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Well, the first track day of 08 was a success I'd say. I made it there in one piece, got in 200 track miles with no major issues and got the car home without being stuck in the late winter snow storm that hit us.
The weather was not looking the best for this past Friday and the report was about spot on with the exception that the snow didn't start falling till about 1:30pm.
I arrived at the track at 8:50am and the track went hot at 9am. I missed most of the drivers meeting hit the track by 9:10 after dumping everything out of the trunk and setting the struts and tire pressures.
Overall car setup:
For the koni 8611's up front, I set compression to 4 clicks (out of 12) and rebound to 1.5 turns (2.5 total). The rear (koni 8610) I turned the rebound up to 1.25 turns. I didn't make any changes to the dampers the rest of the day... mainly because it was so dang cold, and also because the car was handeling good on track so I'll leave the minor adjustments of the dampers for a warmer day. I set tire pressure to 37psi hot front and rear, anything above this and my tire temps started to get out of wack and so did the handeling of the car on track. The progress bar up front was set to the middle and the progress rear is set to soft. I turned the boost down to 10psi so that I could just have fun and not overpower the 235/45/17 Advans which kept going all day for me without complaint.
The first session went great, besides the fact that there was huge sheet of ice on line of turn 10... at first I thought it must be something else till I hit it and the whole car side-stepped 5 feet, then it sunk in.. it was ICE! I think I might have missed that in the drivers meeting since I arrived alittle late:o. I spent a few laps feeling out the braking zones with the new BHP CR6 pads (Thanks Matt!) and relearning when to apply throttle mid corner. The HLSD and the alignment have done wonders, I was able to apply throttle just past apex on most turns now, this was not possible last year unless I wanted to kiss my tail goodbye. The car is so neutral in the corners now, just brake down to the appropriate speed for corner entry, turn in, and wait for the moment that I can feed the throttle to exit me out of the corner. If I push the speed to much into the turn, the car will start to understeer just a little and a small bit of throttle will get me back on line again... gotta love it.
The brakes were great! I have the CR6 pads up front and HPS's in the rear. The pads just needed alittle bit of heat in them and they did wonders all day. By the end of the day I was able to move my braking zones up pretty far, and really think there was more there. I just didn't push it that far due to the cold temps and still had alot to learn. Only on a few occasions did I start to feel some fade, but I was doing 30-40 minute sessions and pushing them pretty hard. I never once locked up and really thought I would on a few occasions of me getting to excited and getting well past my brake poin. I don't think they'll work so good on a hotter day, but my only requirement for these is for wet/cold days and street driving... and they more than meet that.
The next few sessions before lunch I just enjoyed the track and had fun. Since this is the friday before the driving school, I got to enjoy passing/being passed by some fairly nice cars... see pictures below. It was kind of nice that I was getting my speed up enough that typically I wasn't being passed unless it was on my first lap or the cool down lap. I got to play around with one of the lead instructors in his Carrera 4S, I had a bit more speed on the straights, but he had me by a small margin in the corners... he was on shaved RA-1's, what can I say . Due to it being so cold, I was able to go for 30-40 minutes sessions... the only limiter is mental fatigue, I found that after 30 minutes I found myself not focusing as much as I should on my lines and finally had to come in to get some water and food on two of my sessions.
Here is the S13 in the pits after a few sessions
Rotors looking happy. Rotor temps after a cool down session were in the 250F range up front and 200F range in the rear. The one time I came off hot, the fronts were at 350F and the rears at 325F...
Some of the instructors cars... actually if you just multiplied the cars you see here by 4 and that is basically what all the instructors drive.
There were quite a few Canadians that come down for this school, here is a GTR that usually shows up... they drove 11 hours.
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After lunch, I got in one more good session before the snow started to fall. At first it wasn't sticking, just blowing across the track... so there was no need to really slow down yet. After a break, the track seemed a bit more slick... it was more like a wet track day if anything, still fun though. The last session it started getting really slick. I couldn't really apply any throttle in the turns and had to be careful in the braking zones too. I know I was doing ok, since the C5 Z06 (instructor) was not getting away from me and the M3 (seasoned student) behind me wasn't catching up. I finally called it quits after the snow started sticking and it was looking more like a blizzard than anything else out there.
After my last session of the day... you can see that the back of the car is covered in oil mist. After every shift on boost I'd see a big puff of blue smoke from the back. The T28 seals are mostly gone.
The wonderful ride home.
__________________
Monty <--- Another victim of the go-fast crack pipe....
I'm sorry I didn't copy everyone else's setup. If you need a preacher to tell you what mods to put on your car, the Reverend Veilside180sx might have a suggestion.
My update is that I have no update. I hope to make a Tarheel SCCA event at CMP in June, but this might not happen.
The other event will be a free on that I earn through CarGuys by working two other events. So free is good...but the downside is that it's in early August.
