COBB goes to the Modified Tuner Shootout
05-28-2008 | 05:01 PM
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COBB goes to the Modified Tuner Shootout
Due to this event being a Modified Magazine Shootout, I cannot post results until the issue is released, but I will still try to give a decent recap of our weekend.
As like much of our events, this one started with some prep work, this time on our R35 GT-R. Billy was working on designing some aerodynamics, Eric was fabricating a cat back exhaust section, while Dave was working on some prototype coilover sleeves. Not to mention Joe and Rob were hard at work on that infamous un-hackable ECU
The week before the event we had rented out Miller Motorsports Park to shake down the car. The prototype coilover sleeves were fitted, and a slew of different spring's with different spring rates were ready to be tested. The aero was not yet completed, so it could not be tested. If it were to be finished within the week, it may not even be used due to lack of test time. We had a spare set of 19" Volk ME's laying around from our project G37. So on a whim we mounted some Toyo R888's (295/30/19 and 305/30/19) to see if the tire pressure monitoring system (TPS) would freak out when not in place.
Our testing day had arrived. A few days before were spent installing the Sparco seats from our 2006 STi time attack car to R35 specific Bride seat rails. The Bride rails fit perfect, but the seating position is a little high for my taste. The car is so big that Billy didn't mind....for now. Through the seats we mounted some Takata 5 point harnesses. The test day started off a little late, but once out there, the car was performing quite well. We conducted most testing on the OEM Rays wheels with the OEM Dunlops. Getting out on track confirmed the speed limiter had indeed been removed. The spring rates we had initially installed also seemed to be performing quite well. Since there was a slight delay in beginning the test session, it was late in the day, during our slalom testing that the Volks and Toyos were tossed onto the car. Needless to say the grip had substantially improved, though the R888's still had yet to prove to be able to contend with the girth of the R35.
The car seemed to be in solid condition. With a small list of modifications, we were ready to hit the road. Our R35 GT-R was leaving with the following:
COBB prototype test pipe section
COBB prototype cat back exhaust
COBB prototype coilover sleeves
COBB ECU reflash (speed limiter removed)
Sparco Pro2000 carbon seats
Bride Seat Rails
Takata Harnesses
Volk ME's (19x9.5 and 19x10.5)
Toyo R888's (295/30/19 and 305/30/19)
One of the more stock cars we have ever competed with, but we were eager to see what she could do against the powerhouse list of competitors. We load up the R35 and our MazdaSpeed3 in our race trailer and hit the road.
We leave a bit late, but our four man team is in good spirits. Its always a pleasure traveling with Billy, Eric, and Dave. We mesh well as a group and these guys know what it takes to get the job done. The perfect team to travel with in my opinion. Billy and Dave are our engineers, and Eric is part of our R&D team....yet they are all very accomplished drivers. Eric is to drive the COBB MazdaSpeed3 in the Super Lap Battle qualifier, and Billy is to drive the COBB R35 in the Modified Tuner Shootout and the Super Lap Battle qualifier.
We arrive in Phoenix between 4am and 5am on Friday morning. I don't really remember....Dave and Billy are rock stars when it comes to driving through the night. We squeeze our 48' trailer into the very back of our hotel parking lot and check in. The dyno competition begins in a few hours, so the lack of sleep really isn't going to effect our chances in this little shin dig just yet. We hike up to our rooms and pass out for a few hours. The morning brings an overcast sky, and it looks like its threatening to rain. Not at all what I expected...I should have packed more than shorts and t-shirts!
A few days before we left town we were discussing the dyno portion of this competition. The R35 GT-R apparently doesn't like Dyno Pack's due to the way they load the drivetrain. We received a heads up reading an Edmunds.com article (http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=125172) when they saw their test car get mad on a Dyno Pack. Not wanting to take the chance we contacted the event organizers and they came up with a plan for our car. We would run our MazdaSpeed3 on the same Dyno Pack as everyone else, then head over to a local Mustang Dyno and run the MazdaSpeed3 again. This would give us a way to calculate the percentage between the two dyno's. We would then run our GT-R on the Mustang Dyno and submit the results.
