wstar's Journal

Rusty · 06-30-2014, 10:57 PM

When I was hanging around a few race teams back in the day. What they would do is change the crank and rod bearings every so often. Never pull the engine. Just drop the pan. Remove the caps, mike the journals. Replace with new bearings and bolts. Never seen them have a bottom end problem. We're talking about the old 427 big block chebys used for roadracing. A lot of weight spinning around. Think you could do something like this to keep the engine alive longer.

wstar · 07-01-2014, 12:37 AM

Sounds plausible. Now I just need to figure out how to reliably do that sort of work myself in my garage.

I have two blocks now anyways for better or worse, so I'll probably try to work out a system of rotating the two blocks once a year or so and then working on beefing up the previous block before the next swap. Maybe for the first iteration I'll just fix any obvious damage, replace wear-items, and stick in a Nismo oil pump. Then we'll see if I can go further for the next one once I at least halfway know what I'm doing

wstar · 07-18-2014, 09:32 PM

Random updates: I chunked a front brake pad at CotA. These were the Carbon-Lorraine RC6E. They had plenty of thickness left, but they've been on the car for nearly a year, so I guess their age and the excess heat from hard braking at CotA did them in. While I'm interminably waiting for 2x sets of RC6 fronts from Essex, I ordered some Hawk in DTC-70 front and DTC-60 rear to hold me over since those ship out much faster. Assuming the Hawks still have life left when the RC6 arrive, I'll save the used Hawks as backups for the next time I destroy a pad or two

Hawk pads should be here Tuesday. Will be doing my brake pads and some related overdue work in the wheel wells (front brake rotor discs, replacing studs + lugs, etc).

I'm also going to take a stab at venting my hood this next week with a cutoff wheel and some mesh and whatnot, we'll see what happens as that project evolves

Revised remaining schedule for the year (assuming I don't miss any of them!):

Aug 2: MSR-Houston - Race 4 Charity
Aug 23-24: TWS - PDS (maybe!)
Sep 6-7: TWS - The Driver's Edge
Sep 20-21: NOLA - NASA
Oct 4-5: MSR-Houston - The Driver's Edge
Oct 11-12: TWS - NASA
Nov 1-2: Eagle's Canyon - NASA
Nov 22-23: TWS - The Driver's Edge

wstar · 08-01-2014, 09:11 PM

Well I never got around to messing with hood vents this week. The wheel stud thing got more complicated than I expected

ARP Wheel Studs:

Pros: ridiculously long - way longer than the Nismo 60mm (I'm sure they'll stick out of any wheel, which makes lugs very easy), well-made, and have nice bullet noses for easy threading.

Cons: the ones made in our normal thread size (that e.g. Z1 sells) actually don't have the correct knurl pattern for our hubs. They *will* go in, but it requires a ton of force because you're basically destroying the knurl pattern on the hubs or the bolts or both.

I thought it was going to be a quick job like my last stud replacement: press them out with a ball joint separator thingy, and then press them back in with lug nuts and a stack of washers (and/or an appropriate socket as a spacer). However, because of the force required to press them in, you end up partially damaging the threads if you apply enough torque to seat them. So the only reasonable way to install them is to use a hydraulic press, which means taking the hubs off the car to carry them over to the press, adding a ton of labor and finagling to the process.

Because of that, I only did my front studs today. I didn't have the necessary socket + puller handy to pull the rear hubs off the car. The studs are pretty awesome once installed, but grrrrr at having to pull off the hubs to install them.

Pads:
Other than that, replaced front rotor rings and swapped all my pads out to Hawk DTC-70 front + DTC-60 rear as a temporary setup for now. I'd rather still be on Carbon-Lorraine, but Essex still hasn't even gotten back in touch with me about a shipping estimate for my front pads (it's been a month since the order, and I've emailed them about the order twice and gotten no response

). Could be 6 months out for all I can tell at this point. I absolutely *love* the CL pads, but if I just can't reasonably source them, I may have to try something else. I've heard Cobalt Friction is similar and made in the states, but I'm not sure they yet carry the shapes I need.

Charity Race Tomorrow
So I'm basically as ready as I'm gonna be for the Charity Race tomorrow: new studs in front, old studs in rear, some super-hardcore Hawk pad compound I've never tried before all around, and oh yeah unlike the CL's they need proper bedding, and I have no idea if I'll be able to bed them right during the first practice session in the morning or not. Sometimes you have to learn to embrace the unknown and wing it I guess

Rusty · 08-02-2014, 12:44 AM

Did you not read my thread on installing the ARP studs? LMAO.

