Got a track related question? I'll try to answer.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by robot

Similar question...

I'm going on the 28th to that event at SoW. The car has almost 3k on the clock. I will also be autocrossing it next weekend. Should I change the oil after the autox? After the track event? Before these??

It can't hurt to put in a high quality oil if you're going to be running it at events

You'll get a lot of hearsay, but nobody will be able to provide HARD evidence pointing either way. I'd recommend erring on the side of caution.

[SubiePig]

Mike, I was going to PM you about this but I think I will make it an open discussion to get insight and help others with this as well.

First off, I don't use the Pedal Dance and the reason being that when I used it in the past in an autocross that any trail braking with some sort of steering input the car would "fight me" and feel as though the ABS was acting though I could feel that the car was FAR from the threshold of grip(Ice Mode?). However, when I simply would just turn off traction this didn't feel to be the case. It would still do it, just not as much.

My first track day in the car was yesterday and I was still on stock pads ( I didn't realize I was running till last minute otherwise I would have hit you up about those pads we talked about). There's a very high speed section of the track that has a flick to the right at the end and then hard on the brakes for a 180 on to the next straight. When trailing into this corner the stability light would flash, with the 3 second button push and the brakes would fight me in the front. Not much but its enough to lose confidence in the car and make me want to brake earlier. There has to be a solution to this.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by SubiePig

Mike, I was going to PM you about this but I think I will make it an open discussion to get insight and help others with this as well.

First off, I don't use the Pedal Dance and the reason being that when I used it in the past in an autocross that any trail braking with some sort of steering input the car would "fight me" and feel as though the ABS was acting though I could feel that the car was FAR from the threshold of grip(Ice Mode?). However, when I simply would just turn off traction this didn't feel to be the case. It would still do it, just not as much.

My first track day in the car was yesterday and I was still on stock pads ( I didn't realize I was running till last minute otherwise I would have hit you up about those pads we talked about). There's a very high speed section of the track that has a flick to the right at the end and then hard on the brakes for a 180 on to the next straight. When trailing into this corner the stability light would flash, with the 3 second button push and the brakes would fight me in the front. Not much but its enough to lose confidence in the car and make me want to brake earlier. There has to be a solution to this.

I'm able to replicate "ice mode" now. It happens when you go VERY quickly from gas to MASHING on the brakes. Slow down your brake pedal input, and you won't get ice mode, and you won't lose any performance.

Generally, if you're getting ice mode, you're stepping on the brake pedal more than hard enough to be engaging ABS.

The stability light flashing is the EBD engaging, to make sure you keep braking in a straight line. It made the car push instead of rotate under trail braking, right? You need to do the pedal dance to rectify this.

[SubiePig]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

I'm able to replicate "ice mode" now. It happens when you go VERY quickly from gas to MASHING on the brakes. Slow down your brake pedal input, and you won't get ice mode, and you won't lose any performance.

Generally, if you're getting ice mode, you're stepping on the brake pedal more than hard enough to be engaging ABS.

The stability light flashing is the EBD engaging, to make sure you keep braking in a straight line. It made the car push instead of rotate under trail braking, right? You need to do the pedal dance to rectify this.

Correct, I got some push mid entry instead of rotation. Higher speed corners I didn't have this issue, only the one section where there was heavy braking involved. I will try the pedal dance at the next event.

[ultra]

Question: sway bars. i see the AutoX guys talking about & using them a lot - stiffer front seems to be the trend.

What about sway bars for circuit work? How important/useful/beneficial are they and what would be a good setup to look at?

Let's assume the car's already slightly lowered on coilovers and running high end road/summer tires for argument's sake.

Also - end links. How important are they? Are they a must have on a moderately lowered car on coilovers running the stock sways.

Yes yes, I've completely overlooked sway bars and endlinks on my car. >.<

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by ultra

Question: sway bars. i see the AutoX guys talking about & using them a lot - stiffer front seems to be the trend.

