Normally I wouldn't post three videos in a row, but this time I'm making an exception. Because by some bizarre coincidence, I found out that you can buy Rich Energy Drink from Walmart.com. And my case of 24 cans just arrived. For those of you who may not understand why I'm so excited, Rich Energy Drink is a near-mythical energy drink produced by the London-based Rich Energy Ltd. The company popped up seemingly from nowhere and made a name for itself by offering high-dollar motorsport sponsorships while offering no apparent product. A judgement from a recent lawsuit revealed that many of the 9 million cans produced from the company were never actually filled with drink. Almost everyone who knew anything about it doubted that the actual drink actually existed. So you can imagine my excitement when I, a hardcore enthusiast of both motorsport and energy drinks, got my greasy mitts on a whole case of this mystery drink. There was only one thing to do. Do a taste test and capture my rambling first impressions on video: Where I got it: Rich Energy Drink - Case of 12 at Walmart.com See you at the track. Disclaimer Section: StudioVRM is not affiliated or sponsored by Walmart or Rich Energy Ltd. Roger paid for this case of Rich Energy Drink fully expecting the taste to be awful and that he would have to beg his friends to take it off his hands. Fortunately he was wrong and will likely be drinking it all.

I'm often asked if Honda Preludes can be fast, competitive racecars. After all, you can build a race car out of anything. But building a race car that is competitive enough to run at the front is a whole different story. At last week's SCCA Lightning Challenge races, we got  the answer to that oft-asked question. Rather than talk about the details, I thought I'd show you instead. Enjoy the view from the driver's seat: Onboard the StudioVRM Prelude through a chaotic Qualifying Race Onboard the StudioVRM Prelude - 2019 Lightning Challenge Race For those of you who are wondering, this is what the car looks like today. I'll take some time to talk about the new aero kit in a future article. Until then, I'll see you at the track.

Like most good automotive enthusiasts, I use plastic zip ties on everything. Everything from the wiring in the garage to the roll bar padding on our racecars are held tightly in place by our trusty friend, the zip tie. Like all good things though, zip ties come with one very annoying feature - When you cut the tail off with a regular pair of cutters, they leave a sharp, jabby nub that will snag clothing and cut you if you ever brush past them. Well, it turns out that there are multiple ways to get around that problem. One is to use a specialty tool, one is to use a tool that you already have in your house, and the last is to skip the tools altogether: Products used: Revlon Concave Toenail Clippers Gardner Bender Self-Cutting Zip Ties KAHIOE 5 pack Flush Cut Pliers See you at the track. Disclosure section: StudioVRM is now an Amazon Associate, which means that we get a tiny bit of income if you buy a product using the Amazon links above. We would be tremendously grateful if you did just that.

Over the course of the 2018 season we took a in-depth look at PTH Racing Oil, thrashed it in our Honda Prelude Si racecar, and had Blackstone Laboratories analyze the oil to see how it stood up to high-rpm use on a racetrack. Once the season ended, powertrain wizard Robert Oliver tore the motor down so we could see what was happening inside. Now it's the moment of truth - Did PTH's Racing Oil live up to its claims of superior protection at a racer-friendly price? Test Platform and Conditions Once again, our test platform of choice is the StudioVRM Prelude, a 93 Honda Prelude Si powered by the non-VTEC H23A1 motor. In the first half of the 2018 season we installed a set of custom ground racing camshafts from Racer Brown Camshafts with Crower valve springs to match, added a pair of AEM adjustable cam gears, and gave it a new tune to push it to just shy of 180whp. In order to ensure that we got consistent test results, we ran the car in exactly the same way as we had earlier in the year. All of our four race weekends took place at one of the two tracks at NJ Motorsports Park, and the same driver piloted the car at every event. We did raise the rev limiter again, so the engine spent most of its time between 4200 rpm and 7500 rpm in 3rd, 4th, and 5th gear. As with before, there were no unexpected noises nor did the engine consume any oil. Oil pressure remained above 40 psi through even the hottest race sessions, and there was little to no oil in the PCV catch can after each session. So far, so good. How did the metal internals of the engine look after a full season of racing? Checking the Head and Valvetrain High-lift racing camshafts and stiff aftermarket valve springs exert a tremendous amount of pressure on the surfaces of the cylinder head. This can cause a lot of issues in modified Honda motors, which are usually built to run at high RPMs using extremely high lift cams. Any wear would be clearly visible in the tops of the rockers and the surrounding surfaces of the head. Would there be any scratching, bluing, and flattening on these critical surfaces? Fortunately, Robert found none of those characteristic wear marks when he disassembled the Prelude head. The top end of the motor looked just as shiny as it was before he had installed the new cams and valvetrain. The rockers showed no signs of flattening, while the head and cam caps had the same consistent color as the rest of the head. From what we could tell, the robust additives package and inherent film strength of PTH 5w30 has done a fine job of protecting the delicate valvetrain of our race motor. On to the bottom end. Cracking Open the Block While the head has been removed and inspected countless times, the bottom end of this motor has never been disassembled. We didn't expect to see much wear on the hardened FRM-sleeved bores of the Honda H motor. But at the same time, we expected that regularly running the car 1000 rpm above its factory redline would have taken a toll on the OEM crank bearings. To our surprise, the rod and main bearings showed no signs of scoring or accelerated wear. In fact, a close inspection of the old bearings showed that they were still within the factory spec of thicknesses and wear. Here's a close-up of the rod bearings. They're a bit dirty but are in great shape otherwise: And here are the crank main bearings. Keep in mind that these were the original, unmodified Honda bearings, manufactured and installed in the engine