Installing ARP wheel studs

I've used the CL pads on my race bike years ago. Loved them. Thinking about trying them on the Z.

Good luck on the race.

wstar · 08-02-2014, 05:42 AM

Nope, I missed it somehow. Still, I probably would've read it and then said "Yeah but why'd he take the hubs off at all?" (well, bolt length, but even that you can maybe manage on-car). The root of my problems is that with the correctly-knurled Nismo studs, I was able to get away with cheating and just sucking them back into the hub holes with an impact gun, lug nut, and some kind of spacer setup. Can't do that with these. If I had been pressing them in correctly all along I might not have noticed that my cheat stopped working :P

Rusty · 08-02-2014, 08:18 PM

Used to install studs with a bunch of washers, lug nut, and an impact. No longer doing that because it will pull too hard on the threads. Ended up with gulled threads on some studs.

Found out it's just better to remove the spindle/bearing/axle and either press them in or beat them in.

wstar · 08-03-2014, 12:00 PM

The Race 4 Charity event at MSR Houston was awesome! We had a bunch of guys from the Houston Z's crew show to participate and/or hang out, so there were lots of Z's in the parking lot

The TT

Big thanks to MSR Houston for putting on such a fun event. I ran in what they labeled the "Australian Pursuit Time Trail" group. Now that I understand it a little better: it's basically the road-course version of a bracket race for cars/drivers with wildly varying lap times, with all the cars out together. You set a qualifying time, then they release everyone slowest cars first, spaced out such that they would theoretically all meet at the finish line at the end of the last lap. The winner is basically the guy who finishes first-ish, but what that really boils down to is maintaining as close to your qualifying time as you can in spite of traffic. If you have any laps under your qualifying time, you get penalized for those.

I didn't even bother trying to game the lap-time system; I just went out there and hauled and tried to pass everyone I could safely pass

. I think most of the rest of the drivers were having fun with it too; they said in the first of our two race sessions, all but 3 cars broke under their qualifying time

Hawk DTC-70/60 pads

I bedded these pads on-track during our morning practice session, using my Hankook RS-3's and progressively bringing up my braking force over a few laps. Then I ran a couple more hot laps before bringing it in, which was probably less than ideal. Still, they seemed to bed well and leave a consistent transfer layer, and worked great for the following two sessions. They were pretty good at modulation, had a nice high torque, and the initial bite was in a nice reasonable range where it's easy to control but still grabs the car.

My only complaint is that in the final session of the day (Race 2), I had what I think were some heavy ABS ice-mode issues. It was a little surprising because I didn't have it all day before that, but I think it was just the heat buildup throughout the day finally got the brakes up to a critical temperature where the front DTC-70's torque fell off just enough that the rear DTC-60 were grabbing better, which then triggers the ABS system to shoot itself in the head. I was able to pump the brake pedal to reset the ABS, at which point the pads themselves stopped the car fine, but the inherent delays in the process of reacting to and dealing with ice-mode would inevitably send me a good bit deeper into the corner than I intended. After about 4 of those incidents within 2-3 laps I went ahead and pitted in early - didn't want to risk hitting that ice mode in close traffic and taking out someone else's car.

I still need to tear down the car this week and make sure nothing's physically wrong with any of the pads that could have contributed, but barring that I'm assuming it's our ABS controller's fault and not the pads. Probably for this car with Hawk DTC, you need a bigger gap in front/rear pad torque to avoid it.

Tires

I ran 3 full-on hot sessions on the Conti GT-O slicks (that I did a light scrub-in session on a few weeks ago). I love these tires, but coming from street tires I'm sure I'd love any decent slick. Strangely, just looking at wear pattern on the tire, they seem to want slightly less rear camber than my RS3's do (could also mean I'm just not pushing the rears as much as they're capable of, relative to how I was doing on the RS3?). I set my cold pressure before the first session at 20 in the rear and 21 in the front, and they felt great and the wear pattern looked ok, so I just left it alone the rest of the day. I'll micromanage temps and pressures some other time, for now I'm just enjoying them and getting used to them

My best lap times from the first session (practice) on RS3 to the second session (qualifying) on the Slicks dropped about 3 seconds (~1:51.xx -> ~1:48.xx).

