2021 has not been kind to StudioVRM's racing program. A myriad of mechanical issues, from worn-out suspension components to oil leaks to a sudden wheel bearing failure sidelined our Prelude at every track outing. And to add insult to injury, the harsh realities of finances and scheduling kept us from taking up GogoGear Racing's generous offer to guest drive their USTCC Civic at Sonoma. But there was still one last chance for redemption. The hardcore club racers of the Honda Prelude Racing Group were planning a meet at this year's NASA Hyperfest at VIR. Yours truly has never been to VIR. Wouldn't it be so satisfying to finish off the year with a few glory laps with friends at one of the fastest tracks on the east coast? With that goal set firmly in our sights, we pulled the Prelude into the garage and set to work on the issues from that disastrous race at NJMP. A teardown of the front and rear suspension revealed a bad rear camber adjuster. This was very likely the cause of the uncontrollable weaving down the straights at NJMP. A new 2-quart Accusump arrived from Canton to replace the leaky unit that turned the passenger floor into an oil slick. As a precaution, we also replaced the seasons-old front driveshafts, which revealed that the left front wheel bearing was on its way out. Out came the old worn-out components, in went a set of new CV joints from Insane Shafts and a brand-new NTN wheel bearing. For good measure, we also replaced the washer on the oil pan drain plug with a new copper unit to eliminate the last of the leaks. Although the main objective was to get the car up and running, we couldn't resist the opportunity to upgrade the front suspension. So in went a set of K-Tuned roll center correcting ball joints for a RSX alongside a set of Raybestos ST-45 before the alignment was set back to race specs. There were only a few short weeks until Hyperfest, and only a few opportunities for a proper shakedown. Thankfully, MoeHPDE had a track day on NJMP's Lightning track at just the right time. Moe's well-organized events have quickly become a favorite of ours, thanks to their generous 6-session track schedule and strict safety standards that keeps drivers under control. The drive down to the track was punctuated with sudden bursts of torrential downpour, which fortunately was going in the opposite direction. We would only see intermittent spots of drizzle for the rest of the day - perfect for troubleshooting problems with the car. And right from the off, we would have a problem. Just as we were getting ready to roll of the grid, the clutch pedal went straight to the floor. The seals in the car's clutch slave cylinder had failed, and all of the brake fluid in the system had leaked out. A friendly grid worker helped push the car to a safe spot in the grass before I took a trip into downtown Millville for a $16 slave cylinder and a $45 vacuum pump to bleed the air out of it. A slave cylinder replacement is a job best performed with two people, but with a bit of struggling and a lot of pumping, I managed to get pressure back in the left pedal just before lunchtime. Gold. At 2:20 PM, the Prelude took to the track for its first on-track session of the day. I slowly wound up the revs as both the Prelude and I reacclimatized to being on track. It had been months since either of us had set foot on a racetrack. It took all of three corners to feel at home behind the wheel. We were back. And it felt good. A conservative out lap showed promising signs. The fixes to the suspension system worked. There were no sign of the odd handling issues or the passenger side oil leaks that ruined our last weekend. More good news came as I slowly started pushing on the next few laps. The car was turning in more sharply than ever before. It seemed the K-Tuned ball joints were performing exactly as advertised, regardless of the fact that we were using them in a blatantly off-label way. Things were looking up. That was right before things started going sideways. Literally. While passing a Porsche and an older Mustang coming out of the Lightbulb turn, the whole left-hand side of the Prelude's windshield suddenly clouded up. Then, in the middle of Turn 1, the rear end of the Prelude kicked out in a sudden and violent measure of snap oversteer. There was only one thing that could cause those seemingly unrelated symptoms: A big oil leak. Once again, the Prelude's oil dipstick had popped out of its tube, spraying a quart of Driven BR-30 break-in oil all over the engine bay. It had gotten into the crevices of the hood, leaked onto the windshield, and greased up the left rear tyre. Not good. Both oil catch cans appeared to be empty when the dipstick popped out, which was a bit strange. We would need to run the car again to see if it was excessive blow-by or something else that caused the problem. But first, we needed to get the oil cleaned up. Two cans of brake cleaner and a roll of paper towels only got the worst of the mess. But it wasn't enough. There was so much oil left inside the nooks and crannies of the hood that the corner workers immediately called us back to the pits when we tried to leave for the next session. I needed to get the rest of the oil cleaned up, but all I had to wash the oil away was a few bottles of Gatorade. Just as I was about to throw in the towel, ProjectCRX's Martin Szwarc made a well-timed entrance to the paddock. Martin saw the messages in our team's group chat and rushed down after work to help. Our friendly and resourceful teammate found a motorcycle racer on the Thunderbolt track with a case of orange-scented electronics cleaner and made a deal to buy the entire box. With a dozen cans of spray cleaner in hand, the two of us proceeded to clean the oily residue out of every corner and crevice of the Prelude's engine bay, leaving nothing but a pleasant orange after scent. Glass cleaning wipes seemed to do little for the oily windshield, so covid-killing alcohol wipes served as substitutes, ridding the Honda's forward-facing glass of both motor oil and deadly airborne viruses. The friendly grid worker from the morning checked our car for leaks and gave us the thumbs up, releasing us with a smile to get one last session before we headed home. Even though the dipstick was now ziptied down, enough crankcase pressure could cause it to blow out again. To combat this, we agreed to keep the Honda's H23 powerplant well below its redline, doing a few laps below 5500 rpm before gradually stepping it up to 6000 rpm, then 6500 rpm. Once again, the car felt fantastic. The front end felt eager to turn into whatever direction I pointed it to, effortlessly gliding through the fast, flowing corners of the Lightning track without batting an eye. The aggressive Raybestos ST-45 brake pads made hard braking much easier than with the old ST-43s thanks to the increased front brake bias. Even at 7/10ths pace, I could tell the car was already much better than it was before. But just as I was getting ready to step it up to 7000 rpms, I saw the black flag at the entrance to the Lightbulb. It turned out that the Prelude was smoking into the braking zones now. There was another oil leak, this time from somewhere behind the timing cover. This one wouldn't be an easy fix. Not that there was any time to fix it, of course. We messaged the symptoms to Powertrain Wizard Robert Oliver and loaded the Prelude onto the trailer. Martin had brought a slab of hazelnut chocolate cake from his bakery with the intention to celebrate a successful shakedown. We ate it anyway. And despite all of the problems that day, it still tasted good. The reality is that there are still some underlying problems with the Prelude's powerful new engine. But on the other hand, we were also able to squash the bugs in the chassis and pick up speed in every corner. In all likelihood, we won't be able to address the engine issues before Hyperfest. So, we are executing Plan B. Yours truly will be taking ProjectCRX to VIR in October. Make no mistake, the StudioVRM Prelude will be back. 2021 has us down, but 2022 season is right around the corner. And we will be ready for it when it comes.

