Minimum for track day.
 

I don't need to be fast. I just want to know what the least prep is required to have a platform for getting miles on track and maintain a reliable, predictable experience.

An open mind, everything else is optional:

Motul brake fluid.
Chalk for marking tires and a tire pressure gauge.
Portable tire inflator.

After a weekend or two, better brake pads.
Needle tire pyrometer if you want more accurate tire pressures and temps.

After another weekend or two, an oil cooler.
More camber in front.

If you plan to do multiple track days I would get an oil cooler straight away. It doesnt take a lot to get our temps super high

Tire pressure gauge
Helmet
Water and Snacks
Torque wrench

I'd also recommend:
Cheap portable harbor freight air tank.
Change to high temp DOT 4 fluid

Basically what Code Monkey said.

You should read the first 4 posts in the sticky in this subforum by CSG_Mike titled Quick and dirty guide to track prepping your car.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25485

Keep the car more or less stock the first day or two although you should upgrade brake fluid to something decent at least. Motul RBF600 is cheap and effective but I found it's compressibility degrades after you've gotten it really hot so partial bleeds may be required after each track day. You can also consider getting some dual purpose or entry level track brake pads. Hawk HP+, Ferodo DS2500, EBC Yellows, Project Mu HC800, Winmax W3. Those class of pads should be fine as a novice with an otherwise stock car.

Also considering that you're in SoCal and I expect you'll be tracking in obscenely hot ambient temperatures, you should get an oil cooler. You can skip it for your first day as long as ambient temperatures peak in the 80s that day and you give the car plenty of rest but if you decide you want to go to the track again, you should get one before you do for sure.

Past that, you can start with some camber bolts and see how much negative camber as you can get up front. Expect *maybe* -1.5, and run like that until you kill the OEM tires.

That's a good starting place for your first season or two anyway.

Better pads + fluid
Oil cooler highly recommended

I guess I should have stated that I have been to the track a handful of times before in miatas and an old ae86. I was just curious about the car. In my head I was thinking tires, oil cooler, brake pads and fluid, and whatever it takes to get a desired alignment. What's the consensus on the pads vs BBK?

Get the pads first; if that does not help, a BBK.

From what I've read, high performance pads perform similar to a BBK (at least with stock tire size). With a BBK you'll mainly just be saving in consumable costs (but costs $2k+).

Brake fluid and pads. If you've had any prior track experience, the stock pads will fail rather quickly.

Stock tires are good to learn on, but that would be my next upgrade after pads/fluid.

I would add an OBD dongle and Torque (Android) or DashCommand (iOS) to the list so you can monitor temperatures.

Other than that, previous recommendations for pads & fluid and oil cooler are spot on.

Ah that changes things, you'll definitely want pads, fluid and oil cooler at a minimum. As you mentioned, alignment hardware is also a great idea. RLCA for rear adjustment and you'll need camber plates if you want more than about -1.5 in the front.. and if you track this car regularly, you will. I ran -2.2f/-1.7r last year and had a tiny bit of outer camber wear on my tires so I'll be stepping up to around -3f/-2r this year though some people warn may still not be enough but I'm hesitant to go higher because it's my year round daily driver.

At NA power levels, the OEM brakes should hold up to track work as long as you run appropriate pads and fluid. A BBK is more for long term consumable savings than anything else on a NA car. Rotors and pads are typically similar in cost to OEM and last longer so you'll save over time. That said, experienced drivers running really sticky tires can definitely overwhelm the stock brake system to the point that a BBK is needed. Or just do it #becauseracecar :iono:

Pads unless you plan on hitting the track with the car over 2 dozen times, you can get good enough pads to beat on all day long, the only objective advantage of a BBK is cost reduction.

http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=94608

No oil cooler here, no problem. I run a quality 5w30 and have great luck with oil pressure. I'm assuming most people here are recommending an oil cooler due to pressure problems? Run a quality oil and the temps aren't a problem.

Otherwise, if you're a good driver who is going to push the car, you'll probably overheat the brakes (depending on track design).

If you're going to have the car for a while, and if you haven't done your trans/diff oil recently you may as well grab Motul Gear 300 and change it.

Bluetooth elm327 and torque to monitor temps.

Forget BBK for now.