Video
I'm planning to upload the full session video for both of the Race sessions later, but they're huge and take forever to process and upload, so it might be a day or two. For now I just uploaded lap excerpts for my best times on both tires:

RS3 @ 1:51.34 in Practice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJRhNQng4y4
Slicks @ 1:48.24 in Qualifying - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedmaplytNI

wstar · 08-04-2014, 03:18 PM

Got the 2x Race session videos uploaded and edited, and put some commentary chat-bubbles in places. It sucks that my rear camera was facing the pavement all weekend, would've been nice to review some of those passes.

TT Race1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6lxgJqiBw
TT Race2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwBauST02I4 (this is the one I ended early due to braking issues)

guru · 08-04-2014, 11:08 PM

great job man!!!

wstar · 08-05-2014, 12:02 AM

Thanks!

Hey the next two PDS @ TWS are Aug 23-24 and Sept 27-28. I think I can make either one, depending a little on my availability of functional tires and brake pads on any given week

wstar · 08-14-2014, 04:27 PM

The Situation (not as in Jersey Shore!)

So I've been returning to pondering the long-term fate of my growing road-racing hobby, and I think I'm slowly coming around to some decisions here. I like getting lots of track time, and I think this is a hobby that will stick with me a while. I also think I'm going to want to do something competitive (not pro-racing-career competitive, I mean hobby-level competitive) because it makes it even more fun.

I love driving this 370 because it's what I started learning to drive (well, really drive) on, and I've put a lot of blood, sweat, and dollars into this car. However, if I want to do something competitive with it, I'm not sure I'm up for that.

It would mean some NASA/SCCA sports-car class that it fits in (e.g. NASA TT3/ST3 in roughly its current condition + a few extra safety mods to pass inspection). The thing is, if I look hard at the costs on that, they're pretty high over the long term, and they start getting even higher the further you get up the ranks in being really competitive for the top, as there's a lot of custom engineering and fabrication and exotic parts and constant refreshes of slightly-worn parts, etc involved if you want to really compete. And even at these relatively mild hp:weight ratios, the car takes a fair amount of abuse even without incidents. Any incident (contacts, flying into walls, blowing an engine/trans, etc) will be a huge surprise chunk of change that I'd have to be ready to absorb quickly to stay in the game, or could just put me out for a good long while.

So I've been digging on the net and looking at various other class options. Mostly I've been looking at the various lower-cost spec-based series, because the idea of having a relatively fixed spec is appealing (far less engineering and dollars and rules-bending involved in placing well - focus is on driving). While my income-level is pretty good, I do have a full time job to contend with and my hobby resources are far less than infinite

SM vs SRF

Really, the top contenders from everything I've looked at boil down to Spec Miata and Spec Racer Ford. I briefly entertained some of the really-low end open-wheel formulas like Formula 500 as well, but for all practical purposes those amount to running an oversized go-kart with bigger wheels and a snowmobile engine on a road-course, and I decided that wasn't appealing.

SM and SRF both have a few key basic things I really like: they're Spec series, they're relatively-low cost, the cars are probably fun to drive, they *can* be driven in mixed-car-type groups at random events/DEs/etc. Both have a really active community of friendly people, and have race groups with lots of cars in the field all around the country, etc.

At this point in the process, I'm leaning heavily towards SRF as my option. The key points in SRF's favor (vs SM and vs all other options in general):