Updated 4/28/2023 - Please see the important note in the Installation section for a potential issue and fix. As many of us already know, the 4th and 5th generation Honda Preludes handle extremely well. Their 90's double A-arm front suspension systems do an exceedingly good job of maximizing grip under hard cornering without sacrificing stability in a straight line. They'll even tolerate some mild lowering without the extreme bump steer and shock bottoming that you'll get with modern Macpherson strut cars. The Problem As good as it is, however, the Prelude's suspension isn't immune to common suspension geometry problems, especially when you over-lower your car. If you lower your Prelude by more than an inch or two, you'll find that the car won't feel as planted during hard cornering. It might even feel like your car has more body roll than it did when it was stock. And you would be right. When you lower your car too much, the control arms end up angled in a way that you lose camber under hard cornering. The resulting angles also cause the roll center moving further away from the car's center of gravity, which increases the amount of body roll through corners. If you are interested in the technical hows and whys behind this, we recommend that you read this MotoIQ article by Mike Kojima. TL;DR: It's bad for handling and it's bad for lap times. The good news is that there are bolt-on parts that will help fix these issues. One common fix is to install extended lower ball joints or "roll center correction kits" into the suspension knuckles. These taller ball joints push the outer pivot of the lower control arms downwards, which corrects some of the geometry problems caused by lowering your Prelude. The bad news is that no one makes a roll center correction kit for the Prelude chassis. As fans of one of Honda's less-popular models, this is something that we Prelude owners are used to, but it's still tremendously frustrating that such an easy fix isn't available to us. Or so we thought. The Problem Solvers Thanks to the ingenuity and hard work of Honda Prelude racers Rusty Shellman and Khai Q. Ngyuen, there is a way to get roll center correction kits for 4th and 5th gen cars. Rusty tells us that he was looking for ways to improve the cornering capabilities of his 4th gen Prelude racecar, when he noticed that owners of 05-06 RSX Type Ss were using Prelude lower ball joints as replacements on their cars. This was a game-changing find, because K-Tuned makes a roll-center correcting ball joint kit for these popular DC5 chassis. If RSX owners were using Prelude ball joints, maybe these RSX roll center correction kits would work on his 4th gen Prelude racecar? There was only one way to find out. Rusty bought a set of K-Tuned RSX-S ball joints and tried them on the front and rear knuckles of his racecar. A successful installation confirmed his suspicions - These K-Tuned RSX Type S ball joints do in fact fit and work on 4th gen Honda Preludes. Fellow racer Khai Q. Nguyen became one of the first to test this modification on the newer 5th gen chassis. Following Rusty's instructions, he installed the same ball joints to the stunning white 5th gen that adorns the banner of this article. He found that the K-Tuned roll center correction kit works - And that it fits both the front and rear uprights on 5th gen cars as well. When both Rusty and Khai told us about their new discovery, we had to try it for ourselves. So we went out, bought a pair of K-tuned extended ball joints, and set about installing them on the front of the StudioVRM Prelude. Installation Installing these ball joints is a little more involved than your average brake job, but is still well within the capabilities of a DIY mechanic. In addition to your usual set of metric sockets (10mm through 22mm), ratchets, combination wrenches (again, 10mm through 22mm), needle nose pliers, and screwdrivers, you will need the following: K-Tuned Extended Ball Joints for the 05-06 RSX Type S A small stack of 14mm flat washers Ball joint press* Honda ball joint press adapter set Or alternatively, a 2-jaw puller of the appropriate size A set of big Snap ring pliers A 36mm axle nut socket* (for the front) or a 32mm axle nut socket* (for the rear) Ball joint separator* Tie rod separator* An impact wrench or a stout breaker bar Small chisel set 4 lb drilling hammer or sledgehammer Spare front and rear axle nuts (they are one-time use parts on Hondas) *Most of the specialty tools on the list can be rented from your local parts store. If you don't plan on doing these types of upgrades often, it might be a good idea to do this instead of buying everything outright. Half the battle is getting the suspension knuckle off the car. This can be a bit of a challenge if you haven't done this before. While the best way is to follow the steps on sections 18-16 to 18-18 of the Honda Prelude Factory Service Manual, we do have a few tips that will help make this process a little easier: Use a small chisel and big hammer to un-stake the axle nuts so you can loosen them. This is much easier than prying the metal back with a screwdriver or cutting into the nut with a rotary tool. If you don't have an impact wrench, there's an easy way to remove the axle nuts on your car. Take the center caps off of your wheels, reinstall the wheels, and put the car back on the ground. Put the axle nut socket through the hole for the center cap to un-torque the axle nuts. This will allow you to stand on the breaker bar to generate the torque necessary to loosen the axle nuts. You can also use the same trick to torque the axle nuts to the 181 lbs-ft (front) and 134 lbs-ft (rear) as specified in the factory service manual. You don't need a ball joint tool to loosen the tie rods and ball joints on Honda suspension knuckles. Honda knuckles have a small outcropping where the ball joints and tie rods seat into the knuckle. Loosen the castle nut and hit these outcroppings HARD with a 4 lb hammer (or a sledgehammer). The impact will squeeze down the tapered surface of the ball joint and force it out of the knuckle. If you need to use a ball joint tool, a good picklefork-type ball joint tool tends to do less damage than the clamp-style tools. If your Prelude has rusty, mangled cotter pins, there is an easy way to get them out: Use a set of compound needle nose pliers. These pliers have a set of joints in them that doubles the strength of your grip. In most cases, you can just grab the head of a cotter pin and pull to rip it right through the hole. Once you have the knuckle off of the car, turn it over and use a screwdriver to pull off the metal dust cap off the back. This will give you enough space to use the ball joint press to remove the old ball joint. Remove the snap ring under the ball joint if you have a 4th gen Prelude. If you have a 5th gen, feel free to skip this step. There is no ball joint snap ring on 5th gen cars. Use the Honda ball joint adapter with the cutout, place it on the top side of the knuckle and use the ball joint press to press out your old ball joint. Removing the rubber boot from your old ball joint can make this process slightly easier, but this isn't necessary. Take your time and make sure the adapter cup is properly aligned with the top of the ball joint before you start tightening down on the ball joint. Installing the ball joint is much more straightforward. Just flip the ball joint press around, put the small ring die on the other side of the knuckle, and press the K-Tuned ball joint in from the top of the knuckle. Don't worry if the upper part of the knuckle gets in your way. Just put the press in at a slight angle and tighten it down with a ratchet. As long as the ball joint itself is aligned with the hole, it will press right in. You might notice that the snap ring grooves on the K-Tuned ball joints are buried inside the mounting flange of the knuckle, and that you won't be able to put the included snap rings on the car. This is expected. The lower ball joint mounting flange of the RSX knuckles are a few millimeters thinner than those on the Prelude, so the grooves aren't far down enough for them to show on the Prelude knuckle. Don't worry. Between the top flange of the ball joint and the strength of the press fit, there is more than enough holding power to keep the extended ball joint in place. Re-install the knuckle the same way that you removed it from the car, with one small twist: Before you install the castle nut for the lower ball joint, place two M14 washers between it and the knuckle. The cotter pin holes on the K-Tuned ball