Running between two shops was going to take some time, so we decided to head to UMS Tuning early to see about jumping on their Dyno Pack right away! The cool weather would play to the advantage for todays portion of the competition. It was cool out, not 100+ like I expected. Upon arrival the UMS crew welcomed us like old friends. Since the GT-R was behind the MazdaSpeed3 in the trailer, we unloaded both cars for the time being.
The UMS crew went right to work on our little MazdaSpeed3. I am used to being around our Mustang Dyno so this Dyno pack was a little foreign to me. It was a pretty cool little machine....oh so quiet. When you run a car on a Mustang Dyno the majority of the noise is coming from the tires. So it can get pretty loud at times. UMS had run a local MazdaSpeed3 a while before, so they were interested to see how ours was going to compare.
We pulled 276hp and 320tq and before we knew it, it was time to load up the trailer and head over to the other dyno! Before we left, Chris Rado arrived on the scene. Chris is a pretty cool guy, really laid back, down to earth, and had a rad dog with him.
We wanted to come back to UMS to watch the others get on the dyno, so we loaded up the trailer quickly and drove over to Evolution Motorsports. The outside of Evolution Motorsports does not really hint as to what is inside. Although if your lucky enough to get a glimpse of a customer car in the parking lot, you might get the idea. The Evolution crew was excited to see the GT-R. Once we saw what they had, we wanted to see some of their toys. Once again we were treated as old friends, and was given a tour of the facility. They had a customer car on their dyno and was just about finished, so we had some time to kill. Evolution Motorsports focus is primarily Porsche, but they also dabble with Mercedes, BMW, and VW. If you have a German hot rod, they can make it faster for you.
Here are a couple views of their shop....
and their showroom....
Well, enough play time. It was time to get down to business. We strapped our MazdaSpeed3 to their Mustang dyno and got to it! This Mustang measured our hot hatch with 275hp and 312tq. Once confirmed, it was time to swap out cars and strap down the GT-R.
We swapped cars and Billy got to work on the GT-R. The cool Arizona air held with us and we logged a 502hp and 489tq result out of this particular Mustang Dyno. Not bad until we realized that the dyno competition is going to rated hp per liter. Uh oh. Our car really isn't tuned....so our outcome will be dependent on driving. No pressure Billy
With our portion of the dyno competition over, we decide to load the trailer up one more time and head back to UMS to see how the others are getting along on the Dyno Pack. We roll back into the parking lot to see most of those who will be competing this weekend.
Science of Speed S2000
BC Racing G35
Skunk2 EVO
Turbo Lab NSX
Joe from Turbo Lab is one of our local friends. So it was good to see him out there. He recruited another friend of ours, Adam Munoa, to assist him in the pits. We actually helped each other out through the weekend. Spare a jack here, some jack stands there, borrow a fuel funnel....its all good between friends! Joe put on the best show during the drag racing portion. I"m sure stories and video of his adventures will be circulating soon if they are not already!
Anyway, our first day was coming to a close. We received some points for the dyno competition, though not as much as we hoped. There is still along way to go before this event is over! As we were getting ready to leave, there were a couple cool cars hanging around. It seems that GT-R's are not all to uncommon to see around town here.
The next morning was the Autocross competition. Our hotel was only about 10 minutes away so we woke up early and headed to the track. We set up shop and Eric began putting the OEM front lip on the car. We removed it because it was easier to get in and out of our trailer. We kept coming up with reasons why we needed a sweet Toter Home trailer while driving out to Phoenix....blah blah this truck is to cramped for 4 us us, blah blah, we could work on the cars while driving to events, blah blah, we could sleep right at the track and save on hotel costs, blah blah....I think X-box came into the conversation as well.......yeah, some reasons were more outlandish then others
Anyway, unloading the trailer and getting the car ready took up a lot of time. Before we knew it, the event organizers were running through the pits asking us to get our cars in grid! Billy hops in the GT-R, fires her up, and rolls over to grid for the drivers meeting. We were thinking this would be our event, after all we had Billy Brooks right!!?!? There were some serious machines out there though, and we never really fully tested the GT-R in real autocross situation before. We ran a few slalom tests at Miller Motorsports Park, but thats about it.