Fairly low entry cost. $12-18K will buy you a used SRF machine that's ready-to-race with a few spares on hand if you shop around a while. SM is even cheaper of course, so this is really a point in SM's favor between the two. Still, it's not a bad entry cost.
Really really spec. Unlike SM where at competitive levels there's all sorts of rules-bending and ways to spend gobs of money to get an edge in some grey area and a wild variety of suppliers of parts of various repute... the SRF spec is very tightly controlled. Single source for major parts, and they're sealed at the factory and can't be modded (e.g. engine, trans, shocks, etc). There's no room for deviations in anything really, except tuning your own suspension settings. The sealed engines are tuned to +/- 3HP at the factory and never get touched again. This is both nice for fairness of competition, and it's nice because it completely takes the option off the table for me wasting a ton of time and money modding/upgrading those parts.
The maintenance costs are pretty damn cheap, although it's debatable whether it's cheaper than SM. E.g. 1-3 sets of tires last a season at $600/set. Brake rotors + pads last a whole season. Really all that's left after that is fluids and such for a very small engine/car.
Damage is *way* cheaper than even Spec Miata. Being a custom-designed, extremely simple tube-frame car with fiberglass body panels (just 3 of them: front, mid, rear), and absolutely no excess mechanical/electrical stuff anywhere, repairs are easy. A serious wreck in a production-based Miata may take thousands to fix and the same incident in an SRF might take only hundreds.
Value - a relatively minor point, but SRF cars seem to retain value and re-sell well. The series has been around for 20 years now and had a handful of rare updates to the spec, but even the oldest cars (that have been updated) are still running competitively and selling between SRF racers at good values.
There's an SRF shop at one of my local tracks (MSR Houston), so I'd have some local support for repairs and parts and whatnot.

The road from here

I think the first thing I need to do is take a couple test drives sometime in the next few months on various options, especially SM and SRF cars, so that I'll know whether the class feels good to drive (to me) and how they compare from a driver perspective. If I pull the trigger on this, it will probably be at least a year out from now, so I'm just planning well in advance.

All in all I'm still likely to keep my 370Z around as well. It's nice to have 2x options to bring out to a random DE-type event, especially if one might be out of service at any given time. The Z is fun and has two seats so I can give rides and get on-board advice. The major directional change in plans that starts taking effect now, though, is that I don't really ever intend to race the Z competitively in a real class. It's just going to be a fun track car and nothing else.

Since SRF is more of an SCCA thing than a NASA thing, that also means as I look to pick up a comp license I'm more likely to look at SCCA than NASA now so that things are simpler when I pick up the SRF, and I may not bother trying to hump my Z out to far-flung NASA events in the near future like I was intending. Actually, the NOLA trip that was coming up soon is almost certainly off the table. I'm still a NASA member though and will likely hit their upcoming event at TWS with the Z for HPDE4 and talk about maybe doing TT3 not-very-competitively with it just for the fun times.

wstar · 08-14-2014, 04:31 PM

Oh and for reference on what Spec Racer Ford is: Hagerman RacEngineering - SCCA Spec Racer Ford is a decent link.

Also, a couple great videos from an SRF driver I follow on youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEyTW4D8vRg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9gq4H1lRng

sig11 · 08-14-2014, 08:41 PM

One downside to the open wheel type cars is that it limits your options for DE groups somewhat. It may be difficult to find a group in your area that will allow a small car like that since they can be so hard to see from inside a big car. We usually stick them in the advanced/open passing group because of that.

I think I've said it before... It is so nice to have a cheaper car in case of accidents. I hit some trees in my Z33 in June but I was thankfully able to make Mid-Ohio in the 370 the next month while I was still looking for parts.

wstar · 08-14-2014, 09:00 PM

I'm not sure which part of my rambling speculations you're referring to really (e.g. the F-500 part?), but the SRF isn't an open-wheel car. It's small-ish and open-cockpit, but closed-wheel, and it can get along in a regular group and do normal passing signals, etc. Size-wise it's comparable to a topless Miata. And yeah I'm running in the advanced group with my Z anyways.

Assuming this link works correctly, this should jump to 7:00 into this video, where I'm following (and eventually passing) an SRF and Miata: makes the size comparison obvious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6lxgJqiBw#t=420

06-30-2014, 10:57 PM	#826 (permalink)
Rusty Ronin Samurai - Assassin Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Fayettenam,Pennsyltucky Age: 68 Posts: 35,186 Drives: 2011 Nismo GM 6M Rep Power: 2684437	When I was hanging around a few race teams back in the day. What they would do is change the crank and rod bearings every so often. Never pull the engine. Just drop the pan. Remove the caps, mike the journals. Replace with new bearings and bolts. Never seen them have a bottom end problem. We're talking about the old 427 big block chebys used for roadracing. A lot of weight spinning around. Think you could do something like this to keep the engine alive longer. __________________ 浪人 - 殺し屋 "The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only" http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