joints are drilled closer to the end of the threads than they are on the stock Honda ball joints, and as a result, the cotter pin won't engage with the castle nut. The washers will space the castle nut down enough so that the cotter pin will fit between the gaps of the nut. Important Note - Updated - 4/28/2023 Fellow Prelude enthusiast Ben Klassen reached out to us earlier today and informed us that the tapered portion of the ball joint was protruding through the control arm slightly, as you can see in this picture below: This prevented the castle nut from seating correctly against the underside of the control arm and could potentially cause the ball joint to move around and make noise. To fix this, he trimmed a large washer that had an inner diameter that was slightly larger than the narrowest part of the taper (18mm inner diameter), and fitted it between the control arm and the castle nut: While we have not seen this yet on the cars equipped with these extended ball joints, we suspect that this may be a more common problem with non-OEM control arms. We strongly encourage you to double check to make sure that this will not be a problem with your car. We would like to thank Ben for providing this valuable information and these helpful photos in case any of us happen to run into the same problem in the future. Torque everything down according to the specifications in the factory service manual and put the car back on its wheels to complete the installation process. Check Your Alignment The K-Tuned ball joints lower the outer pivot of the control arm about 6mm compared to stock. While 6mm might not sound like a lot, it's an enormous difference in terms of suspension geometry. In fact, the difference is so big that it will change the ride height of your car. When Khai installed the extended ball joints on both the front and rear suspension knuckles on his car, the ride height dropped by 1/2" (12.7mm) in the front and 1/4" (6.35mm) in the rear. When we installed the front ball joints on the StudioVRM Prelude, we also saw a ride height drop of approximately 1/2". This change in ride height is significant enough to throw off the alignment of your car. If your Prelude has adjustable height coilovers, you can raise the car back to its original height to avoid having to do another alignment. If you have access to some basic alignment tools, we recommend that you check your front and rear toe to make sure it's still within spec. If you have a race car, it may also be worth double checking your corner weights just to make sure that everything is still where you expect them to be. The Results So what does this do for your car's handling? Rusty immediately noticed less body roll overall after installing these ball joints. In his words, the car felt like it "dug into corners rather than riding on top of them", indicating higher overall grip levels and better utilization of his outside tyres. This is the sign of a suspension system that is working properly. Khai tested his still-street legal Prelude on local winding roads and had similarly positive feedback on the feeling of the car through the corners. We can't wait to try it out for ourselves during our next track test. 6mm is a lot in the context of suspension geometry. It's enough to make the difference between a car that turns into corners and one that skates over them. This should make a big difference at tracks which feature very prominent low-speed corners, like NJMP Thunderbolt or Summit Point. When that time comes, we'll see you at the track. Special Thanks Full credit and a big thank you to Rusty and Khai for discovering, testing, and sharing this groundbreaking handling upgrade for our 4th and 5th gen cars. And special thanks to Khai for sending us these great action shots of his car for this article. It's not often that we get to feature such a good looking car on this site. Also, a huge thank you to Ben Klassen for notifying us of a potential snag that may happen on some cars. It's not something that Rusty, Khai, or we here at StudioVRM have seen, so we are very grateful that he took the time to warn us. Disclosure section: Neither Rusty Shellman, Khai Nguyen, StudioVRM, nor Roger Maeda are affiliated with K-Tuned or any of the brands mentioned above. All parts were purchased at full price from each of our own pockets, and installation was performed at the cost of our own time and sanity. However, the Amazon links embedded above are affiliate links, which means that we get a (very small) commission from them every time you buy a product through those links. We would appreciate if you did exactly that. These parts are expensive and we could really use the money.

For years, we at StudioVRM.net have used and recommended the use of adjustable control arm pivots to correct camber on street and track driven Hondas. But lately we are hearing more and more reports of enthusiasts running into issues of all sorts with these affordable and easy to install camber kits. So, we thought we would show you some tips and tricks to make these seemingly simple alignment adjusters last longer and provide a few pieces of advice for those of you who are thinking about buying a camber kit like this for your car: Special thanks to CMP Racing Team Owner Ross Shull for the photos of his crazy looking camber kit failure as well as the video of his alternate solution. Watch the team rock the Champcar field, live on the CMP Racing Youtube Channel. See you at the track. Disclosure section: Neither StudioVRM nor Roger Maeda are affiliated with any of the brands represented in this article or video. Everything on screen was purchased for full price out of Roger's own pocket, except of course, the broken control arm anchors and the slotted control arm in the footage we got from Ross. And we're pretty sure that he bought those out of his own pocket too.

There's no other way to say it. The 2021 SCCA Lightning Challenge was the single worst race event in the history of StudioVRM.Racing. That's in our full 10 years of existence by the way, not the 6 months or so that this site has been on this domain. So instead of writing a long-winded article sulking about all of the negatives in life, I recorded it in video format. And in the process, I reminded myself of a life lesson about how to recover from a catastrophic loss. So in addition to telling a hopefully interesting racing story, I hope that this video gives you something to take forward and use for yourself someday. Enjoy. See you at the track.

Most of our articles at StudioVRM focus on the cars, products, and techniques. But today I wanted to do something different. I wanted to talk about losing. Racing, like any competitive sport, has its winners and losers. Some of those wins can be the best moment of your life. Some of the losses, however, can make you think about walking away and never having to do anything with a racecar for as long as you live. Over this past weekend, I had a firsthand encounter with the latter. It was the worst racing weekend I had taken part of in a very, very long time. It was so bad I considered quitting motorsport entirely. I wanted to share that experience and tell you what I did. Hopefully, it helps you too - If not now, then sometime in the future. See you at the track.

As we all know, bleeding your brakes is an essential skill for any mechanically inclined automotive enthusiast. We also know, brake bleeding can also be an unpleasant and tedious experience, as stuck bleeder screws, brake fluid spills, and persistently soft brake pedals seem to always crop up on the road whenever you attempt to purge the brake system of air. So here are a few obscure tips from our garage that will make this process a little easier: 1. Loosen Bleeder Screws with Your Ratchet If you are reading this article, you have probably run into at least one bleeder screw that was stuck, seized, or had been completely rounded off. The reason for this is very simple. Because the tapered inner tip of the bleeder screw needs to seal tightly against the chamfered hole in the caliper, these screws are made of soft, non-hardened steel. This makes all too easy for them to seize in the cast steel caliper as heats, cools, and gets splashed by water during the course of everyday driving. When it comes time to bleed your brakes, your open wrench just slips off the hexagonal section of the bleeder screw, rounding off the corners and making it impossible to remove. So what can you do to prevent this? The answer is to use a standard 1/4" or 3/8" ratchet with a tight-fitting 6-point socket to loosen your brake bleeder screws. The larger contact area and shape of your 6-point socket will help keep the hexagonal head of the bleeder screw intact while you apply the torque necessary to break it free of any rust that might be holding it in the caliper. Once you have the bleeder moving freely, you can switch to your combination wrench or flare nut wrench so you can attach your hose and get bleeding. One word of warning here - Don't tighten your bleeder screw with a ratchet. The recommended torque figures for bleeder screws are between 6 lbs-ft to 10 lbs-ft (8 - 13 N-m). You could generate that much torque through a standard 8" long ratchet if you put two fingers on the handle and gave it a gentle squeeze. If you tightened one of these bleeder screws with the same vigor as you would a regular 10mm hex bolt, you could easily strip the threads or snap the bead clean off of the bleeder. Instead, use your combination wrench, flare nut wrench, or if you want to be extra careful, a lbs-in torque wrench to tighten the bleeder screw. 