94 Rx7 Street/Track build A.K.A. greatwhitebuffalo

[Smokey]

First event of 2018. NNJRPCA @ Mid Ohio. I enjoy running with NNJR, always a good fast group and put on a good event. This event was advanced and instructors only so it'd be 3 run groups each getting 5 30-minute sessions a day. That's about double what you'd get in a normal HPDE weekend so it was looking great......except the weather.....On Thursday before the event the forecast was showing 60% chance of rain Friday, 100% Saturday, and 60% Sunday

 

Nothing I can do to control that though, so up I went. The forecast called for rain later in the day Friday and it'd be dry to start. As normal I went out on Nittos for the first session and was able to drive a 1:38.9 right off the trailer with me being rusty as well. I knew that the car was right back where it needed to be.

 

Since I thought we'd likely only be getting dry track on Friday I put the slicks on to see how she did. The answer is great and was getting in the mid 1:35s. I still had some rust to knock off, but it was getting better for sure. It ended up raining out the last session Friday, but 4 30-minute sessions is plenty in one day so I was happy for sure.

 

Saturday I came up expecting a rain out, and instead got sunburn. Ohio weather is a crazy thing sometimes. It was mostly dry all day with little bouts of spitting rain, but it would then dry again pretty quickly. That is until about 3pm when it opened the skies and there was no getting the track back from that. Even still got 4 more sessions Saturday.

 

I noticed that when the car is on the slicks it LEANS something fierce. People even make comments to me about how crazy it looks like it's leaning over. So I made an adjustment and went stiffer on the front sway bar. I didn't have any adjustment on the stock rear bar so I went stiffer on the Ohlins in the rear, and softened the front to not make the change as drastic. It seemed to help and yet kept a good balance front/rear on the car.

 

Sunday had the best forecast, but funny enough when we showed up despite not being raining, the track was wet from the previous night's monsoons and the heavy cloud cover wasn't letting it dry up very fast. I skipped the first session due to wet track and then when I went out for the 2nd session I immediately noticed a vibration in the brakes. I took a couple of slow laps to see if it was pad deposits and would go away, but when it didn't I came back in. I found this when I got back to the pits:

Sneaky little bugger that was hard to see cause it was in the slot of the rotor, but once it's to the edge it's done. You can see the overall condition of the rotor wasn't too bad (for a track rotor). So I'll have to keep a close eye on them in the future.

 

I had a new set...but they were at home. Since it was early-ish in the morning and I live 1 hour door-to-door from Mid Ohio I made the trip home, swapped the driver's side ring on the hat and came back. Was able to run 3 full session in the afternoon.

 

During the 2nd afternoon session I was able to hook up with a great driver we know in a white 996 GT3 and we went back and forth all session. I was able to get my fastest time of the weekend (and my personal best) while he was filling up my mirrors and running me down which was a 1:35.02...SO CLOSE to the 1:34s I think the car is capable of. We were actually 0.35 up on that fast lap when I was chasing him and we caught the BMW 335 and silver/green 911. If you listen to the video you can hear me yell "OH COME ON"...haha. It doesn't count if it's not in the logger though.

 

Here's a video showing the good stuff of us going back and forth. This was the most fun I've had on track in a long time and made all of the bullshit problems with the car last year worth getting through. Also I ended up running nearly 300 track miles over the weekend so hard to argue with how well the car held up.

[Smokey]

Did you copy and paste or where did you move that it snowed right now haha

 

Yeah was behind on updates. I keep a similar thread on 7club that I had posted the troubleshooting stuff last last year in hopes so,Rome would know what the issue was.

 

Up to date now though.

[Smokey]

Some observations from the event:

 

My water and intake temps were higher than I'd expect for a May event. The air was heavy and thick but only got up to like 80 degrees. Granted we were running long sessions too, but I was still seeing 98-99 degree water temps which I'm not the most fond of. Intake temps would be in the high 40's C to up to 53C regularly.

 

One session I forgot to top off the water/meth tank. I looked over and saw intake temps at 70C!!! wow...too hot. Clearly the PFS intercooler isn't good enough on its own to handle heavy track duty. An interesting note though, even though intake temps were super hot, water temps were down?! I wonder if the car running extra rich with the methanol is making it run hotter?

 

The last session of the weekend I ran straight water instead. Intake temps were a bit higher but not bad but water temps stayed down around 92-94 degrees over a full session which was a nice improvement. I'll continue to play around with that and see how it shakes out.

 

I have a racing beat or replica rear bar I'm going to throw on and go full damn stiff on the front bar and see how the car works. Going stiffer springs all around is the true solution, but will require a re-valve of the shocks which i won't have the time to send out and wait on likely during the season so that'll have to wait until winter.

 

I also need to figure out a better fuel slosh solution as I'm getting fuel stave starting around 1/2 tank with the slicks. The factory baffle is good down to like 1/8 tank on the Nittos, but the extra stick and forces change that.

 

Also next up is a trans cooler as I've already started getting trans noise out of the new (used) trans!!! I better figure out how to rebuild these damn things too.

 

Next event should hopefully be PITT race full course in July.

[Aaron]

Wow, impressive as usual. I'd have given up long ago. Paid off though, your off the trailer time matched my personal best, 1:38.9, jerk!