over 20 years ago. Take a look at the piston skirts on these original H23A1 pistons: After years of track use and the especially strenuous conditions we put the motor through last year, we would have expected the piston skirts to be worn totally smooth. Yet, the lathe marks from the factory process are still intact, all the way down to the bottom. Robert remarked that, with a bit of cleaning, these pistons look like they could go right back into the motor for another season of track use. The Blackstone oil analysis was accurate. PTH Racing Oil really does have what it takes to protect race motors in the toughest of conditions. Conclusions and Recommendations After a full year of real-life testing and lab analysis, I think it's safe to say that PTH Racing Oil lives up to its claims of best in class stability and protection for racing engines. And frankly, I couldn't be happier. As a privateer team with limited resources, we can't afford to do yearly rebuilds and replace internal engine parts on a regular basis. At the same time, we need to be able to run our engines 1000 rpm above the factory redline for hours at a time in order to be competitive in our class. PTH 5w30 proved that it could give us the protection and longevity we need to race a production based engine, regardless of its level of modification. The fact that it's cheaper than other well-known racing oils is just icing on the proverbial cake. So yes. If you own a dedicated track car or race car, I would wholeheartedly recommend PTH Racing Oil. It offers a level of protection that is simply impossible to find in street car oils at a price that the average club racer can easily afford. At the very least, StudioVRM Racing Team will be using it as our go-to racing oil in the seasons to come. See you at the track. Disclosure Section: StudioVRM, Roger Maeda, and Robert Oliver are not sponsored or supported by any oil companies, including PTH and Blackstone Laboratories. All of the products and services mentioned were purchased at full retail price out of Roger's own pocket. After seeing these results, this doesn't bother him at all. Paying a few hundred dollars for three cases of oil is nothing compared to the thousands of dollars it would cost to rebuild a race engine.

Those of you that have wrenched with me know that I hate mechanic's gloves. They give you no tactile feedback so you end up dropping all of your bolts. Then over the course of the job they get soaked through with grease. And finally when you take them off after a long day of hard work, one of them goes missing, never to be seen again. Unfortunately, even the most expensive tools in my toolbox have rather abrasive tool handles, and after a few hours of working on the car my hands are sore. Fortunately, someone taught me a neat trick to improve the grip on my tools using something I already had at home. All I had to do was to go through the trash can in my basement to get it. Here's how, illustrated in the latest installment of Racer Tech on my Youtube Channel: And here are a few upgraded tools from my tool chest: The elderly gentleman that taught me how to do this is a professional knife sharpener. For those of you who have never heard of such a thing, it's exactly what it sounds like. He drives around the towns surrounding Seki, Japan, hand-sharpening kitchen knives and gardening shears out of the back of his mini-truck. He uses this method to reduce wear on tear on his hands as he hones steel from dusk 'til dawn. He also taught me the ins and outs of hand-sharpening kitchen knives. But that will be a video for another time. Until then, see you at the track.

Earlier this week, we unbolted the battle-worn coilovers from the StudioVRM Prelude and shipped them off to Tein USA in Downey, California. This will be their third trip to the west coast service center, having already gone through one rebuild and two revalving services over the last 10 years. Given how many solid options there are in the "under $500 (USD) per corner" category of coilover suspension kits nowadays, it might come as a bit of a surprise that we aren't just buying a set of new coilovers from a different company. If nothing else this is a big surprise for me. In an effort to shave off more precious seconds from our lap time, I have been actively talking to a number of different suspension companies about getting a set of custom racing dampers built for the Prelude. But when we sat down at the end of the season and compared each company's offerings, it was Tein that came out as the best option. Given this unexpected turn of events, I thought I'd spend a few minutes and talk about the benefits and drawbacks of using Tein suspension dampers, and why StudioVRM will continue to run on their ubiquitous green shocks throughout the 2019 season. Are you saying Tein makes the BEST suspension dampers? Not quite. As far as I'm concerned, no one makes a set of suspension dampers that are the "best" at everything. One of the cold hard truths of hydro-pneumatic suspension dampers is that they are one-trick ponies. They can all do one thing really well, and tend to suck at everything else. This is why OEM manufacturers still use sealed twin-tube shock cartridges on new cars. There's no other way to provide the ride comfort and durability that most customers expect, even on sporty coupes like the popular Subaru BRZ / Scion FRS / Toyota 86 triplets. On the same token, this is also why the high-budget Porsche guys don't drive to the supermarket on their JRZ competition dampers. The ride would be bone-shattering and the expensive aluminum shocks would start falling apart within a few thousand miles. I am saying that Tein's coilover kits do a very good job of meeting the needs of budget-conscious club racers and track day enthusiasts. Specifically, we need dampers that are: Fade resistant enough to stay consistent through a 1-hour+ race session on a road course Durable enough to withstand the occasional high-speed off-track excursion Have the ability to customize the valving for our car and specific needs Have a bolt-in application for our car Come in at a cost of under $500 per damper (not including springs and top hats) The differences between one damper manufacturer and another lie in how they go about meeting these needs. Let me talk you through some of the "hows" that make Tein's products so unique and attractive to budget-minded racers like us. Unusually Tough and Fade-Resistant Construction If there's one thing that all club racers need out of their suspension dampers, it's consistency. They need their cars to handle the same