2. Keep the Reservoir Cap Loose This is a tip to prevent accidental spills more than anything else. After all, if the seals in your master cylinder are in good condition, they will have no problem handling the small amount of vacuum that forms in the brake fluid reservoir when you bleed the brakes. The issue comes when you open the cap to refill the reservoir with fresh fluid. When you loosen the reservoir cap, the air from the surrounding atmosphere rushes in, causing any fluid remaining in the fluid to splash out and covering your fingers and the firewall with brake fluid. Not only is brake fluid bad for your skin, but it also dissolves the paint on your car. So you want to keep the mess contained as much as possible. All you need to do to prevent this is to open your reservoir cap and keep it loose throughout the entire brake bleeding session. It's just one less mess to clean up. 3. Use a Motorcycle One-Man Bleeder (and a Big Container) You may have seen our previous article on the best one-man brake bleeders for your money, where we recommended inline one-way valve type one-man bleeders commonly used on motorcycles. The one thing we didn't mention was how much time it saves, specifically because you can use a giant waste bottle for the old brake fluid. While this might not seem significant, this can be a huge time saver. Your average car's brake system holds anywhere between 32 fl oz to 64 fl oz of fluid (approx. 1L - 2L of fluid). When you bleed all four corners of your car's brake system, you can expect to pump about 16 oz (~470ml) of that fluid out of the bleeders. If your waste bottle is big enough, you don't need to stop partway through bleeding one caliper, which minimizes the chances that you accidentally knock the hose off of the bleeder nipple or spill dirty brake fluid everywhere while transferring it to a bigger bottle. Even in those rare occasions that I have a second pair of hands to help, I will still opt to use a motorcycle bleeder instead of a length of plain hose. The one-way valve in the bleeder serves a great backup mechanism in case my hand slips and I can't get the bleeder screw closed before my helper finishes depressing the brake pedal. All in all, it's a huge time saver as well as a preventative for frustration. 4. Wrench Open Bottles for a Mess-Free Pour In stark contrast to its innocuous appearance, brake fluid is horrible stuff. It will irritate your skin, dissolve several kinds of plastic, accelerate corrosion on metal components, and will strip the paint off your car. You don't want it to get anywhere that it shouldn't be. You can keep the mess contained by opening your new brake fluid bottles in a particular way. After you pull the cap off a fresh bottle of brake fluid, take the open wrench that you use on your brake bleeders, hook the open end on the lip of the bottle, and use it to punch a hole in the seal as if you were using a can opener. Then turn the bottle 180 degrees and punch another hole on the other side. Now when you pour your new fluid, it will come out in a steady stream instead of glugging and splashing all over your engine bay. Easy. 5. No Bubbles? Keep Bleeding Anyway Yes, one of the main objectives of bleeding your brakes is to get air bubbles out of the brake system. But don't stop after a few pumps just because you don't see any air bubbles coming out. Most of the bubbles that form in your brake system are microscopic in size and cannot be seen with the naked eye. Instead, get into the habit of pumping out all of the fluid in the caliper every time you bleed the brakes. That's usually between 5-10 pumps per caliper for standard single or dual piston floating calipers, and more if you have fixed calipers. While this might feel like a waste a waste of brake fluid, there really is no other way to ensure that you are getting all of the air out of your brake system. Besides, doing a few extra pumps is a lot easier than taking the wheel off and bleeding that corner again. That's all I have for you today. Pump hard, wear protection, and try not to make a mess. See you at the track.

Let's be clear. I'm not what you would call an avid sim racer. Sure, I'll occasionally hop on Forza with friends for a few Sunday races around Road Atlanta. But that's a world away from that of competitive sim racing. So I was surprised as anyone else when I found myself lining up on the grid in an official virtual series run by a real-life racing sanctioning body. And my competitors weren't your average sim racers - They were all pro drivers from the real-life US Touring Car Championship. Welcome to the USTCC. Virtually. For those of you who aren't familiar with the name, the US Touring Car Championship is the most affordable Professional Touring Car series in the United States. They are the spiritual successor of the Speed World Challenge Touring Cup series, combining modern production-based cars and talented racers with professional TV coverage to put on an impressive show. Well, prevailing conditions meant that the series couldn't start their 2020 season as planned. So series organizer Ali Arsham and his son Reza started a virtual series to keep their drivers from going stir crazy during quarantine. This being the USTCC, it wouldn't be a few open lobbies in Forza. These would be proper sanctioned races using Project Cars 2 with live commentary, streaming on Twitch and Facebook Live, and prize money for podium finishers. This was the real deal. That first 2020 season was immensely popular. 15-20 car fields filled the track at every race, and it was everything you'd expect from touring car racing: Close, aggressive wheel-to-wheel racing in 300+hp sedans, punctuated by spectacular crashes when things went awry. It was great fun for both drivers and spectators. So much so that Ali and Reza decided to bring the series back for the 2021 off-season. Unfortunately, the 2021 season started with a whimper rather than a bang. Between real-life commitments and technical issues, most of the drivers from the 2020 season couldn't attend the season opener. Just three cars took the green flag at the first race at Long Beach in what looked like it would be a lonely race. Despite this, the race went on. And it was surprisingly good. Series organizer Reza turned out to be both exceptionally fast and exceptionally crash-prone, resulting in a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game as he tried to escape from the consistent Michael McColligan and animated Ali Arsham, who would close the gap with every incident. The commentary team at Team Supernova Racing & Designs carried on with professionalism and bravado, delivering a steady stream of racing insights and amplifying the on-track action when it happened. It looked like genuinely good fun. Enough fun for me to buy a copy of Project Cars 2 on Steam and put down the $50 entry fee to join the season from the next round. And just like that, Team StudioVRM.Racing had made its foray into the world of competitive sim racing. Project Cars 2, Controller Style The USTCC Virtual Series' sim of choice is Project Cars 2, a racing sim praised for its realistic handling as well as diverse selections of both cars and tracks. It also happens to have the most epic menu music of any game I've ever played. The USTCC organizers chose it for its solid physics model and the fact that the Touring Cars in the game handled similarly to the cars in the real-life US Touring Car Championship. After doing some practice laps in single player mode, I thought they chose well. The