 

Congrats on the 135, you'll get your goal I have no doubt.

[Smokey]

As usual life has gotten busy and I haven't updated this thread, but now that events are done for the year I can give a recap of the rest of the season.

 

There were no events in June due to other priorities. Also got a chance to go to the F1 GP in Montreal which was really fun. Montreal is a really cool track and great experience to go to. I will say it was A LOT of walking. Each day we walked 11-13 miles according to my wife's fitbit. My feet hurt each night for sure. Also if you go, make sure you go for practice and/or qualifying as they're less populated and give you more time to check out the track and see the cars whiz by up close. It's pretty crazy to see the cars going about 200mph and then slow down to 80-ish for the hairpin on the front straight and they brake about 250ft from the turn!!!

 

Our seats in the Senna corners during the pre-race parade

 

The next event would be PITT race in July. I was excited to go as this would be the first time driving the full course there. I had driven the north course back in the day on motorcycles, but it isn't very exciting for a car.

 

For the PITT event i wanted to finish up the transmission cooler I couldn't get done for the May event. I tapped the transmission spacer I use to provide the feed for the cooler as well as to put in the temp sensor.

 

The pump was put under the passenger rear metal cover by the axle. The 94-95 cars have extra braces there that work perfect to use for mounting. As usual I enlisted the help of the only person I'd trust welding to help make a bracket for the pump using that brace. Then I put the good old rustoleum black treatment on it.

 

Here's the pump mounted

 

The lines were made with pushloc hose and fittings just like the diff cooler. Again borrowed my friend's Kool Tool to make the hoses and that thing is worth it's weight in gold

 

The filter was put on the other diff brace on the driver's side

 

for the cooler it went under the rear bumper just next to the diff cooler. You might remember i ran a computer fan for cooling on the diff cooler. I decided to get some more flow this time and get crazy....2 dragons

 

or 2 computer fans...that's what I meant. Honestly it works out as they fit in the depth restraints and together flow about 90CFM. It also works out dimensions wise in that they completely cover the cooler core without overlap. I made the same setup for the diff cooler as well while in there.

 

for the lines they run from the transmission backward along the driver's side near the fuel lines, then the hot size runs to the filer on the driver's side diff brace. From there it goes around the driver's side of the fuel tank (same as the diff cooler), to the cooler, and then the cold side goes from there, around the gas tank on the passenger side (same as diff cooler) and to the pump on the passenger diff bracket. Then the final line goes above the differential back to the driver's side where it can go back to the trans along the fuel lines. The return to the transmission is the big torx fitting in the side of the transmission case which works out well because it dumps the cooled fluid in the main case above the fluid level.

[Smokey]

Here are the fittings in the transmission, you can see the return up top.

 

Had to make a small cut to the plastic cover for the lines, but here you can see the lines running back and under the cover to the filter and the return from the pump.

 

All of the lines are supported with clamps using factory holes. Here you can see the line from the pump going over the diff and back to the trans. I wrapped the portion going over the diff with DEI fire sleeve just in case for both heat and any abrasion.

 

The wiring is stand-alone for the trans cooler in addition to the diff cooler, but works the same way. Use a 4-post relay to take power from the 12v keyed source, the trans temp switch then triggers the relay and puts the power to the pump. The wiring/relays are under the driver's side cover where the factory tools were. Here are the relays for the diff cooler and water injection as well. It's ugly and messy, but at least I can put the cover on and cover it up!

 

Also for the event I got a new Koyo N-flow...so pretty

 

I got it to replace my old Fluidyne. The existing radiator wasn't broken or leaking, but had 8+ HARD years of track use. Plus the fins were all so bent that even though I'd bend them back they couldn't have been working that well.

 

I also made a bracket to hold the power steering cooler for now as I didn't want to use the zip ties like I did before to secure it to the radiator. The zip ties put some decent holes in the fins and I plan on moving the cooler somewhere else in the future to not be in front of the radiator

[Smokey]

The world's JANKIEST hydramat solution: I was experiencing fuel starve at a much higher tank level with the slicks and didn't like it. I've seen some good hydramat solutions for the FD, but most of them were more involved than I cared to get into. I didn't need it to soak up every last drop of the tank, but I do want to be able to drive the car on the bottom 1/2 of a tank and not worry about it. It's also a pain when you have to fill up the tank for every track session.

 

SO. This year Holley came out with a hydramat that has a fitting that would bolt right up to my Denso fuel pump without having to create any adapters for AN fittings/hose. It can be found here:

https://www.holley.com/products/fuel_systems/hydramat/hydramats/parts/16-111

 

Mounting it to the fuel pump was easy enough. Just had to trim up the rubber support that goes over the bottom of the fuel pump as seen here (trimmed little "ear" on the right side)

 

Then you end up with this

 

Only one problem....this is WAY longer than the stock fuel pump sock that goes in the "sump" in the gas tank. In watching the product videos and reading the product guides Holley says you can fold the hydramat without losing performance. They recommend this for rock crawlers and say to fold it up the back of the fuel cell to keep fuel flowing at extreme angles....ok, so I'll fold it up! This is the janky part and hard to get photos of. If you just put the fuel pump down in the tank it will push the side behind the pump in just fine, but the portion that extends to the back of the car will sit out of the sump like this:

After messing around with various tools, I was able to get my hand down in there and just fold it up as it went down. The result is that the hydramat goes into the sump, stays at the bottom and then folds up along the back side like this:

 

last minute I found a broken mount on one of my oil coolers. I re-made it with thicker aluminum as that's what I had, but I'm going to have to go back and make them with steel. It didn't help that this one had a 2nd hold drilled in it where it failed, but it seems they just get enough vibration over time to break.

