2014 Westfield Mega S2000.

[vstryker]

That's an amazing backdrop. Where did you get your front fenders?

[Davemk1]

This guy makes them......very well made and a fair price for carbon I think.

 

dave

 

http://www.carbon-nv.co.uk/

[Davemk1]

The winter is long in Montana and when spring finally does arrive it's great to feel some tires really grip the pavement. I love that feeling like you are being swung around on a rope!

 

Dave

[Dan3030]

1st - Awesome picture.

2nd - What mirrors are those and did the aeroscreen come from Carbon-NV? They'll ship to the states?

[Davemk1]

1st - thanks

 

2nd - the mirrors are the common Spa mirrors but I made longer stems for them so that I could see something other than my shoulder. The aero screen is by Aerodynamix and it seems they have gone under. The front fenders are by Carbon NV and they certainly ship to the USA. The quality of the fenders is very good and I'd go to them for an aeroscreen for sure.

 

dave

[Kitcat]

Three wheeling on a smooth auto-X course? Is your suspension too stiff? Did you hit a bump? Even on wide, super sticky tires, seems like, ideally, you want all 4 tires involved in cornering? I am no expert (to say the least!!!), but I thot 3 wheeling was a front wheel drive, older VW type thing?

[Davemk1]

Three wheeling on a smooth auto-X course? Is your suspension too stiff? Did you hit a bump? Even on wide, super sticky tires, seems like, ideally, you want all 4 tires involved in cornering? I am no expert (to say the least!!!), but I thot 3 wheeling was a front wheel drive, older VW type thing?

 

You are of course correct....4 tires will grip better than 3....in most cases. The corner is smooth and there's no bump. The spring rates are 300 front and 200 rear and the front bar is pretty soft.

 

The tires will generate massive grip and if you look carefully you can see that even the inside rear is fairly light (nothing like the front of course). It will three wheel only in a very specific circumstance....it has to be a hard right turn taken at speed and full throttle at corner exit. My body weight is right over that left-rear tire so when I corner hard to the right the whole right side of the car is light and then when you are under full throttle the weight shifts to the rear loading the left-rear tire heavily....which in turn lowers the amount of weight carried by the right-front. One look at the tire deflection on the right rear will tell you just how much work it's doing....and the more work it does the less work the tires on the other side of the car will be doing. Interestingly it will never three wheel in a left turn due the lack of weigh on the right side of the car.

 

FWD VW's will lift an inside rear under the combo of heavy braking and a sharp turn in. This is doing the exact opposite to what my car is doing in the photo. The VW has shifted much weight (braking and turning) to the outside front tire unweighting the inside rear. I'm shifting the weight to the outside (right) rear (and my butt is right over that tire) through using all 250ish hp and cornering hard.

 

The handling is wonderful and balanced and exploitable and on the very rare occasion where it lifts that right-front tire you can't feel it at all. All you can feel is the lateral g's like you are being swung around on a rope. It's very quick. I took FTD at this event by 1.9 seconds over a GM factory built race car (mid engine, 500 hp V8, full tube frame, Porsche transaxle...) with much wider and stickier slicks. Like I said....it's very quick and easy to drive. And oh so much fun.

 

dave