T(h)or's GT86 hammer (Europe) - essential track setup

[Spec C Wannabe]

@Tor, noted that you don't need to heel&Toe nor rev match anymore. What is the function in the ECUTEK that you are using?

[Tor]

Originally Posted by TeutonicShift89

What tires are those? Do they do well on the road in the wet?

It's the Yokohama AD08R. They have excellent grip on a wet road that is draining.

But they don't cope well at all with standing water, so a bit of caution and predictive driving is adviced. If you can't see whats coming ahead, assume it's flooded and adjust speed accordingly.

I got into a heavy rain shower recently and the road was flooding. Especially when that worn, it felt like driving on ice and I could feel the car moving around from the strong wind gusts associated with the shower. Of course, this happened when driving over a long autobahn bridge over a valley, so no way to pull over. It was nerve wrecking to say at least.

Originally Posted by Spec C Wannabe

Tor, noted that you don't need to heel&Toe nor rev match anymore. What is the function in the ECUTEK that you are using?

Yes, I'm using Ecutek autoblip function. It triggers on brake and clutch input and then it blips the throttle a specified amount (adjustable in both duration, and intensity according to rpm). I still need to rev match on downshifts without braking involved.

I could turn it off, but it works more consistent and precise than what I could ever hope to achieve with years more practice. My heel-toe has cost me a lot of time as I had to brake earlier because I couldn't brake with a consistent pressure. I knew that but was adamant in learning.

On a track like Meppen, heal toe didn't cost me any significant time previously as I only did 2 downshifts and otherwise drove the whole track in 3rd. Rev matching is particularly difficult for me from 3rd to 2nd where you have to add a lot of throttle to match the high rpm. So the advantage of driving the infield in 2nd would probably be negated by early braking and a complicated downshift if I was rev matching manually.

On a fast track with a lot of shifts, like the Nürbungring Grand Prix circuit, I know I leave several seconds behind using heel-toe. I would probably have driven that track a lot faster without any heel-toe (or autoblip) but my focus was on applying the correct technique.

So my rationale is that I now know how to do basic heal and toe, and I now want to focus on being better at braking.

Using autoblip really frees up a lot of capacity, not just for braking, but also for concentrating on the line etc. So it's unlikely I will go back to doing it manually. It was fun learning, but it's one of those trivial tasks that a computer can do with much more accuracy than a human being. It's really impressive how well the Ecutek auto blip works and it would be foolish not to use it.

I also left out left foot braking as well, to really just concentrate on driving. That is, however, still a useful skill that I otherwise do intend continuing to use.

Otherwise, my philosophy is that I would rather drive slow but using correct technique, than going fast and using wrong technique. I think in the long run it will make me faster due to the practice, and I also think it will be safer the closer I get to the limits. I'm not in a rush, I have years to improve before I'm too old to crawl in and out of the GT86 (when that happens it will get a lift kit and be rebuild to off-roader).

[Spec C Wannabe]

Originally Posted by Tor

Yes, I'm using Ecutek autoblip function. It triggers on brake and clutch input and then it blips the throttle a specified amount (adjustable in both duration, and intensity according to rpm). I still need to rev match on downshifts without braking involved.

Thank you for your clear answer.

So, ECUTEK's autoblip works only when the brake is applied? How hard is it to set and to dial-in the duration and intensity of the blipping function?

Also, on the upshift, I also see that you don't have to lift the throttle as well. I guess it is a flat-foot shifting function.

[Tor]

Originally Posted by Spec C Wannabe

So, ECUTEK's autoblip works only when the brake is applied? How hard is it to set and to dial-in the duration and intensity of the blipping function?

Yes, only when brake is applied. It's easy to adjust, it's just 2 tables, one being minimum speed for it to activate and the other throttle vs. time (x-axis) and rpm (y-axis).

The default values don't blip nearly enough. I doubled the values at high rpm and extended it so it blips at low rpm as well with a low value. Then smoothend it so the blip fades out gradually. A light weight fly wheel will require less blip (but still way more than default). There might be some individual preference as well, depending on how fast you shift as it's just a timer that runs from when the clutch is pressed down.