 

Now the car is ready to roll for PITT. Friday is a lapping-only day that I'd use to learn the new track. It's a tricky track to learn for sure. The full course though now that it's completed is pretty damn awesome. It's got lots of elevation changes and every corner is completely different from the others, on camber, off camber, uphill, over a hill, downhill, you name it and that track has it. They've also got great facilities so it's really nice to have another great track option within a reasonable distance to us.

 

I personally think one of my weaknesses is learning new tracks in that I'm slow to fully grasp them so I normally try to study up ahead of time. Unfortunately for PITT there isn't much out there. No good track walks I could find, it's not a track in iRacing I could run on the simulator, so I just watched youtube videos of others driving there to get a feel for it.

 

Started running Friday morning and on my 4th session 3rd gear on the transmission blew up. It was the first session I had the camera in the car..haha. Here's the carnage

 

I'm VERY thankful that nothing pierced the trans case and it didn't lay any fluid down on track, so the damage was just limited to me and I limped it back to the pits.

 

I was bummed to say the least. My brother was great and let me drive his car a few times and I was white knuckled to say the least. Driving a well setup 996 is tough as they're very twitchy, but combine that with a track I didn't know well made me sweat buckets..haha. I had a couple of "moments" but nothing too bad and didn't damage the car. Overall went SLOW in the thing, but it was fun.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Smokey

[Smokey]

I was bummed about the transmission failure to say the least. I was shopping for new cars there for a couple of weeks..haha. I've had transmission issues previously where the input shaft bearing would fail over time, but never had a catastrophic failure like that before. Especially seeing as I make about 330whp it doesn't seem like I should be breaking things due to high hp. Hell the car had the Nittos on it when it failed so it wasn't like it was the extra grip of the slicks or something (at least not at that time).

 

My concern was that this was the first event with the cooler and I wondered if it was involved somehow in the failure?

 

It was time to take it out and tear it down and see what happened. Once i pulled the drain plug and chunks of metal came out it seemed pretty obvious it broke 3rd gear. Once I got it on the workbench and pulled the trans pan that was REALLY obvious.

 

sheered the teeth right off of 3rd gear on the counter and main shafts. I looked over the trans everywhere for signs of heat-related failures or lack of fluid to see if the cooler was to blame, but couldn't find any. I think it was just a coincidence that the trans failed on the first event with the cooler. It was also just the 2nd event with this "low mile JDM" transmission I had bought so I think I just bought a transmission that had been beat up during its life.

 

The whole point of buying the JDM trans was to get the shorter .806 5th gear so I wanted to take it out to transfer it to another transmission.

Gotta make some extensions to typical 2-jaw pullers to get the rear main shaft bearing off

Thankfully there are good writeups and info out there about tearing down the trans which I was able to follow. I also wasn't doing a full tear-down which makes it easier. When I got 5th gear off I found something interesting...the rear of the counter shaft was twisted where reverse is. I may have noted before but the JDM trans always made a weird noise in reverse only. I didn't think it was a major issue, but perhaps a sign of the abuse of the trans. Or maybe this happened when the teeth stripped off. Who knows.

in comparison here's the same shaft from the stock 62k mile trans that replaced it

 

I considered various options as to how/what to replace the broken trans. There are other transmission options such as the T56, T5, or 370Z transmission. All of them have their pros and all of them have compromises of some sort that I'm not currently interested in. For the stock trans OS Giken and Cusco offer gear sets with supposedly hardened and upgraded main shafts, but both also change the gearing of the trans which has downstream effects requiring a rear end change likely. Availability is also a concern with having to get them from Japan. Liberty trans supposedly makes upgrades, but when I called them they informed me that while they'd sell their main shaft separate, it's actually for a Turbo II transmission and can't guarantee it'll work for a FD trans.

 

So for now I have the transmission that came in this car that I know was at stock power levels, 62k miles, and didn't have a noisy input shaft bearing. So the plan is to take that transmission, swap over the JDM 5th gear and see how long I can make it last.

 

Here she is in all her glory

 

The good news is that I knew the history and the mechanicals were solid, but the bad news is that it was nasty dirty and when I cracked it open it appears nobody had EVER changed the trans fluid in it. You can see some of the accumulation on the outside which I did my best on but wasn't going to be perfect. Inside everything had this layer of funk on it, that had to be cleaned as I went.

 

Here's a before/after example

 

I wasn't able to get into every nook and cranny of the main case since I wasn't tearing it down that far, but got everything I could see/touch. I think any small remainder will come out when the fluid gets hot and then with the next change.