way, regardless of whether they are on lap 5 or lap 50. Tein solves this problem in an unusual way: They use the largest diameter damper body possible, both to increase the surface area of the damper and to fit in as much shock oil as they can. These twin tube Tein dampers might not cost very much, but they offer excellent fade resistance lap after lap. They are also robust enough to handle pretty much anything you'll run into - or drive over - at the track. This is the complete opposite of the approach taken by most other aftermarket suspension companies. Larger diameter damper bodies mean more material and more weight, which in theory would be completely out of place in the extremely weight-conscious world of road racing. It turns out that in practice, this approach works remarkably well. A few years ago I had the opportunity to compare Tein Basics against a set of Koni Yellows on a B14 chassis Nissan Sentra at a local NASA HPDE. While the Konis felt amazing in the first 15 minutes of a track day session, they felt noticeably softer and less responsive after 30 minutes of hard running. Meanwhile, the entry-level Teins felt exactly the same through the entire length of a 60 minute session at the same track. While this consistency is a nice-to-have for most track day goers, it's actually a big deal for wheel to wheel racers. Club races tend to be rather close and it's normal to see battles for position right up to the checkered flag. Having a sharp and responsive car at the end of a race could make the difference between standing on the podium and fading into the midfield in the last few laps. The other benefit to this approach is that the this makes the dampers incredibly tough. In the early days of my driving career I had a tendency of enjoying one or two off-track excursions during each track weekend. Those of you who have had a bad off know that the grassy areas in the infield of racetracks are deceptively bumpy and can wreak havoc on the undercarriage of your car. Yet in all of my off-roading adventures, I've never managed to bend or blow out a Tein suspension damper. While I no longer have a penchant for wild off-road antics, I still take advantage of their durability by attacking kerbing more aggressively than I used to. It's reassuring to know that I can bounce off of kerbs and occasionally take some liberties with track limits without worrying about damaging my suspension. They Have Cool Features that are Actually Useful It turns out that it's surprisingly difficult to develop meaningful new features for suspension dampers. Case in point, the most popular products in the Bilstein and Koni catalog haven't changed in decades. That hasn't stopped Tein from trying out quirky new things with their products. While many of their innovations are geared towards street use, some of them are actually useful for club racers. My personal favorite is something Tein calls the Micro Speed Valve. It is one of the most clever innovations I have ever seen in a mass-market adjustable suspension damper. In order to understand what the MSV does, you need to know a little bit about how adjustable dampers work. Almost all of the sub-$3000 coilover kits on the market today use a needle valve in a bypass hole to provide adjustable damping. And for good reason - Needle valve adjusters are simple, precise, durable, and cheap to make. Tein, Koni, Bilstein, Penske, Feal, Fortune Auto, and all of the cheaper Chinese and Taiwanese-built brands use this type of adjuster. Cutaway diagram of the main piston of a suspension damper with a needle valve adjuster. Turning the knob at the top causes the needle valve in the middle to move up and down, adjusting the amount of fluid that flows through the bypass hole. Much of the shocks' damping force comes from the yellow valve shims, so by opening the valve and letting more fluid into the bypass hole, you can soften the damping. *Base diagram borrowed from the Tein USA blog. Sorry guys. Please don't sue. An example of a needle out of a needle valve. Your adjustable dampers contain a tiny version of this that is only a few milimeters wide. There's just one downside to this design. As you turn the adjusters towards full soft, more and more of the fluid flows through this bypass hole instead of going through the shim valves in the piston. In some situations, there will be so little fluid going through the piston that the dampers won't be able to do their job. This isn't all that noticeable when you are driving over a kerb or driving over a rut because big impacts like these cause a lot of fluid to get pushed around within the shock. But in some cases, like through the turn-in phase of a high-speed corner, the forces could be so small that all of the fluid could end up going through the bypass hole instead of the piston. From the driver's seat, this translates to vague steering through high-speed corners and a weird floaty feeling through fast S-curves. This is about the last thing you want when you're pounding around a racetrack. Cutaway diagram showing the MSV in action. Those tiny vertical yellow shims are the MSV. In real life they are tiny - mere millimeters across. *Again, diagram shamelessly copied from the Tein USA blog. Sorry guys. Please don't sue. Tein's solution to this problem was to install a tiny set of shim valves on the bypass hole for the adjuster (and call it a Micro Speed Valve). These tiny shims provide a small amount of resistance when fluid goes through the bypass, which means that the dampers will provide consistent damping force even when the adjuster is set to full soft. It's a deceptively simple solution and it works remarkably well. A few years ago I instructed a novice driver who had MSV-equipped Tein Mono Flexes on his Acura. His car had fantastically responsive steering through high-speed corners despite the fact that he had the adjusters turned within a click or two of full soft. The car felt so good on Pocono's bumpy surface that we ended up leaving them that way. Why is this useful for racers? The answer is Rain. Club racers tend not to touch their suspension once it's set. Unless it starts raining, in which case they all start scrambling to turn their dampers towards full soft. Although very few experienced club racers actually turn their dampers down that much, because they know that turning down the adjuster leads to vague steering. With MSV-equipped dampers, racers could soften their suspension without affecting the steering feel, potentially giving them an edge on a wet track. Tein has also started using a Hydraulic Bump Stop (HBS) in some of their