07-01-2014, 12:37 AM	#827 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Sounds plausible. Now I just need to figure out how to reliably do that sort of work myself in my garage. I have two blocks now anyways for better or worse, so I'll probably try to work out a system of rotating the two blocks once a year or so and then working on beefing up the previous block before the next swap. Maybe for the first iteration I'll just fix any obvious damage, replace wear-items, and stick in a Nismo oil pump. Then we'll see if I can go further for the next one once I at least halfway know what I'm doing __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

07-18-2014, 09:32 PM	#828 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Random updates: I chunked a front brake pad at CotA. These were the Carbon-Lorraine RC6E. They had plenty of thickness left, but they've been on the car for nearly a year, so I guess their age and the excess heat from hard braking at CotA did them in. While I'm interminably waiting for 2x sets of RC6 fronts from Essex, I ordered some Hawk in DTC-70 front and DTC-60 rear to hold me over since those ship out much faster. Assuming the Hawks still have life left when the RC6 arrive, I'll save the used Hawks as backups for the next time I destroy a pad or two Hawk pads should be here Tuesday. Will be doing my brake pads and some related overdue work in the wheel wells (front brake rotor discs, replacing studs + lugs, etc). I'm also going to take a stab at venting my hood this next week with a cutoff wheel and some mesh and whatnot, we'll see what happens as that project evolves Revised remaining schedule for the year (assuming I don't miss any of them!): Aug 2: MSR-Houston - Race 4 Charity Aug 23-24: TWS - PDS (maybe!) Sep 6-7: TWS - The Driver's Edge Sep 20-21: NOLA - NASA Oct 4-5: MSR-Houston - The Driver's Edge Oct 11-12: TWS - NASA Nov 1-2: Eagle's Canyon - NASA Nov 22-23: TWS - The Driver's Edge guru and carlitos_370z like this. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 07-18-2014 at 09:36 PM.

08-01-2014, 09:11 PM	#829 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Well I never got around to messing with hood vents this week. The wheel stud thing got more complicated than I expected ARP Wheel Studs: Pros: ridiculously long - way longer than the Nismo 60mm (I'm sure they'll stick out of any wheel, which makes lugs very easy), well-made, and have nice bullet noses for easy threading. Cons: the ones made in our normal thread size (that e.g. Z1 sells) actually don't have the correct knurl pattern for our hubs. They will go in, but it requires a ton of force because you're basically destroying the knurl pattern on the hubs or the bolts or both. I thought it was going to be a quick job like my last stud replacement: press them out with a ball joint separator thingy, and then press them back in with lug nuts and a stack of washers (and/or an appropriate socket as a spacer). However, because of the force required to press them in, you end up partially damaging the threads if you apply enough torque to seat them. So the only reasonable way to install them is to use a hydraulic press, which means taking the hubs off the car to carry them over to the press, adding a ton of labor and finagling to the process. Because of that, I only did my front studs today. I didn't have the necessary socket + puller handy to pull the rear hubs off the car. The studs are pretty awesome once installed, but grrrrr at having to pull off the hubs to install them. Pads: Other than that, replaced front rotor rings and swapped all my pads out to Hawk DTC-70 front + DTC-60 rear as a temporary setup for now. I'd rather still be on Carbon-Lorraine, but Essex still hasn't even gotten back in touch with me about a shipping estimate for my front pads (it's been a month since the order, and I've emailed them about the order twice and gotten no response ). Could be 6 months out for all I can tell at this point. I absolutely love the CL pads, but if I just can't reasonably source them, I may have to try something else. I've heard Cobalt Friction is similar and made in the states, but I'm not sure they yet carry the shapes I need. Charity Race Tomorrow So I'm basically as ready as I'm gonna be for the Charity Race tomorrow: new studs in front, old studs in rear, some super-hardcore Hawk pad compound I've never tried before all around, and oh yeah unlike the CL's they need proper bedding, and I have no idea if I'll be able to bed them right during the first practice session in the morning or not. Sometimes you have to learn to embrace the unknown and wing it I guess __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 08-01-2014 at 09:15 PM.

08-02-2014, 12:44 AM	#830 (permalink)
Rusty Ronin Samurai - Assassin Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Fayettenam,Pennsyltucky Age: 68 Posts: 35,186 Drives: 2011 Nismo GM 6M Rep Power: 2684437	Did you not read my thread on installing the ARP studs? LMAO. Installing ARP wheel studs I've used the CL pads on my race bike years ago. Loved them. Thinking about trying them on the Z. Good luck on the race. __________________ 浪人 - 殺し屋 "The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only" http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html Last edited by Rusty; 08-02-2014 at 12:47 AM.