 

Here it is torn down for the 5th gear replacement

[Smokey]

Something I found interesting was that the bearings were of different styles between the JDM and USDM transmission. The JDM trans had a fully open bearing on the main shaft whereas the USDM trans had sealed bearings. JDM on the right here

 

I figured the JDM trans was newer and had an updated bearing style. and the main shaft is submerged in fluid so it could be open and cooler. I ordered new Mazda replacements and was interested to see that they were sealed bearings that showed up. Not sure why the difference, but I'm not going to dwell on it.

 

Going back together with the new bearings

 

All back together, with trans pan extender, and ready to go back in the car

 

Before putting it in and hooking everything up, there was some cleanup of the cooler system to do. Since the cooler was running when the trans broke metal would likely get sucked into the system. I pulled the filter which thankfully I had in place and it confirmed what i thought: metal flakes and a whole damn transmission gear tooth in there

 

Thankfully the filter did its job and no big chunks got further down stream or to the cooler or pump. The downside is that there'd still be some small metal bits in the fluid that I didn't want to keep. So I decided to flush the system with some cheap-o fluid. Hooked the feed up to a gallon of fluid, and the discharge in an oil pan and used a jumper wire to trigger the system until it all flushed through.

 

Now it was ready to back in and hook up. All went well except the temp sensor on the transmission got mushed and broke during the install....bummer. I was going to try to solder it, but wasn't confident it'd work. Thankfully I hadn't put fluid in it yet so I ordered a replacement.

 

I also found that my driveshaft had some notchy spots in the joints when I removed the trans, so I found a local shop that was able to get me a replacement for reasonable money.

 

Trans got filled with the same fluid I've been running in the diff lately. Shit is spendy at $100/gallon shipped, but so far has been worth it.

 

I was now prepping for the first of 2 September events. August was spent fixing the car and kart racing with the family

 

Something else i wanted to try out was to go stiffer on the sway bars to simulate the stiffer spring rates I want. To do that I went to a racing beat rear sway bar and cranked the tri-point front bar to full stiff. The downside to the racing beat bar is that they're longer than the stock bars (to give adjustment) and the corners come close to the shocks and I didn't want them touching so I "rounded" the corners on the bar.

Edited November 10, 2018 by Smokey

[Smokey]

last piece to tackle before the first Sept event was a noise in my passenger rear brakes. After some investigation it appears my rotors were just barely touching the caliper bracket and making some noise.

 

These rotors were changed back in May but seemed to be more out of true than others I've had in the past. I initially started fixing the problem by filing down the bracket a bit for more clearance. During some test fits and checking I found the true issue. The sakebomb extension uses a lock and flat washer for the bolt that holds to the stock location. It turns out that it spaces it out enough that the bolt head then hits the caliper bracket and doesn't allow it to fully seat which was giving me my clearance issue. You can see the circle on the bracket in this picture where the bolt was hitting.

 

Checked the driver's side and it was doing the same. Removing the flat washer and keeping only the lock washer fixed the clearance issue. I'm sure I've had this happening for years, but this one rotor I got happens to be enough out of true to make it make contact.

 

Was finishing up the car prep and torquing the wheels as a final step. AGAIN I snapped a stud off a front wheel hub! DAMNIT

 

If you remember I had to find a wheel hub last year at Watkins Glen for the same reason. I bought a cheap-o Duralast and left it on there...it was that same Duralast that broke this time. Thankfully I have a Timken backup and I'm getting good at replacing front hubs..haha. I'm also lowering the torque setting I'll use on the wheels from 90 down to 85 which better aligns with the factory setting of 86.

 

Now the car was ready for the next event. MORPCA at Mid Ohio. I obviously had questions on how the transmission would hold up and was hoping for the best. The weather was dry but HOT which was unseasonable, but whatever. An edit if anyone read before where I thought it rained I mixed up events...that was the next 2 events! haha. I do remember that the car ran pretty hot temp wise, but nothing I had to back off for, but one session was right up into 101-102C which is as high as I'm willing to go. At 105 I shut it down. There were no fast times to be had, but plenty of fun though.

 

Here's a session chasing a friend in a C7 Z06. He's on cup2 tires so I have more tire and he obviously has a lot more motor as can be seen..haha

 

During the last session of the weekend myself, same Z06, my brother, and another blue 991 GT3 got to play around and have great fun. Unfortunately my damn GoPro died right in the middle of it. The video starts right on the out-lap so there's some getting up to speed which is why I let the GT3 RS go and then catch him up when the car is more warmed up

Edited November 11, 2018 by Smokey

[Aaron]

BUZZKILL on the camera shitting the bed. As usual, lots of respect keeping that beast rolling hard on track.

[Smokey]

Thank you sir. I was also bad in my recollection. 1 Sept event and 2 Oct events. Not sure it matters though.

 

The great news is that the transmission worked well in its first test and didn't blow up, so confirmed it wasn't the cooler that caused the failure..haha. Another take away I had was that while I liked the stiffer sways from a body roll perspective, the rear of the car was too stiff with the racing beat bar on full stiff and it ultimately slowed me down. It would create over-steer just after turn-in and require me to be much more conservative with turn-in and getting back to the throttle without any other perceived benefit other than it "felt good" from a roll perspective.

 

I also remembered why I didn't like the racing beat bar last time i tried to run it and put it in storage. I cannot run the bar on full soft because one side will make the end-link contact the shock body like this

so I could only run it in the "middle" position of stiff hole on one side and the soft hole on the other.