newer suspension kits. Basically, this is a valve built into the bottom of the shock that aggressively ramps up its damping as the shock reaches the limits of its travel. This prevents the car from bouncing uncontrollably when the suspension bottoms out over a big bump or a big rut. While I have yet to sample one of Tein's HBS-equipped dampers on the track, I have ridden in an HBS-equipped street car and can attest that it soaks up speed bumps and potholes very nicely. I can see this being very useful in keeping a racecar settled over the alligator-strip type rumble strips that are so common on racetracks across North America. The driver of ProjectCRX carefully avoiding the alligator strip (red arrow) through turn 10 at Summit Point. If the car's dampers had hydraulic bump stops, he would be able to drive right over that rough rumble strip Very Responsive Local Service Center One of Tein's selling points is that they have local service centers in all of their major markets. I never thought much of this, until the DMS suspension on our CRX developed a leak and needed to be sent away for a rebuild. My teammates and I still remember that nightmare of an experience. DMS's North American service center was so slow and unresponsive that it took three whole months to get two front dampers rebuilt. And that only happened after two of us had started calling them twice a week in an effort to hurry them along. I dread to think how long it would have taken if we didn't nag them as much as we did. By comparison, Tein completed my last rebuild request in under two weeks, including the time it took to ship the dampers back from California to the east coast. They always picked up the phone when I called them and were happy to let me talk directly to the service techs so I could get my suspension set up exactly the way I wanted. When I asked a particularly tough question, they offered to make a call to Tein Japan to get me an answer. And to make the experience all that much sweeter, they charged us less than half of DMS's invoice for the same type of work. This is a big deal for racers, who inevitably end up experimenting with spring rates and valving. Even the most expensive suspension dampers in the world won't do you any good if they're sitting in the shop for half of the season. Having previously purchased rebuild services from Tein USA, Koni NA, Bilstein, and DMS NA, I would say Tein's support services are by far the easiest to work with. What are the downsides? There are some drawbacks that come with all of these benefits. The first is weight. The beefy construction of Tein's steel body dampers makes them heavier than other aftermarket dampers. This is especially noticeable on their MacPherson strut dampers, since they double-layer the steel on the lower brackets for extra rigidity. The larger diameter bodies also necessitate the use of larger diameter springs. For example, the Tein SS kit for the Prelude requires the use of 70mm ID suspension springs, which are not only heavier but are more difficult to find than the more common 60mm or 65mm sizes. While this only amounts to a weight penalty of 1-3 lbs per corner, those with cars that struggle to make minimum competition weight might balk at this. Aside from Tein themselves, only Swift and Hyperco make the 70mm coilover springs that work with our extra-girthy dampers. The second is that there is an extra fee if you order your Tein coilovers with custom valving. For example, if you want to order a set of Tein coilovers with custom spring rates, Tein will charge you anywhere up to $100 per corner. This is due to the fact that Tein centralizes the manufacturing, assembly, and packaging of its dampers in its factories in Japan. So unless your coilovers are a special order part, they can't customize the kit during assembly. In order to change the springing and valving on one of Tein's (rebuildable) coilover kits, their service techs needs to unbox a fully assembled set of coilovers and go through the same procedures as they would if they were rebuilding a set of used coilovers. My solution for the latter problem is to buy a set of lightly used coilovers and to get them revalved before I put them on the car. Sure the dampers are a little dirty and the paint tends to be scratched up from use. But for the cost of a set of new coilovers I was able to get a set of used Tein Super Streets with track-focused valving and have enough money left over for a set of shiny new Swift coilover springs to go with them. If you live in North America, another option is to get one of the sealed-body "Z" series coilovers. The non-rebuildable "Z" series dampers are made in a different factory in China, and can be custom-valved during assembly. I have no personal experience with this option, but seeing how Tein advertises this as one of the benefits of their new sealed dampers, I suspect this is also a cost-effective alternative. Wait... doesn't Tein make actual racing dampers? At this point you may be wondering why I've been focusing so much on Tein's street-able dampers when they have a line of actual competition dampers. After all, Tein has their Super Racing, Super Drift, and N1 dampers for road course use. Compared to their mainstream offerigs, all three of them are lighter, have more adjustability, and have track-specific valving right out of the box. Price is the big obvious factor. A new set of Tein Super Racing coilovers costs twice as much as the next most expensive coilover kit in Tein's lineup. The top-of-the-line N1s are a special order part that comes in at between $750 - $1000 per damper. If you add a set of good springs and top hats, you are looking at a cost of $5000 - $6000 for a full kit. While this is actually still on the affordable side for a set of full-bore racing suspension, there are some very strong, established competitors in this price range (e.g. kits based on double adjustable Penske 7500s). This also happens to be quite a bit more than what most club racers are willing to spend on dampers and springs. This exact setup can be yours for the eye-watering price of $5500. Which relatively speaking, isn't that bad. It's comparable to what companies like Penske, JRZ, AST, and KW will charge you for a product in the same performance group. For a budget oriented club racer though, it's a bit much. The other reason is that Tein's street car dampers are, at their core, very decent high performance dampers. They are manufactured to extremely tight tolerances, are highly consistent from batch to batch, and the internal valving is configurable enough that they can be