What about sway bars for circuit work? How important/useful/beneficial are they and what would be a good setup to look at?

Let's assume the car's already slightly lowered on coilovers and running high end road/summer tires for argument's sake.

Also - end links. How important are they? Are they a must have on a moderately lowered car on coilovers running the stock sways.

Yes yes, I've completely overlooked sway bars and endlinks on my car. >.<

Short version: we use neither.

Medium version: Are you modding just to mod, or are you looking to change an aspect of your car? What exactly do you dislike about the car that you are trying to change by getting sway bars and endlinks?

Long version:

AutoX guys use massive front sways because they are limited on modifications by classing rules. The massive front sway gives the front INSANELY fast response/transition times, but at the cost of massive understeer during sustained cornering load.

What is fast at AutoX is not fast on track, and vice versa. AutoX guys will almost always argue otherwise, and give you the "so and so autocrossed, and was decimating people on track" reason regularly. They're decimating newbies because they have seat time, not because the setup is faster.

Tracks typically have sustained turns, not slaloms/cbox/etc. that reward quick small direction changes.

Going back to a previous question, what are you trying to change, and what is your end goal?

[ultra]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Short version: we use neither.

Medium version: Are you modding just to mod, or are you looking to change an aspect of your car? What exactly do you dislike about the car that you are trying to change by getting sway bars and endlinks?

Long version:

AutoX guys use massive front sways because they are limited on modifications by classing rules. The massive front sway gives the front INSANELY fast response/transition times, but at the cost of massive understeer during sustained cornering load.

What is fast at AutoX is not fast on track, and vice versa. AutoX guys will almost always argue otherwise, and give you the "so and so autocrossed, and was decimating people on track" reason regularly. They're decimating newbies because they have seat time, not because the setup is faster.

Tracks typically have sustained turns, not slaloms/cbox/etc. that reward quick small direction changes.

Going back to a previous question, what are you trying to change, and what is your end goal?

First - thanks. Your responses are always straight up, no BS. I like that.

Short version: My car has no real deficiencies at the moment, i.e. no persistent, defenite, consistent handling flaws. However i have lowered it without doing anything at all to adjust the swaybars to match my ride height. Unsure what ill effects that might have in terms of handling and tire wear.


Medium version:
I'm planning on entering club level time attack events. Nothing fancy - just for fun. However the class I'll be running in has some pretty decent competition and their cars are reasonably well set up. The regs also mean that the competing cars will be running R compound rubber. I'm planning on upgrading my rubber in order to be competitive, which will mean I'll be experiencing a whole lot more lateral Gs on my car than I have up until now.

I haven't touched the stock swaybar and don't feel a real need to change it, but i would definitely want to make sure it's at least installed and adjusted properly for my car and not causing any problems.


Long version:
I'm expecting the extra forces to tax my mid-range coilovers pretty hard (RS-Rs on stock 6k/8k soring rates). Mu alignment is semi aggressive already: -2.5 camber front and -1.8 rear. I'll dial that in further based on tire wear and tire temps.

About 30mm lower than stock. Current swaybars and end links are stock & I've never touched them. Unsure whether never having adjusted the sway bars when lowering the car, or lacking the means ro adjust the bars, is a big deal or not. I get away with things on my current setup judt fin but i'm guessing that the car will want to roll around a lot more with R compound rubber on it.

Since I've never adjusted my stock bars in terms of checking for preload or binding issues this is the first thing i'm looking at.

Beyond that, if there were a definite performance edge from having ugraded sway bars i'd jump on them but i don't have any info to suggest that at the moment. i'm pretty happy fine tining alignment settings and tire pressures to imorove times given no other serious flaws exist.

Mainly want to make sure that I'm not running the stock swaybar setup in a way that it might degrade the car's handling or cause excessive tire wear.

I'm betting on better rubber as the single most beneficial uograde for the money at the moment. Completely changing my coilovers out for something better just isn't worth it to me at this time, hence i'm looking at other bang-per-buck items like end links and sways for possible benefits - if there are any.