 

The other take-away was that I could finally test the Hydramat setup and I would say it's working just the way I'd like. Here's where the gas tank level came in after a long cool down and sitting in the pits for a few minutes. I'd say this is as low as anyone doing DE would ever need it to go. Didn't have any fuel slosh issues. My gauge always reads a little lower than the level truly is, but it's safe to say there were only a couple of gallons in the tank at most.

[Smokey]

Thankfully since nothing broke there wasn't much prep between the MORPCA and the upcoming OVRPCA event back at Mid Ohio. Just a check-over, top off fluids, clean anything, and be good to go.

 

I put the car on jack stands and took the wheels off to clean them and look over the brakes and saw this:

 

Well that's a new one! Likely explains why the car seemed to push so bad during the last session on Sunday too! What I believe happened is that the nylon lock nuts that Improved Racing sells with their end links work great on the stock bars, but the racing beat is slightly thicker and it didn't seem to engage the nylon portion very well, so it must have loosened and taken a hike. I have since replaced it with a standard nut and lock washer without issue.

 

Next event was OVRPCA at Mid Ohio in early October. Signed up for 3 days with a Friday lapping day where I wouldn't have a student. The forecast looked crap for Friday, but got there and ran 4 sessions in the morning and then it started POURING. The rest of the day was lost and it rained so hard they closed the track early due to rivers of water across the track. These October days at Mid Ohio are also typically the fastest because of the nice cool air and still having a warm track....well it was in the 80s all damn weekend so the thought of setting fast laps was a bit out of the window for me.

 

In-between rain storms I ended up changing back to the stock 94 rear sway bar and putting the front bar back where it was previously. I just couldn't get the balance right with the stiffer setup. I'd rather have the thing feel a bit mushy and like it's rolling over but at least be consistent and able to get to the throttle early.

 

Thankfully the rest of the weekend the weather was better, but the event itself had some calamity (not the fault of the organizer). On Saturday a track buddy's 996 GT3 lost a coolant hose (not fitting, they were fixed) in the keyhole. The corner worker wasn't paying attention at all and 10+ cars went off before he even threw a yellow and even then didn't throw the debris flag until a couple more went off at slow speeds! Thankfully no car-to-car contact was made which is a miracle.

 

My brother's car got stuck in the gravel trap during the coolant issue and he could see that there was no flag so he wanted to high-tail it out of there. He did, but by basically spinning the tires and throwing gravel everywhere. Afterward we put the car on jack stands and knocked out gravel from under panels and places for 20+ minutes. Then used an electronic leaf blower to get more, then he drove it out on the country road to get some more out. Even then when he went out and drove another 20 min session later he came back and there was a fist full of gravel on the inside barrel of each of his rear wheels!

 

Sunday morning a 335 grenaded a motor in the chicane of the keyhole dumping an absurd amount of oil down. The crew was trying to power wash it, but it was taking so long they just decided to run the pro course where you bypass that chicane it was so bad.

 

I hadn't run the pro course in a few years so it was fun, but took a bit to get my markers back which I'm not sure i fully did. Here is a video chasing a newer Camaro ZL1-1LE on the pro course. As I find with most newer performance cars he has a significant power advantage. This one was also running the same Pirelli slicks as me so I didn't have a tire advantage, just weight. You can see how bad he pulls me on the back straight. I could gain some ground on the back side of the course to make up for that. It would have been fun to have a few more laps to go with him, but the session was done.

 

At lunch they cleaned up the oil spill and of course the instructor group was the first group out that got to go thru the oil dry thru the chicane..haha. It wasn't the end of the world, but nobody was going to be pushing that hard through there either. I had someone give me a pass going into the chicane and I happily waived it off!

 

Here's a video from the last session of the weekend playing around with a C6Z driven by a friend. We're both on Pirellis and once again he has some more power so I have to combat that with later braking and more corner entry speed. Sessions like these are always fun though.

[Smokey]

Prep for the last event of the year: NNJRPCA at VIR. I've never been to VIR and my brother and i had been trying to get there for years. This year we agreed from the beginning to make this event and finally get there.

 

The car was in good shape but needed some prep, most notably brakes as there are some high-speed hard brake zones at VIR and it's a VERY fast track. I knew my front rotors were near the end of their life, but as it turns out I actually killed them my last session at the previous Mid Ohio event.

 

Once those cracks get to the end, they're done. I must say though I'm head over heels with the life out of the AP rotors, they live up to every single bit of the hype.

 

I was prepared with fresh rotors, so they went on with a fresh set of DS1.11 pads for the front

 

Rear pads are tough for the FD since there aren't many race compounds available in the stock rear pad shape. I had been running hawk HT-10s and happy with the performance, but unhappy with how bad they beat up rotors. Porterfield will make you pretty much any compound they sell in any pad shape they have in their catalog, so at the suggestion of a friend I ordered up a set of Raybestos ST-43 pads for the rear. They came in and looked great, with the only issue that they don't have the little holes to run the rear pad springs. You may remember I went around with this previously on rear pads without using the springs and i felt it was making the brake hang up. SO I did what I did in the past and drilled the holes for the springs

 

Here I'm using old pads for reference on hole placement and then center punch for the holes

And the finished product

 

While a pain in the butt, if the pads work well, don't kill rotors, and give decent life, then the extra work is worth the trade off. In their first outing it seems like positive results, but I'll have to use them a bit more before final judgement.