revalved to work with astronomically high spring rates. This is partly because Tein's mid-range products have the same exact core design their high-end competition dampers. For example, the older Super Street and Flex dampers share the same internal design with the competition-only Super Drift dampers, while the MonoFlex shares its internals with the highly rated Super Racing damper. And yes, this holds true for Tein's current product lineup as well. The Japan-market Racing Flex uses the same internal hardware as their budget-friendly Flex A, while their soon to be released Mono Racing is a more aggressively valved version of the affordable Mono Sport. So why DO you keep buying Tein coilovers? What it all comes down to is that Tein's products do everything that your average club racer or track day enthusiast needs. Their products are tough, consistent, have some unique features that are useful at the track, and come with excellent support at a very affordable price. The kits are priced competitive enough that you can put together a custom suspension setup using on Tein coilovers on a budget of $1000 - $2500, including revalving fees. Case in point, I built the Prelude's suspension for just $1600, including the cost to upgrade to Swift 70mm main and helper springs. With regular maintenance and the occasional rebuild, this setup has given us solid performance the better part of a decade. And as long as Tein's North American service center continues to provide the same outstanding support, there's a good chance that StudioVRM racecars will continue to run their tough green dampers for years to come. See you at the track. Disclosure Section: Neither StudioVRM nor Roger Maeda are sponsored or supported directly by Tein USA or any of its subsidiaries. The USTCC series that we participate in is in fact sponsored by KW Suspension - which makes things a bit awkward since I'm effectively writing a positive review about a direct competitor of our sponsor. If anyone from KW is reading this, well... sorry. But on balance, Tein has you beat at the moment.

It's no secret that the current generation of 200 treadwear "extreme performance" summer tyres are phenomenally grippy. Put a set of BF Goodrich Rival S's, Bridgestone Potenza RE-71Rs, or Hankook Ventus R-S4's on your track car and you can expect to hang with the guys who brought R-compounds on spare wheels. DOT-legal "R-compound" tyres have evolved too. The class leaders, the venerable Hoosier R7, BFG R1S, and Toyo RRs are capable of lap times that seemed unthinkable just a few short years ago. They've become so common at club racing events that it's easy to forget that they too are technically street legal tyres. So if the likes of the Hoosier R7, Toyo RR, and BFG R1S are technically street tyres, what does it feel like to drive on a no-holds-barred racing slick? Fortunately for us, it just so happens that the US Touring Car Championship mandates the use of one such tyre: the Hankook Ventus F200 radial slick. What is a Hankook Ventus F200? Unless you are a die-hard fan of European racing, you've probably never heard of the Hankook Ventus F200. You won't find it at most Hankook retailers, and even big-warehouse tyre shops like Tire Rack don't list it in their catalog. It's so obscure that it doesn't even appear on the main Hankook Tire North America website (you actually have to the totally separate Hankook Race Tire site to find it). Despite its relative obscurity in North America, the F200 is the spec tyre of choice in several European pro racing series. It's the spec tyre for the European F3, British F4, and the Deutsch Tourenwagen Masters, otherwise known as the DTM. True to its name the F200 slick is a radial construction race-only tyre that is completely devoid of any tread. Unusually, it only comes in only one compound - the C52 "Medium" compound. Because they don't need to comply with DOT regulations, the tyre's size is also written in a slightly different format from what you normally expect. Instead of having the numbers listed in the standard "205/50R15" format the Hankook catalog lists sizes like "200/580R15," where the middle number is the diameter of the tyre in milimeters. Because wheel diameter plays such a big part in how a racecar is geared, that number is important to have. The only catch was that their selection of 15" sizes are somewhat limited. The widest 15" size that they offer is a 200/580R15. Yes, you read that correctly. That's a 200mm section width - narrower than what you would find on a Spec Miata. I called the rep at Hankook Motorsport Americas just to make sure that this was the right size, and he assured me that this was the appropriate size for my 2500 lb, front wheel drive Honda. While I was skeptical that such a narrow tyre could hold up to the cornering forces generated by a relatively heavy racecar, I placed my order and a week later, a stack of not-so-street-legal race rubber arrived in front of my garage. First Impressions and Installation As soon as we rolled the Hankooks into the garage, I broke out the measuring tape and checked the dimensions of my newly purchased rubber. Some manufacturers are notorious for under-reporting the dimensions of their track tyres, so I thought that the unusually narrow 200mm section width was the result of a similar sort of under-estimation. It turned out to not be the case. The inside section of the Hankook F200s were exactly 200mm, with the tread being only marginally wider at 205mm. Compare that to my usual 225/45R15 R7s and their comparatively gargantuan 234 mm tread width when mounted on 15x8" Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2 wheels. With my skepticism growing, I loaded my wheels onto my trusty Coats RC15 tyre changer to peel off the old R compounds and install the F200s. Straight away we ran into an issue. The sidewalls on the F200s were so thick and so stiff that they refused to fit over the rim of our race wheels. R compound tyres tend to have stiff sidewalls, but these slicks were on a totally different level. It took a combination of two tyre irons, a motorcycle bead depressor, and 158 lbs of body weight to flex the sidewall enough for the fresh rubber to fit on the metal wheel. It was at that point we ran into the second issue. No matter how much air pressure we used, the beads of the F200s refused to seat on the inside of the wheel rims. I tried all of the tricks in the book to get the bead to seat, from covering the wheel in soapy water to using dangerously high inflation pressures, to compressing the tyre with a ratchet strap. No matter what I did, it didn't