[Autocross] 2-days at NCCAR: Oct 2024
Drive good - but only when it doesn’t count
Me - screwing up one of my Sunday runs
Event Overview
This was a joint event weekend co-hosted by Tidewater Sports Car Club and Tarheel Sports Car Club. We had over 130 drivers on Saturday for a non-points event, and just shy of 160 drivers on Sunday for Points Event #7. We had 31 novices Saturday and 39 on Sunday. I know we had a great time working with Tarheel where both clubs were able to take a bit from each other’s novice programs to use going forward.
Unfortunately my driving was just plain bad all weekend, lots of cones and DNFs - though on Saturday I was able to pull a hero run off… but Sunday was just plain bad all around which really sucked since that was the only day that counted towards TSCC points.
There were zero changes to the car since Fastivus aside from running the RE71RS on 17x9 Konigs instead of the V730s on Apex 17x9s.
Saturday - Exhibition non-points event
Photo credit for this one to Jackson w/ ThunderLens Media - me taking a novice around on Saturday
Saturday was a non-points event, I had no codriver, and it was windy/cool enough late in the morning that I had a hell of a time keeping enough heat in the rear tires. Run 1 of course there was no heat so being loose was to be expected so I just drove like an ass to get the tires warmed up. Unfortunately a Honda scattered it’s engine all over the course after my first run, and there was nearly an hour and a half before I took run #2. Both of those first two runs the back end of the car was all over the place in slaloms as I was probably driving a bit too aggressively and tagged a couple cones on each run. The course was LONG as well, at ~70 seconds. Run 3 I got way out of shape and managed a DNF, but luckily was able to pull off a solid final run. It was a 67.620 and clean which was only 0.259 off of first in XA (a well put together Subaru BRZ with aero). I was super happy with the end result overall. It’s just a shame that this day didn’t count towards points.
Also I discovered that the 3 backup GoPro batteries I had were all discharged and of no use. So unfortunately I have no footage from Saturday, just data which showed nothing of concern.
Saturday Results
2nd (of 7) in XA
2nd (of 24) in the Provisional Class (PAX based vs all CAM classes and XB as well)
11th (of 134) in overall PAX
7th (of 134) in raw time
Sunday - Points Event #7
On Sunday a buddy of mine, Bernard found out he had (another) failing axle shaft in his XA Celica. It was clicking wildly just driving around in paddock. My normal codriver (Logan, known as Tire Slayer based on the last event) was busy doing Corvette fixing things at home, so I offered Bernard a seat so he could still get some points towards this event. I rode along with him for his first run… and it was entertaining to say the least:
Unfortunately Sunday was riddled with timing and scoring technical issues, plus with near 160 people there was only time for 3 runs. Bernard did great and managed to run a 52.016 on his last run. Meanwhile my first run was a 51.110 + 1, and I DNF’d on runs 2 and 3. The third run was going really well until I overcooked it on the long sweeping right hander and just gave up and drove off course. I ended up basically coasting to the finish the rest of the course and saw it was a 52.8 (with DNF obviously)… and immediately regretted not trying to save that last run. It had potential to be at least similar to the first if I could do it clean but oh well. Rick’s IS20 wagon took the win for XA with a 50.657.
Sunday Results:
Terrible.
4 (of 8) in XA, Bernard took 2nd
13 (of 24) in the Provisional Class, Bernard took 7th
56 (of 158) in PAX, Bernard took 32nd
37 (of 158) in raw time, Bernard took 21st
PCV stuff on my car:
Despite my car ingesting some oil with the IS38 and modified MK8 PCV at Fastivus, I ran the same setup again and had no real issues at this autocross. I really think that time and/or temperature can play a part in whether a given solution will work for someone or not.
I DID get a very fine mist of oil accumulated around the Venturi. It wasn’t covered in a huge mass of oil or anything like at Summit Point. I THINK this might just be residual crap being pushed out of the valve from Fastivus. The car has essentially lived on jack stands since I got back from there 2 weeks ago.
I think that if someone wanted to implement an inline catch can with the MK8 PCV, the Radium MK8 catch can would be the right move. This would remove the oil before it gets to the Venturi, rather than my existing catch can setup that the Venturi is before the can. For what it’s worth, with the Jack Spania Racing can, when autocrossing even with the IS38, there were no major issues/amounts of accumulation inside the catch can - just a couple droplets if that.
PCV stuff on other cars:
Alandre’s 2015 CXCA GTI making sure to keep the mosquito population under control
Alandre’s 2015 CXCA equipped GTI was retrofitted with the MK8 PCV not too long ago, and was the one noted as having confirmed mechanical issues at the 12:32 mark in this video. He has the full MK8 retrofit and we previously confirmed a rear main seal leak and it showed up in the data. Well he had the RMS replaced with a brand new OEM version, as well as had his timing cover resealed. We fitted the crankcase sensors off my car onto his a few weeks ago (on the street) and confirmed the readings are now in line with what I saw on my own car with the IS20 and stock TIP like he had. Unfortunately as you can see above it still had issues with smoking.
On the other hand, it’s worth noting that Rick’s 2017 Alltrack (IS20) that won XA on Sunday is also on the full retrofit and he’s never had an issue - he does tons of events on the setup without issue.
Rick - killing my ass in his wagon
So we had 3 MK7s there on the MK8 full retrofits. Same day. Same course. Different results.
2019 GTI w/ IS38 - no problems, though some seeping from the Venturi potentially left over from a track event 2 weeks ago
2017 Alltrack w/ IS20 - no problems at all
2015 GTI w/ IS20 - still smoked
So there is very clearly something up with the earlier cars. I’m also pretty certain there is some effect from either oil temp or amount of time sustained in high RPM conditions. It’s hard to say but it definitely reinforces the recent learnings that not all cars can be treated equally, with certain years and certain use cases (autocross vs track) being better or worse for any given OEM PCV setup, MK8 included. I think I’m nearly done looking into this stuff as there will never be a truly concrete answer due to all the variables - so will be putting together something soon to go over all the findings in the past year.
Lastly: Huge thanks to Josh at Sixth Media Group for the photos from Sunday!