Touring Car class in Project Cars 2 offers a choice of three cars (with a fourth if you buy the DLC). In traditional StudioVRM style, we opted for the least popular car - the Mercedes-AMG A45 Touring in the blue and white Team Dominum Racing livery. The AMG has a reputation for being a bit of a wooly handler, but that was the least of our concerns. Our big handicap was our hardware. Due to a basement flood that destroyed our old Logitech racing wheel, I would be racing with an Xbox One controller. Driving a car on track requires the use of very small, precise inputs for things like unwinding the wheel or making small adjustments under hard braking. These types of things tend to be rather difficult on a controller, even with mods like these thumb stick extenders that we bolted on later in the season. It was probably not the best choice of hardware against a field of experienced racers equipped with Fanatec and Thrustmaster setups. Too late to back down. Before we could do anything about it, it was Thursday night - Race night for rounds 3 and 4 at Watkins Glen. Hopefully we wouldn't be lapped too often. We Like the Racing Fortunately for me, the USTCC virtual series turned out to be very friendly to newcomers. The cars are restricted to one of two default setups, all assists are allowed, and qualifying is determined by a random grid to prevent runaway wins from the fastest drivers. Damage is turned up to Authentic to stop drivers from playing bumper cars in their touring cars, and the tracks are announced only 2 hours before the start to prevent drivers from spending their entire day optimizing their line around a particular track. In practice, this formula worked well. Despite having never turned a competitive lap around Watkins Glen, I was able to settle in quickly and get comfortable going side by side with the USTCC regulars. By the end of the 20-minute official practice, the #8 AMG A45 was lapping at a solid mid-pack pace. Not bad. The race was even better. Our fears of being left behind at the start proved completely unfounded, as the random grid thrust us into a tight three-way battle with the Renaults of Brad Austin and Ali Arsham. And it was a good, close fight. Run a little too wide and a brightly colored racecar would go flying past. Defend well or risk going two-wide through the next three corners. The first race was 30 minutes of nonstop position changes punctuated by an occasional incident to mix up the running order. It's a good thing that both the cars and drivers were as tough as tanks. Halfway through the first race, I misjudged my closing distance to Ali's yellow Renault and inadvertently put both of us into the Armco at the end of the boot. We immediately pointed our cars down the track and kept fighting as if nothing had happened. There was no time for anger, no time for apologies. Another moment of hesitation and Michael McColligan's green BMW would have snatched 3rd place away from both of us. It that close. Before I knew it, the 30-minute race was over. I crossed the line 4th, just half a car's length behind Ali. My hands were shaking. My heart was pounding. It was the most fun I ever had in a racing game. Even though I knew all well that it was just 3D models circulating around a rendered track, I felt the same rush as what I feel after a strong race in our Prelude. The racing felt real. The commentary team invited Ali and me to the broadcast group on Discord to give live interviews. Ali gave cool, professional answers to Team Supernova's questions, while I babbled out some mindless adrenalin-fueled responses about how much I enjoyed my first USTCC virtual race. Before long it was time for the second race of the night, a wet-weather thriller that included moments like this 3-wide entry into the bus-stop chicane. It was insane. I was hooked. The next round couldn't come soon enough. Cars, Competition, Camaraderie While the series organizers chose a good sim and put on a good event, it's the people that makes the USTCC virtual series as good as it is. As it turns out, the USTCC grid contains a wide variety of personalities, driving styles, and sim racing skill levels. Running up front are the serious sim racers like drift king Reza and lightning-quick Nik Romano. Mixing it with them are the ultra-consistent Dave Brown that punches in fast laps with metronomic consistency and the affable Andy Chittum who shrugs off shunts with a smile before charging through the field without batting an eye. Red Panther Motorsports team boss Reto Baumann proved to be blindingly fast over one lap but a bit of a magnet for incidents, allowing hard charger James Gouveia and the comradely Brad Austin to draw him into battles for position. High-energy driving from real-life series founder Ali Arsham and assertive attacker Michael McColligan kept us on our toes through the full length of every race. And towards the back, we had the super-friendly Mark McManus who filled the in-race Discord chat with friendly banter while proving that you don't need to win to enjoy competitive sim racing. While I suspect the running order of the drivers is a little different from that in real-life USTCC races, it was a good field all the same. While the drivers ran the races, it was the commentary team that turned it into a show worth watching. Team Supernova proved to be naturals at commentating races. Talented sim racer Brandon Hodges, up and coming car livery designer Austin Rahn, and touring car racer Thomas "TJ" Pitre showed off their natural chemistry while toggling effortlessly between sim racing banter and astute observations on the on-track action. It didn't take much to convince my fellow east coast racers to join the grid. ProjectCRX's Andrew Yoon was the first to register out of our local group, buying a secondhand Thrustmaster setup to dive head first into the next few rounds at Zolder. He instantly made his mark by putting a black and white Megane on the podium in his first race. One round and one Steam Sale later, bombastic SCCA racer Martin Szwarc and time trial whiz kid Firoze Mehta joined the grid to add some serious heat to the races at the Dubai Autodrome. The new racers added so much excitement that the organizers decided to extend the series by an extra three races. But not before Midwest-based rallycross driver Alton B. Worthington crashed the party with an elbows-out style of racing that he himself describes best as "rowdy." And boy was it rowdy. There were so many close races at the Algarve rounds that the commentary team went dead silent while trying to figure out which cars to commentate on. Thursday night quickly became the highlight of our week, and no wonder. The USTCC Virtual Series wasn't about racing online. It was racing online with a friendly group of talented people that knew how to race hard and still have fun. It was fantastic. Crescendo to a Grand Finale The weeks and races flew by in a flurry of bumps, scrapes, and spraying of virtual champagne. Before long it was time for the series finale. Some of us had made a bit of a game of trying to guess the event venue before the Thursday evening announcement and we were thrilled to discover that our guess of the Circuit de Catalunya was completely incorrect. The grand finale of the 2021 virtual series would be a three-race triple header at the traditional home of British touring car racing, Brands Hatch Circuit. None of us were particularly comfortable racing on the Grand Prix layout of Brands Hatch. The sweeping downhill turn one through Paddock Hill will unsettle even the most experienced driver, and as expected, multiple racers found themselves riding into the gravel runoff during the pre-race open practice session. It was a similar story with the uphill left known as Surtees Corner, with multiple front wheel drive racecars finding the outside wall before the race even started. These 20-minute races would be fights for survival. The winners would be the ones that made the fewest mistakes. I focused on getting a handle on the rhythm of the track during the short open practice. Ignore the lap times, don't worry about being a second off the pace. One-lap pace was secondary to consistency. If I could drive a clean race, run consistently, and maybe get a little lucky with our randomly chosen starting position, I could put the #8 Mercedes AMG A45 Touring in the top 5. Luckily for us, the RND gods were merciful, and we started 6th on the grid. Unluckily for the Team Supernova commentators, connectivity issues prevented the chaotic first race from being broadcast live. But believe me