wstar's Journal

wstar

Well, I'll give it a go and see what happens

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VDC_OFF

I need to get out there with you guys to try out this thing called "traction". But with all the issues of brake pads and oil temps, sounds like it will just add to the list of mods to buy since I dont have problems with those parts just yet.

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wstar

It's really not as scary as it seems if you just go out for a light weekend once in a blue moon. It's when you get addicted and start pushing things a bit further that all your money disappears

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VDC_OFF

mine started disappearing when I purchased the car

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wstar

Interim update on braking stuff: I did get the CL brake pads in (RC6 front, RC5+ rear). I like the look of the pads so far. I lightly sanded the front rotors and hit them with a Brake Hone before the pad swap to try to help eliminate vibration issues from plain deposits.

The new pads pretty quickly wiped the rotors back to shiny clean bare metal driving them cold on the street, no Carbotech material left at all. Front's still got a steering wheel judder though, which I assume means I already created hotspots and thickness/hardness variation in these rotors at the last track weekend (and/or the street driving on the deposits afterwards) and there's not much to be done about it. It could also just be mounting issues: they used too much of some "high temp" paint on the Z1 hats, and it melted near the lugs and made a bit of a mess. I tried to sand that back flat before re-installing, but I couldn't get it all off since it's pretty tough stuff at room temp. Whatever, just tired of messing with those rotors anyways.

Ordered a new set of 1-piece DBA-4000 front rotors through kamispeed, they arrive monday, hoping this combo will survive a bit better than the last, but only time will tell . I left the rear rotors alone (the cheap slotted 1-piece from Z1) since they seem healthy for now.

The feel on the new pads is pretty nice so far, at least on the street. It doesn't have the extra-grabby initial bite of the XP-10 front on light pedal application, but seems to have plenty of torque once you lay into the pedal a bit, and seems easier to modulate too. Can't wait to see how they perform back at the track.

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ChrisSlicks

Wait until you get them up to operating temp, you'll be loving it Takes 2 corners for me and then they're good to go.

Maybe more street driving can sand away the judder on the current rotors, but hopefully the DBA's will work out for you - better cooling efficiency theoretically.

I wish I knew what was ultimately causing your brake shudder issues, very annoying.

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Hotchkis ARB | Stillen CAI | Art Pipes | Berk CBE | Stillen AP Racing Brakes | AE Performance Oil Cooler | BC Racing ER Coilovers | Doran Control Arms

VoBoy

If the DBA's are don't solve the issue, I'd say go for cheap blanks from Rockauto.com and consider it a wear item. Or maybe splurge on some Stoptechs?

wstar

Well there are really only two other possibilities if the DBAs get screwed up quickly: one is that a caliper piston is sticking and causing uneven heating. I did a caliper rebuild earlier on in the debugging process though, so even if you assume I'm capable of screwing up the rebuild, I'd be unlikely to see the same problem both before and after the rebuild I'd think. But I'm pretty sure I don't have a sticking piston.

The other possibility of that sort is that one or both of my front caliper bodies is bad (fatigued and not holding shape, or slightly bent outwards from the original shape or something. I think even very small hard-to-see amounts of that sort of thing could be big issues).

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wstar

Well, status update: I was supposed to be back at MSR-H this past weekend with TDE again, but I got cancelled by work at the last minute. We had a sudden service outage (I do techie stuff) that started around noon Thursday and I was basically chained to my keyboard at home working on it non-stop through early Saturday morning (then a brief sleep break and back on it until late Saturday night). I had been planning to not work much Friday and do my car prep and head out, was pretty pissed off at my job for making me miss the weekend.

So... no real track test for the new brake setup yet. I will say though that my experience so far on the street (including some mildly track-y conditions testing out in the middle of nowhere in zero traffic) is that I love this CL RC6/RC5+ setup on the stock sport calipers. They seem to be basically self-maintaining on the rotor stuff as advertised, they're great at leveling out any unevenness in the rotor itself, the squeaking isn't too bad even after a lot of cold street driving, and the modulation is awesome. I think I was being fooled before by equating the Carbotechs' strong initial bite with being a "better" pad. These will clamp down just as hard when you lay your foot into the pedal, but you get so much easier modulation in the partial-pressure situations because the bite isn't so snappy. The release is more progressive as well. I think it's really going to help with my brake-to-maintenance-throttle transitions and working on trail braking.

