So, I’m addicted to driving Minis in C and D classes. I normally use a grip tune (5.6 handling) since it isn’t a fast car. However, I’ve found that I can get pretty respectable times at tracks like Spa, Road America, and Bathurst by lowering the grip (5.0 handling) and increasing HP in the car. The car will hit close to 130 MPH in D class, so the little bit of grip that I lose has easily been made up by the speed gains. On those three tracks, I’ve lowered my times by almost 4 seconds by doing this. The best I’ve done in D class is a 2:51 on Spa, which is good for #92 on the leaderboard. I know muscle cars will do better, but I just have more fun driving the Mini so I’m sticking with it. I lowered my time substantially on Yas Marina too, but I think that has been more about me driving better on that track than the car/tune. On tracks like Catalunya, Buggati, and Laguna, etc., I stick with the grip tune and get much better results.
Recently, I put two builds together. One has a turbo and the other is naturally aspirated. The turbo develops 153 HP/163 Torque and weighs 1,223 pounds. The NA develops 152 HP/162 Torque and weighs 1,189 pounds. I’ve driven both of them about 30 laps each trying to decide which is better, but my driving is still a little too inconsistent to really be able to tell at this point. I realize that in a 3,000 pound car, the above numbers would be a wash and the two cars would be about even. With this little guy though, I’m wondering if by going with the lighter one, that I’m missing out on something the turbo may add that I’m just not aware of. I’m running a street trans and only use 4 gears (it has 5, but 5th is actually slower than 4th). I notice that the Turbo lets me take the RPMs in the red a lot further without bogging down. Yet, the NA car will climb hills a little better at tracks like Bathurst. I keep thinking that the 34 pound difference (almost 3% of the total weight) will be more noticeable in a car that weighs so little. Am I wrong in that thinking?
BTW, turbo was the choice because a centrifugal SC isn’t available on this car. I tried the positive displacement SC and the Turbo is definitely faster. What I’m doing is probably far from the textbook approach, but its working for me. Eventually, I’ll run enough laps to figure it out for myself, but I was hoping to get some input before I end up running 8,000 laps in each and I’m still not sure.