seem to make any difference. The recalcitrant sidewalls refused to expand enough to fit into the wheels. After 30 minutes of struggling, I resigned myself to the fact that this wheel-tyre combination wasn't going to work. So we went to plan B - Go into the storage closet and pull out our 8 year old backup race wheels, a set of 15x7" Motegi Racing SP10s. Fortunately, the F200s much happier with the narrower wheels and the bead seated without issue - Half an hour later, we had a set of Hankook Ventus F200s mounted, balanced, and bolted to the StudioVRM Prelude. As expected, the narrow slicks looked comically undersized under the wide and long body of the Prelude. But with all four tyres now safely mounted and installed, we loaded up the car and towed it to NJ Motorsports Park for their first on-track outing. How do they feel on track? As they say, looks can be deceiving. Despite looking narrower than the skinny all-seasons on my old Toyota Yaris, the Hankooks proved more than a match for the wider R7s on the racetrack. Hoosier R7s are known for their crisp steering response and the high limits of adhesion that come from the bias ply-like construction. But as soon as they were up to temperature, the Hankook F200s demonstrated razor sharp turn-in that I had never experienced on any DOT-compliant tyre. Those stiff, rubbery sidewalls that gave us so much grief on the tyre machine proved their worth at the track. The F200s generate impressive levels of lateral grip through corners. The car felt so planted through high speed corners that it felt much lighter than its 2500 lb chassis weight would suggest. In fact they were producing so much grip that it was actually causing problems with the car's handling: Like most front wheel drive racecars, the StudioVRM Prelude is set up so that it oversteers under braking into slow corners. While this worked well with the DOT-legal Hoosiers, the Ventus slicks generated so much grip that the car would understeer into every turn. As a result, I found myself putting in an extra 20-40 degrees of steering lock through slower corners. I believe this caused us to lose a few tenths of a second per lap. With a more aggressive alignment and more rear brake bias, the car would turn in much more easily and would be significantly faster as well. If the cornering grip was impressive, the ability to handle hard braking was something else entirely. I have an unfortunate habit of flat spotting Hoosiers in the heat of the moment, so I was a bit wary of pushing hard. It took a few laps to realize that there was no need to hold back. The Hankooks generated more than enough longitudinal grip to withstand full braking forces from the relatively heavy Honda. Once I was comfortable, the Hankooks allowed me to brake 20-25 feet later into turn 1 at Thunderbolt. On one occasion I overstepped the bounds a tiny bit and the left front tyre emitted a puff of smoke. Although this resulted in a small flat spot, the resulting vibration only lasted the rest of the session. By the start of the next session, melted rubber had filled in the flat spot and the vibrations were barely noticeable. Few DOT-legal R compound tyres resist flat spots as well as these F200 slicks did. Simply amazing. How much faster are they? Once we ran a few sessions to get used to the super sticky nature of these slicks, we ran the Hankook F200 against the Hoosier R7 on the same day at the same track to get some head-to-head lap time data. Here's what the best lap of the day looked like on each tyre: For reference, in both cases I'm comparing tyres with 2-4 heat cycles on the same car, on the same day, with the same setup. So while neither tyre was brand new, both still had plenty of tread and plenty of life left in the compound. It's pretty easy to see that the full-on racing slick is consistently 1.2 seconds faster than one of the best DOT R compound tyres available. With a more aggressive alignment, I firmly believe that these tyres will be another 0.5 seconds quicker. Do they wear out more quickly? Yes and no. The rubber on the F200s does seem to wear faster than the Hoosier R7s. Three race weekends on took more rubber off of the F200s than four weekends on the R7s. However, unlike the R7s, the F200s don't seem to "cycle out." Hoosiers are well known for their tendency to get harder and less grippy after 8-10 heat cycles. Based on what we saw however, an 8 heat cycle F200 produced similar times to when it was brand new. According to Hankook, most racers run their slicks right down to the cords. Because of this, I would expect to get about the same number of race sessions from a set of F200 slicks compared to a similarly sized set of Hoosier R7s. How much do they cost? Retail pricing for the Hankook F200 slicks comes in slightly higher than that for a similarly sized Hoosier R7. For example, a brand new F200 in 200/580R15 retails for $275, while TireRack sells the R7 in 225/45R15 for $264. That said, Hankook offers a discount for racers in certain series, such as the DTM and USTCC. Hankook's confidentiality agreement prevents us from giving you exact pricing, but I can tell you that the discounts are significant - well over 20% off of retail. Conclusions and Closing Thoughts Despite the rapidly escalating speeds of DOT-legal extreme performance tyres and R-compounds, there is still a bit of a performance gap compared to the current generation of radial racing slicks. Even with a distinctly narrower tread, the Hankook F200s proved to be faster than the venerable R7s with higher levels of grip while offering a similar lifespan. And thanks to my USTCC series discount, they were actually cheaper as well. Because they are not DOT legal, they are not allowed in many common club racing classes. To me that seems like a bit of a shame. Aside from missing out on a few contingency dollars there doesn't seem to be any downside to running these radial slicks compared to the current generation of DOT R compounds. Maybe one day the rulemakers of various club racing series will start adjusting their books to allow non-DOT racing slicks in more of their classes. In the meantime, at least there's the USTCC. See you at the track. Disclaimer: All of the tyres used in this test were purchased out of Roger's own pocket. The F200 slicks were purchased at the same discounted prices offered to all competitors in the USTCC. StudioVRM is not sponsored or directly supported by Hoosier Racing Tire or Hankook Racing Tire. That said, we probably wouldn't turn down a sponsorship opportunity if it came along. Tyres aren't cheap and we go through a lot of them.