 

I also bled the brakes, topped off any fluids, cleaned the car, and it was ready to roll. I did have one other big project to undertake prior to departure though. My old rusty trusty trailer has had under-powered brakes for a while now. They would work, but I knew the wiring was getting corroded and not giving full voltage. Also the brake mechanisms were rusty to the point that I couldn't adjust them manually very well anymore. I had purchased new brakes last year, but didn't put them on because I had a problem which would have to be tackled now. The brake assemblies have studs that go through the axle mounting flange, then there are nuts that secure them on the back. The lower nuts are tucked behind the leaf springs for the trailer so you can't even get a socket on them to remove them. When using the good old box wrench and hammer method a few of the studs in the brake mechanism broke their welds and began to spin. This was a major pain in the asshole. Since the brake assembly was still attached i couldn't get a sawzall or anything behind it either to cut the stud off! I ended up having to drill out the stud on the brake side until I could break the brake assembly free as such

 

Then I realized that the studs are tapered in the axle mounting flange and STILL wouldn't come out!

 

But at least with the brakes off I could get my friend's portaband behind the stud and cut it off. I had to do that on 2 different brake assemblies.

 

The fun didn't stop there though as I needed to run all new wires for the brake signal and ground. Trying to run the wires through the small tube supports that have corroded themselves over the last 7 years of being stored outside was also no picnic. Needless to say my kids weren't allowed outside while I was cursing in the driveway. Thankfully though it's all together now and I used marine grade heat-shrink so hopefully it will last for a number of years.

[Smokey]

VIR was to be a 3 day event Fri-Sun, but would be a full 3-day school so no Friday lapping day. Turns out it wouldn't matter much about Friday. On Monday the weather forecast was 100% chance of rain Friday, 60% Saturday, and 40% Sunday. I started panicking a bit and was worried my well planned trip to VIR would be a wash out. As a contingency I dismounted the Nittos I had which were in their prime (only 2 grooves of tread left), and mounted the brand new set of Nittos I had in the basement. NT-01s aren't a good rain tire at all, but at full depth they'll at least work in the wet and would give me a chance to tool around.

 

I had lots of questions going into VIR. Would the car last? Would the trans ker-splode? Most notably...how quickly I could or could not learn the track, and how fast or not I could go there my first time? Data seems to back up that you should be able to turn very similar times at VIR, Watkins Glen, and Daytona even though they're very different courses. So could I dare back up my 2:02 flier from Watkins or at least get respectably close? I did my best to prep by buying the Bentley/Krause track walk 2-hour video on VIR and watching it a couple times, and also running laps for a couple of weeks ahead of time on iRacing. I also tried to watch various other people's laps on youtube to get as much of a feel for the track as I could.

 

The tow down should have been about 8 hours. We left around mid-day to get to the track and drop off Thursday night and then go to our rented house. Turns out that pretty much ALL of goddamn West Virginia on I77 is one lane due to construction. We sat still for about 45 mins at one point and then the delay put us in Winston Salem at rush hour. Ended up taking us about 9.5 hours to get down there.

 

At some point outside of Winston Salem my new fancy self-adjusting trailer brakes either adjusted or finally bedded with the drums and when we got into traffic all of a sudden my trailer was locking the brakes even at moderate stopping. I use a Prodigy variable brake controller, but had to figure out how much to lower the max voltage to not lock things up but also still stop the trailer...all while in rush hour traffic...that wasn't fun at at all. The good news is that the new brakes and wiring REALLY WORK! haha. Just took a bit to figure it out. We had to unload in the dark at VIR due to being late, but got it done and parked in our bigass tent and to the house.

 

Friday morning it started raining right about when we got to the track. I was REALLY hoping it'd hold off to give us a session or 2 first, but it did not. What I didn't expect was that it rained HARD and consistently. It was a passing tropical storm coming through and it just dumped all damn day. I went out with my brother in the passenger seat for our first 9am session to at least get some visuals on the track since we hadn't been there. I turned about 3 SLOW AS HELL laps in the rain and then coming down the front straight at only 75mph I went through a stream across the track and the car gave a nice 4 wheel slide/wiggle and I pulled in. Nothing good was going to get done out there. Thankfully my student didn't drive in it either.

 

What I can tell you though is that those 3 laps did help cement some things about VIR you can't get from studying video or playing iRacing. There is constant elevation change and it moves the car around a decent amount (especially in the wet). I don't think there's one portion of VIR that is both straight and flat...just doesn't exist. The back "straight" is lumpy and moves the car around and you drive up a giant hill it seems. Everything else either has camber gain/loss or elevation change which makes things very interesting and challenging. My first impressions were that the climbing esses weren't nearly as intimidating as people made them out to be, but that the Rollercoaster and Hog Pen after the back straight were MUCH more intimidating than people made them out to be. That section of course is really tricky to get a handle on even as the track dried.

 

When I mentioned parking under a bigass tent, I wasn't joking.