Yes, me too. I think we can get away with it because of more moderate ambient temperatures. I rarely get temperatures over 28c which is only about 82f.. I've got a few friends in SoCal who regularly report tracking in 90f all the way up to 104f which is like 32c to 40c.. just a different level of ambient heat at play here.

You’ll want max camber on the front so use two adj camber bolts. I was only able to get 1.2ish with one until someone at a track day told me he was using two. So I tried it and got 2.7. Cheapest way to get camber on the front (35 bucks + alignment).

SPC bolts are cheaper then $35 and exactly the same as the Whiteline.

Uh... agreed? Let me rephrase b/c it seems like i was not clear. You use TWO pairs of SPC bolts on the front to get to 2.x camber.

Or just get SPC for the bottom and take the OEM bottom bolts and throw them in the top (since they are the same as the OEM crash bolts). You can get -2.5 or possibly more with just one set of eccentric.

the bare minimum is a helmet and an open mind.

I asked my shop to do exactly that after reading about it here and they couldn't get more than 1.2 on one side and 1.4 on the other side. With two SPC bolts per side they got to 2.x. Don't know why, but it seems that the SPC ones offer more adjustability than the OEM crash bolts...

I would question the shop on that one. I have ran -2.6 and many others have gotten the same with the SPC/Crash Bolt combo. One guy almost got -3 iirc

But as they say, YMMV lol

I'm not doubting you. The bolts are different so I can see why you might get more with two SPC vs. SPC+crash bolt combo. But regardless, the person that I heard about the two bolt solution from also had the same issue - could not get above 1.9 with just one SPC bolt + crash bolt. Maybe we just had shittier builds but it works.

Put another way, if you're going to pay $150 for an alignment, and you know for sure that two SPC bolts will get you in the mid 2s, why not just get it? I wish I found out about this sooner so I didn't have to go back and pay the same cost again for something that I could've gotten done right the first time around. FOr $18 bucks it seems like it's a worthwhile trade off.

You ever experience any slipping with two eccentric bolts? How many alignments have you done since and was camber off compared to the prior alignment? I had heard its a risk but it's just been internet speculation basically so I'm curious.

I reread his post this morning and he meant $35 for the two SPC bolts. I just put in the lower bolt this past weekend and seems to be legit, similar experience, low to mid -1 degrees with just the upper cam bolt, seems to be over -2 with both, but I'm changing too much at once to be accurate about it.

If I had a time machine I'd just buy the lower bolt and do what you suggest and save myself ~$20 (it wasn't well known that the 14mm for the lower hole was easily available, everybody listed the 16mm upper bolt as the only camber bolt that fit), but I think slipping is more likely to happen by doing that, the two cam bolts feel pretty solid as long as they're torqued down.


edit: fwiw I got the car aligned in September, a week or two later I got rear ended, two weekends ago I put alignment tools on the car and read within 0.1 degrees of what the alignment shop set them at, so properly torqued a good cam bolt should be solid. That's through a car crash and several thousand miles of driving, a couple autox events sliding around.

There was a lot of confusing info early on I recall with the 16mm vs. 14mm debate. But good to hear on the bolts holding. I figured if one bolt holds no reason two shouldn't, but I'm a suspension noob still so like to hear first hand experiences.


And yeah, I didn't realize SPC bolts were that cheap now (I paid like $20-25 for mine IIRC and I thought that was about the cost of one set from Whiteline lol).

I've had no alignments since so can't compare exactly. From just eyeing it though, nothing has changed and i've been on track prob 5 days on it and a few thousand miles.

Logically, I think you have to believe either that 1) SPC bolts hold or, 2) they do not hold. If they do not, it's not a question of 1 or 2 per side, they simply do not work. There's a scenario for 3, which is that the top does not hold but the bottom does hold, but having seen how they're installed I do not have a good reason to explain why that would be the case.

You're right -- they are a bit more expensive than I remembered, so let's say for argument sake that they are 25 bucks. I think the question to maxing camber is the following:

Since you're already getting one set of SPC bolts and need an alignment, and they are effectively sunk costs, what do you need to believe for you to purchase a second set of SPC bolts vs. using the 14mm bolt from the factory? If your alignment cost is $150 then you need to believe that the 14mm would get you into the 2.x range at least 83% of the time (125/150). If you think the probability is lower than that, then you buy the second set of SPCs and understand that it's the right financial decision. Alternatively, you settle for whatever the shop can get from one set of SPC bolts. This does not take into account your time (just the cost of an alignment).

