Savoy Automobile Museum

This round part of the building is the theater where they show movies. 

After moving to South Carolina two years ago, I heard about the Savoy Automobile Museum and finally got to visit last weekend. Located in Cartersville Georgia, the Savoy opened only four years ago, so it's a very nice new building on some nice grounds. Those grounds were being put to good use last weekend with the Savoy hosting a big Jaguar club event all weekend. NMS is happy to give the Savoy Auto Museum a big gold star rating, and suggest you give them a visit the next time you are in the Atlanta area. 

This distinctive sculpture was inspired by a hood ornament. 

Also worth noting, the museum is operated by a non-profit that also runs several other museums in Cartersville, so they've got you covered if you're interested in cars, science, and art. Cartersville may not be the home of Jimmy Carter, but it was a nice place with plenty of cool places to eat, things to see, and friendly people. Let's see some cars! 

Jaguar XJ220? Awesome!

This exhibit had to do with car makers that also made tractors. This is a Porsche 356. Did Porsche also make tractorsd?

Yep! Porsche Junior tractor

Lamborghini tractor in racing livery! Mr. Lamborghini made tractors long before he made cars. 

Lamborghini Miura, considered the first mid-engine supercar.

1938 Ford prototype of what would become the 9N tractor. 

1941 Ford Super Deluxe Coupe

1938 Graham-Bradley 503 Row Crop tractor. OK, I'll confess not being familiar with this brand of tractor or the Graham car in the next photo. 

1939 Graham Sharknose

1956 International Harvester Cub Lo-Boy

International L-110 short bed pickup. 

Also on exhibit was a gallery of muscle cars, a selection of Jaguars, and two more  exhibits of older cars, with one featuring some awesome Duesenbergs. We'll take a look at those soon. 

New Tire Day!

Sorry, but the Haas F1 team did NOT sign any NMS drivers this year. The real story is that there were two of these vans at York Technical College, and the Haas guys were installing some new Haas machines in the building next to the auto shop. 

As I was prepping for an upcoming autocross event, I noticed some worn out spots on my one year old Michelins tires that went right through the tread. Having solid tread all around all 4 tires is kind of important and adds to safety, so it was time for some new tires! I took a look at the last few years of tire wear data from the NMS Tire Engineering and Factual Database (TEFD) to see what insights to faster driving could be determined, and made this shocking discovery: Driving your car on track and autocross events WEARS OUT YOUR TIRES!

The NMS Racing Safety Department head ruled this tire was too worn to take on track again. Thanks for the memories. 

In five years of driving the Cayman, the NMS TEFD has been analyzing the data on each set of tires, looking for any critical information that will improve the team's performance. While the team finance department has not pulled the trigger to authorize full on racing slick tires because they "cost too much money," the team has been using tires in the 200-340 treadwear range, and they are cheaper than the 40-100 treadwear tires. As a lowly driver I'm not sure where all that saved money goes, but apparently things like "brake pads" and "gas" aren't getting any cheaper either!

Here's a look at a Tire Pressure Monitor inside a tire. They are easy to replace when their battery goes bad. 

This set of Michelins lasted for 3,432 total miles of driving, which included 63 autocross runs, two Track Night in America events, and two days of driving on track at Carolina Motorsports Park. While a few thousand miles is not a lot of driving for an everyday tire, being on track and doing autocross events is not your everyday turning and braking. 

At the tire shop I spotted this huge Mickey Thompson 37 inch tire for a Jeep. 

Before the Michelin tires, NMS-North was running a set of Yokohama Advan A052 tires, and they only lasted for 1690 miles, with 28 autocross runs, and 2 days on track. These tires have a treadwear rating of 200, and a reputation for being fast, but based on how quickly they lost tread, I'm thinking they aren't worth it since they lasted a good bit less than the Michelins. 

Somebody better get those wheels out of the truck and onto the car. 