Some of the cars in grid:
While Billy was in the drivers meeting eric started to get a slightly worried look on his face:
I don't like it when Eric looks worried, and I knew what he was thinking. The OEM Dunlops are not going to allow us to be competitive. We made the decision to let Billy run them for his first warm up laps and switch over to the R888's we brought. Good thing we picked up those 19" Volks for the G37. They just happened to fit on the R35 well enough to stick some sticky rubber on them. After Billy ran a few laps on the OEM wheels and tires, we performed our version of a NASCAR wheel change...only it took us 5-10 minutes instead of 15 seconds. Our saving grace was some on course drama....someone sheared some wheel studs and was stuck. This allowed us enough time to get the Volks swapped over and Billy back into grid.
The competition was heating up as the drivers were getting the course dialed in. Some cars left the scene early only to return later for another go, but all in all, it was a tight battle from the start!
The wheel and tire swapped was working for us. The Toyo R888's allowed us to drop 3 seconds right away, and Billy was getting faster and faster. Here is a shot of him with my camera full zoom from the far side of the course:
Convinced we had a good timed run to get us back into contention, we settled back to camp to get the car ready for the drag racing portion of the event. Seeing as this is one of the more stockish cars we have raced, prep work was minimal at best. We simply put the OEM Dunlops back on. We did so because we were not sure of the rolling diameter of the Volk/Toyo combo would hurt us or not, plus we were not sure if we would have to much grip and break something since we have not ever drag raced this car before. Looking back, we all wanted to see what the Volk/Toyo combo would have done. Its certainly a lot lighter than the stock wheel/tire set up.
GST was getting serious and the crew removed the rear wing for Gary Sheehan:
Not to be outdone, we rolled up with.....the gold wheels back on!
After Billy had a few practice runs, Dave jumped in to hose down the twin intercoolers to make sure we were doing what we could to keep the car happy!
Billy was using the OEM launch control feature that the GT-R has. After a few toggle switches, the car sets into launch control mode. From here on out all Billy has to do is keep his right foot planted to the floor, and make sure he flips the flappy paddle with his right hand at the correct moments to keep from bouncing off the rev limiter.
It seems this car does what it does, and it does it very well. No matter how Billy drove the car for the drag race, it was pretty much the same outcome every time. Left lane or Right lane, change up the shift points a little here and there, the GT-R is all about consistency. This is all she had in her, and we were not disappointed.
We did our best at the drag racing and we were satisfied with the results. This should still keep us in contention for a top finish. The Final event was a few hours away, the Time Attack. They would get a few hours of practice in daylight before having to wait for it to get dark before the timed session would begin. The GT-R was parked so it could rest, while we decided to try to catch some of the others and see how they faired in the 1/4 mile.
Some of the others were pretty fast....thats most likely why Dave looked like this:
We decided to take advantage of the HPDE event that was also going on. Billy has driven this course once or twice before, but Eric needed to learn the fast lines. We tossed of Time Trial decals on the cars and sent them on their way. Eric learns track layouts quickly, which is a good thing because Billy says the backside of this track does not have a whole lot of light. Both of them will have to take a few turns from memory in order to stay fast.
After a few sessions they were content that they could both secure a few fast lap times. Eric is trying to qualify for the Super Lap Battle and Billy is pulling double duty trying to also qualify and still stay focused for the Modified Tuner Shootout. They both park the cars and rest up. It will be dark soon and then the timed sessions are a go!
Time Attack at night, on this track, is quite scary. They are letting cars go 20 seconds apart, with no more than three on track at one time. Billy gets in some of his fastest lap times yet, but its not without drama. Unfortunately there is not much more I can say without giving to much away. Modified Magazine ask me not to say to much, but I still think this gives a pretty good overview of what happened throughout the weekend.
Our MazdaSpeed3 saw great success in the hands of Eric. He is really beginning to show his driving skills and will only get faster as time goes on.
We look forward to seeing everyone again at the GT Live event at Miller Motorsports Park this June 28 and 29.
