As you may be aware, Kelsey has not yet made her appearance for 2011. This is due, in part to the racing we’ve been doing with the Genesis Coupes, and also because we’ve been really busy at the shop and I haven’t made the time to improve the car as planned. I don’t like ripping the car unless I know it’s going to be faster 🙂
With only 2 weeks before the last event of CSCS, and a damn fast EVO 9 to try and beat, we’ve got our work cut out for us. That being said, I do have a plan on how we can get a little bit quicker. The question is of course, will it be enough?
Let’s go over our last CSCS Cayuga Time Attack event:
Time: 1.15.95
Weight: 2840lb + driver
Power: ~332whp
Tires: Used Dunlop Slicks

Smaller cams and non-revup manifold
Now:
Time: ???
Weight: Hoping to remove a good 30-40lbs from the car, so say 2800lbs + driver
Power: 350whp – bigger cams, different intake manifold
Tires: Looking at a new set of something special

Dyno with larger cams and revup lower intake manifold
The real problem with the car is the weight. Cayuga is a tight track with a lot of abrupt direction changes, and simple physics will tell us that weight doesn’t like to change direction. Unfortunately the 350z is a big car, and when the chassis was originally built for Koni GS, the base weight was so high that spending a big effort on weight reduction wasn’t a big deal. One of the big things I wanted to do before this season was strip the car down and remove some weight. Needless to say it never happened.

CSCS Ripping
Watching footage from last year, it looks like the car may have been setup a little bit too loose, which was hurting power down in a few very important corners. I believe it was also a little over-damped, so hopefully a little tuning will be worth some time.
Is it enough to get into the 14s? Most likely not. But all of us at SG will be damned if we don’t give it a shot!
Who will you be cheering for when Sept 25 rolls around?