03/31/05 Took the Box out on a lengthy drive on some back roads in the general direction of the coast. One really fun thing about this device is that it instills a great amount of confidence even on roads that are intermittently wet and dry (the KDW2s really help here). The result being that I was playing rally driver much of the time, flying along narrow, twisty roads with major elevation changes at speeds that I probably wouldn't consider prudent in the Elise under the same circumstances. At some point, with all wheels pretty much unloaded and drifting over a blind crest in the middle of a turn, the car emitted three loud beeps. Guess it was something to the effect of 'HEY, I'M NOT AN AIRPLANE'. My passenger just laughed and said 'that's awesome!' - fun is more fun in right company. Later in the trip I ended up exploring a road that I've long wanted to check out. On the map it starts at US26 around Elsie and drops down southwest to meet 53 near the coast. The pavement starts out a bit rough but passable, with lots of twisties, dips and crests. Then the lane divider line goes away. Then it narrows to one lane. And then pavement ends - followed by about 20 miles of gravel which at this point due to rain is more like mud. Didn't think I'd be going offroading today... The Box handled it all, then back on the sinuous pavement of 53 it was ready to play again. I kept wishing I had brought my video setup. The trip would have made for some fun highlights... I must say I really love this little machine. Of course it doesn't have much power, but if kept in the 5K-6.5K RPM range it does move along nicely and the fun is of course in not slowing down for turns. Wonder if TRD makes a supercharger for these?

Back home, a MUCH needed wash.

One thing I ought to ponder is that I haven't driven the Elise since getting the Box. Nor am I particularly tempted to... Of course the weather hasn't been Elise-friendly lately, so that's a significant factor. But still. Hmmm....

04/23/05 Finally got around to installing a set of TRD springs that I had bought a few weeks ago. They are a great deal - $150 mailorder for a set of 4 (retail is $189 which is still pretty cheap). For some reason TRD chose to paint them white which would look really odd on my all-black car, so prior to installation I sprayed them with black truck bed liner which was the only black paint-type substance I had laying around. Sufficient to hide them which is all I need. So today I set about the install. Of course I don't have spring compressors but in the past I've been able to get by with just a tiedown strap. The procedure is to put one end of the car up on stands (jacking up both sides means I don't have to disconnect the a/r bar), taking off the wheels, then lifting one hub with a jack and wrapping a tiedown strap through the spring coils. The jack is then let down and the spring stays compressed enough to remove it and/or the strut. The strap is then slowly released.

Putting the new springs in involves sitting on top of them to compress a bit while tightening the tiedown. The fact that the replacement springs are shorter helps (they are the lower spring in each picture below).

The fronts took 2 hours 45 minutes because I was figuring things out as I went along. The rears were a lot easier at 45 minutes and even the wheels didn't have to come off. The dealer had quoted $400 (6 hours labor) for the procedure. Yeah, right. That would be a lot of very expensive coffee breaks I guess. The result of the swap is a subtle drop and is quite pleasing visually - previously the car seemed to sit a tad too high and now it's just about right (top picture is before, bottom is after).

A quick test drive revealed that the ride is virtually unchanged, turn-in is sharper and body roll is slightly reduced. Some people are of the opinion that an alignment is mandatory after a spring change but the test drive revealed no untoward behavior so I'll skip it. The only thing affected which could be 'aligned' is toe and that setting is somewhat subjective anyway - within a certain range it's basically just driver preference, there's no one magical number for it. It feels fine to me at the moment. If I change my mind later I'll fiddle with it then. Yes, I did push on the struts when I tightened the bolts to get the most negative camber. And before people start writing me with dire warnings of tire wear - I just don't care. I don't drive enough miles anyway and the miles I do drive are quite hard on the tires so any alignment-induced difference is irrelevant. So there. Overall, a pretty nice upgrade for the money and time invested. Now the Box is ready to hit the track next week. It'll probably rain but that's not a big deal.

04/29/05 Finally, the first track outing for the Box. Needless to say it raised a few eyebrows. Both by being there in the first place, and by how well it (we) did. The corner workers told me it was the first Scion on the track...

The routine was basically crawl down the straights (I've never gone this slow, 85-90 mph tops) and blast through corners. I was running in the instructor group so no novices here, and nearly all cars are on R compound tires - except for the Box, of course. The good thing was that I only used the brakes for the chicane. It's a whole new driving style. So you get this: (video)

Yes, I was catching an RX8. In the instructor group. Didn't get to pass him though because the session ended. Throughout the video you'll hear beeping - I've mentioned it before :) Unfortunately the helmet camera died along the way fading to a ghostly green on the way to fading to black so I didn't get all the laps, but the best recorded on tape was 1:47. So Roy can rest easy with his 1:44 in Focus SVT... or can he? There were quite a few laps after the camera died... Coincidentally, I had recently decided to purchase a new video camera, a JVC Everio digital cam. It records MPEG2 directly onto CF media at excellent quality. It arrived yesterday but I've yet to devise a way to mount the thing on a helmet...

Anyway, at mid-day there were a couple of crashes and a resulting extended lunch break over which I went and got the Elise... The Box did really well though. The Box RULz.

05/26/05 BMW club day. It's a busy week, with two bike days and two car days. Tomorrow is Lotus day so today I decided to run the Box. The weather is perfect, if a bit on the warm side. The goal for today is to experiment with some different lines, get some video and have some fun. The turnout is good and some varied machinery is present. One of the local car guys even dropped by with a Ferrari F430 although he didn't run today.

Beautiful car. An improvement on the F360 to my eye, and agreat improvement performance-wise according to the owner. Cool. The brakes are a $15K option. That's what the Box cost :)

The Box doesn't need much in the way of brakes. In fact I'm only using them in two spots on the track, only one of those with any vigor. The tires are another story though - the left front is getting a bit chewed up.

First session saw David do a nice loop for the camera. He had my new digital camcorder mounted in his car but the results were not very good. Part of it was the mounting method (too low and too much vibration), part was the camera - it seemed to shut off all by itself early into the session. Wonder if vibration is a factor there as well. I'll have to work on it I guess. Hopefully helmet mount will work better. Throughout the day I had some fun 'chasing' various Porsches and the like. Ok, more like staying out of their way on the straights and kind of staying with them in the corners. Here is a clip of Scion xB vs Porsche GT3. Actually there were two of them, both red. One was a bit faster than the other. Regardless, can't help but ask, do they have 10x performance for 10x the price? ;) Gave a few rides today and the response is always the same - 'I can't believe this thing can go so fast!'. The tape showed a whole bunch of consistent 1:47 laps but none faster than that. Ah well. Fun was had and that's what matters. The Elise gets to play tomorrow.

06/24/05 Another trackday for the Box. As always, much fun was had, chasing Porsches and the like. Played around with different lines and corner strategies, this time aided by GPS datalogging. In the afternoon went and got the 'Lis for some direct comparisons. See the Elise page for more details. The difference between the two cars never fails to entertain. In the Box I'm looking down at the rest of the cars from the upright driver's chair, challenging them in the corners with no hope of even maintaining pace on the straights. In the Elise I'm looking up at bumpers and carrying much healthier velocities. Takes a lap or two to adjust to the difference. As always, I took pictures and video but they're not much different than what I've already posted so I decided to skip posting them this time.