Justin
COBB Tuning
As like much of our events, this one started with some prep work, this time on our R35 GT-R. Billy was working on designing some aerodynamics, Eric was fabricating a cat back exhaust section, while Dave was working on some prototype coilover sleeves. Not to mention Joe and Rob were hard at work on that infamous un-hackable ECU
The week before the event we had rented out Miller Motorsports Park to shake down the car. The prototype coilover sleeves were fitted, and a slew of different spring's with different spring rates were ready to be tested. The aero was not yet completed, so it could not be tested. If it were to be finished within the week, it may not even be used due to lack of test time. We had a spare set of 19" Volk ME's laying around from our project G37. So on a whim we mounted some Toyo R888's (295/30/19 and 305/30/19) to see if the tire pressure monitoring system (TPS) would freak out when not in place.
Our testing day had arrived. A few days before were spent installing the Sparco seats from our 2006 STi time attack car to R35 specific Bride seat rails. The Bride rails fit perfect, but the seating position is a little high for my taste. The car is so big that Billy didn't mind....for now. Through the seats we mounted some Takata 5 point harnesses. The test day started off a little late, but once out there, the car was performing quite well. We conducted most testing on the OEM Rays wheels with the OEM Dunlops. Getting out on track confirmed the speed limiter had indeed been removed. The spring rates we had initially installed also seemed to be performing quite well. Since there was a slight delay in beginning the test session, it was late in the day, during our slalom testing that the Volks and Toyos were tossed onto the car. Needless to say the grip had substantially improved, though the R888's still had yet to prove to be able to contend with the girth of the R35.
The car seemed to be in solid condition. With a small list of modifications, we were ready to hit the road. Our R35 GT-R was leaving with the following:
COBB prototype test pipe section
COBB prototype cat back exhaust
COBB prototype coilover sleeves
COBB ECU reflash (speed limiter removed)
Sparco Pro2000 carbon seats
Bride Seat Rails
Takata Harnesses
Volk ME's (19x9.5 and 19x10.5)
Toyo R888's (295/30/19 and 305/30/19)
One of the more stock cars we have ever competed with, but we were eager to see what she could do against the powerhouse list of competitors. We load up the R35 and our MazdaSpeed3 in our race trailer and hit the road.
We leave a bit late, but our four man team is in good spirits. Its always a pleasure traveling with Billy, Eric, and Dave. We mesh well as a group and these guys know what it takes to get the job done. The perfect team to travel with in my opinion. Billy and Dave are our engineers, and Eric is part of our R&D team....yet they are all very accomplished drivers. Eric is to drive the COBB MazdaSpeed3 in the Super Lap Battle qualifier, and Billy is to drive the COBB R35 in the Modified Tuner Shootout and the Super Lap Battle qualifier.
We arrive in Phoenix between 4am and 5am on Friday morning. I don't really remember....Dave and Billy are rock stars when it comes to driving through the night. We squeeze our 48' trailer into the very back of our hotel parking lot and check in. The dyno competition begins in a few hours, so the lack of sleep really isn't going to effect our chances in this little shin dig just yet. We hike up to our rooms and pass out for a few hours. The morning brings an overcast sky, and it looks like its threatening to rain. Not at all what I expected...I should have packed more than shorts and t-shirts!
A few days before we left town we were discussing the dyno portion of this competition. The R35 GT-R apparently doesn't like Dyno Pack's due to the way they load the drivetrain. We received a heads up reading an Edmunds.com article (http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do...ticleId=125172) when they saw their test car get mad on a Dyno Pack. Not wanting to take the chance we contacted the event organizers and they came up with a plan for our car. We would run our MazdaSpeed3 on the same Dyno Pack as everyone else, then head over to a local Mustang Dyno and run the MazdaSpeed3 again. This would give us a way to calculate the percentage between the two dyno's. We would then run our GT-R on the Mustang Dyno and submit the results.
Running between two shops was going to take some time, so we decided to head to UMS Tuning early to see about jumping on their Dyno Pack right away! The cool weather would play to the advantage for todays portion of the competition. It was cool out, not 100+ like I expected. Upon arrival the UMS crew welcomed us like old friends. Since the GT-R was behind the MazdaSpeed3 in the trailer, we unloaded both cars for the time being.