It looks like I'll have no more track days till after July 1st . The track was been sold to the county, but there is still resistance from one of the county commisioners and the sale still have to be approved by a judge and so on... hopefully everyone gets there ducks in a row and get the track reopened sooner
It looks like I'll have no more track days till after July 1st . The track was been sold to the county, but there is still resistance from one of the county commisioners and the sale still have to be approved by a judge and so on... hopefully everyone gets there ducks in a row and get the track reopened sooner
What's the deal are there noise issues? You are gonna have one near Boardman soon as well. So don't sweat it too hard.
What's the deal are there noise issues? You are gonna have one near Boardman soon as well. So don't sweat it too hard.
They found that the well under the track is contaminated and they want it cleaned by the original owners before completing the purchase... or something like that. There is also track cleanup that needs to happen, a local group is rallying volunteers for cleanup and improvements along with donations to help make all this happen.
I'll probably taking a day off mid next month to spend a day up there helping on cleanup.
The track at Boardman will probably be open next year, I'm pretty optimistic of them getting it done this year since they had just broken ground this last fall.
You mean they didn't get any enviro work done before purchasing? You'd think someone buying a racetrack would be aware of certain issues. sheesh.
No, I'm sure they did... the one commisioner that was not for the purchase is crying foul now and using this as an excuse.
The track is in receivership currently as the past owner ran it to the ground and left shareholders in the dust for 10+ years, and pocketed all the money
OK, this has been a long wait, but finally I'll be hitting the local track this Thursday followed by another track day next Friday. This will be the first open track day since the sale of the track.
This Thursdays will be different than the usual open track day, this one will be a practice day for an upcoming races (fri and sat) this same weekend. It'll be run in 6 30 min sessions and their will be no rules on passing... except the part about not rubbing. I was able to sneak in with the exception that I'm working a corner station on Friday as payment for driving on Thursday. Let's just say that you have to be really trusted as a driver to be let out there for this day... or really stupid
Spokane Raceway Park Practice day report, July 17th.
Well, besides some heat issues, this last Thursdays practice day at SRP track was a good one. This day was an extra, early day, for any of the race teams that were coming into town to get a feel for the track. There were about 20 teams that arrived for the day with most of them being new to this track.
For me, I had zero mechanical issues... the first with this car. Ambient temp was about 85F, blue skies, and a light breeze was what most of the day was like.
Changes for the car since the last track day. I used Tim's advice on swaybar settings, full soft up front and medium in the rear (progress). struts stayed the same, 4 clicks and 1.5 turns for the 8611's up front and 1.25 turns on the 8610's in the rear. For brakes, I'm using the 350Z rotors up front with the full Z32 setup and stock MC... same as last time, but I am using hawk blues on all 4 corners this time. Tires are the 275/40/17 RA-1's, first time using these. Boost was set to about 11psi.
The track had no one on it since most of the guys were on/off quite frequently making changes to their cars. Actually the first several laps were spent brooming with our cars since this was the first time it's been used in 3 months! I focused on just feeling out the braking zones and the RA-1's in general. After about 5 laps with less dust on track I started pushing the car to see how it felt at about 7/10ths. With the swaybar changes the car rotated pretty good out of the tight turns and I got slight oversteer if I push to much speed through the larger turns but overall I was liking the feel of the car in the turns. I tried full soft/soft for a session and I actually liked soft/medium (F/R), so went back. The braking with the RA-1's is amazing, I was able to late brake with confidence from the start of the day. Actually I found myself braking way to early most of the time when I wasn't thinking about it... I never once had an issue with lockup with the hawk blues, again thanks to the RA-1's grip. As for the brakes, I pushed them hard all day and never once did I feel the onset of pad fade, temps were in the 300/300 (F/R) range after a cool down lap and pad wear at the end of the day showed maybe 1/16th pad wear up front if even that...
After about 6 hard laps in the first session water temps had been at a solid 210-220, and oil had slowly been rising the entire session. Lets just say that oil raised all the way to 260F and I started my cooldown session when water temps hit 240F :o. I'd say an oil cooler is in order, as long as oil temps stayed below 230F, water temps were fine... so I will start to plan an oil cooler install before the next track day.
The rest of the morning, I spent with my heater on high and running 5 good laps followed by 2 cool down laps and a few more hot laps before coming in to let the car cool off. For the afternoon, I decided to not go WOT down the front straight and just limit my speeds to 120mph (from about 145) and was able to keep water/oil temps at 220F/220F and run 30 minutes sessions, but still needed to run with the heater on .
I finally talked to Brad with the old E36 race car and we started playing on track together since we both seem to be running by ourselves all day. We spent two 40 minutes session just following each other through the turns, trading off once in a while. His E36 has alot of potentional in it and I think he's still alittle uneasy with the car still, I was able to walk away from him at will at most any section of the track. He was in shock how fast the 240 in the corners and the amount of speed I was getting on corner exit. Our 2nd session of the afternoon we had an E30 driver start following us... actually he stayed behind us till we pitted. While in the pit I had a guy come up and shake my hand, he made a comment about actually seeing a licence plate on track (I didn't even realise that I had the only licensed car out there) and thanked me for showing him the lines since this was his first time out to SRP.