A few months ago I tried my hand at making in-car video look more exciting. It didn't work. But thanks to the help of a group of friendly racers and advice from my favorite racing communities, I now have a big pile of helpful onboard videography tips to make in-car video more interesting. In the spirit of giving back to the community, here are five Do's and Don'ts for filming good onboard video: And just to illustrate how effective these tips are, here's a sample video from this year's SCCA Jersey Road Racing Challenge: Hopefully some of these tips will help turn the footage from your track day into a video worthy of Best Motoring. See you at the track.

Much in the same way that cars in Formula 1, NASCAR, and pro touring car series have evolved over the years, club racing classes also evolve to stay current with popular trends in the automotive industry. In the past few years in particular, club racers have steadily migrated away from traditional racing classes that specified lists of makes, models, and modifications, towards one of two types of classes: Spec or Factory-prepared classes composed of a single make and model of car that are all modified to a pre-defined spec. Examples include: Spec Miata Spec E46 Spec Racer Ford 3 Performance-balanced classes which group cars into classes based on lap times or statistics such as power to weight ratio: AER / Champcar / WRL NASA Super Touring Bracket Sprint Racing The allure of these types of classes is that the promise of closer competition as the rules minimize the potential for someone to dominate their class with a "ringer" car. What does all this mean for the StudioVRM Prelude, a car that was originally built for the traditional and regional-centric Improved Touring and Honda Challenge classes? It was time to change with the times and find a new class to run in. So I employed the same method that I described in Part 1 of this series and chose two current and relevant classes: SCCA Super Touring Under and the US Touring Car Championship, sanctioned by NASA. What are SCCA Super Touring and USTCC? Interestingly, both SCCA Super Touring and the US Touring Car Championship were created to achieve the same goal: To give club racers a place to race previous-generation Pirelli World Challenge touring cars. For those of you who may not be familiar with the name, Pirelli World Challenge is a North American pro racing series based around production cars that anyone can buy new in the US and Canada. A huge list of manufacturers (Acura, BMW, Chevrolet, Chrysler, Ford, Kia, Mazda, Porsche, Subaru, and Volkswagen just to name a few) have used it as a platform to showcase the performance potential of their street cars. When the manufacturers bring out the latest and greatest models, World Challenge teams often sell their old cars to club racers at a very reasonable price. Hence both Super Touring Under and USTCC were born. Super Touring Under Super Touring Under has since evolved into a highly-accessible class for modified cars under 3.2 liters. Unusually, the class uses a displacement to weight ratio to balance the performance of their cars, with modifiers for factors like drivetrain layout (FWD vs RWD vs AWD) and suspension layout (Macpherson strut vs Double A-Arm suspension). A 2 liter Subaru BRZ, for example, can compete at a feather weight 2200 lbs with its naturally aspirated FA20 motor. An E36 chassis BMW M3 meanwhile is handicapped at 3200 lbs to offset the power advantage of its 3.2 liter S50. This means that cars come in all shapes and sizes, mixing turbocharged, supercharged, and naturally aspirated cars, with and without aftermarket aero. The grid from last year's runoffs saw a brand-new Honda Civic Si line up on the grid alongside a Dodge SRT4 and a Subaru Impreza 2.5RS. Encouragingly for us, the winner of the 2017 SCCA Runoffs drove a K-swapped 4th gen Honda Prelude Si to the checkered flag. US Touring Car Championship USTCC meanwhile caters to drivers of current and late model touring cars who prefer the feeling of a pro racing environment. The series retains sponsor support from prominent names in the automotive industry, which equates to generous prizes and contingencies for participants. The rules are an interesting variant of the classic power to weight formula that takes gear ratio into account. The modification-friendly nature of the USTCC rulebook make it seem a bit daunting at first, but when you look at the cars that are competing, you quickly realize that they are similar to what you might see in NASA GTS or SCCA Touring. There four sub classes to accommodate everything from heavily modified tube-frame cars to older cars with fewer modifications. That said, even the entry-level Sportsman class cars are far from slow - All USTCC classes use Hankook F200 race slicks, allowing these cars to corner faster and harder than their DOT R Compound-shod brethren. Due to the similarities it's very easy to build a car that is legal and competitive in both series. So that's exactly what we are going to do. What are we Upgrading? As you can imagine, there's a lot to be done to bring the car up to spec for these mod-friendly classes: Engine Both classes allow for a moderate level of internal engine modifications, including upgraded cams, high compression pistons, and porting of the head. With this in mind, we've already taken the first step by having Racer Brown Camshafts grind a custom cam for us, which powertrain wizard Robert Oliver installed with Crower valve springs and AEM cam gears. The car is still tuned to a conservative 7000 rpm rev limiter, but initial dyno tuning shows gains of around 18 hp over our previous configuration with stock cams and