The UMS crew went right to work on our little MazdaSpeed3. I am used to being around our Mustang Dyno so this Dyno pack was a little foreign to me. It was a pretty cool little machine....oh so quiet. When you run a car on a Mustang Dyno the majority of the noise is coming from the tires. So it can get pretty loud at times. UMS had run a local MazdaSpeed3 a while before, so they were interested to see how ours was going to compare.
We pulled 276hp and 320tq and before we knew it, it was time to load up the trailer and head over to the other dyno! Before we left, Chris Rado arrived on the scene. Chris is a pretty cool guy, really laid back, down to earth, and had a rad dog with him.
We wanted to come back to UMS to watch the others get on the dyno, so we loaded up the trailer quickly and drove over to Evolution Motorsports. The outside of Evolution Motorsports does not really hint as to what is inside. Although if your lucky enough to get a glimpse of a customer car in the parking lot, you might get the idea. The Evolution crew was excited to see the GT-R. Once we saw what they had, we wanted to see some of their toys. Once again we were treated as old friends, and was given a tour of the facility. They had a customer car on their dyno and was just about finished, so we had some time to kill. Evolution Motorsports focus is primarily Porsche, but they also dabble with Mercedes, BMW, and VW. If you have a German hot rod, they can make it faster for you.
Here are a couple views of their shop....
and their showroom....
Well, enough play time. It was time to get down to business. We strapped our MazdaSpeed3 to their Mustang dyno and got to it! This Mustang measured our hot hatch with 275hp and 312tq. Once confirmed, it was time to swap out cars and strap down the GT-R.
We swapped cars and Billy got to work on the GT-R. The cool Arizona air held with us and we logged a 502hp and 489tq result out of this particular Mustang Dyno. Not bad until we realized that the dyno competition is going to rated hp per liter. Uh oh. Our car really isn't tuned....so our outcome will be dependent on driving. No pressure Billy
With our portion of the dyno competition over, we decide to load the trailer up one more time and head back to UMS to see how the others are getting along on the Dyno Pack. We roll back into the parking lot to see most of those who will be competing this weekend.
Science of Speed S2000
BC Racing G35
Skunk2 EVO
Turbo Lab NSX
Joe from Turbo Lab is one of our local friends. So it was good to see him out there. He recruited another friend of ours, Adam Munoa, to assist him in the pits. We actually helped each other out through the weekend. Spare a jack here, some jack stands there, borrow a fuel funnel....its all good between friends! Joe put on the best show during the drag racing portion. I"m sure stories and video of his adventures will be circulating soon if they are not already!
Anyway, our first day was coming to a close. We received some points for the dyno competition, though not as much as we hoped. There is still along way to go before this event is over! As we were getting ready to leave, there were a couple cool cars hanging around. It seems that GT-R's are not all to uncommon to see around town here.
The next morning was the Autocross competition. Our hotel was only about 10 minutes away so we woke up early and headed to the track. We set up shop and Eric began putting the OEM front lip on the car. We removed it because it was easier to get in and out of our trailer. We kept coming up with reasons why we needed a sweet Toter Home trailer while driving out to Phoenix....blah blah this truck is to cramped for 4 us us, blah blah, we could work on the cars while driving to events, blah blah, we could sleep right at the track and save on hotel costs, blah blah....I think X-box came into the conversation as well.......yeah, some reasons were more outlandish then others
Anyway, unloading the trailer and getting the car ready took up a lot of time. Before we knew it, the event organizers were running through the pits asking us to get our cars in grid! Billy hops in the GT-R, fires her up, and rolls over to grid for the drivers meeting. We were thinking this would be our event, after all we had Billy Brooks right!!?!? There were some serious machines out there though, and we never really fully tested the GT-R in real autocross situation before. We ran a few slalom tests at Miller Motorsports Park, but thats about it.
Some of the cars in grid:
While Billy was in the drivers meeting eric started to get a slightly worried look on his face:
I don't like it when Eric looks worried, and I knew what he was thinking. The OEM Dunlops are not going to allow us to be competitive. We made the decision to let Billy run them for his first warm up laps and switch over to the R888's we brought. Good thing we picked up those 19" Volks for the G37. They just happened to fit on the R35 well enough to stick some sticky rubber on them. After Billy ran a few laps on the OEM wheels and tires, we performed our version of a NASCAR wheel change...only it took us 5-10 minutes instead of 15 seconds. Our saving grace was some on course drama....someone sheared some wheel studs and was stuck. This allowed us enough time to get the Volks swapped over and Billy back into grid.