08-02-2014, 05:42 AM	#831 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Nope, I missed it somehow. Still, I probably would've read it and then said "Yeah but why'd he take the hubs off at all?" (well, bolt length, but even that you can maybe manage on-car). The root of my problems is that with the correctly-knurled Nismo studs, I was able to get away with cheating and just sucking them back into the hub holes with an impact gun, lug nut, and some kind of spacer setup. Can't do that with these. If I had been pressing them in correctly all along I might not have noticed that my cheat stopped working :P __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

08-02-2014, 08:18 PM	#832 (permalink)
Rusty Ronin Samurai - Assassin Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: Fayettenam,Pennsyltucky Age: 68 Posts: 35,186 Drives: 2011 Nismo GM 6M Rep Power: 2684437	Used to install studs with a bunch of washers, lug nut, and an impact. No longer doing that because it will pull too hard on the threads. Ended up with gulled threads on some studs. Found out it's just better to remove the spindle/bearing/axle and either press them in or beat them in. __________________ 浪人 - 殺し屋 "The Difficult Anytime, The Impossible By Appointment Only" http://www.the370z.com/members-370z-...o-journal.html

08-03-2014, 12:00 PM	#833 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	The Race 4 Charity event at MSR Houston was awesome! We had a bunch of guys from the Houston Z's crew show to participate and/or hang out, so there were lots of Z's in the parking lot The TT Big thanks to MSR Houston for putting on such a fun event. I ran in what they labeled the "Australian Pursuit Time Trail" group. Now that I understand it a little better: it's basically the road-course version of a bracket race for cars/drivers with wildly varying lap times, with all the cars out together. You set a qualifying time, then they release everyone slowest cars first, spaced out such that they would theoretically all meet at the finish line at the end of the last lap. The winner is basically the guy who finishes first-ish, but what that really boils down to is maintaining as close to your qualifying time as you can in spite of traffic. If you have any laps under your qualifying time, you get penalized for those. I didn't even bother trying to game the lap-time system; I just went out there and hauled and tried to pass everyone I could safely pass . I think most of the rest of the drivers were having fun with it too; they said in the first of our two race sessions, all but 3 cars broke under their qualifying time Hawk DTC-70/60 pads I bedded these pads on-track during our morning practice session, using my Hankook RS-3's and progressively bringing up my braking force over a few laps. Then I ran a couple more hot laps before bringing it in, which was probably less than ideal. Still, they seemed to bed well and leave a consistent transfer layer, and worked great for the following two sessions. They were pretty good at modulation, had a nice high torque, and the initial bite was in a nice reasonable range where it's easy to control but still grabs the car. My only complaint is that in the final session of the day (Race 2), I had what I think were some heavy ABS ice-mode issues. It was a little surprising because I didn't have it all day before that, but I think it was just the heat buildup throughout the day finally got the brakes up to a critical temperature where the front DTC-70's torque fell off just enough that the rear DTC-60 were grabbing better, which then triggers the ABS system to shoot itself in the head. I was able to pump the brake pedal to reset the ABS, at which point the pads themselves stopped the car fine, but the inherent delays in the process of reacting to and dealing with ice-mode would inevitably send me a good bit deeper into the corner than I intended. After about 4 of those incidents within 2-3 laps I went ahead and pitted in early - didn't want to risk hitting that ice mode in close traffic and taking out someone else's car. I still need to tear down the car this week and make sure nothing's physically wrong with any of the pads that could have contributed, but barring that I'm assuming it's our ABS controller's fault and not the pads. Probably for this car with Hawk DTC, you need a bigger gap in front/rear pad torque to avoid it. Tires I ran 3 full-on hot sessions on the Conti GT-O slicks (that I did a light scrub-in session on a few weeks ago). I love these tires, but coming from street tires I'm sure I'd love any decent slick. Strangely, just looking at wear pattern on the tire, they seem to want slightly less rear camber than my RS3's do (could also mean I'm just not pushing the rears as much as they're capable of, relative to how I was doing on the RS3?). I set my cold pressure before the first session at 20 in the rear and 21 in the front, and they felt great and the wear pattern looked ok, so I just left it alone the rest of the day. I'll micromanage temps and pressures some other time, for now I'm just enjoying them and getting used to them My best lap times from the first session (practice) on RS3 to the second session (qualifying) on the Slicks dropped about 3 seconds (~1:51.xx -> ~1:48.xx). Video I'm planning to upload the full session video for both of the Race sessions later, but they're huge and take forever to process and upload, so it might be a day or two. For now I just uploaded lap excerpts for my best times on both tires: RS3 @ 1:51.34 in Practice - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJRhNQng4y4 Slicks @ 1:48.24 in Qualifying - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedmaplytNI Mike, DR_, Megan370z and 3 others like this. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 08-03-2014 at 12:16 PM.