valvetrain. The plan for the off season is to raise the rev limiter and fine tune this engine to see if we can get as close as possible to 200whp on a Dynojet. Aero Both classes allow for popular bolt-on aero modifications. For us, that means a splitter, air dam, side skirts, and a rear wing. Super Touring Under specifies a minimum ride height of 4 inches (except for the air dam and splitter, which can be low as 3 inches off the ground), while USTCC has no minimum ride height. Over the off season we plan to build a splitter to give us some front downforce, add a set of PCI side skirts to seal off the underbody, and balance it all with a rear wing. Chassis Last but not least, the rules allow for extensive weight reduction and roll cage construction which were previously not available to us under Improved Touring rules. The USTCC Sportsman rules give our < 200hp Prelude a minimum weight of just 2400 lbs, while in STU trim our 2.3 liter Honda is allowed a scant 2351 lb min weight. That's including driver and fuel. As it sits today, the StudioVRM Prelude weighs a stout 2590 lbs, including driver and a gallon of gas. A carbon fiber hood, lexan rear windows, and lighter gusseting for the roll cage will help us get closer to the minimum weight. The car will also receive 17" wheels to take advantage of the slightly wider slicks available for that diameter. Of course, it's a long list of items, so we're taking it one step at a time. In a few days we will be at NJ Motorsports Park, testing out some setup changes in preparation for these upgrades. Either way, it's going to be a fun winter. See you at the track.

The Japanese Super Formula series is a fast, hard-hitting series with cars that are about as close as you can get without driving in Formula 1. They also have the distinction of having wild looking 6-man pit stops. So I decided to do a breakdown of what's involved in a racing pit stop in the Super Formula Series. Enjoy:

A little PSA for all of you who tow a trailer to transport your track car or bike. Don't use the wire bundle that comes with those LED trailer light kits. Here's what happened to me this afternoon: I recently noticed a problem where the lights on my 18' car trailer were starting to go out, one by one. First it was the right front corner light that started flickering before going out. Then a few days later, the left rear brake light started to flicker before it too went dark. This all seemed a bit unusual, not in the least because I had just replaced the trailer wiring and lights just a few months ago. After removing and cleaning the grounds and swapping the lights again did nothing to fix the problem, I started cutting the 3 month old wiring off of the trailer. Imagine my surprise when I found this in the MIDDLE of a 7 foot length of electrical wire: That blueish white dust coming out of the plastic insulation is oxidized copper. Somehow moisture had gotten into the wire and corroded the conductive wire inside. But this wasn't your average case of wire corrosion. When I peeled back the insulation, I found that it was so bad there was literally no wire left: What made this unusual was that this was in the middle of an unbroken length of wire. The nearest connector (a heat shrunk water-resistant butt connector) was at least 3 feet away. How could this happen in just a few months, especially when the trailer spends most of its time sitting in a driveway? It turns out that the wire bundles that come with these trailer LED kits have a major manufacturing flaw. The colorful brown-green-and-yellow wire bundle that comes with these kits are made with a big air gap between the wire and the insulation: That means that if any water or moisture gets in through a broken connector or a cut in the insulation, it's free to travel up and down the entire length of the wire, destroying it from the inside out. You would never know that there was a problem until the lights on your trailer went out and some inattentive driver crashed into your rig. I thought it might have been a one-off problem with the brand that I bought, so I cut open three other leftover wire bundles that I had from previous trailer light replacement jobs. Every single one of them had the same problem despite being bought from three different stores and were made by three different manufacturers. Needless to say, I spent the next two hours crawling under the rig and replacing every bit of cheap wire I could find with Japanese-made automotive speaker wire. It was probably an unnecessarily expensive way of dealing with the problem, but I wasn't going to take any chances. I tow my car in the wee hours of the morning to get to the racetrack. I don't need anyone crashing into me on the way there. Tow safely. See you at the track.

Every good mechanic has that one tool that turns your hand black every time you pick it up. For some of us it's a greasy suspension tool like a ball joint separator or a C-clamp. Or the feeler gauges and engine assembly tools that are always covered in motor oil. Either way, there are a few ways to keep tools like that clean and corrosion-free without having to buy and set up your own tool wash station. Here it is: Products mentioned in order of decreasing rarity: Birchwood Casey Gun & Reel Silicone Cloth Boeshield T-9 Seafoam Deep Creep Spray Dawn Dish Soap See you at the track. ~R Disclosure Section: StudioVRM is not supported by any of the vendors whose products are mentioned in this How-To video. As usual, all of the items shown were purchased out of Roger's own pocket without any discounts or support. Roger buys and recommends all of these products. Especially the dish soap. As far as he's concerned, that stuff is magic.