimited cars were a fluke, same with the multiple Nasa tt track records etc. Chassis stiffness is a joke at this level anyways so whatever.

[racepar1]

Why should I trust your opinion? So far you have said nothing but what you read in magazines and "heard" from other people. I have no reason to change my opinion due to what some guy says on the internet. Besides that just beacuse it supposedly "works" does not make it right. Something tells me that it is a band-aid for a larger problem with certain specific chasis and cannot be universally applied. The ONLY people I have ever heard preaching about how a chasis can be too stiff is internet forum nobodys and you have given me no reason to believe that you are any different.

[Def]

Originally Posted by ssteve

ok you win pal. Everyone stiffen their chassis as much as they want. I'm wrong and have no idea what I'm talking about as well as anyone associated with me. Track records in unlimited cars were a fluke, same with the multiple Nasa tt track records etc. Chassis stiffness is a joke at this level anyways so whatever.

Well all the people that REALLY know(top level motorsport engineers) want as stiff a chassis as possible. That's good enough for me.

I'm with racepar1, if the car went faster by making the chassis flex more, there was an issue with the setup before, or the driver is/was just not driving the car to its full potential before the change.


As for my personal experience, every time I've ever made a car stiffer it felt faster and easier to control to me. The chassis is an undamped spring in series with the suspension, so the stiffer you make it the less it affects grip as it flexes so things end up more consistent and more controlled.

[ssteve]

you guys are completely right. Im sorry I was incorrect and spoke out of line.

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by ssteve

you guys are completely right. Im sorry I was incorrect and spoke out of line.

Dude you don't have to kiss ass. Def and I would just trust the opinions and theories of professional racecar engineers over HPDE and time attack guys. It may work, but it is just a band-aid for a larger problem, just like removing the rear sway on s-13's to gain more rear grip under acceleration. It DOES work (I know I've tried it), but there are other un-desired side effects and it is not the best way to fix the problem.

[chibo]

Originally Posted by racepar1

It may work, but it is just a band-aid for a larger problem,

We're in 20 year old cars - we don't have the budget to fix everything 'properly' so bandaids will be the best that you can get in a lot of cases. What is the best in the open wheel world is probably not at all practical in a 20 year old car with limited suspension design, chassis design, etc.

By the way, it'd appear there is a too stiff. There really isn't much of any real stuff on the internet about chassis rigidity but anyway....

"You don't want the chassis to become another spring in series and flex, explains Wesoloski. "All tuning should be done with the springs and dampers. The goal is to make the chassis as stiff as possible without punishing the car. Too stiff and loads go way up."

-Steve Wesoloski

Racepar, to ssteve you're just another condescending internet nobody, why should he change his opinion because of you? It's the internet - chill out.

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by chibo

We're in 20 year old cars - we don't have the budget to fix everything 'properly' so bandaids will be the best that you can get in a lot of cases. What is the best in the open wheel world is probably not at all practical in a 20 year old car with limited suspension design, chassis design, etc.

I am sick of this attitude. "Oh it's a 20 year old $2000 or less car, who cares if it is done right?" You know who cares and is willing to spend the time and money? ME! I am not alone either!

By the way, it'd appear there is a too stiff. There really isn't much of any real stuff on the internet about chassis rigidity but anyway....

-Steve Wesoloski

The part of that quote that SHOULD be bold is the part where it says "all tuning should be done through the springs and shocks".

Racepar, to ssteve you're just another condescending internet nobody, why should he change his opinion because of you? It's the internet - chill out.

Exactly! Neither one of us needs to change our opinions based on what the other says! We both should just do our own research and come to out own conclusions. I am not trying to change anyone's opinions or win any arguments, I am simply defending my OWN opinions. Let's just say that Weslowski is right. Is it really realistically possible for 99.99999999% of HPDE and time attack guys to reach the point of "too stiff"? No it isn't! Even the big-time time attack guys do not have the resources to do that kind of engineering on their cars. If they ever make it there it is pure luck 99.999999% of the time.

[usdm180sx]

FUCK. This is NITINJ'S THREAD. Take your stupid arguments over who has the biggest brain/e-penis to pm.

[ssteve]

I'm not argueing. I figured I would throw out something I have gained from my experience and I was told I'm wrong. I have nothing to prove and could care less if people here take me seriously. I have nothing to gain here so racer1 is right... I don't know what I'm talking about and that's that. The end.

[ssteve]

dude you should really relax. From your post you seem a little high strung for no reason.