As for the RA-1's and their review... overall I don't feel that I gained that much more steady state speed in the corners, but I feel that I gained alot in braking power and can go 30-40 minute session without getting the tires greasy. I was able to get the back to start stepping out more towards the end of a session, but it was controllable and by then the water temps were out of control anyways... so I'll see what tire pressure changes are needed to help control that better next month. Oh yeah, and the tire wear for the day was not even noticable, what I wanted to see
Overall, I only got in 170 track miles due to the amount of cool down laps I had to take and extended time off track letting the car sit, but at least I wasn't working under the hood on some stupid problem like in past track days. I'll skip this next fridays track day, as much as I really want to do it, to give me time to get my oil cooler setup together and just plan for the next track day in August.
Thanks Kent... I'm starting to piece together my list for the oil cooler. Once together I'll post up my findings and get a little more input before purchasing anything. I am thinking something kind of simple though...
I did score another set of tires this time... some lotus exige takeoffs with a fair bit of life left in them. Now I have two more sets of street tires for the 240 now
Excellent to read! I too had a very fun weekend at Pocono North, with the only issue coming after the day was over when the power steering belt came off lol.
I can say that I do think the 350Z rotor upgrade (granted i'm on street tires) helped immensly...hard to think that just a little bit more swept area can make that much difference!
I had my car aligned with 2 degrees camber f and rear, 0 toe in the front, 1/16th out in the rear, sways on full stiff front, and full soft rear, 800/600 ApexI Exv's on 4 clicks from full stiff front, and 8 clicks from full stiff in the rear...and all at a girly 8 psi (off the Tial). Caster unknown in the front, but if to guess, maybe 7 or 8?
The car worked fantastic IMO, as I found that going to full soft in the back, with the slight toe, made the car rotate amazingly. The 4.60 gears helped get some good power out of corners, especially with such low low boost. I'm certainly going to need to get some RA-1's if I even want to **** about turning the boost up to a medium (12-15) setting.
We were running with the Miata club, so (duh) most were Miatas, but I did have some great fun running with the Super/Turbo guys. Those guys benefit so much from being so little and being able to run big tires....I'd blow by them on the straights, but those little jerks were right up all over me in the infield all morning.
Eventually getting the line down better enabled me to get some distance on some guys, but being my first time running in the Red group, it's hard to deny the fact these guys just 'knew' their cars, and were very fast in the infields because of it.
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Cody and Matt club Vice President
"More drama than a highschool prom queen competition"
I logged in 180 track miles and went through another 90 dollars worth of fuel. Temps in the shade were around 95F and I don't even want to know what the track surface temps were like .
I left the car pretty much unchanged from the track day two weeks ago. I added alittle ducting that seemed to help out some on track, but not enough. I did run 6 clicks (compression) up front and bumped tire pressures up from 35psi hot to 37psi hot after taking tire temps a few times and not really liking the feel at the lower pressure.
I haven't posted a picture of the car in a while... I actually had the camera with me today, so I took the one pits shot when I had a moment.
The morning sessions, three 25-30 minute sessions, went without to much drama or issue. I was continuing to work up my braking zones and work on exit speeds with good success and it was showing as I ate up most all the cars in the corners... even a Cooper S on RA-1's with a good driver.
At the 100 track mile mark, just before lunch I had my first and only hicup with the car... felt like I was hitting a limiter when boosting. I pulled off track and did the once over not finding anything. Pulled a plug (#1) and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Then I pulled #2
Here are all 4 lined up... 1 - 4 (left to right)
I thought I heard alittle pinging a few laps before this happened... it was so faint and wasn't sure, guess I know now. I was planning on turning down the boost at lunch since we were in the mid 90's, guess I should have done it sooner. I ran down to NAPA and got some new plugs threw them in and was back on track after lunch. I ran the rest of the day without issue at 7psi, thank gosh that is all I had to deal with.
I did have a chance to take two people out for 20 minute sessions. The guy in the Cooper S, he's been doing this longer than I have and hits tracks from here to TH and Sears point. He was in complete shock how fast the car was around the track and was certain that this was the fastest car he's ridden in a long time. I know there are faster out here, so I thanked him for the complement. The rest of the day he kept pointing me by in the oddest places, probably just to see if I could pass in 'x' turn or not... I typically did . I also gave Dan (silver supra) a ride and was amazed by how much faster the car was from last year when it had no diff and big tires on it. I wish his day went better, but it didn't.
At 7psi, I was able to run the car full throttle for 30 minutes easily without worry of overheating the car or rear tires. It was fun in a way, but I didn't have as near as much umph out of the turns, probably for the best though... my motor's that is.
Best of all, I was offered an instructor position with the BMW club... I guess they've been watching me for a while on track and like what they see. I said I'd get back to them within the month (got to get the wifes buy-in) and if so, I'd be signed up for a driver education course in Febuary in Seattle to prepare me for a March 09 driving school .
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. Due to it being so cold, I was able to go for 30-40 minutes sessions... the only limiter is mental fatigue, I found that after 30 minutes I found myself not focusing as much as I should on my lines and finally had to come in to get some water and food on two of my sessions.
