USA Vs. JapanHoping for an American car to win the time attack would be like betting on the Jamaican bobsled team their first year out. Not only did Signal Auto have years of time attack experience, but it showed up with a heavily modified Unlimited AWD Class Skyline GT-R, which has an ATTESSA ideal for metering lots of power out of Buttonwillow's many tight turns.
All but one of the time attack cars were built outside the United States. The "no-pushrod" rule essentially disqualified anything American and RWD but the modular-V8 Ford Mustang Cobra. And we had one. Brian Border brought his tweaked suspension, supercharged 450-plus wheel hp Limited RWD Class Cobra to the party, but suffered some setup issues that held him to a 2:05.1.
The peanut gallery was not very impressed with Tarzan's first laps out in the garish Signal Auto Skyline GT-R. "2:17? 2:11? He's not even pushing hard, except for a couple of laps." They were right. As an experienced time attacker, Tarzan employed something called strategy. Learn the track, bring yourself and your car up to speed, and then blow everything else out of the water.
The Skyline's T04R snapped the shaft at the beginning of the third session, meaning Tarzan was over three seconds faster than anything else with just two session's worth of experience at Buttonwillow. We can only imagine what would have happened with another two.
The Skyline is not even Signal's dedicated time attack car, which is an EVO VIII, but a show/drag/circuit car. In fact, this R34 recently clipped off an 8.7-second quarter mile on street-legal tires to win a shootout in Japan. Leaving the oh-so-four-years-ago paint scheme alone, this is perhaps the only show car we've ever seen whose stairway-to-heaven GT wing is actually called for.
The GT-R is a rolling arsenal of race parts. From six-pot brakes to the Hollinger six-speed sequential tranny, not much street car remains. In fact, the only fabric we could find anywhere in the car was on the Bride bucket. With the help of a trust stroker kit, engine displacement is up to 2700cc. This slight increase in displacement still allows for a good rod ratio. Three Bosch fuel pumps supply six Sard 1000cc injectors, controlled by an HKS F-Con VPRO engine management system. A big, huffing HKS non-ball-bearing T04R turbo sits on a tubular exhaust manifold also from HKS.
Handling all that Skyline heft are a set of Tanabe Sustec Pro coil-overs, along with a host of Tanabe braces that shore up what the massive cage doesn't. Stopping that heft are Biggie-sized Alcon six-piston calipers on two-piece rotors in the front, and Alcon four-piston calipers in the rear. RAYS GT-C wheels, 18 inches in diameter, stretch the key ingredient to this dynamic soup, massive, sticky super soft compound 275/35-18 Yokohama AO32R tires.
Tarzan loved Buttonwillow, saying it "had great high-speed sections... Magic Mountain was like the corkscrew at Laguna Seca." He was so enthused by his success at this event, in fact, that he wants to locate and beat the production car records at every track in the United States, perhaps with the Signal Auto EVO 8.
FWD Disadvantage?Colin Chapman and conventional wisdom insist, after a heady discussion of vehicle dynamics, that front-wheel drive sucks. To a degree, both are right. Cars will hover before you see a front-wheel drive car win at the highest levels of motorsport. With two wheels doing the driving, steering, braking and blinging, those little suckers are overworked.
In the real world, however, and it seems, for street-based track cars, front-wheel drive ain't so bad. In fact, the fourth and fifth fastest cars, out of 35 running competitors, are front drivers. While both of these are Unlimited Class cars, there's nothing about them, other than cages and loud exhausts, that would prevent them from being street driven. And consider the cars they laid the smack down on: every Supra, both NSXs and five out of the six EVOs. To be fair, guys who know Buttonwillow better than their own driveways drove both front drivers, but lap times are lap times.
Trap SpeedUsing trap speed as a measure of a car's straight-line thrust might be misleading, because the speed you have at the end of the straight is a direct result of how much speed you carried onto it. Therefore, when a car like the Limited FWD Class Road/Race Engineering (RRE) Mitsubishi Mirage, with one of the lower cornering speeds of any car present, still manages some of the fastest trap speeds, it means it's got a whole lot of motor.
RRE owner Mike Welch bought this Mitsubishi Mirage Turbo as a daily driver for $600, which included delivery from San Diego. Factory delivered with a 1.6-liter 4G61, 4G63 Eclipse power is an engine swap away. Big power comes from a www.4G63.com-built 4G with 9.0:1 compression JE pistons atop Eagle rods, an EVO III exhaust manifold, Forced Performance FP-30/52 turbo, Tial 40mm external wastegate, a catalog of RRE induction and exhaust piping, RRE front-mount intercooler, an AEM EMS and GReddy 660cc injectors.