when I say it was chaotic. We made it through three turns before a multi-car incident took out a third of the field. With generous use of defensive driving, we avoided the calamity and got the Merc in fourth behind the red, yellow, and white BMW of Dave Brown and the Renault of Reto Baumann. Dave and Reto were both too fast for me or my XBox One controller, so I made it my mission to keep them within striking distance. If either of them made a mistake, I wanted to be there to take their place. It took all of 7 minutes before the first incident happened. Nik Romano and Firoze Mehta had charged up from the back of the grid locked in a dead heat. I briefly considered joining them in that fight but decided it would be wiser to stick with the original plan. That decision proved correct. Reto joined their battle only for the three of them to come together on Hawthorn Hill and plummet back down the order. I latched onto the back of Dave Brown intent on keeping him in sight. All the while, I could hear screams over the Discord-powered in-car radio as cars bumped, rubbed, and flew off track behind me. Don't get distracted. Stay focused. Stick to the plan. I managed to maintain a consistent pace for 18 minutes before Nik and Firoze recovered from their earlier clash and caught back up. Despite the damage to their cars, I was powerless to defend as they swept past in the third sector. As they did, Dave took a little too much curb through Westfield and spun into the wall on the inside. Although the podium had slipped out of reach, the strategy worked. The #8 AMG A45 finished 4th on the road behind the lightning-fast trio of Reza, Nik, and Firoze. Then came 2nd practice. And the rain. Lots of rain. The rear-drive BMWs started drifting wildly through every turn as the front wheel drive Renaults and AMGs drove squiggly lines down the straights to avoid the huge puddles that started forming on the edges of the track. These last two races were going to be something else. The start was something else indeed. The random grid put our #8 Mercedes-AMG A45 on pole ahead of the BMWs of James Gouveia and Mark McManus. James ran similar times to us in the dry and Mark was a few seconds off our pace. If we got a clean start, maybe we could pull a gap on the field and snatch a podium spot before the faster cars could catch up. Green light, and away we went. James sprinted ahead with a wild, tail-wagging start, snatching the lead. I tucked in behind James, trying to stay as close as possible while keeping the front end clean. Dave Brown and Nik Romano leapt up the order to take 3rd and 4th while Reza found himself going into turn 3 backwards, facing Alton Worthington who had a big moment in the first three turns of the race. As we went down the Hawthorn Hill and into the first sweeping right known as Westfield, James lost the rear end of his purple BMW and speared straight into the inside wall. And just like that, Team StudioVRM.Racing was leading the race... If only for a few corners. Dave and Nik were all over the rear bumper of our AMG and itching for a fight. As much as it pained us, we knew that getting involved in a 3-way brawl on Lap 2 would only end in tears. So I made the decision to take the conservative strategy and let the two of them by. Maybe they would tangle and open up an opportunity for us to get out in front. While all this was happening, the black, red, and white Renaults of Reto Baumann and Andrew Yoon had quietly made their way up from the back of the grid and were now knocking on our door. A small mistake in the second sector allowed Reto through, while Andrew Yoon streamed up the inside going into Hawthorns a few laps later to push us down to 5th place. And even that wouldn't be for long. A few laps later, Reza got past in his battle-damaged yellow BMW. Our conservative strategy was not paying off. Reto and Reza endured a few off-track moments which resulted in us getting back one position before the checkered flag. I crossed the line fifth behind Nik, Dave, Andrew Yoon, and Reto. I was disappointed. I suspect most racers would be. No racer wants to finish off the podium after starting on pole. There was one race left - One last 20-minute sprint in monsoon-level conditions. Damn the strategy. For this last race, we would be giving it everything we had... and then some. Finishing Flat Out So the curtain lifted on the very last race of the 2021 USTCC Virtual Series. Brandon, Thomas, and Austin in the commentary booth could only laugh when they got their first glimpse of the torrential downpour that we would be racing in. It was raining so hard at this point that puddles were forming on the grid. These would be nightmare conditions for most. For us and our seventh-place grid slot, it was game time. One last green light, and 13 racecars scrambled off the grid. As expected, conditions were treacherous. Mark McManus caught a puddle on the grid and speared off into the wall before he even crossed the start-finish line, nearly taking Alton's blue and white Opel with him. I took an aggressive line through the middle of turn one, taking 6th from Andrew Yoon and getting in position to attack Dave Brown and Nik Romano ahead. Before I could attempt an overtake, Dave and Nik suffered synchronized spins on the exit of Graham Hill. Andy Yoon and I got past with four wheels on the outside kerb and were now running 3rd and 4th. James Gouveia had emerged from the early chaos to take the lead ahead of Andy Chittum's white AMG, with Firoze Mehta, Andrew Yoon, and me hot on their heels. That running order only lasted for a few corners as James and Andy Chittum hit a big puddle on Hawthorn Hill and hydroplaned into the wall. In the blink of an eye, the east coast trio of Firoze Mehta, Andrew Yoon, and Roger Maeda were running 1-2-3. Getting past Firoze and Andrew Yoon would be tough. When we were running time trials together, Andy and Firoze were consistently amongst the fastest drivers in their classes. But I wasn't about to waste this opportunity to end the season on a high. So I dialed the brake bias rearwards, slid the rear into every corner, and hung on as my AMG strained every mechanical sinew in its blue and white body to keep up with the leaders. Reto, Reza, Dave, and Andy Chittum did their best to close the gap in their damaged cars, with little success. I watched the clock ticked down as we pulled away from the pack. Firoze and Andrew Yoon were running within a few tenths of each other, with me just a few seconds behind. If we could keep up this pace, we would all finish on the podium. But then, with just under 3 minutes left on the clock, I saw headlights in my rear-view mirror. Nik Romano had clawed back the losses from his first lap spin and was closing fast. Nik caught up on the penultimate lap at Graham Hill. I wasn't going to just let him through this time. He made a move into Westfield, I held my ground. We went through the last three turns side-by-side, leaving just enough room for each other. Once again, I could feel my heart trying to pound itself out of my chest. It was one last wheel to wheel battle to sign off a month and a half of hardcore competition. In the end, Nik got the upper hand through Stirlings and claimed the last podium spot for himself. I crossed the line fourth, with my head held high. it was a fine race to cap off a brilliant series. I never thought I would enjoy sim racing as much as I had in these past five weeks. This wasn't just a random online race series with nameless, faceless strangers from the internet. It was real racing with drivers of real cars who understood the thrill of close racing as well as the consequences of getting it wrong. It's a shame I won't get to race with these guys in real life when the actual race season starts. Oh well. Thanks to my two podium finishes and series sponsor The Speed Traveler, I now have an extra $20 that I didn't have before. Maybe I'll put it towards a wheel and pedal set for next season. Watch the Races Here's where you can watch all the race replays from the 2021 USTCC Virtual Series, with commentary from Team Supernova: Team Supernova on Twitch.tv United States Touring Car Championship Videos on Facebook The drivers and organizers all expressed interest in doing this again. We don't know yet if it will be a 2021 summer series or if we will have to wait until 2022. Look for the announcement here so you can join us: USTCC.com Lastly, here's where you can watch the full, commentated replays of every real-life USTCC race: Final Drive TV on Youtube In the meantime, I'll see you at the track.

