Okay, so thanks everyone for the help. The track day was pretty wild. From all the rain North Texas has been getting the track was basically flooded. It was dry, except there were streams of water running across it and water coming through the concrete in turns, and I was I R888R. EVERYONE was spinning left and right. Some places got better as the day progressed, some got worse. You were always wondering if you were going to lose traction, so that was exciting. To put it into perspective, the track employee doing a
spotter lap spun on the third turn.
I brought my good friend who happens to be a 7x national karting champion, former pro grand am driver, etc, etc to instruct me.
It was aligned for autocross, but I loved it on the track. As much camber as the previous owner could get, lots of toe and some caster. he suggested less caster and less toe (and more camber, but I'm not sure if I can get more camber). The car was unbelievably fun. Perfectly balanced. Not "it has understeer so I can go WOT through turns and I call that balanced" but actually balanced. My friend/instructor agreed. Told me not to change a single thing on the setup. Just gut it and cage it (for now).
It's a hoot to drive. It is so precise and nimble. My top three most fun to drive cars ever have to be FRS, Elise and Cayman GTS. One is in a very different price range than the rest. I'm dying to the chance to remove some weight from it. I'm really impressed by stock brakes and suspension(definitely needs some more shock, but it's fine for now). Truly, what a dream. I was rotating the car when I wanted to, turning in hard and running well. With all the water, there were plenty of times the car would get loose, and the majority of the times I could bring it back with small, predictable inputs. Also noteworthy, the seats are really good for factory seats (I'm sure I'm also just pulling less g's)
The FRS definitely needs more motor, but they made up for a lot of it with gear. That thing has a TON of gear, especially compared to the GS. And that made it fun too.
Compared FRS, the Grand Sport is just raw. It's a handful- a carnal monster. It's just hungry and eating up pavement and you can't feed it to the car fast enough. It has tons of grip but it still understeers (and I run more aero in the front and 20mm wider front tires). It makes it safer to drive (which is important because I can't afford to put it in a wall) but it's just not as enjoyable. Don't get me wrong, it's a blast to drive and very fast, but it's bull riding a silverback gorilla after throwing a pike of coke in its face vs riding a well trained horse.
I was actually too scared to take the GS out today (I had both there) because of the water. More grip, more speed, not as precise and "surprise" water was just too much risk, but I had no problems with the FRS.
Kind of funny, but it really made me appreciate my GS for street driving (where the GS is light years ahead in performance as well). That's where the FRS really felt like an economy car. Crappy head unit, meh interior, seats basically just slide forward and back (no tilt), no steering wheel controls, no helpful gauges, clutch is very abrupt and much harder to drive smooth. Driving at 3500 rpm on the highway was super annoying. The GS by comparison has a nice interior, every temp right in front of me, touch screen infotainment, active rev match (although the FRS is a easy to heel-toe as any car I've driven), chilling around 1800rpm at 80mph and the active exhaust makes it quiet when you're cruising and loud when you're on it.
Anyway, for $10k, how can I go wrong? 2013, 47k miles, sway bars, springs, whitetop hats, new clutch two spare sets of wheels and tires, and an extra set of brake pads. I definitely think I can run through a season or two of track days and sell it for what I got it for with 50k miles and get whatever I want next, or just upgrade this car. Now I have a white with black accents Corvette, FRS and Miata
Thanks again for the help!
