oh lol nice have fun man and be safe

will do thanks. We'll see how much I like road racing :)

Well, I attended a mini-school track event this past Saturday. I had fun with the Z, especially since this was my first time really pushing the car through some turns. Wow, this car grips more than I expected. I know the car could have been pushed harder, but with this being my first event I was very hesitant to do so. We were not allowed to pass vehicles on the track so I tried to concentrate on learning the lines on my own. I wished that the instructor had better feedback and more seat time with me but it didn't go that way. He sat with me for 2 laps and just said that I had a good feel for the car...

I thought we were going to do 3, 25 minute sessions, but it turned into a long session with about 3 minute cool off periods waiting in the pit lane. We left the cars running while he jumped in the next car and we left for the next 2 laps (this was repeated 7 times, on top of 4-6 laps before that). Since this was the case, my car was pretty hot and I had an issue with my clutch fluid. I think I ended up boiling the fluid because The pedal got real sloppy and I ended up with about 2 inches of travel. I even had to pick up the pedal with my foot while driving the course. I made it to the pits, checked the fluid which was now a little below the minimum mark, and just let it cool. Topped off the fluid and the pedal was back in about 30 minutes. Oil temps managed to never top 240, even after that long run, which I am VERY happy with. I have the 24row tru-cool with a ducted air box that ran me $200 total :)

I may want to do this again in the future, but I'm still undecided. If I do, I will try to attend a Driver's Edge event, as I hear they are more helpful with instructing you. Of course, before then I'll need to invest in some new parts for the car. In the meantime, I might try out some autocross events.

Here are two videos from the event. The first has the instructor riding with me, and I rode the course in 3rd gear. The second video is my last lap where I lost clutch pedal pressure. I tried experimenting with 2nd-4th gear in that video.

^awesome

Right on man - what a blast good driving in the 1st vid. ~2:30 and on in the second one is good too, heh.

How'd you mount the camera? Is that a go-pro? I can't wait to get out and do some real racing like this w/my Z.

thanks. Yea, the GoPro is mounted on the rear side window

Noice vid, looks like you had a blast. I will have to try the mount on the outside quarter window. Exhaust sounds awesome. The pavement changes could take some getting used to. Thanks for sharing.

So what would you do for prepping the car next time? You mentioned clutch fluid, how did the brake pads hold up and brake fluid?

Here is a clip of the Motordyne ART pipes on the FI 18" exhaust


And the old clip with stock cats, for reference. (camera seems a little closer to the tips)

Sold ....I like the deep growl with the ART pipes. And the final whack of the throttle was awesome. Any drone?

Wow the ART pipes sound pretty awesome. If you get a chance, can you post some in car videos? I think my exhaust is too quiet, but I'm not sure if I want test pipes...

Depends on your event. Anything with 20-25 minute session with adequate cool down periods should be fine. For your first event, I'd go with the car stock to get a feel for it. I wasn't hard on the brakes at all, I was concentrating more on hitting lines and being smooth, rather than being fast.

There is a lot of interior noise with this setup (mostly due to the lack of sound deadening from factory), but no drone at 65-75mph at cruising throttle. 60mph with 15 to 20% throttle, there is some slight drone, but I hardly drive 60.

Thanks, I'll try to. I think the exhaust is perfect volume. My 18" resonated with stock cats sounded good inside, but pretty tame outside. This opens up the sound so well. Nothing but compliments with the ART pipes added on.

Feel any difference in torque? tuned?

low end felt better from 2K on, but shortly after I added the M370 manifold. I thought it felt great, then I added a COBB AP with a shelf nismo map and it feels 10x's smoother during normal acceleration.

Who was running the school? I would definitely suggest asking for another instructor next time.

Thanks for the 411 and advice.

As far as the COBB AP with shelf Nismo map, I was going to ask the same question after seeing your first page with mods.

Q: Did this eliminate the notorious throttle lag? I have a buddy with contacts at UpRev and almost pulled the trigger on a basic tune...but UpRev stated they are still looking into a fix for the throttle lag and it's due to the VVEL (varible valve event lift).