Prior to that there was another set of 200 treadwear tires, from Falken. These tires seemed to get faster the more the tread wore down. Racers say that this can happen when you're evenly wearing the tread and slowly turning them into slick tires! The NMS team mechanic suspects that this is the reason I was the fastest car at a couple of events in 2023, but of course those mechanics don't want to give any credit to the driver! They seem to think it's all about the car! The Falkens lasted 4,767 miles, which included 89 autocross runs but no track days. I'll guarantee that a track day wears out more tires than autocross, due to much more braking. 

One good reason to have a small truck: NEW TIRE DAY!

Still in the 200 treadwear range, we had a set of Hankook RS4 tires before the Falkens too. The Cayman managed to last 6,054 miles, which includes 84 autocross runs, and 9 HPDE track days. These Hankooks have a great reputation for lasting a long time, even if they aren't the absolute fastest tires on track. Based on our experience, they lasted a long time, and are a great buy for the price. 

Alignment Class Update

Our instructor Jamey Abercrombie demonstrates how to compress a spring the safe way. 

At school we've been busy learning about wheels, tires, suspension systems, and alignments. One highlight was getting to put the NMS Cayman on the alignment machine and see how it is doing. In five years of driving this car I haven't had the alignment checked, so why not do it myself? It turns out that it was overdue given the amount of track events that keeps chewing up tires, so maybe the car will be even better now!

Here's a list of cars our class is working on. 

For any car, an alignment means checking the caster, camber, and toe. Caster is pretty much set and not an issue on rear wheels, so doing an alignment starts with checking the camber on the rears, then the toe in back. Once you have the rear set up to go straight down the road, you can check the front. 

Chevy Volt

Up front, we check the caster first, then the camber, and then the toe. On the alignment machine at school it has a lot of great features that basically shows you all the measurements, will tell you what tools to use, and even pulls up photos and videos showing you how to make the adjustments along the way. 

Hey look, suspension stuff!

PRO TIP: Remove the OLD shock or strut BEFORE you put on the NEW one!

The only measurement where I went beyond the specs was on camber. For autocross and track driving it is always recommended to go with a lot of negative camber, so that your tires will maintain more contact with the road on cornering. For instance, on my front wheels, the specs say to set the fronts from 0.1 to -0.4. My left front was at -0.5, so even though that is a tiny bit out of spec, I left it there. Most Cayman drivers suggest going to at least -2 and -3, so this little -0.5 will be fine. 

The NMS Cayman BEFORE alignment started. That front toe is really bad, with the left wheel pointed inwards and the right wheel pointing outward. They both should be positive from 0.00 to 0.08. 

NMS Cayman with MUCH BETTER TOE!  The red left front camber is only out of spec by 0.1 degree, and since I want even MORE negative camber than that, I left it there for now. Caymans doing racing and track driving shoot for a minimum of -2.0 camber as a starting point.  

On the rear wheels, the spec says to set camber from -1.1 to -1.6, and I'm as far as I can go negative at -1.6 on the right and -1.7 on the left. To adjust beyond this would require some different suspension components, which translates into more money, so I'm happy with this for now!

At the very top center of the photo is the nut to loosen and start making adjustments. 

A Kia Soul gets some work too. 

Some wear on an old bump stop,  not a big deal. 

Another group of students was working on this 97 or so pickup to replace some leaking power steering hoses. 

Not a great photo, but trust me, there was power steering fluid all over the place. 

OLD power steering lines...

and a NEW power steering line.

I think this is the strut we took off of a 2016 Buick Encore. 

End of the old strut. The top of these struts were held in place on the Buick with just one nut over the stud you see here. 

After doing the alignment on the NMS Cayman at school, back at NMS HQ I adjusted the front camber to as negative as it would go. This was easy: just loosen the 3 bolts on top of the shock, and push the center of the shock as far inward as it goes. The bolt on the bottom has the nut taken off, so you can see the slot where it will adjust (left to right in this photo, which is tilting the top of  the wheel in or out, which is what camber is). Torque those 3 bolts to 33 Newton Meters and you're back in business.