Originally posted by turbofish38
Andrew, I see you are into self inflicted punishment running a G-body in E-MOD. Have you had any success? I would think even with a heavily modified GN you could run C-Prepared with better results.
The local EM class is pretty much the island of misfit cars. This past year, I ran my old WRX, my 240Z, and the GN in EM because that's the only class where all three meet. The strategy paid off, I get a year end tropy, but only because I won two events outright in the Subaru and managed to do well enough with the GN to keep everybody else from passing me up in the points, even though they were kicking my butt on the course.
Other cars in the class here this past year:
'71 240Z with an 83 ZX Turbo motor (class winner over me by less than 50 points)
Supercharged Civic
Regular Civic
Supercharged '93 Cobra
a few other oddballs. All of those guys were on Hoosiers or Kumhos. I was running Potenza RE950 street tires on the Buick.
The GN isn't competative. It is severely traction limited. I think with a good set of race tires, it could be locally competative... against the hodgepodge I just listed. A true EM car would destroy me.
The big problem with prepared classes is they hate turbochargers. You have to run through a 52mm restrictor plate if you're force inducted, and you incur a weight penalty. Not a big deal for my still-street-legal car as it is still way over minimum weight, but if somebody were to fully prep one for CP, they'd be at a serious disadvantage over a similarly prepped 305 powered Monte Carlo. In fact, a 305 powered Monte would get to take an additional 300lbs off for being under 5 liters. Since the SCCA multiplies force inducted engine displacement by 1.4 to compensate for the turbo, the Buick has a displacement of 5.3 liters for classing and weight limit purposes. That much weight is a HUGE deal.
Sure, you can turn the boost up to compensate for the extra heft, but that only helps when accelerating. That extra weight kills you when you need to stop and turn. People make fun of my car because entering a turn the front tires are pouring off smoke, and then the smoke switches to the rears as soon as I get on the gas.
There really isn't a good place for a GN in Solo2. They're too heavy, and fixing the stock suspension's shortcomings bumps you all the way to CP right away. I just ran mine because it was fun.
I'm retiring the car from AutoX use for now. The body twist has caused small cracks in the paint on the nosepiece, and that's with all the front end frame braces installed.