The competition was heating up as the drivers were getting the course dialed in. Some cars left the scene early only to return later for another go, but all in all, it was a tight battle from the start!
The wheel and tire swapped was working for us. The Toyo R888's allowed us to drop 3 seconds right away, and Billy was getting faster and faster. Here is a shot of him with my camera full zoom from the far side of the course:
Convinced we had a good timed run to get us back into contention, we settled back to camp to get the car ready for the drag racing portion of the event. Seeing as this is one of the more stockish cars we have raced, prep work was minimal at best. We simply put the OEM Dunlops back on. We did so because we were not sure of the rolling diameter of the Volk/Toyo combo would hurt us or not, plus we were not sure if we would have to much grip and break something since we have not ever drag raced this car before. Looking back, we all wanted to see what the Volk/Toyo combo would have done. Its certainly a lot lighter than the stock wheel/tire set up.
GST was getting serious and the crew removed the rear wing for Gary Sheehan:
Not to be outdone, we rolled up with.....the gold wheels back on!
After Billy had a few practice runs, Dave jumped in to hose down the twin intercoolers to make sure we were doing what we could to keep the car happy!
Billy was using the OEM launch control feature that the GT-R has. After a few toggle switches, the car sets into launch control mode. From here on out all Billy has to do is keep his right foot planted to the floor, and make sure he flips the flappy paddle with his right hand at the correct moments to keep from bouncing off the rev limiter.
It seems this car does what it does, and it does it very well. No matter how Billy drove the car for the drag race, it was pretty much the same outcome every time. Left lane or Right lane, change up the shift points a little here and there, the GT-R is all about consistency. This is all she had in her, and we were not disappointed.
We did our best at the drag racing and we were satisfied with the results. This should still keep us in contention for a top finish. The Final event was a few hours away, the Time Attack. They would get a few hours of practice in daylight before having to wait for it to get dark before the timed session would begin. The GT-R was parked so it could rest, while we decided to try to catch some of the others and see how they faired in the 1/4 mile.
Some of the others were pretty fast....thats most likely why Dave looked like this:
We decided to take advantage of the HPDE event that was also going on. Billy has driven this course once or twice before, but Eric needed to learn the fast lines. We tossed of Time Trial decals on the cars and sent them on their way. Eric learns track layouts quickly, which is a good thing because Billy says the backside of this track does not have a whole lot of light. Both of them will have to take a few turns from memory in order to stay fast.
After a few sessions they were content that they could both secure a few fast lap times. Eric is trying to qualify for the Super Lap Battle and Billy is pulling double duty trying to also qualify and still stay focused for the Modified Tuner Shootout. They both park the cars and rest up. It will be dark soon and then the timed sessions are a go!
Time Attack at night, on this track, is quite scary. They are letting cars go 20 seconds apart, with no more than three on track at one time. Billy gets in some of his fastest lap times yet, but its not without drama. Unfortunately there is not much more I can say without giving to much away. Modified Magazine ask me not to say to much, but I still think this gives a pretty good overview of what happened throughout the weekend.
Our MazdaSpeed3 saw great success in the hands of Eric. He is really beginning to show his driving skills and will only get faster as time goes on.
We look forward to seeing everyone again at the GT Live event at Miller Motorsports Park this June 28 and 29.
Justin
COBB Tuning
Last edited by Justin.; 05-28-2008 at 05:14 PM.
05-28-2008 | 05:09 PM
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Joined: May 2008
Posts: 2
Here is some video of our GT-R on our in house Mustang Dyno. This video was made just before we left for Phoenix.
http://forums.cobbtuning.com/videos/GTRdyno.mov
We are currently editing some video we took during the event. Stay tuned!
Justin
COBB Tuning
http://forums.cobbtuning.com/videos/GTRdyno.mov
We are currently editing some video we took during the event. Stay tuned!
Justin
COBB Tuning
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