The very first article on this StudioVRM Racing Secrets blog was a list of tips and tricks to make FWD cars fast around a racetrack. 6 years later, it remains one of the most read and visited articles on the site. So for the blog's sixth birthday, I thought we would keep the series going with three more tips and tricks to get the most out of your FWD track or race car. Use Rear Toe-Out on Newer Cars As many of you know, we at StudioVRM recommend running small amounts of toe-out in the back of FWD Honda racecars. It keeps the rear end from dragging through the entry and middle phases of corners, helping with cornering speed and keeping tyre wear more even. What we haven't talked about is how this has become the standard for pro-class FWD Touring cars. The main reason for this is that almost all new sporty front wheel drive cars use a Macpherson strut layout up front. Despite all of their advances, these front suspension systems are still camber challenged compared to the double A-arm setups on FWD cars from the 80's and 90's. To make matters worse, many Touring Car classes limit the amount of camber you can add to the wheels. This is all bad news for cornering grip on a front-driven racecar. Fortunately, the engineers at pro touring car teams are resourceful. They realized that if they can't add grip to the front, they need to make the rear tyres work for them. So that's what they did. By adding more rear camber and dialing in extraordinarily high amounts of rear toe-out, they effectively use the rear tyres to help steer the car through the first few two phases of a corner. This takes some work away from the already overworked front tyres while allowing the driver to rely on load transfer rather than steering lock to rotate the car. How high is "extraordinarily high"? Well, just to give you an idea, reliable sources at several TC America teams have admitted to running over a full degree of rear total toe-out. Of course, this is something that applies to newer (2012+) cars with limited front suspension geometry and very small rubber bushings. If your FWD racecar was built in the 80s, 90s, or early 2000s, start with a lot less, say 0.1 degrees of rear total toe-out. Don't attempt anything more than 0.4 degrees of total rear toe out unless you have replaced your squishy stock suspension bushings with spherical bearings. Add a Rear Wing In the early 2000's, big wings on front wheel drive cars were regarded as a bit of a joke amongst car enthusiasts. In 2021, nearly all fast FWD track cars have a big, downforce-producing rear wing. So what changed? The answer is that racers and track day drivers started setting up their cars for corner entry oversteer. In the 1990's, only the fastest and most aggressive racers would use a big rear anti-roll bar, stiff rear springs, run narrow rear tyre, or run extreme-looking alignment settings in pursuit of that razer-sharp cornering performance. In the 2020's, it's common knowledge that you need to do one or more of these things to get the best possible lap time out of a FWD track or race car. However, all of these setup changes come with a drawback - corner entry oversteer through high-speed corners. And yes, that is a bad thing. Unlike in the world of autocross and stage rally, high-speed oversteer is both slow and scary on a road course. If only there was a way to retain that tail-happy behavior through slow corners while keeping the car stable through fast sweepers. That's where a good, downforce-producing rear wing comes in. A well-designed, well-set up rear wing will give you that much needed stability through the fast sections without sacrificing that low-speed cornering agility you worked so hard for. You also don't need anything exotic. A 9Lives wing or an APR GTC-200 mounted a few inches below roof height is more than enough to make a significant difference in how the car handles. Use a Softer Rear Tyre for Sprint Races I learned about this counter-intuitive trick from a fellow Honda racer, Fusion Works Fabrication's Brett Whisenant. As we all know, it takes a little while to warm up the rear tyres of a front wheel drive racecar. If your FWD track car runs on DOT R-compound or full racing slicks, you're probably already used to wrangling the car during the first few laps of a race due to tons of corner-entry oversteer from cold rear tyres. A rear wing does wonders to fix this behavior, but there are many racing classes out there that won't allow you to run one. So what can you do? Brett's solution to this problem is to swap the road-race oriented Hoosier "R" DOT racing tyres on the rear end of his Integra with the softer autocross-focused "A" compound of the same size. These softer Hoosier As are designed to come up to operating temperature within a few corners instead of within a few laps. This means he can aggressively push the car from the very first lap without worrying about spinning the car. As the race goes on and the rear tyres get hotter, that extra grip will fade away. On a rear wheel drive car, that would be annoying. But in a front wheel drive race car, you can use that to your advantage. A 30-40 minute sprint race will generate enough heat into your front tyres that their grip will start to fade, resulting in more and more corner exit understeer. If you play with the tyre pressures on the rear tyres, you can get the rears to fade at the same time as the fronts, neutralizing that late-race understeer and keeping the handling of the car consistent through an entire session. While this strategy might not be necessary for those of you living in warmer climates, it's something to consider for sprint races during the cool autumn months. That's all I have for today. Thank you very much for reading. I will see you at the track.

Splitters are amazing functional aero pieces on a track or race car. Unfortunately, they can also be unwieldly, and can cause a lot of collateral damage to your car if you ever hit anything while it's attached to your car. We at StudioVRM can't afford to buy new bumpers and subframes on a regular basis, so we use a mounting mechanism that not only makes it easier to live with a full-length splitter, but has some built-in safety mechanisms in the case the worst case scenario becomes reality. Here's how we do it: Quick Releases Everywhere In order for a front splitter to make a significant difference on track, it must be large, it must protrude forward of the bumper at least a few inches, and it must be within 4" of the ground. This also means that you will need some very low ramps or have a quick way to remove and reattach the splitter in order to do anything under the car (or for that matter, load it onto a trailer). Due to the high cost of low-profile race ramps, we recommend the latter. Instead of bolting the splitter blade directly to the chassis, we used PCI-Style quick release splitter brackets for a Civic and modified them so they would fit into the factory tie-down mounting holes. These quick release brackets have an ingenious design. When locked in place, the brackets are solid. The weight of the splitter (as well as any downforce it generates) is supported by the two burly bolts in between the top and bottom halves of the bracket, and there's very little play in any direction. But if you pull the detent pin in the middle of the bracket, the two halves slide apart, allowing you to unhook the splitter and remove it from the car in a matter of minutes. Because the Super Touring Under class' Advanced Aero regulations allow for a splitter that extends 3" past the bumper, we need splitter support rods to prevent the splitter blade from bending excessively. Our support rods of choice are the DIFTech quick release splitter rods. Similar to the splitter mounting brackets, these support rods use detent pins that you can pull to quickly unhook them from the car. These rods are designed so you can replace the fasteners that attach them to the splitter and bumper, which for reasons we'll get into later, are very important. They also have two built-in weak points designed into the threaded parts of the rods, which are a very handy safety feature in the event of the worst-case scenario. Built-in Breakaways In addition to being an almost essential convenience, these quick releases serve an important secondary function: They act as built-in weak points that allows the splitter to break away from the car in the event of a big hit. Why do you need a breakaway? Well, splitters stick out a fair bit from the front of the bumper and are therefore the first thing to contact a wall, a ditch, or another car. If a splitter is solidly mounted to the chassis of your car, the forces of any impact will transmit right through the mounts and bend or break whatever it's attached to. Sure, the splitter will absorb some of those forces, but not all of them. And even if it does, you don't want a big chunk of splitter piercing your radiator or wreaking havoc in your engine bay. Especially if it happens to be made of aluminum, carbon fiber, or Tegris. Fortunately, the pins and fasteners in these quick release mounts and supports are thin enough that they can act like this type of fail-safe. Just by using this type of mount over a solid bracket, you get an added level of assurance that, in a crash, the splitter will separate from the car safely without tearing up the body. Use the Right Fasteners Many splitter mounting brackets and support rods come with round head, recessed hex bolts to secure the hardware to the splitter blade. While they have a nice low profile and do look good, they are a terrible choice for this application. Throw them out or save them for something else. The reason is that splitters spend most of their working lives scraping across the ground as you brake, corner, and straddle the red and white striped kerbs at your local racetrack. By the end of the day, the shallow hexagonal hole in the head would have been worn down that you won't be able to get an Allen key in it, making it impossible to remove and replace the bracket. If possible, replace these round head bolts with elevator bolts. Elevator bolts have flat bottoms that sit flush against the bottom of your splitter blade once tightened and won't be subject to the same wear as regular bolts. If you can't get elevator bolts, use regular hex-head flange bolts. Not only do these bolts have the advantage of being cheap and readily available, but they can also be easily removed even when the heads have experienced a bit of wear. Some companies sell bolt-on wear plates that you can bolt to the bottom of your splitter. While these do look very good, they aren't necessary. Instead, take a page from the handbook of pro racing coach Todd Reid and bolt a few stubby large-diameter bolts on the edges of the splitter. These bolts will serve the same function as those expensive wear plates and will be much cheaper to replace. Live Demonstration So this is all well and good. But how do we know whether all these measures work in real life? Well, due to a clumsy off-track excursion by our team's official test and race driver (me), we have real data that shows how these breakaway mounts work in real life. Here's an in-car video that shows exactly what happens when you run into something hard with your chassis-mounted splitter. That divot in the outfield is quite a bit deeper than it looks on video. When we drove over that bit, the splitter dug into the dirt and the car launched into the air by a few inches before thumping back to the ground. Fortunately for us, the breakaway mechanisms worked exactly as planned. The entire splitter blade broke away from the car in one piece, leaving the delicate underside of the StudioVRM Prelude untouched as it bounded through the bumpy grass-covered runoff. Aside from a pair of slightly dented splitter brackets, the only other damage to the car were these holes on the sides of the bumper cover. This was our fault. We had bolted an additional set of support rods to the sides of the front bumper cover to help support our extra-wide splitter through fast sweepers. While this did help keep the edges of the splitter held high enough so they wouldn't drag on banked turns, it also meant that the plastic holding the support rods were weaker than the breakaway points built into the support rods. Fortunately, this wasn't a big problem. Plastic repair kits are so cheap and are easy to use that even the ham-fisted of home mechanics will be able to patch up a broken front bumper. All we did was a bit of ABS plastic filler, shaped it with this $12 hot iron, and sanded it flat. All we need is a bit of touch-up paint, and our damaged bumper cover will be ready to go back on the car. Conclusion and Recommendations While it's natural to assume that everything on your car should be as strong and durable as possible, it's not the case with things like front splitters. Take the time to design weak points into the car to ensure that a small mistake or a minor bump with a competitor won't result in expensive, race-ending damage to your car. Remember, splitters are cheap and disposable. Don't be afraid to sacrifice it to save your car... or, for that matter, to save your race.