My main goal is to make the best use of the stickier rubber that I can in order to shave time and especially to avoid destroying my tires prematurely or losing time due to possible flaws in handling, which could in turn be due to bad or negligent prep on my part.

Essentially I want to make sure I've picked all the low hanging fruit that I can, avoid stepling on any oine cines and just get on with it.

[CSG Mike]

@ultra

Unless your endlinks are binding (which I doubt), you won't need them. Sways are typically used to reduce overall body roll (used front AND rear), or to adjust front/rear load balance (stiffer bar = more load = that axle loses traction faster relative to the opposite axle). E.g., if you have a car that is very oversteery under cornering, you can use a front sway to try to balance it out.

The soft rates mean that you will get a lot of roll. The roll means that you will hit the compression range on the front struts where instead of gaining negative camber (camber going more negative), you will start to lose negative camber (camber going more positive). This will cause you to lose cornering grip in the front. Ultimately, the stickier tires may cause you to go slower, because you roll more, and lose contact patch from camber loss.

I'd recommend you run the event first as-is, to determine if there is a problem that needs addressing, or a handling characteristic you dislike, before committing to more mods. When you're ready, we can make a recommendation according to your feedback, and supply you with the parts (or point you in the right direction if it is a part we don't have). Alternatively, you can get a front AND rear set of stiff sways, put them all on, and then alter settings from that starting point.

[ultra]

Another question (apparently I have lots):

Royal Purple 0w30 - good oil? Track worthy?

My tuner recommended 10w60 but I'm far from conviced on that one since it's so thick. I can get my hands on the Royal Purple though, if it's worth it.

What oil do you guys recommend?

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by ultra

Another question (apparently I have lots):

Royal Purple 0w30 - good oil? Track worthy?

My tuner recommended 10w60 but I'm far from conviced on that one since it's so thick. I can get my hands on the Royal Purple though, if it's worth it.

What oil do you guys recommend?

We use 300V, and Motul is the only brand that we stock (but we can get virtually any oil). We've had great results, and the UOA (used oil analysis) have always come back with steller results, so we see no reason to use anything else.

RP seems to have decent results in other cars, but I have not yet personally seen any UOA for it on the FA20, so I don't have an opinion of it at the moment.

I wouldn't use 10W60. It doesn't matter how hard you run the engine, it is not spec'ed for a 60 weight. It is spec'ed for a 20 or 30.

We are going to be running 0W20 300V in our 2014. We've experimented with heavier weights in the S2000 (yeah, not quite apples to apples), and there was ZERO benefit from the heavier weight (wear was the same), but the oil did get hotter, and the engine ran hotter as well (as measured by ECU readout logs).

You can't go *wrong* with any high quality synthetic.


*i do try to keep my informational posts unbiased, but it's difficult in this case since I'm working with a rather limited set of data.

[car_roll]

does the brz/frs radiator offer sufficient cooling or is that a must upgrade? (I'm debating a perrin oil cooler with stock radiator or go and get a robispec cooler or something similar)

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by car_roll

does the brz/frs radiator offer sufficient cooling or is that a must upgrade? (I'm debating a perrin oil cooler with stock radiator or go and get a robispec cooler or something similar)

It's sufficient at stock and bolt-on NA power levels. An oil cooler doesn't hurt.

If you're looking for a cooling upgrade, we'll be releasing a drop-in cooling solution soon, but not until we finish testing.

[car_roll]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

It's sufficient at stock and bolt-on NA power levels. An oil cooler doesn't hurt.

If you're looking for a cooling upgrade, we'll be releasing a drop-in cooling solution soon, but not until we finish testing.

Do you have a price in mind?

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by car_roll

Do you have a price in mind?

That's still TBD, but it'll be competitive.

We're designing a brass core copper finned radiator

Copper and brass conduct heat better than Aluminum or Steel