Want to track your FR-S? Read this for my perspective!
 

I recently attended the HPDE track event at Atlanta Motorsports Park. It was quite a ride! It was my first ever track event and I had a lot of fun.

With that said, I decided to do a bit of write-up on the FR-S and what I think someone who wants to get into tracking the FR-S should do to the car, what to expect, and prepare for.

First, my thoughts on the car itself. This car handles very well on the track and it's just an amazing feeling. Quite honestly, I loved this car before but now I FIRETRUCKING love this car!

For me, it was very easy to feel the limits of this car and I tried hard to keep it at those limits. Ed was my instructor for the first day of the track event and he was great at his job. On my first run I spun once and drove off track at turn 1 (not completely my fault, I'll touch on this later). I continued to improve with each run, and I was given the OK to go solo at the end of the day.

On Sunday, everything clicked and I had pretty amazing runs all day. With that said, I did attempt to push the car and spun out once on Sunday, but the good thing I got out of that was that I was trying something new and it didn't work. It COULD have worked if I knew how to properly correct the car, but I simply did not have the skill or the knowledge to do so. I also attempted a S-turn area without braking as much, and found that the car can really easily swing out its tail in that situation and get you in trouble. Still, the good thing was that it was very easily controllable and easy to correct... a simple tap on the brakes, my slide was corrected and I was able to continue on more safely.

What lessons did I learn? I did well on learning the lines on the track and how to figure out where I didn't do well and what I needed to correct. But perhaps the most important thing I learned from this was modulation of the brakes and the gas. You can steer this car just with good, easy, and smooth modulation of the throttle. Keeping this in mind, it's easy to take this car around a turn faster or slower simply by listening to and feeling the tires as they sing together, and modulating the gas with minor steering corrections to adjust your speed and angle.

I would highly recommend anyone new to tracking the FR-S to NOT turn off traction control all the way off. Turning it off completely was part of the cause of me spinning my car into the dirt on my first run. Rather, run the car in VSC Sport mode. I feel like it's a great training tool. You can still slide your car around without it kicking in until it's really needed. I think it quite literally saved me from totaling the car on one of my runs.

I'd also recommend taking the FR-S to the autocross a few times in order to learn more about how it reacts and how to learn to correct your slides/spins in preparation for the track. I have not done this yet, and I feel like if I did, i would be even more confident in my abilities to correct any spins or slides if I did have traction control fully off. Still, even without this preparation, I had quite a lot of fun on the track.

Now... should you modify your FR-S before going to the track? There is only one thing I think should be an absolute requirement. Get some good brakes! I cannot stress this enough. Before the event I got Stoptech slotted rotors and pads from Hawk. Hawk dropped the ball so I wasn't able to get rear pads, but stock pads held up well enough on the rear. The pads up front were Hawk street performance pads, but even this was not enough.

Even with high temp brake fluid, about 3/4's of the way through each run, my brakes were heating up to the point where I was standing on the brakes. My instructor also noticed this and was disappointed in their performance. I had to start braking sooner and sooner until the end of each run. This caused my to have less confidence in the car's ability to slow down effectively.

With that said... get some quality race pads. Even if you stick with your stock rotors, at least get race pads! They will help immensely. And from what I've been told, do not get drilled rotors. Slotted rotors are good to give the brake dust a place to go, but drilled rotors simply reduce the amount of heat transferring material and also reduces the structural integrity of the rotors. I don't remember seeing drilled rotors on any of the cars at the track event I went to.

All that said, this car is amazing to drive on the track. I would recommend not modifying this car (beyond brakes) until your abilities demand it. This is pretty much a no-brainer, but it bears noting anyway because I see a lot of people modify their cars before even autocrossing it.

Most of all, be safe and have fun! Even if your instructor pushes you to take certain lines at a high speed, take the line at the speed you feel will keep you safe. For example, turn 16 is at the end of a long sweeper onto the straightaway to the start/finish line at AMP. You can take this corner at a high speed if you got the line perfect... but it can cause your ass to pucker up too. In fact, a very good advanced driver in a 370z totaled his car on that turn on the second day of the event. He was ok, but his car wasn't. Just remember that certain corners may demand more respect than others.

Also, I have videos that I'm uploading to youtube, I will add links here when I can.

And Rebecca Soni just won her back-to-back gold medal!! GO USA!!

Figured i jump in being i helped instruct you ;)
Very nice write up.
Still remember looking at you turning off TC fully saying, are you sure you want to do that.. lol. Did a good job though man. Like i said on Saturday. If you want to learn to drive fast in that car you need to accept your probably gonna spin. Master that car and you'll be a machine in just about any other car.

Now that you've seen how loose the car can be in its stock form and how important car control is , its time to hit up the autox and some skidpads. That car is probably the best learning car out atm. Almost any mods you toss at it will only raise the limit even lower the amount of reaction time available which you go beyond it. Now go get some real pads and go toss it around and have fun as is :)

As for being safe, can't support what you said enough. Knowing that you liked to ride the limit and feel your car out, there are just some corners on some tracks where its just not worth playing around with. HPDE is about learning but also about having fun and being able to drive back home.

And btw, about the rotors. I would have told you not to even stress slotted rotors. As you can see pads are whats important. good pads on blanks are usually more than enough for most.

yeah, I agree with you on that, but at the same time I think having slots is a good idea to at least let the brake dust get swiped away a bit more easily. Blanks are certainly cheaper though! I think it was the guy with the v8 miata that I talked to that said he gets his from Napa for 25 bucks a corner.

Thanks for the invaluable input regarding your initial experience of tracking your FR-S... I've gained very much after reading, and I hope to plan accordingly in making the most out my upcoming HPDE events, as well!

Good write up Nathan. From what i hear you drove alot harder than i did. and that pucker moment in t16, 14:45 in the vid i posted. to expand on the brakes i'm on my 4h compound now and think there is still room for improvement. oe's crumbled, oe replacements roasted, stoptech street performance faded quickly, but DS2500 is holding up ok. I think i'm going to try an Endless compound next. haven't picked between mx72, me20, and mxrs.

Bout time you stopped stalking the 86 forum and posted something Formsim.

And most of the time during HPDE (unless your big spender) thats what matters. Your not trying to find that 1/10th sec lost under braking, and that event you do find that 1/10th you'd just go home and spend double if not more to replace the rotor. $ per performance is where its at unless your competing.

Lol if you think i'm stalking any forum. All i want to do is drive, not read about driving.

:burnrubber:

Good write up.

<< blanks and carbotechs here :P

Gonna definetly get race pads once I get settled here in Colorado. With that said, I'm going to another open day lap event over at High Plains raceway on the 17th. I'm an addict now lol.

Due to the response I'm getting on this post, maybe we should get this stickied :P