Road Race setup/ Track pics

[racepar1]

Originally Posted by WhiteGLX

you love the toe-in so much.

A bit of toe makes a significant difference man! If you are fighting the rear toe is one of the first things to try.

[WhiteGLX]

i only avoid it to help my tires last longer because its one of the constant expenses of tracking.

[McRussellPants]

Originally Posted by mmdb

Here's a good article written by Sports Compact Car dealing with increasing lateral grip on a skid pad

Skid Pad is the worst way to evaluate car handling ever.


steady state tight radius.

yeah, thats where I want my car to shine.

[racepar1]

Ya the skidpad is only to learn what your suspension adjustments do and get a baseline set-up. On a REAL track the set-up that worked so well on the skidpad will need to be re-adjusted to perform well at speed, but at least you will have a clue what to do.

[WhiteGLX]

just purchase a large variety of used r-comps today. So i can delay switching to 16" tires for awhile.

8 Hoosier R6
4 Toyo RA1
4 Hankook 214

all with 50-75% tread left. Yay for 2 seasons worth of tires....

[racepar1]

SCORE! Wrap the ones you aren't going to use yet in serran wrap as it will help hold the moisture in the rubber. Dry rubber sucks ass even if they are r-compounds.

[WhiteGLX]

garbage bags, and on a shelf in the basement....been doin it for years, every once in awhile i get large numbers of tires at a time so i have always stored them that way.

[WhiteGLX]

[INeedNewTires]

on that note, is there any way to refresh or re-moisten R-comps that have been sitting out for a while? like some kind of creme or spray or some shit?

[a_ahmed]

^Actually I heard of something.. but i'm not too sure what it is, not sure if it would serve same purpose... drag racing guys they use some kind of spray to make tires more sticky, not sure what it is, but i was told about that... and not sure if it would be same thing.

[racepar1]

I have also heard of what you are talking about, but it is not exactly what he is looking for. There is no way that I know of to actually recondition a dry tire.

[a_ahmed]

Yeah... I don't think it really reconditions a tire... more like just makes it warm up faster or something... but just a thought... but again... I guess not

[racepar1]

It softens the rubber. You apply it on the inside of the tire and it works it's way through. If you spill a drop of it directly on the "tread" it will slowly eat a hole through the tread as you drive, my buddy did that by accident on one of the shelbys at the race shop he used to work at. I personally wouldn't apply that to my tires.

[WhiteGLX]

i wouldnt count o some chemical to make my tires track worthy if they are aged.

tomorrow i am bagging up all those tires since i dont know how long some of them will be down there. If the tires are OLD maybe mount them and get them hot on the road and see how they hold up, maybe still more fun than a street tire still, tho prolly wont last very long.

[mmdb]

Originally Posted by McRussellPants

Skid Pad is the worst way to evaluate car handling ever.


steady state tight radius.

yeah, thats where I want my car to shine.

A skid pad is a good starting point to tune your suspension. After you have your steady state handling down where you want it you can the move onto transitional states (ie corner entry) and tune it there.

[WhiteGLX]

Welp had my first adventure on the Summit Point Shenendoah track this past weekend. Picked it up pretty quick, its a very agressive, lots of turns and very technical track. Overall i did quite well, especially when they combined the instructor group and Advanced students togeather for the last two sessions, had me some fun with timid advanced drivers, all on video i believe so hopefully i can have that up on here in the next 2 days.

Next event is with PCA next weekend, 3 days of tracking and i should only have one student for the entire event, so i am excited. I should have video from that also, and probobly traqmate data as well, official lap times.

[WhiteGLX]

i hope everyones silence from this forum means they have been track and are too busy to actually comment on here.

I have my PCA event this coming weekend, I will only have one student to instruct over a 3 day track event with 12 sessions 30+ for each, YAY. My suspension will not be here on time, due to someones big screw up, oh well a 3 day event would have perfect for dialing it in, especially on a track i am very familiar with. I will have some track footage from the event, though video for that will be up once i get the video from last weeks event up.


wish me luck, no mods to the car, just good clean fun and learning how to bring my times down hopefully a few seconds.

[bungl3]

good luck

really need to get mine finished and on track but lidfes getting int he way and slowing the build down

[mmdb]

Vroom vroom.

[WhiteGLX]

i know life happens, and hats fine, other things take priority over the track all the time. I kept work on my car to a minimum this winter so that i could be at the track often, instructing is fairly enjoyable it turns out so i deff want to get out as often as i can.

[racepar1]

I have been busy finishing the details for my track event this saturday at the streets of willow. I SHOULD have done all this work last week, but I was REALLY busy working on my customer's cars so I get no rest before the track day. I FINALLY installed my 3" brake ducting, I'll post pics here when I get a chance. I am STILL working on getting hankook to get me my god damn tires, which will now most likely be 275/40/17's since they are out of stock on the 245's (bastards). I WAS hoping to get some brembo slotted rotors off my buddy and installing my other wide fenders, but I just don't think i'll have the time to install them since I am supposed to meet the hankook guy tonight to get my tires and that only leaves friday night. It's really not that much stuff, but it is all happening at the same time.

[WhiteGLX]

thats alot of last minute bidness.