08-04-2014, 03:18 PM	#834 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Got the 2x Race session videos uploaded and edited, and put some commentary chat-bubbles in places. It sucks that my rear camera was facing the pavement all weekend, would've been nice to review some of those passes. TT Race1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6lxgJqiBw TT Race2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwBauST02I4 (this is the one I ended early due to braking issues) DR_, Rusty and carlitos_370z like this. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

08-04-2014, 11:08 PM	#835 (permalink)
guru Track Member Join Date: Dec 2011 Location: houston,tx Posts: 597 Drives: 2011 magblack 370z Rep Power: 14	great job man!!! __________________ JTRAN_MOTORSPORTS/GREDDY/MOTORDYNE/ACTION_CLUTCH/MEISTER_R/FORGESTAR/SPL/HOTCHKIS/SEIBON/KOGNITION/RECARO/CARBOTECH/STILLEN/PASSWORD_JDM

08-05-2014, 12:02 AM	#836 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Thanks! Hey the next two PDS @ TWS are Aug 23-24 and Sept 27-28. I think I can make either one, depending a little on my availability of functional tires and brake pads on any given week __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

08-14-2014, 04:27 PM	#837 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	The Situation (not as in Jersey Shore!) So I've been returning to pondering the long-term fate of my growing road-racing hobby, and I think I'm slowly coming around to some decisions here. I like getting lots of track time, and I think this is a hobby that will stick with me a while. I also think I'm going to want to do something competitive (not pro-racing-career competitive, I mean hobby-level competitive) because it makes it even more fun. I love driving this 370 because it's what I started learning to drive (well, really drive) on, and I've put a lot of blood, sweat, and dollars into this car. However, if I want to do something competitive with it, I'm not sure I'm up for that. It would mean some NASA/SCCA sports-car class that it fits in (e.g. NASA TT3/ST3 in roughly its current condition + a few extra safety mods to pass inspection). The thing is, if I look hard at the costs on that, they're pretty high over the long term, and they start getting even higher the further you get up the ranks in being really competitive for the top, as there's a lot of custom engineering and fabrication and exotic parts and constant refreshes of slightly-worn parts, etc involved if you want to really compete. And even at these relatively mild hp:weight ratios, the car takes a fair amount of abuse even without incidents. Any incident (contacts, flying into walls, blowing an engine/trans, etc) will be a huge surprise chunk of change that I'd have to be ready to absorb quickly to stay in the game, or could just put me out for a good long while. So I've been digging on the net and looking at various other class options. Mostly I've been looking at the various lower-cost spec-based series, because the idea of having a relatively fixed spec is appealing (far less engineering and dollars and rules-bending involved in placing well - focus is on driving). While my income-level is pretty good, I do have a full time job to contend with and my hobby resources are far less than infinite SM vs SRF Really, the top contenders from everything I've looked at boil down to Spec Miata and Spec Racer Ford. I briefly entertained some of the really-low end open-wheel formulas like Formula 500 as well, but for all practical purposes those amount to running an oversized go-kart with bigger wheels and a snowmobile engine on a road-course, and I decided that wasn't appealing. SM and SRF both have a few key basic things I really like: they're Spec series, they're relatively-low cost, the cars are probably fun to drive, they can be driven in mixed-car-type groups at random events/DEs/etc. Both have a really active community of friendly people, and have race groups with lots of cars in the field all around the country, etc. At this point in the process, I'm leaning heavily towards SRF as my option. The key points in SRF's favor (vs SM and vs all other options in general): Fairly low entry cost. $12-18K will buy you a used SRF machine that's ready-to-race with a few spares on hand if you shop around a while. SM is even cheaper of course, so this is really a point in SM's favor between the two. Still, it's not a bad entry cost. Really really spec. Unlike SM where at competitive levels there's all sorts of rules-bending and ways to spend gobs of money to get an edge in some grey area and a wild variety of suppliers of parts of various repute... the SRF spec is very tightly controlled. Single source for major parts, and they're sealed at the factory and can't be modded (e.g. engine, trans, shocks, etc). There's no room for deviations in anything really, except tuning your own