My motive of opporation is to simply do what works. Whatever makes the car go around the track faster is what I'm interested in.. I know for a fact that just making the chassis as stiff as possible won't do that. Maybe it is a bandaid, but if it's a bandaid for a $10,000 problem I have no problems using it as a tuning aid. Now if I was building a tube frame car then fine, you may be right as I have no experience with then and have never seen the data or setup logs saying otherwise.

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by ssteve

dude you should really relax. From your post you seem a little high strung for no reason.

My motive of opporation is to simply do what works. Whatever makes the car go around the track faster is what I'm interested in.. I know for a fact that just making the chassis as stiff as possible won't do that. Maybe it is a bandaid, but if it's a bandaid for a $10,000 problem I have no problems using it as a tuning aid. Now if I was building a tube frame car then fine, you may be right as I have no experience with then and have never seen the data or setup logs saying otherwise.

I wanna know WHY it works and HOW I can do it better.

[ssteve]

well in theory the chassis would be too stiff for the suspension and IF you had the resources to dyno your suspension and have everything compliment each other then your right there's no such thing as too stiff. All I'm saying is that for a street car, with out of the box coilovers you can very well make the chassis too stiff. In all actuality for the vast majority of 240 owners they would be best off to stiffen things up A LOT and drop a tad of spring rate and sway bar if they were on street tires, but IMO what I see a lot of is over spring under dampened cars with a lot of bar which is not going to let the suspension actually work. Ill be purchasing a s13 here shortly and be speaking more with my suspension tuner about setup but from my initial thoughts I think there's very few 240's that are truelly setup properly. I hope to have mine done and on track with only suspension/tires/brakes shortly. Once I get that sorted ill be doing a cage and more power so it will be interesting to see how much of my suspension needs to be attended to. Nice thing is, is that it will be with the widely available KW V3's so it's something that will be fairly easy to duplicate.

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by ssteve

well in theory the chassis would be too stiff for the suspension and IF you had the resources to dyno your suspension and have everything compliment each other then your right there's no such thing as too stiff. All I'm saying is that for a street car, with out of the box coilovers you can very well make the chassis too stiff. In all actuality for the vast majority of 240 owners they would be best off to stiffen things up A LOT and drop a tad of spring rate and sway bar if they were on street tires, but IMO what I see a lot of is over spring under dampened cars with a lot of bar which is not going to let the suspension actually work. Ill be purchasing a s13 here shortly and be speaking more with my suspension tuner about setup but from my initial thoughts I think there's very few 240's that are truelly setup properly. I hope to have mine done and on track with only suspension/tires/brakes shortly. Once I get that sorted ill be doing a cage and more power so it will be interesting to see how much of my suspension needs to be attended to. Nice thing is, is that it will be with the widely available KW V3's so it's something that will be fairly easy to duplicate.

Now this post I can agree with. In THEORY there is no such thing as too stiff, you just have to match the suspension. TOTALLY true. I believe that matching the suspension is the way to do it, not to "tune" the chasis stiffness. As for over stiff 240 suspension you are for the most part correct as well. The more I learn about suspension geometry, load transfer, etc...., and the more on-track experience I get, the more I see that the stock sways are fine. They just need to be adjustable. In the front of 240's a significant amount of spring is required just to keep the suspension from bottoming as there is like 2" of travel. In the rear however stiff springs are not necessary.

Nittin: Give us an update so we have something else to talk about!!!! PLEASE!!!!!!

[MomentumGT]

Just saw the thread and didn't want to shuffle through the useful & useless banter. Nice build and hope everything works out for you. As far as NASA not allowing the cage through the firewall. . . they do. . . our car's cage goes right through the firewall and is welded into the shock towers.

Buttonwillow is definitely doable in 2:00 and under with limited hp. In an actual race we got a 1:58 with bumping and grinding with a pathetic 240whp-ish. Also, a good friend of mine who races Honda Challenge H4 has touched 2:00 with his crx with 115whp. Since I've been MIA, not just here but also on the race track, I was hoping more s-chasis's would be out there tearing it up, but not so. Hopefully that can be turned around.

Good luck with the build and if you need any ideas to help you move forward let me know.

-Jon

ps if you're really serious about this build please reconsider a pre-fab'd cage.

[240sxScores]

Originally Posted by MomentumGT

Good luck with the build and if you need any ideas to help you move forward let me know.

-Jon

ps if you're really serious about this build please reconsider a pre-fab'd cage.

Why would he want a pre-fab'd cage over a custom built one? I always thought custom cages would be better then a pre-fab'd cage.

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by 240sxScores

Why would he want a pre-fab'd cage over a custom built one? I always thought custom cages would be better then a pre-fab'd cage.