Horsepower? About 500 wheel hp at 30 psi on race gas (and 350 on pump gas, which still spins the tires through third gear), applied through a built 1G Eclipse FWD trans and Quaife diff rotating 205/50-15 Toyo RA-1s. For time attack, Mike pulled off his street Konis and dropped in the JIC FLT-A2 15-way adjustable coil-overs from the RRE FWD Eclipse racecar.
Mirage driver John Mueller warned us in the morning "You might want to take pics of this car soon, because we left the pin at home." Crushing trap speeds and repeated sightings of the little box chasing down Ferraris and Supras on the straights evidenced this fact. In fact, it was clocked on the front straight at 121 mph, or .2 mph faster than the Limited AWD-winning Sparco EVO, which turned a best lap 8.6 seconds faster than the Mirage's best. Bigger brakes and a lot more tire would expand this washing machine's playbook beyond straight line butchering.
There unfortunately weren't any 125-hp ITA CRX "momentum" cars on hand to illustrate low trap speeds but decent lap times. On this day, well-reined power reigned. The fastest trap speed, unsurprisingly, belonged to the Signal Skyline, which punched a 132.5 mph hole though the atmosphere. At the other end of the spectrum was John Thawley's Limited FWD Class LS/VTEC powered Civic, which knocked off a face-ripping 98.3 mph.
Off The Shelf Vs. Custom EverythingTime attack was a rolling SEMA show, a real-world proving ground for a bevy of aftermarket parts. Some people made do with using mostly O.E. parts, others with off-the-shelf aftermarket parts, and some took it upon themselves to make everything one-off.
Shaun Kasperowicz's Unlimited FWD Class CRX, which is driven by Tommy Liang and campaigned in NASA's Honda Challenge, is a prime example of a seriously fast car using many stock parts. Series rules specify stock Honda parts in the bottom end build. The head can only be ported and polished.
Joe Alaniz of Alaniz Competition put together a "mild" LS/VTEC combination that makes around 230 wheel hp and propelled the little EF to a smoking 2:01.5. Joe selected a GS-R crank rotated by Civic Type-R pistons perched on GS-R rods for a 12.1:1 compression ratio. The head received Joe's coveted port and polish and was fitted with Alaniz titanium retainers and Skunk2 cams. Other stock Honda engine parts include an Integra Type R intake manifold and S2000 throttle body. An Integra Type R also offered up its five-speed transmission, which was fitted with a shorter ATS final drive and limited-slip differential.
The suspension uses rather unexotic shortened Koni dampers with Eibach race springs, a Skunk2 rear lower tie-bar and rear Suspension Techniques anti-roll bar. A 1990 Civic EX donated its front brakes, which are fed fluid by an Integra Type R master cylinder and brake booster.
At the other end of the spectrum was John Hotchkis, owner of Hotchkis Suspension, who showed up with one of the baddest front-wheel drive cars around, his Unlimited FWD Class '02 Celica. Its chrome-moly cage is more impressive than those seen in most touring cars, and the car features enough aerospace quality mechanical and electrical fittings to outfit a small military.
Forced induction comes via a Magnacharger supercharger, attached to a custom intake manifold, which features an integral air/water intercooler by Toyota's Motorsports Technical Center, who also handled the custom fuel rail. More trick parts: Sleeved TRD block, Oliver titanium connecting rods, JE 8.7:1 pistons, dry-sump oiling system, Hotchkis-fabricated thin-wall stainless exhaust, Motec M800 engine management, Quaife differential, Hotchkis everything suspension-related, TRD/Stoptech front brakes, SSR GT7 forged wheels and 235/40-17 Yokohama AO32Rs.
From a financial perspective, this car probably has more invested in fittings than Kasperowicz does in the entire CRX. Hotchkis ran extremely consistent 2 minute laps all day, with a best of 2:00.4. While just a second faster than Tommy's time and two seconds off the class-winning time, this car is a tasty stew of trick, well-chosen parts and proper setup. John promised to show up to the next time attack with "nitro, nitrous, toluene, benzene, tire warmers, a seven post shaker rig, computer simulations and anything else needed to conquer the Unlimited FWD Class." We believe him.
TiresIn writing the rules, we had to leave tire selection fairly open so the Japanese teams could bring the tires on which their cars are set up. We assumed the Japanese super soft compound tires, designed specifically for this kind of event, and mounted on both cars driven by Tarzan Yamada, would provide a significant competitive advantage.
We were wrong.