In the mid-2000's, a motorsport enthusiast in the UK designed a metal device that would let you lock the lap portion of your car's 3-point seatbelt and use it like a cheap racing seat. This device was called the CG-Lock and it was a fantastic tool for autocrossers and track day enthusiasts alike. Yours truly had one for his street-driven Nissan 200sx and loved it. In the late 2010's, nostalgia drove this author to look for another one, only to find that they were no longer being produced. Instead, the inventor had adapted the concept and turned it into an ergonomic device to help prevent back pain from long drives in your street car. This new device is made of a softer neoprene-like material and is (rather oddly) called the SHOFT. So being a sucker for random car gadgets, I bought one. As it turns out, it's actually quite useful - probably more so than the old CG-Lock. See for yourself on the StudioVRM youtube channel: Where to Buy: Direct from the manufacturer at Shoft.co.uk (yes, they ship to the US) Update - 12.13.2020: Shortly after we released this video, I received a message from Graham Cox, the inventor of the SHOFT. He thanked us for our candid review and offered to send us one of the discreet black-on-orange version of the SHOFT for us to try out. According to Graham, it would be "as black as James Bond's bowtie." Well, a few days later we got his package. Curiously, instead of coming by Royal Post, this package came through the US Post Office. It turns out that Graham's generous gift came from the desk of Wil Jacques, Graham's US-based distributor for SHOFT. Apparently the SHOFT is called CINCH in the US and comes in a package that has been redesigned for the US market. Based on the catchy name and the eye-catching packaging, it looks like it should do well on store shelves here in the US. Graham was right about the look too. The black version is finished in a classy deep satin black. While we attention-seeking racecar drivers love safety orange, this black version disappears into the shadows on a modern car seat belt. I suspect this will be the more popular option for most fashion-conscious drivers. Disclosure section: Neither StudioVRM nor Roger Maeda are affiliated with SHOFT. All products tested were purchased at full price out of Roger's own pocket. Thankfully, international shipping from the UK is still cheap. The black SHOFT in the last picture was sent to us by Graham Cox and Wil Jacques, maker and US distributor of the SHOFT (aka CINCH) device as a thank you for publishing the review. Since we already had enough SHOFT devices for our entire fleet of street cars, we gave this new device to our team's Race Engineer. We'll update this article if we have any new findings with this model.

They say it's "third time lucky." But in the world of racecar testing, there is no such thing as getting lucky at a test. Tests are for finding and fixing problems so they don't become an issue during a race. If you owe your trouble-free test day to luck, you did not have a successful test. That's why we came away from our final test of the 2020 season with the same accomplished euphoria as when we finish on the podium. After being stymied by problem after problem, the StudioVRM Prelude was finally running the way it was meant to. And we knew it wasn't down to luck. With ambient temperatures near freezing and 20-30 mph winds threatening to tear the State Flag of New Jersey off its pole, we knew we wouldn't be breaking any lap records at this cold November test. Fortunately, gasoline engines love cold temperatures. And our 2020-spec H23A1 loved it. The painstaking re-work of the Prelude's ancient electronics had paid off. Gone were the intermittent misfires and fuel flow issues that stopped us from turning a single fast lap at our last test. The Prelude's cast aluminum heart roared to life and gently shook the cabin through the new engine mounts it received since our October test. On track, the motor rewarded robust applications of throttle with excellent response in the middle of its 3500rpm-wide powerband. This enhanced drivability is a welcome addition, as it will help us make overtaking moves where our torquey Honda has the advantage over its competition. On the other hand, there seemed to be a noticeable lack of top-end power, though the AFR gauge showed us why: Despite the cold, dense ambient air, the gauge showed an air fuel ratio of just 10:1. When we dyno-tuned the StudioVRM Prelude, it still had the Prelude's original Honda fuel pump. While it seemed to be adequate at the time, it wasn't enough to allow the 410cc RDX injectors to pump fuel to their full potential. Now that we had upgraded to a 255LPH Walbro unit, the engine was getting much more fuel than what the tune expected. Extra fuel is good for cooling the engine, but it isn't ideal for power. By running the engine so rich, we were leaving more than a few percent of power on the table under full throttle. That wasn't the only issue of the day. An off-track moment during an early morning session tore the BEMS-built splitter right out of its mounts, leaving some big holes in the front bumper and relegating the Prelude to a state of perpetual understeer. There was also an elusive oil leak somewhere near the timing cover that caused the car to puff clouds of blue smoke during right-hand turns. Yet, despite all this, the Prelude kept pounding out the laps. Team StudioVRM spent the afternoon chasing down drivers in high-dollar sports cars, briefly pausing to observe Martin's equally productive test day in the ProjectCRX Si. In six on-track sessions, we gathered enough data to get the best out of our Hoosier road race slicks and plan a slew of handling and aero setup changes for the 2021 season. It felt great to have our first productive on-track session in months. It felt even better knowing that these strong laps would translate to a strong start when the tracks reopen in 2021. Of course, there's still plenty of development work to be done over the off-season. In addition to repairing the bumper and replacing the splitter, we plan to refine the aerodynamics of the car to reduce parasitic drag and make the most of our power. Speaking of power, we also have a new intake manifold previously ported by Bad Guys Worldwide which we hope will help extract a few extra hp at the top end of the Honda H23A1 powerplant. No doubt, this will be a very busy winter. But for the first time in years, we will go into this off season with great expectations from our first race of 2021. Time to get to work.

I'm sure you all know about the double-wrench trick, where you can link two combination wrenches together to break stuck nuts. But how many of you know about the double-screwdriver trick to help loosen over-torqued screws? Well, it turns out that the hanger holes on the tops of hardware store screwdrivers are quite strong - Strong enough that you can stick a second screwdriver into them and use it as a T-handle to get some extra torque. It might not look like very much, but that few extra inches of leverage are enough to multiply the torque applied to the fastener by a factor of 3-5x. It's enough to break most stuck and rusty fasteners in cars, appliances, and your home. It's a handy trick for when the power drill is out of reach, or when you leave your impact driver in the other toolkit. Just don't use that trick to tighten the screws, or you'll never get them back out. Special Thanks Thanks to ProjectCRX's Martin Szwarc for this tech tip. Check out https://ProjectCRX.racing to learn more about his wild misadventures in our Honda CRX endurance racer.