Now I have no idea what the success ratio of getting 2.x camber with one set of SPCs + 14mm crash bolt and I mean that genuinely. I found out through experience that one was not enough, *for my car* You and others seem to have had better experience, and so the only thing that's clear is that there's no clear answer on the question.

All I'm saying is that had I known that another $25 bucks would have *guaranteed* me camber in the 2.x range then I would have spent the money the first time, because my time (close to 3 hours b/t driving back and forth + actual alignment time + gas...) is more valuable than the $25 bucks and it's just not worth the hassle.

So take it for what it's worth. Just putting my own experience out there as an option.

HI there -- for the sake of those who come after and look at this thread for information (god know I do that plenty!), can you clarify your post? I read your post a few times and couldn't quite make out what you would do as the first paragraph seems to contradict the second one. :)

For full adustability, you need 4 bolts in total but the bolts are sold in sets of 2 so you need to buy 2 sets of bolts. Someone mentioned they found a set of SPC bolts for $18 which would be just a little over $35 for the 2 sets.

Having two cam bolts from SPC (upper and lower, 16mm and 14mm) is nice, they feel consistent and I have had good reliability with the 16mm bolts. However I am cheap and would have used the lower 14mm SPC bolt and swapped out the bolt in the upper hole for the OE lower bolt (as per the OEM camber adjustment method) if I had known that was an option.

2x SPC bolt - nice, not too hard on the wallet
1x SPC bolt + 1x OE camber bolt - cheaper alternative

I fully believe both options are viable to get more than -2 degrees and I'm using camber plates to get over -3 (I actually had the camber plates before the camber bolts). Not everybody wants maximum camber, or certain rulesets may limit the options available, I just wanted to chime in that I've got 2x camber bolts in my car and I'm happy with them, I don't think it was a waste of money, but on the flipside the 1x aftermarket bolt 1x OE bolt is certainly a viable option imho.

Whiteline bolts were like $40 initially. I fell for that one because I wasn't certain on the SPC's working.

Got it, thank you for clarifying. For my knowledge (since I don't have a way to do my own alignment measurements), do you think the 1x SPC + 1 OE camber bolt option gets you as much camber as 2x SPC?

My shop told me no, but who knows maybe they just didn't push hard enough or something... The shop owner had a BRZ so I assume they weren't just bullshitting me (and I didn't buy the 2nd set of SPCs from them, so they weren't pushing products on me).

I honestly don't know and don't really plan on testing it since I already have the upper bolt, I'm sure others will report in down the road as more and more get modified for hard driving. I have heard of some people struggling to get more than low -2 while there are some that claim -3 or more is possible with 1x spc+1x OE.

People talk about dyno's reading differently and really it's not like alignment racks are magically perfectly accurate either, a car may read high on one and low on the other, how the car is rolled on and off the rack, and the state of repair the rack is in could all affect the reading. Along with differences from car to car. Personally I would be skeptical if they claim -2 and up isn't achievable with a pair of bolts, no matter which pair.

Important question - stock springs or lowering springs? If your car is lowered, that adds more camber.

For clarification, only on the rear, the front does not gain camber with lowering.

That doesn’t sound right. I got -1.4 max in the front on stock springs with a set of camber bolts. Switched to RCE Yellows (20mm drop) and got -1.9 in the front.

Mcpherson struts dont gain negative camber that way, thats basically the number 1 reason we need more camber in the front than the rear. You can google it up a bit more if you arent convinced, but because you changed several suspension components and were able to get more camber doesnt mean you can assume 1 of those changes only was responsible for the extra camber.

If you look at a MacPherson strut diagram, the camber remains unchanged regardless of the spring height.

http://s4.thingpic.com/images/Ep/Une...HyUdLwmaW.jpeg

As long as lower control arm is below horizontal in steady state, that setup should give negative camber under compression. Much smaller than double wishbone setups, but still...

There's potential for a little bit of camber gain on the front of this car due to lowering depending on the specifics of the suspension geometry (mostly it has to do with the arc of the lower control arm as the car is lowered) but half a degree isn't from lowering. Either the cam bolts got adjusted or you're seeing the car settle differently over time or that alignment rack just reads high.


Edit:

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LUSw4L0BIm...cambergain.gif