vwong

Well, at the Open House yesterday, I was telling Kaikai114 and Cobaltforge that I'll be taking my TSX to the track for the first time. And they were interested to come. So I figure I post the info on here for those who are interested in going. The info is as follows:

July 23, 2005
Redlinetrackevents.com is hosting a track day at California Speedway at Fontana, CA. This will be the infeild only (no oval). It's $185 for one day or $350 for both days (they'll have a track day on the 24th also). Here's the link, http://www.redlinetrackevents.com/event_calispwy.html.

I'll be there on the 23rd (not sure about the 24th yet). I'll be there in my Prelude in the morning for some practice session, then I'll be running their Time Attack. My wife will take the TSX to the track around noon time, and I'll take the TSX out in the afternoon for couple of sessions. If anyone's interested, go on the link I posted above to sign up (if you want to run). If you just want to watch, I believe it's free, so just show up on that day.

Hope to see some of you there.

vwong

Just wanted to remind everyone who's interested to go. If you'd like to try your TSX out on a track, there's still space available. Since I broke the crankshaft in my Prelude, I don't know if it will be fixed before then. If not, I'll just go in the TSX all day Saturday, and probably half day Sunday. Hope to see some of you there.

BlackTSXer

your going to take those nice rims to the track?

vwong

Yeah, but I won't be running the car all day. The track surface is quite smooth, I'll just have to remind myself to stay off the red/white rumble strips.

BlackTSXer

I c.. i might go if my friends go.. theyre more into the rx7 corolla 240 thing ..

CobaltForge

Damn Vincent! Kai is going out of town this weekend, and I have an appointment that came up. I'll try to make it if the appointment is short.

vwong

Hope to see you there, Cobalt. I still don't know which car I will take tomorrow morning. The TSX will be there for sure in the afternoon, but I'm debating if I should take the Prelude out in the morning. I just got my Prelude back last night.

vwong

Well, just came back from dinner after the track event today. It was hot and humid at the track. I was helping instructing in couple of sessions, but I still get a chance to run my cars. I ended up bringing the Prelude in the morning, and my wife drove the TSX out around lunch time. Overall, I had 2 sessions in the Prelude and 2 sessions in the TSX (while one of those 2 TSX sessions, my friend took my Prelude out in the same session).

My impressions:
The stock brakes SUCK for track use which I had expected before taking it out. After about 2 laps, the brakes started to fade. It was so bad that I had couple of near misses with the tire barrier apexes. When the time comes to replace those pads, I'll definitely upgrade them to something else.

The suspension is nice. My setup is JDM-spec'd TEIN Flex, set at 10 front/16 rear (16 being full stiff); Progress 22mm adj. rear swaybar, set at full stiff; and Ingall rear camber kit, with -2.3 degrees of camber. The Flex took the bumps quite nicely. I didn't feel much bumps in the TSX. The car still understeered (as expected). I think it needs at least 25mm rear swaybar to bring the car more toward neutral handling on a track. If I were to use my TSX for track use, I would go with a custom rear swaybar setup. The car didn't have much body roll. When my friend (driving my Prelude) was behind me, he noticed that the car cornered pretty flat.

In the session when my friend was driving my Prelude while I was driving my TSX, I noticed that my TSX was able to hang with my Prelude at the beginning of the straight (just exited the hairpin turn in 2nd), but my Prelude would pull away from top of 3rd to 4th gear. When we were back in the garage, I found out that my friend was exiting the hairpin turn in 3rd in my Prelude. I think if he were to exit that turn in 2nd, the TSX wouldn't be able to hang with my Prelude. BTW, I'm estimating that my Prelude now (after the 2nd rebuild) is putting closed to 200whp, and it's on 11 lbs 16" wheels.

As expected, the leather seat was definitely not good for track use. I slided on my seat whenever I took a turn. I was tired trying to brace myself for every turn.

Another thing about driving the TSX was that it was so quiet that I couldn't rely on engine note to change gear. I bounced off the rev limiter several times. I need an exhaust at least.

Overall, I think the TSX was fun on the track. It would make my experience much more plesant if I had at least better brakes. Oh...also, I was surprised that there was NO RUBBING with my 19s and my aggressive drop.

I'll post an in-car video clip later.

Tsx536

Nice writeup Vwong. Wow... I can't believe that you didn't rub with your car dropped that low. That's really cool man.

Get a CAI...You'll definitely be able to hear the engine then

Can't wait to see the in-car video clip

TheMirror

Cool.

CobaltForge

Nice vwong! Sorry I couldn't make it. My house-viewing appointment ran a little bit long. Glad that you had fun and that the 19s didn't rub! How they didn't I'm just damned surprised. Hehe. Maybe kai and I will make it for the next one!

xizor

do you think flaring the fenders had a lot to do w/ that?

vwong

I think so. But my fenders were kinda back to stock form because the shop who worked on getting the "waves" out messed up and put it back to stock form (so no flare).

What I really think is that when the suspension is loaded, it gain a little more negative camber (as in most double wishbone suspensions). And the wheel is turned "into" the car on the loaded side, therefore less rubbing. My rubbing usually happens when the wheel is turned "out of" the car on the loaded side (as in turning right into a driveway).

I hope to have the video clip up tonight.

vwong

Here is the link to my in-car video. Please right click and save as.

http://www.vwong.org/videos/califspeedway2005-07-23.mpg

This is the fastest clean lap I have in my tape. The rest of the laps were mostly being passed by faster cars, therefore slower lap times. I didn't rent the lap timer, so I only timed it from the video. This lap looks to be about 1'30.7. I think I could've gone down to 1'28 or 1'29 if there was no traffic. For comparison, my best lap in my Prelude back in March on the same track was about 1'25.1.

Oh...if the link doesn't work, that means I have exceeded my bandwidth limit for the month. If that's the case, please try again during the beginning of the month, or email me. I can email you the video.

joerockt

Nice vwong, very smooth driving...Have you done this before?

I need to do this one of these days, Im only 1/2 hour away from the speedway...

JoesTSX

Nice Video! Now I never have to take my TSX to the track.

jeffreytchui

Sweet...............

vwong

Thanks. Yeah, I've done this before. I've been doing auto-x since 1998, and track events since 1999. However I was more serious into auto-x than track up until recently. From 1999 to 2004, I only did a total of 5 track events. But this year, I've already done 4 track events. I'll be doing more.

More comparisons for the lap times. My friend brought his WCHC H4 CRX race car to the event to break in the motor and some tires for the upcoming WCHC race. His best lap time was about 1'23.5. Another friend of mine (who rebuilt my motor) drove the same CRX race car and his best lap time was 1'24.5. Unfortunately, I'm too short for his car so I didn't get to drive it.

Tsx536

Dang Vwong...you got some skillz man

Your car is definitely quiet though. I think you should get a CAI. That will really make your engine growl and it will help you hear it when you need to.

vwong

In case anyone is interested, here is the link to the in-car video clip of my Prelude on the same track back in March. Please right click and save as.

http://www.vwong.org/videos/califspeedway2005-03-05.mpg

You can see more of my videos here, http://www.vwong.org/videos.htm.

vwong

Someone from H-T.com snapped a pic of my TSX while I was on course. It really shows how tucked the front wheel was, and that was probably why I had no rubbing at all.



You can view more at this link. There are pics of my Prelude as well. http://www.honda-tech.com/zerothread?id=1320531&page=1