Also, on the upshift, I also see that you don't have to lift the throttle as well. I guess it is a flat-foot shifting function.

Yes, that's flat-foot shift. It has 5 tables to edit, but you basically just need to edit one, which is how much it drops the rpm, depending on actual rpm. The default values (set at 200 rpm drop everywhere) do not work at all.

I drove the car in different gears and noted down the rpm difference at each specific rpm. As the difference in rpm is not the same between all gears, make it work perfectly for the most important shifts like 2nd to 3rd and 3rd to 4th and it will be pretty close for the other shifts as well.

I don't understand at all why they would choose 200 rpm difference at all rpm as default. Obviously there is a larger difference in rpm, the higher the rpm you shift. At high rpm it should drop something like 12-1500 rpm without having my tune open to look.

If who ever tunes the car is just leaving the default values, it's going to feel like sh!t. However, when all is adjusted properly it feels like driving a semi automatic gearbox.

[Tor]

Another lap on the Nordschleife. My best so far, not just the time, but also the one with the least mistakes (I guess that goes hand in hand ).

The car has fresh tires and brakes, so it's great to have loads of grip and confident stopping power again. Thanks to CARBOTECH EUROPE for preparing new brake pads for me in record speed!! And they custom made me the otherwise signature red XP10 pads in stealth black:




The time could have been better if it hadn't been for the Mini Cooper which I had to exchange positions with a few times. However, that was actually a lot of fun!

One of the things I don't like about the so-called tourist drives is the difficulty of predicting what the other drivers will do. The skill levels are so mixed that you constantly need to expect the unexpected. So I'm not too keen on driving very close to the other drivers.

The Mini was quite fast in the corners, but he was braking extremely early before all corners (which you can see how easily I can out brake him). So when he was in front I kept a bit distance. The problem with that is, of course, that he is not going to let me by when I'm not close. So I had to wait for the opportunity to pass together with the Porsche at the Breidschied corner (4:39 in the video).

The reason that he got past in the first place, was because I was worried what the slow-moving car would be doing at 2:14. So I was braking quite heavily at Flugplatz - kind of had to make a rejected takeoff there, haha ("Flugplatz" literally means airfield). This was otherwise the fastest I've been there so far, and at that speed, there is pretty much only one line to take so I was worried what would happen had he pulled just a bit to the left.

So together with him, the Mini, and the two bloody slow Nissan GTRs, and that I had to give way to the BMW - all at critical places for a car that needs to be driven with momentum, I think this is easily 10 seconds lost.

With a bit more courage and a clean lap 8:30 is not far away.

Anyway, here is the video:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JUYLdhvlTQ[/ame]


Again, I got CEL for P351, P352 and another code which I didn't investigate yet (C1201). I've gotten the P351/2 before and installed a heat shield in the hope it would help:



But apparently they are toast and this is too late. It probably didn't help that I once again forgot to switch from my street to much richer track map. That, and my pop tune probably makes for excellent exhaust gas temperatures to keep the turbo that I don't have spooled and make a ton of heat under the hood.

I need to find a way to make the switching to "rich mode" automated but I ran out of custom Ecutek tables so it means sacrificing some other functionality.

Even with TC/VSC "3 seconds off", it switched on by itself occasionally. I know it's related to the CEL, just can't remember what the conditions are for it to happen. If anyone remembers I would appreciate a reminder.

[Lantanafrs2]

Beautiful video man. Thank you. That porsche was hauling ass lol

[Viper8]

Riding that track is on my bucket list. Smooth driving bro!

[MCTeeJ]

Originally Posted by Tor

Again, I got CEL for P351, P352 and another code which I didn't investigate yet (C1201). I've gotten the P351/2 before and installed a heat shield in the hope it would help:



But apparently they are toast and this is too late. It probably didn't help that I once again forgot to switch from my street to much richer track map. That, and my pop tune probably makes for excellent exhaust gas temperatures to keep the turbo that I don't have spooled and make a ton of heat under the hood.