[slider2828]

275 is pretty damn wide.... Wholly smokes... definitely a step up from 245s....

I DD my track car pretty much and I basically have to retune everytime especially on autox coursing...

What do you guys thinking about sag and preload? What is the right way to do it? Also what spring rates are you guys running as well on the track vs. tire size?

[racepar1]

Spring rates vary more with tire compound than they do with tire width. If (for example) your springs worked well with 245's and you decided to step it up to 275's of the same tire then your old springs should work just fine. If you go from azenis to hoosiers you will probably have to bump the spring rates up a bit. I DD my car with it's track set-up most of the time, there is really no need to change it for the street as long as you have no more than 1/16 of toe in the rear and 0 in the front (which is exactly what I run). Remember toe kills tires, not camber. It will take forever for the extra camber to finish your tires, it won't take toe very long at all.

I just got back from the event and it was a blast! The organization was pretty meh, but still fun. I improved my previous best time by a full 2 seconds even though I was still stuck on the azenis and I am convinced that the track was a second or 2 slower due to the rain the night before and the brand new pavemant in one section, but I really don't know what anyone else was running. I was running in the advanced group and having a blast chasing down spec miatas. The brembo slotted rotors and 3" brake ducts made a huge difference! I could push it WAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY deeper without fear of fade (even with stock calipers). Removing the rear sway bar was an equally impressive adjustment. The rear was absolutely perfect on the throttle, just the right amount of rotation. It increased the weight transfer enough to lift the inside front tire coming off the skidpad turn at the streets of willow! Unfortuanetly though there was just a bit too much corner entry understeer, but I think I can adjust that out with an adjustable front sway bar and maybe put the stock 15mm rear sway back on. On a darker note however, a guy driving a mini at the NASA event on big willow flipped it in turn 9 several times and they had to send a helicopter to get him to the hospital. Apparently he is in pretty bad shape and there are rumors of amputations going around. It is one thing for a real racer to go out and get himself hurt, he KNOWS and ACCEPTS the consequences of his actions. Most of the HPDE guys, on the other hand, are just out there to have fun and not totally aware of what can happen. We should all pray for him and his family.

I got some pics from the event posted here:
http://www.zilvia.net/f/showpost.php...3&postcount=71

[racepar1]

Here's the brake duct pics:




I have a line on as many of these (see below) as I want for free! I'm gunna pick up a set of cheap 15x8 wheels and see how I like them. Unfortuanetly they're the vintage spec tires, but I'm pretty sure the compound is basically the same.

[INeedNewTires]

interesting placement near the rotors. got any other pics on how you mounted them up? also what kind of "ducting" is that and where did you get it? and how did you mount them on the hub?

sweet tire hookup man, AS MANY as you want?????

[racepar1]

Yup, as many as I can possibly use. The race shop that my buddy used to work at runs a LOT of vintage shelbys, camaro's, etc... They have to PAY a company to come out and pick up the take-offs, so they are more than happy to have me come over and take them for free! They will work on a 7"wheel, but they work BEST on an 8" wheel. As far as the ducts go I sourced the ducting from the same place that I can get the tires (maeco motorsports). It is high temp air ducting, exactly the same shit that nascars use. It is expensive as hell though, $10/ft or so. I actually stole the design, the plates used to hold them to the chasis and protect them from the tires, from the shelby's that maeco builds. I attached them to the spindles by clamping a 3" hose clamp around the hose and then using another hose clamp, run through the clamp around the hose, to clamp the hose to the spindles. They made it through the first track day with 0 problems and the streets is a pretty tight track. It would be better if I could duct the air through the center of the rotor, but I just didn't have time to make the duct. I was absolutely LAYING on the brakes, like to the point that the car was squirming around under braking in every braking zone, all day long and had no problems with fade. I have stock calipers, brembo slotted rotors, motul rbf600 fluid, technafit lines, and endless sss pads. That is a pretty mild set-up and really can't cope with the kind of abuse that I was dishing out, so I KNOW the ducts do their job.

[WhiteGLX]

why did you decide on 3" brake ducts? and i know you talked about the kognition ducts awhile back (i think it was you), why not try to deform the end of the duct so all the air is guided towards the center of the rotor for maximum effect?

PS - nice tire rub protector ....i like it.

with my 2" ducting, my tires clears at full lock, so while i toting around the paddock i dont have to worry about crushing the tubes, shouldnt ever touch on track.

[racepar1]

I decided on 3" ducts because that is what they had in stock and it is easier to find bumper ducts for 3" hose than it is for 2" hose. With stock calipers a little extra air might help as well. I will build a better ducting sustem on the rotor end eventually, with the time crunch before the event I just didn't have time so I just picked the simplest way that I could think of. With the hose clamps holding it on the ducting is free to move just a bit so even if I deformed the end of the hose to point more towards the center of the rotors it would most likely not still be pointing in exactly the same place by the time I make it to the track. They work bitchin and took a total of like 2 hours to design and install so i'm happy.

[bungl3]

i like those ducts A LOT! might have to employ the basic idea on my car

glad to hear the day went well overall, hopefully ill see a hill climb track with mine in a fortnight so ill get some lovely pics for y'all