You got the point backwards. Nittin was originally going to go with a pre-fabbed cage and modify it.

[Nikeboy355]

The last two weeks have been slow mostly because I lost my job...
I was laid off and I'm looking for something else right now...

I worked for a property management company that had to sell their properties off due to the bad economy... So they let me go just like that... Only my second job in the last 10 years...

We are also waiting for one other project to be finished up before we can get the car right next to the welder...

But the cage is still coming... I cancelled my order with S&W Race Cars and we are going bend it all out ourselves...

The cage design is done though... I know exactly how I want it to be...

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by Nikeboy355

The last two weeks have been slow mostly because I lost my job...
I was laid off and I'm looking for something else right now...

I worked for a property management company that had to sell their properties off due to the bad economy... So they let me go just like that... Only my second job in the last 10 years...

We are also waiting for one other project to be finished up before we can get the car right next to the welder...

But the cage is still coming... I cancelled my order with S&W Race Cars and we are going bend it all out ourselves...

The cage design is done though... I know exactly how I want it to be...

Ugh, that sucks man! The economy is going whacky and you got the short straw I guess. Good luck on the job hunt, it's tough out there. Gotta get your own shit back in place before you can get the car's shit in place.

[Fat Felix]

I'm no race car engineer, but it'd take an enormous amount of engineering to reach that point. For example, I just got home from a Gran Am race in Utah where my buddy and I went to help crew for a race team that campaigns a RX-8 that he's been driving on and off this past season. That thing looks stiff as possible since the entire chassis is pretty much made of square tubing and square stock.

However stiffness of springs, dampers, and sway bars goes hand in hand with the amount of stickiness your tires and track surface creates.

I must agree with ssteve that most out of box coilovers for 240's are oversprung and under damped for the street. That combined with street tires makes for good drifting action, but bad for gripping action.

Anyways, time for update please! It's awesome to see more people with a 240 doing it "right" for a road race style car. Very inspirational!

[Nikeboy355]

I cancelled my order for the pre-fabbed cage...
Now I'm making a complete custom cage... A much better design to tell you the truth...

We are taking some ideas from this cage... Along with the tons of pics of 240 cages that I have...
Jackson Rally Open Class STI Build - DezertRangers.com

Especially how the top a pillar is done, how the cage is mounted to the chassis, and how the front section between the dash bar and the front shock towers...

[Fat Felix]

^^Dammn, beautiful cage! The majority of those welds are suuuper sexy! How come they didn't box the rear shock towers completely?

ps. I'm a friend of Nasif and Daryl's. Daryl told me a long time ago about how you smoked Nasif in your stockish car at Buttonwiillow a while back.. haha

[FABitALL]

ps. I'm a friend of Nasif and Daryl's. Daryl told me a long time ago about how you smoked Nasif in your stockish car at Buttonwiillow a while back.. haha[/quote]


LMAO!!... hahaha thats wat i like to hear.

[FABitALL]

damn nit... im tired of waiting for updates... lol

[dirtdiggler666]

damn i love sexy tig welds on 4130

but i really dont want to know what that cage cost ok ok i do

[Nikeboy355]

Originally Posted by FABitALL

damn nit... im tired of waiting for updates... lol

Haha... You wait till you see the todo list my friend!...

He's knocking out the Dodge Ram project before starting on mine but the design and materials are ready to go...

Once it starts, it'll move pretty quick... Within weeks...
Some people have been asking about fabbing up LCAs and cages but let's see how mine comes out...

I can't wait for mine but here are some pics from a couple days ago...









or here is the link to where I posted it on my blog...
NitinJ was Here...: Fabbing with Jason...

[Mr.GT30]

i'm not sure what u want to do with ur car, but the cage that u order it little too thick. ( according to SCCA pro.) but it will be fine it just more weight to ur car. and u need atlease 2 bars from main hoop to a-pillar to compete in pro class that only if u want to caompete pro-class Formula Drift
PS. formular d use same rule with SCCA PRo

[turtl631]

That rallycar cage is pretty nice but looks a bit overkill for a track car. I wouldn't go so overboard with bracing the rear shocktowers, just from the standpoint of diminishing returns and the weight penalties.

[96Turbo]

wow, that STi is insane!

lookin forward to see what you guys come up with!

[131project]

This might help http://www.scca.org/documents/Solo%20Rules/2008_Solo_Rules_2.pdf

1.5 .095 DOM is all you need, keep your bars to a minimum, your lap times will thank you later.

Be careful with an off-road fabricator as we tend to over build.

Good luck with the build