FR-S First Track Impressions

[Black Tire]

I got my first chance to take my FR-S out on the track yesterday. I was instructing at a teen Street Survival school at Dakota County Technical College in Minnesota. I have been instructing with the BMWCCA for 14 years, so I have had some experience on the track. After the students left and the cones were removed, I was able to take 3 laps of the course. The course has a speed limit of 55 mph which I obeyed. It was warm (about 85 F and sunny), so I ran all 3 laps with the windows up and the air conditioning on. Also, I had another instructor in the passenger seat. Traction Control and Vehicle Stability Control (all the nannies!) were shut off. Here are my observations:

1. Newbees that want to learn proper track driving technique would be well advised to leave everything stock. Seriously, this car is WAY better than you and you would do much better to spend your money on driving schools before spending ANY money on tires, brakes, intakes, exhaust, turbos etc. Also, I think these tires will last a long time which is great for keeping costs under control, especially when you are still learning.

2. The FR-S certainly does not seem to oversteer too much for my tastes; I'm glad I didn't go for the BRZ. There isn't enough power for power induced oversteer on this course. Throwing the car into a corner too fast, I could get the back end to step out a little, but then the car just continued into a very controllable 4-wheel drift (under power). Nice! Grip seemed very adequate with the stock rubber, but again I only did a few laps. This car oversteers less in these situations than my last two cars, so maybe I'm just used to this type of balance. It will be interesting to see how this changes with different tracks and conditions. It certainly seems that this chassis could easily handle more power.

3. The brake and gas pedals are too far apart for me to do easy heel-toe downshifts (I have small feet, however). I would like to do something about this as the close gearing and low torque/power makes shifting more frequent. My first inclination is to see if I can remount the pad for the gas pedal so that it is closer to the brake. Alternatively, I could try to find (or make) a replacement gas pedal pad that covered more of the gap so that there would be less distance between the brake and the gas.

3.5 Further discussion for #3: This distance between the gas and the brake pedals may be due to the automatic version. I know that BMW stopped designing pedals separately for the manual versions with the E46 3 series. The E36 BMW manuals had gas and brake pedals that were very close together for easy heel-toe, and a different placement on the automatic version to accommodate the larger brake pedal pad. On the E46, it appeared that they designed it so that the larger brake pedal pad for the automatic would fit, and then never moved the brake pedal lever (or the gas pedal) so that the pedals on the manual were the correct distance apart for heel-toe. It would be interesting to compare the pedal placements and pad sizes on our cars with the automatic and manual versions. Pics anyone?

4. The brakes seemed adequate for this short stint. The brakes were good from a cold start, there was no fade and the pedal feel was quite good. I will be able to see more in a couple of weeks when I will be able to take more laps. Note that this track is small and speeds were limited to 55 mph, so the brakes were not very taxed. Still, I have had pads (advertised for "street and track") on this course that melted after 3 laps; the stock FR-S pads were still solid after 3 laps.

5. The back of the car collected small black bits during the three laps. Most likely these are from the brake pads. This also happened frequently on my other cars. Look for this if you take your car to the track and be prepared to clean it off very quickly after leaving the track if you are picky about your finish. The bits cleaned off without a problem on my car after I got home about an hour after the track session. (see photo)

Next week I am going to try to do the autocross at DCTC, but as these things go I don't expect to gain too much experience due to the small number of very short laps.

In two weeks I will be back to DCTC for a BMWCCA Advanced Car Control Clinic where I will be able to do lots more laps. All are invited to attend the clinic: it will be a lot of fun and you don't need a helmet or a BMW. I will try to post comments after that event.

Update: The stock pads worked just fine with stock tires lapping at DCTC. No discernible fade on this very short track with stock everything. The stock tires get a bit squirmy, and it seems as if the traction control cannot leave the car alone; the back end seems to step out and then stop at a very specific slip angle. I am going to try the pedal dance in the spring (of 2013) to see if the behavior is better and more controllable. At the autocross, the stock tires were SQUIRMMMMMMMYYYYYYYY. The stock suspension also seems to soft for an autocross, but I should reserve judgement until I can get better tires.

Track dust on the back of the car after 3 laps:

[mechaghost]

I've invested heavily on seat time for my BRZ

I did change the wheels but that was for looks, and it being 4 lbs lighter hehe

[Texas BRZ]

Excellent & very thorough knowledge shared with us... Not very many negatives from your experience, and I hope the same will come from me!

[CSG Mike]

I would disagree on your first point.

- The stock tires started chunking after 2 laps at a short track in my experience. This is partially due to tire compound and partially due to the factory alignment. Better tires are a must, but nothing crazy. Even Hankook V12 EVOs would be sufficient. Just something that won't squirm and limit even a novice driver.

[BadCompany235]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

I would disagree on your first point.

- The stock tires started chunking after 2 laps at a short track in my experience. This is partially due to tire compound and partially due to the factory alignment. Better tires are a must, but nothing crazy. Even Hankook V12 EVOs would be sufficient. Just something that won't squirm and limit even a novice driver.

i have to disagree with you and agree with OP. i've tracked 4 times on the stock tires and they wear just fine. just enough grip to keep you from being stupid.

[Black Tire]

Originally Posted by CSG Mike

I would disagree on your first point.

- The stock tires started chunking after 2 laps at a short track in my experience. This is partially due to tire compound and partially due to the factory alignment. Better tires are a must, but nothing crazy. Even Hankook V12 EVOs would be sufficient. Just something that won't squirm and limit even a novice driver.

Interesting, this may be due to the difference in weather conditions and track surface. I will have more track time next weekend and will try to remember to update this post.