I need to find a way to make the switching to "rich mode" automated but I ran out of custom Ecutek tables so it means sacrificing some other functionality.

Even with TC/VSC "3 seconds off", it switched on by itself occasionally. I know it's related to the CEL, just can't remember what the conditions are for it to happen. If anyone remembers I would appreciate a reminder.

Do you happen to know about the coil packs with the updated part number? They're supposed to help quite a bit. part no. ends in 652 if I'm not mistaken.

[Tor]

Originally Posted by Lantanafrs2

Beautiful video man. Thank you. That porsche was hauling ass lol

Yes, he was hustling it. 5-600 hp really helps on the uphill sections. There is an impressive turn up of expensive cars. On the same day, there were multiple Ferraris and also a Lamborghini-something. It's nice to see cars like that being driven properly. Most cars like that that are being sold, will only ever be driven fast in a straight line, like on the autobahn.

Originally Posted by MCTeeJ

Do you happen to know about the coil packs with the updated part number? They're supposed to help quite a bit. part no. ends in 652 if I'm not mistaken.

Thanks, yes, I'm aware of the new part number. However, my last post was not accurate. I in fact only got P0352 and C1201. So it would appear that the heat shield does actually do something (or I just got lucky).

So before replacing anything, I'm going to switch front and rear on the driver's side (wrapping both in DEI Reflect-A-Gold).

Also in my ECU tune, I have 3 stages of AFR. 2 modes, rich and lean, and on top of that, an automatic enrichment based on knock related timing reduction. So, if the ECU starts to pull timing, it automatically makes the AFR 0.6 richer.

On the day, I forgot to switch to rich mode. So it would have run lean plus the 0.6 enrichment. It's probably a bit too lean for the track, despite little knock correction. Exhaust gas temperature (or cat temp is was is really measured despite no cat so not sure how accurate) was 760 deg C (1400 f) according to Techstream freeze frame. My header must have been red-hot glowing beneath the header wrap, so I can only imagine how hot it must have been in the engine bay.

Maybe making sure I run the rich mode and wrapping the unprotected coils will keep the temps down/protect sufficiently. I drove 50+ laps a few weeks ago on the slow Meppen track without issues. There it will never reach those temps, so for sure, it's heat related.

NBR is really hard on the engine due to the steep uphill gradients driving in high gear. Nothing is going to make more heat then revving it out in 5th gear. For comparison, Meppen is flat and highest gear is 4th where it's not even being revved out.

[MCTeeJ]

If you had access to e85 I'm sure those EGT's would drop.

[Tor]

Originally Posted by MCTeeJ

If you had access to e85 I'm sure those EGT's would drop.

Yes, that might help, but we don't really have E85 here. It's only sold very few places. We also have extremely high quality/octane fuel here, so even from a performance perspective, it wouldn't be worth the hassle. I run close to the same ignition timing that you would otherwise only see in E85 tunes.

Anyway, before getting new coils, I'm going to try switching coil 2 and 4 and wrapping them at the same time. The heat shield that I installed last time seems to have been enough protection for the passenger side coils so I didn't bother to wrap those. We'll see how much this helps...

[Tor]

5 rounds on the Nürburgring and still no CEL. 3 of them were even back-to-back. Fingers crossed...

With the nice weather and towards the end of the season, it was extremely full. Like everyone thinks it's the last chance to drive there this year. Made for some interesting laps. Like this excerpt:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSIkCO48J5Q[/ame]

[Tor]

Two laps in a row on the Nordschleife...

Both my best so far. The first lap is the fastest with 8:35.

The second lap was 8:38. Besides from the many things I can improve, like the line (too early turn-in in some corners), corners that I haven't quite figured out yet (driving too slow). It has a few driving mistakes on top as well, like a major miss-shift at the end of Foxhole.

Overall, I think the second lap is better though (had a short stretch with yellow as well, so I think without it would have been the fastest too).

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjt69qk7Dk[/ame]

[jflogerzi]

@Tor If you have a bit of time I love to work on the E85 tune. No Flex Fuel but I am okay with that to be honest. Shoot me an email.