suspension settings. The sealed engines are tuned to +/- 3HP at the factory and never get touched again. This is both nice for fairness of competition, and it's nice because it completely takes the option off the table for me wasting a ton of time and money modding/upgrading those parts. The maintenance costs are pretty damn cheap, although it's debatable whether it's cheaper than SM. E.g. 1-3 sets of tires last a season at $600/set. Brake rotors + pads last a whole season. Really all that's left after that is fluids and such for a very small engine/car. Damage is way cheaper than even Spec Miata. Being a custom-designed, extremely simple tube-frame car with fiberglass body panels (just 3 of them: front, mid, rear), and absolutely no excess mechanical/electrical stuff anywhere, repairs are easy. A serious wreck in a production-based Miata may take thousands to fix and the same incident in an SRF might take only hundreds. Value - a relatively minor point, but SRF cars seem to retain value and re-sell well. The series has been around for 20 years now and had a handful of rare updates to the spec, but even the oldest cars (that have been updated) are still running competitively and selling between SRF racers at good values. There's an SRF shop at one of my local tracks (MSR Houston), so I'd have some local support for repairs and parts and whatnot. The road from here I think the first thing I need to do is take a couple test drives sometime in the next few months on various options, especially SM and SRF cars, so that I'll know whether the class feels good to drive (to me) and how they compare from a driver perspective. If I pull the trigger on this, it will probably be at least a year out from now, so I'm just planning well in advance. All in all I'm still likely to keep my 370Z around as well. It's nice to have 2x options to bring out to a random DE-type event, especially if one might be out of service at any given time. The Z is fun and has two seats so I can give rides and get on-board advice. The major directional change in plans that starts taking effect now, though, is that I don't really ever intend to race the Z competitively in a real class. It's just going to be a fun track car and nothing else. Since SRF is more of an SCCA thing than a NASA thing, that also means as I look to pick up a comp license I'm more likely to look at SCCA than NASA now so that things are simpler when I pick up the SRF, and I may not bother trying to hump my Z out to far-flung NASA events in the near future like I was intending. Actually, the NOLA trip that was coming up soon is almost certainly off the table. I'm still a NASA member though and will likely hit their upcoming event at TWS with the Z for HPDE4 and talk about maybe doing TT3 not-very-competitively with it just for the fun times. travisjb, wheee! and Rusty like this. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 08-14-2014 at 04:31 PM.

08-14-2014, 04:31 PM	#838 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Oh and for reference on what Spec Racer Ford is: Hagerman RacEngineering - SCCA Spec Racer Ford is a decent link. Also, a couple great videos from an SRF driver I follow on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEyTW4D8vRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9gq4H1lRng __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

08-14-2014, 08:41 PM	#839 (permalink)
sig11 A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Detroit Posts: 1,294 Drives: 09 370Z Red Sport-MT Rep Power: 18	One downside to the open wheel type cars is that it limits your options for DE groups somewhat. It may be difficult to find a group in your area that will allow a small car like that since they can be so hard to see from inside a big car. We usually stick them in the advanced/open passing group because of that. I think I've said it before... It is so nice to have a cheaper car in case of accidents. I hit some trees in my Z33 in June but I was thankfully able to make Mid-Ohio in the 370 the next month while I was still looking for parts.

08-14-2014, 09:00 PM	#840 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	I'm not sure which part of my rambling speculations you're referring to really (e.g. the F-500 part?), but the SRF isn't an open-wheel car. It's small-ish and open-cockpit, but closed-wheel, and it can get along in a regular group and do normal passing signals, etc. Size-wise it's comparable to a topless Miata. And yeah I'm running in the advanced group with my Z anyways. Assuming this link works correctly, this should jump to 7:00 into this video, where I'm following (and eventually passing) an SRF and Miata: makes the size comparison obvious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mo6lxgJqiBw#t=420 __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 08-14-2014 at 09:04 PM.

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