Quick and dirty guide to track prepping your car

[enivid]

Originally Posted by regandr

Please let a former Skip Barber school instructor and 30 year SCCA racer (including a regional championship) make a few suggestions :
1. do absolutely nothing to your car before your first NASA or SCCA track day. that's right, nothing.
2. the reason for this advice is you need to experience what your car and YOU can do, right out of the box, before you make any changes
These are fabulous track cars - STOCK !!
Let me give you a real-world example:
I have run 44 track days in my STOCK BRZ. the ONLY mod. to this car is a set of BFG G-Force Rival tires. I regularly run at Miller M.S. Park in SLC with guys who have spent $10000 + on their cars for superchargers, coil-overs, wings, aero skirts, wheels, yadda, yadda. They are all SLOWER than, or only very slightly (in the dry) faster than my STOCK car !! and I am old enough to be all of their fathers !
All of them should have spent their hard earned $$ on a pro drivers school : Skip Barber, Bondurant, etc. and learned how to drive first. Any a__hole can hammer the throttle on the straight. You become smooth, fast and a much better driver in the corners.

I'm not an asshole.....I don't think....

[Apex_BRZ]

Originally Posted by Special_K

I would say that's the exact definition of "doing whatever you do". Tire guys use 32nds... ergo. keep doing whatever you do.

Took your original comment a different way.

[Special_K]

Originally Posted by Apex_BRZ

Took your original comment a different way.

I hear you, the internet is full of enough angry douchebags, I try not to be one when I can help it. Cheers mate!

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by zdr93523

@CSG Mike What's the typical time separation between the NA Stock class and FI Super Mod cars in 86 Cup? 8 seconds is about the average from what I can surmise. So, we're not exactly throttle hammering a___holes (like GTR & 911 Turbo drivers) like it has been insinuated.

If you're comparing the fastest unlimited class car, vs the fastest stock car (driven by a GT Academy winner), it's about 8 seconds on a 2 minute track. It's not a lot, considering the unlimited class cars all have 30k+ in them in just modifications...

The current (soon to be fastest) "most points" car is not quite dialed in, yet.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by stockysnail

He must not be braking hard enough since my first couple times out I used the stock pads and had lots of fade as they got too hot.

On a side note Mike I have AX6 pads for the rear, but my fronts are shot along with my rotors (new stock rotors already installed). I'd rather just buy new front pads for track days for now until I save up enough for the AP racing endurance kit. I'm assuming XP10 is what you'd recommend for the front on RE-11a tires with 250whp? My rear AX6 pads have lots of life left.

Well, here's the dilemma. A more aggressive front pad means the front will be doing even MORE work, which means the rear pad will last even longer, because it's barely being used. Meanwhile, the front pad doing more work will soon be doing all the work (well like 95% of it) if you do a XP10/AX6 stagger, which results in faster wearing front pads.

How long did your front AX6 last you? I wouldn't recommend going more than a XP8/AX6 stagger, because the front bias will be massive if you go more than that.

[stockysnail]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

Well, here's the dilemma. A more aggressive front pad means the front will be doing even MORE work, which means the rear pad will last even longer, because it's barely being used. Meanwhile, the front pad doing more work will soon be doing all the work (well like 95% of it) if you do a XP10/AX6 stagger, which results in faster wearing front pads.

How long did your front AX6 last you? I wouldn't recommend going more than a XP8/AX6 stagger, because the front bias will be massive if you go more than that.

I think the AX6 lasted 6 track days. The last track day was a double as I was sharing my car so it had back to back sessions. At the end of the day the front pads were very worn near the top and much less worn at the bottom. The top must have been getting really hot. The front rotors had spider web-ish looking marks all over them too. The last session the brakes felt like they were pulsing on their own, which I figured was the rotors were warped because of the heat. I'm sure the totally uneven pad wear didn't help as well. I guess that's what I get for doing double track duty, which is probably worse that 2 separate track days as the car has more time to cool off.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by stockysnail

I think the AX6 lasted 6 track days. The last track day was a double as I was sharing my car so it had back to back sessions. At the end of the day the front pads were very worn near the top and much less worn at the bottom. The top must have been getting really hot. The front rotors had spider web-ish looking marks all over them too. The last session the brakes felt like they were pulsing on their own, which I figured was the rotors were warped because of the heat. I'm sure the totally uneven pad wear didn't help as well. I guess that's what I get for doing double track duty, which is probably worse that 2 separate track days as the car has more time to cool off.

You definitely overheated the pads, based on the tapered wear and pulsing/shuttering. I'd recommend changing both front and rears to a race compound; the AX6 is really meant for AutoX and aggressive street applications only.

If you like the feel of the AX6, try Carbotech XP10 front/rear.

[regandr]

Sorry guys from Miller. I had no intention of offending you. I like you guys and did not mean to imply any of you guys were posteriors. on the contrary.
I think you missed my point. Since lap times are very important to you (that's why you run in TT) and I couldnt care less about lap times (been there and done that), I suggest that everybody who wants to go faster needs a serious school. Not a NASA school, not an SCCA school.
Anybody who wants faster times needs to learn how to drive the corners fast. That's what they teach you. Anybody can hammer it on the straights.
I understand that you want to tinker with the cars. However, Andy(?) has made so many changes that he has messed up an otherwise great car.
A good school will also teach you how to analyse what a car is doing in order to set it up.

[churchx]

Slight offtopic. Hmm, don't know about industry standards regarding measuring thread .. on this side of pond i am used to doing that in mm (and also have minimum thread depth specified in mm for winter/summer tyres in driving rules too). About only things that still are measured in imperial units in these metric countries are plumbing tubing sizing (including threads for them) and diameters of car wheels

[redlined600]

Is the brake bleeding procedure for the twins standard furthest to closest or something weird?

[jvincent]

Standard procedure.

[CSG Mike]

Originally Posted by redlined600

Is the brake bleeding procedure for the twins standard furthest to closest or something weird?

You can do it in any order really, if you're thorough.

[ka-t_240]

Originally Posted by regandr

Sorry guys from Miller. I had no intention of offending you. I like you guys and did not mean to imply any of you guys were posteriors. on the contrary.
I think you missed my point. Since lap times are very important to you (that's why you run in TT) and I couldnt care less about lap times (been there and done that), I suggest that everybody who wants to go faster needs a serious school. Not a NASA school, not an SCCA school.
Anybody who wants faster times needs to learn how to drive the corners fast. That's what they teach you. Anybody can hammer it on the straights.
I understand that you want to tinker with the cars. However, Andy(?) has made so many changes that he has messed up an otherwise great car.
A good school will also teach you how to analyse what a car is doing in order to set it up.

Great advise, I would love additional instruction. I wish I had a resource like yourself locally with lots of track experience in a BRZ. I would love pro driving schools, but there are not any close enough for me to bring my own car to and I can't afford the $2k a day schools. If you have other ideas on schools that one can go to, I would for sure like to know! I like winter "racecations".

[TRAKRAVN]

Hey everyone, just looking to get opinions here.

I'm prepping my car for HPDE, track and autoX events which is the main reason I got the car.

So far here's what I have prepped before hitting out the first time.

Mishimoto oil cooler
Koyo rad - running water + Mocool
5w-40 300V - engine oil
Gear 300 - transmission oil
Gear 300 LS - diff oil
RBF660 - brake fluid
Ferrodo DS2500
Stainless brake lines
Stainless clutch line
Brake stopper
Aim Solo DL

Is there anything else I should have done to the car before hitting the track for the first time?