Next weekend I'm scheduled for is late January. In the meantime all car stuff is basically on hold while I work on other life upgrades that will further enable my car hobby: buying a new house with a 3 car garage and a DD truck so I can take this car permanently off the street and finish going all out on the car's setup. I may initially keep it stickered and still drive it to and from events, but eventually it will go on a trailer, hence the truck choice for the DD.

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ChrisSlicks

Sorry about missing the event, it sucks when work gets in the way like that. Happened to me last weekend fortunately I wasn't scheduled for any events.

Glad you're digging the pads, you'll love them on the track I promise!

Big thumbs up for planning to turn the Z into a track monster!

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Hotchkis ARB | Stillen CAI | Art Pipes | Berk CBE | Stillen AP Racing Brakes | AE Performance Oil Cooler | BC Racing ER Coilovers | Doran Control Arms

VoBoy

Hmmmm... there are a couple of grandsport speedway events and msrh race 4 charity coming up.... :P

wstar

Yeah I'll take a look and see what I can squeeze in, in the meantime. I've still never been to Grandsport even once. Every single time I plan for it, something goes wrong :P

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wstar

Belated random updates!

Got the house and truck part nailed down. Now I have an acre of land in a unrestricted area and the Z has a 3-car garage all to itself, way out north of Houston close to Pinehurst, and I just picked up a used '05 Ford F-150 as a DD / tow-vehicle

Made it to the TDE event at MSR-H for the weekend of Jan 26/27 a little over a week ago. It was my first event back since September, and I really had to shake some rust off. I think I picked a bad time in my development to be putting such huge gaps in the timeline, but that's life. So mostly I was just trying to get back up to where I was before all weekend.

Mostly it went well. 2nd to last session Sunday was in very wet conditions, and my rear 295-width Conti DW's had already worn down pretty close to dead flat on tread by then. It was kinda hilarious. I had an instructor for this run. She jumped in the car at the grid and asked what my plans were for the session. I said something like "Hey it's wet and I've got almost no tread left, I'm just gonna take it easy and try not to spin", and then I proceeded to spin out on the first tight corner of the warmup lap. It came on outta nowhere without really feeling it give way first, and I corrected poorly. Luckily it was at very low speed and we just kinda drifted off track as we were spinning in slow motion and then drove back on when it was clear. It was still kinda stupid and embarrassing

Had another related first-ever event: first time I've ever had another car spin out directly in front of me mid-corner. This was in the dry, and the car had just passed me on the previous straight and entered a bit off-line and aggressive. I made it around him, but it was tough to avoid that "oh **** just stop" automatic mental reaction. I probably hesitated a fraction longer than I should have, but it still went well and I never came to a complete stop.

The CL brake pad setup (RC6 / RC5+) was pretty amazing, I was thoroughly impressed with how consistent the pads were on-track, and how much easier they were to modulate than my previous (Carbotech). Not that I'm yet the world's best at braking, but these are gonna make my life easier.

I did develop some brake vibrations on the second day, but I was feeling it in the chassis and pedal more than the steering wheel for once, assumed it was the rear rotors going and just drove through it for the rest of the event.

I got my post-analysis finished up yesterday on the car, and yes that was it. I had switched to a new set of DBA4000's in the front, but still had a set of cheap Z1 rotors on the back that have been on since back when I was having other brake issues with vibration. Either they were damaged back then and it took a while to show up, or they're just not capable of handling the heat. Either way, who cares. The front (DBA4000) rotors checked out on the dial gauge (at multiple radius on both sides) to within .001 still, and thickness variation random samples were all within .001 as well, so those are still perfect post-event.

The rear (Z1) I only checked via dial gauge along the outside surface (since the shield covers the back), but even that was just all over the map around .006-ish variation, and often the sweep on that was pretty dramatic within a few inches. Ordered some DBA4K's for the rear to replace from kamispeed, and will check out the rear pads at that time and see if I need to clean them up (flatten em out a bit with a grinder) before re-bedding.

Next event is Mar 2/3 TDE at TWS in College Station. I've got a fresh set of Conti DW tires to go on the existing wheels, getting those mounted and balanced today. Other than that I'm just gonna get phunk's fuel starve kit (waiting here in a box) installed and probably not much else between now and March, although I may start ordering parts for the next phases of work to occur in mid-late March.

My phone was still down for datalogging purposes, so I didn't bother. I think I'm gonna put a Race Keeper in the car soon so I don't have to futz with phone stuff.

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SPOHN

I know what you mean by shaking the rust off. I have my first track day of the year next Friday. Been awhile due to my crash last year. I'm a little worried. Hard to shake that off.

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wstar

You'll be fine, just take it easy the first couple of sessions and feel out that grip all over again

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