 

There's a group of people we regularly go to track events with that arranged for the tent rental, and i must say as crazy as it sounded, it was worth its weight in GOLD on Friday when the weather sucked so bad. It was 40 and raining so having a real shelter was very helpful. You can also note by the other cars parked under the tent that I do not fit the typical income profile of the other group members...hahaha. I think they let me in as a pet mascot or something, but they're a good group and we all enjoy driving.

 

Thankfully the rain stopped about 5am Saturday morning. We showed up to the track and it was still wet all morning, but at least the driving rain and puddles had stopped. I left the Nittos on and drove in the morning in the wet and drying conditions to get some more seat time. I also stole some extra sessions in the advanced group and taking my student out. I wasn't able to switch to the slicks until the last session of the day.

 

Unfortunately my brother's car broke early in the afternoon Saturday. A bleeder on his driver's rear caliper was leaking fluid. Even after getting a replacement bleeder it couldn't be remedied so he was done for the weekend which sucks big time. I know that feeling of having a broken car away from your home track and it's gutting.

 

During my student's last session Saturday he had a brain fart in the braking zone for turn 1 and came off the brakes early and turned in with way too much speed. My response of "brake BRAKE BRAKE!...oh shit here we go" about sums it up. We took a nice trip off the outside of 1 and went through a tire wall. Thankfully we went into the tire wall backward which is safest for the occupants and we were both unhurt. The car was banged up but not nearly as bad as I thought it'd be and i think it's fixable. Unfortunately his weekend was done though.

 

After the track went cold Saturday another track friend had made arrangements for he, myself, and my brother to run the rental go-karts at VIR. It was a bit weird to just get done with a wreck and helping my student get his things in order and then go over and go karting, but we had a reservation to meet! haha. The rental karts are birels with honda clone motors on them and crazy hard slippy tires. Very different than the 2-strokes and sticky tires we're normally racing with karts these days. The kart track at VIR is a fun and very challenging course just like the big one. Lots of elevation and camber changes and to boot they had a nice river running across the track from the previous rain so we'd all get crazy sideways coming onto the front straight each lap running through it. While we were out there the kid that works at the track came out and WAXED our asses just to show us who was boss. Our group kept it tight and had fun though. I got to take home bragging rights over Andy by having fast lap by 0.005 seconds! haha

 

I'm number 7, Andy 2, and our friend Ted #9. The kart track worker was #14 and later over beers we all agreed his ass was 150lbs at best...LOL. and that gave him a clear power to weight advantage.

Edited November 11, 2018 by Smokey

[Smokey]

I typically set myself a series of tiered goals when going to a new track around times/performance. They start very attainable and then lead up to where I'd want to be. In my case I wanted to be sub-2:10 on the Nittos and hopefully closer to 2:07s on the Nittos to be on pace. With the only 4 sessions I ran on the Nittos (one with student in the car), I was able to get into the low 2:08s so I was happy with that. The goals for the slicks were to go at least 2:05s, then if I could get to the 2:03's that would be a good showing for my first time at the track. Bonus would be any 2:02.999999995 to prove to myself that Watkins wasn't a fluke and I was capable of getting similar performance at VIR. It was a stretch for my first time there for sure, and the weather limiting seat time wasn't helping anything.

 

Sunday was dry thank Jesus. Even though it was cold first thing in the morning I left the slicks on and went out. The results were better than expected. I actually gave a pass on my fast lap to a very well driven 991 GT3 on Hoosiers. I gave it in the braking zone on the back straight and while it only cost me about 0.2 seconds...when I came across the line at a 2:03.2 I was kicking myself!

 

Here's a fun video from that first session Sunday where I was chasing a GT3 RS. You can see it's a power vs grip battle as I tend to run into. Not much I can do against 500 N/A hp on the straights, but I was able to carry some more speed in the esses to make up the gap.

 

Sunday was still busy for me as I did a ride-along with someone requesting some coaching, I also picked up a student for another instructor that was leaving early since they had a long tow home. I got my brother a chance to drive the FD on track and he pretty easily got into the 2:04s. I wish I would have been able get him more seat time in it as he would have been deep in the 2:03s easy.

 

They combined the red and black run groups Sunday due to people leaving. That's all well and good, but it meant there was a decent amount of traffic still in the sessions which was frustrating when you're chasing lap times. Finally it came down to the last session of the day and weekend for me. We went out for 3 laps and it was black flagged due to a wreck. I sat in the pits waiting to be let back out, but also upset that our time was being cut short. Thankfully they got us back on track and let us run a little long to make up for it. The end results? Got the high 2:02 I was wanting and couldn't have been happier about it!

 

Here are the 3 fastest laps. The 2:02 actually has me taking a pass during it. The last lap I was actually up 0.7 seconds at one point, but I got loose in turn 5A and had to lift which hurt my drive all the way to 10. Then I was still up about 0.3 seconds going into the roller coaster and ran it too hard coming out of Hog Pen trying to compensate and had to lift as it pushed wide which also hurt the drive down the front straight. The last piece was that a car had blown up and was sitting on the inside of turn 1 so they threw a yellow (eventually ended the session) so I lifted right before the start/finish in the GPS. Even then that was still the 2:03.46 lap so I know it's got a mid 2:02 in the car for sure if I can just get it out of it. As I've said in the past though it only counts if it's in the logger so I'll have to come back again if I want to go better. In the end I think doing a high 2:02 on a stock twin turbo car making 330whp without any aero is pretty damn respectable and I'm quite happy with it.

