MShorten

My first racing season (or the 1/3d of the season that I participated in) is over, wrapped up this weekend at Lake Geneva Raceway's "Fall Classic". I run in the "BIC" (Basic International Car) division - also known as the "Chicks Dig Bics" division. It's for 4 cylinder "stock" cars - no mods/aftermarkets allowed I ran in a total of 4 races this year, two heats and two semi-features. My average speed around the 1/3d mile asphalt is about a 23.5 second lap.

The car is a 91 B13 Sentra, 1.6GA with basically the car gutted except for drivers seat, dash, steering wheel, shifter and parking brake.

There is absolutely no substitute for seat time in any sort of racing, and hurling myself at top speed around an oval with 8 to 12 other compact cars, all competing for the same small patch of track to turn the corners definitely calls for seat time! I probably turned about 250 laps practice, but nothing prepares you for a race like getting out there. I probably learned more this weekend than I did in the preceding three practice sessions.

So now it's time to wrap up the racing season - I was bummed my last race - not only the last race of the season, but I thought I had a good chance to place high, but didn't - got into the top 10. But I survived, had a blast and just generally enjoyed myself!

Some things I'm going to be working on this winter:

• Improve the handling! I have a BAD push condition coming out of the corners. I tried to correct a bit by altering my acceleration point, but the bottom line is that I'm cranking the wheel left to try and not push up the corner, and then when the tires FINALLY grip, I'm cranking the other way to straighten her out. I've been glancing a bit today at the Suspension/Handling sticky - unfortunately I can't use aftermarkets! So I have to try and find stock Nissan springs that are stiffer than the stock 91 Sentra springs. Time to search and ask. I'm also going to do the "free" negative camber "shove" from Kojima's site to add a bit of negative camber to the right side.
• Fix my steering - it's not straight and I can't crank over left far enough in some cases.
• Fix the CV boot on driver's side front.
• Do the NX2000 brake upgrade. It's pushing the "stockness" a bit, but at least it's not aftermarket. *grin*
• Get 14" rims - probably the SE-R alum ones that I keep hearing about
• Roll cage/driver door bar. Found someone that will do the welding inexpensively!
• Tuneup! New wires/plugs/filters - going to do the "ghetto" mod to my air filter box - can't put in a CAI as that will be dinged by the techs, so I'll do the next best thing. (Oops, it broke off... darn...Heh) Also going to advance the timing to get the "free HP" upgrade.
• A bit of body work/new black-neon green paint scheme with numbers.
• Find some performance tires for the right side. Don't really have to worry about the left side so much with the just right turns. The 2004 BIC champ told me he uses Yokima(?) and to head to Tirerack.com

If anyone has any advice specific to the above, that would be great! I already know I'm going to be doing the search thing when I need to. But pointers are always appreciated. I'll keep y'all updated on how it goes.

Anyway, here's a couple of pics of my car - the first was taken beginning of Sept at my first race - I have a few more from this past weekend's races, but they aren't off the camera yet. The second is during a practice session. That's my hauler behind the car.

Felonious Cat Stalker

Something you should try:
Picking up an SE-R or NX2K rear anti sway bar to reduce the push off corners

Something you might want to try in practice first:
Disconnecting the front anti sway bar altogether to reduce the push off corners. Since you probably aren't making a lot of violent manouvers, you MAY be able to take advantage of increased roll (and front end grip), or, it could horribly backfire and the tire may roll over too much and you'll get less grip.

You could also try to get some stock SE-R/NX2K springs and shocks to firm things up.

What type of surface are you running? Looks like dirt? Was the guy talking about Yokohama tires? What is the tread pattern like that he runs?

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MShorten

Well, I've got some roll going on right now, the tires are just grinding away, not sure I need to increase roll.

Thanks alot for the tip on the SER/NX2k springs/shocks - I know I'm looking to do that to the right front and maybe the right rear. We'll see. I was told this weekend to find a stiffer set of springs, that some people had the same problem and reducing the tire roll would help the push condition. We'll see.

I'm running on asphalt. Thanks for the spelling on the Yokohama tires - I think they had a diagonal pattern coming to a point pointing to the rear, IIRC.

Is the SER rear antisway stiffer than the SE?

Thanks!
Regards,
Michael

Felonious Cat Stalker

Hmm, you might have to check this out to see what tire they were:
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/yokohama/yokohama.jsp

Yes, the SE-R and NX2K bars should be thicker and stiffer than the SE. You may need the original mounting hardware from the SE-R to get it to fit.

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MShorten

Hi!

I know I'm revisiting this a few months later, but it's time to start working on my car and the weather is just starting to permit me to do some stuff out in the garage without freezing my rear off.

You mentioned that getting an SER sway bar might help my push condition. You also mentioned the original mounting hardware. Do you mean the bolts or is there more to this than that?

Thanks in advance.
Michael Shorten

OldOneEye

I had a 1994 Sentra E, and the car had no sway bars. One of the ways that it compensated for not having sway bars from what I heard was stiffer springs. I could be wrong, but that might be something to research further (this was about 3 years ago, so my memory is hazy).

Juan