[Robochan]

You are awesome for doing these write ups. My mind is usually a mess after a 3 day track weekend and I always forget to take pictures.

[Smokey]

I honestly wish I could be better about staying on top of it thru the season because over time I forget some of the details I’d want to write about. Just look at the difference in summary to the July and Sept events compared to VIR which is fresh and you get much more detail. Things get busy in the season though and it’s not always a top priority.

[Geeto67]

I just wanted to say - great job with the car and the write-ups. It's very inspiring.

 

I did want to ask....no gloves on the track day?

[Aaron]

So what is your ranking of tracks you’ve driven?

 

Hoping to get to at least Pitt race next year.

[Smokey]

I just wanted to say - great job with the car and the write-ups. It's very inspiring.

 

I did want to ask....no gloves on the track day?

 

Gloves is personal preference. Some find they can keep a better grip on the wheel with them while others feel they reduce feel. I’ve always driven without them and preferred it that way. People also say that you should use simlar glove materials to the wheel covering. So alcantara wheel goes with suede gloves. I guess that’s why my leathery ha fd work well with my smooth leather wheel. Hahaha.

[coltboostin]

Awesome work, and documentation!

[Smokey]

So what is your ranking of tracks you’ve driven?

 

Hoping to get to at least Pitt race next year.

 

This is a tough one, so I'm gonna get lengthy on the response. Mid Ohio is home to me, so it'll always be my favorite. My brother and I estimate we have at least 4,000-5,000+ laps there now since we first started there on motorcycles in our teenage years. I joke with my wife that my soul lives at Mid Ohio and I just go visit it a few times a year. Mid Ohio is 1/2 hp and 1/2 technical so it requires both commitment and driver skills. Once you learn Mid Ohio you can apply it to any track out there as there's a bit of everything at Mid Ohio.

 

We live so close to Mid Ohio and it's a great track that for a long time we didn't really branch out much so over the past few years we've been making an effort to go to at least one further away track per year and I'm happy for that.

 

Watkins glen is easily the most exhilarating track I've driven. The elevation change is NUTS, the walls are so close they freak out out at first, and it's a high speed course that requires stone cold ballsack to go fast (the professional term I use is: commitment). It's a HP track but you can make up for that if you're willing to drive hard there. The facilities here make Mid Ohio look country bumpkin. The location of the track makes Mid Ohio seem downright metropolitan.

 

VIR is a similarly FAST course with high speeds, big brake zones and some challenging elevation. It's more of a HP track though and harder to make up that difference except in a few spots.

 

PITT is a very technically challenging course and I wish I had gotten more time there. I definitely plan to go back. It has some major elevation with the downhill section to a tight 180 that then leads back up a big hill. The esses seem like they should be easy, but each one is a bit different. It's more of a HP track than I thought it'd be and it's also HARD on brakes and pretty hard on tires with the new surface.

 

Putnam Park is just a good old time. It's flat but still uses small camber to create different turn variables. There's TONS of run off room - except on the most important corner coming onto the front straight..haha. But if you want to practice car control and driving at the limit in a safe environment this is your best bet outside of a skidpad. It's a shorter track with faster laps so sessions stay busy without a lot of rest time.

 

Nelson Ledges may be the trailer park of current tracks, but it has its merits. It's cheap (or was at least) and is fast and fun. It's a flowing track with big sweeping turns and fast laps. It's unfortunate the condition deteriorated over the years. I haven't been back after the repave, but hold out hope it can be worth revisiting again at some point. It's a hard sell though because PITT is only a bit further for us and I'd much rather be there. Anyone closer to Nelson that can go there for a one-day event would have money well spent to go there though.

 

TL;DR list

1. Mid Ohio - Driver's track

2. Watkins Glen - Fun, Fast, Scary, and takes commitment

3. VIR - Fast track with multiple corner elements not seen elsewhere

4. PITT - very technical, high HP, hard on the car

5. Putnam - hard to have a bad time here

6. Nelson Ledges - the kid in the PG-13 movie you're really hoping makes it happen

[Aaron]

Great, thanks for the details.

 

I won’t be going back to Nelson ledges, wasn’t a fan. A few here went to the repave opening event and while it was fun being on track (any track time is great) it was simply sub par in every respect. Course layout wasn’t exciting, facilities were a zero, and it wasn’t any cheaper than a single day at mid Ohio. Literally no redeeming qualities for me.

 

I’m with you on mid Ohio, love it and it being the home track just an hour away it’ll always be my #1.

 

Really hoping to do Pitt race next year and a bunch of mid Ohio. Then like you expand my travels to hit ones further away.

[AudiOn19s]

Agree with Chris on the list. Kinda wish I had more seat time to form an impression of VIR but it’s going to take a good bit to move ahead of mid Ohio and Watkins.

 

The Weird thing about VIR is it’s kinda the Nurburgring of the US when it comes to comparing lap times of serious track guys. Given that I have a score to settle with that place considering I ran more and quicker laps in 2 strange cars vs my own before it broke...so we will be back soon.