First track day impressions

QB333

I just bought at 2012 Nismo, 2nd owner and the previous had upgraded a few items but the suspension is basically stock with brake ducting. I had the chance to take the new car up to Raceway Park of the Midlands (RPM), formerly Mid America Motorplex near Omaha IA. While I'm new to this car I also have an LS2 swapped 350Z that's a dedicated track car that I've run in TT with NASA, I also have been the NASA TT Director for the Central Region for a few years now. Anyways...

Short story: It needs an LSD, good shocks and a lot of cooling work.

Long story:
I'll start by saying the Potenza S04 tires 285/305 on the car simply just do not have a heck of a lot of grip and the Stop Tech pads proved to be very overwhelming for the tires under braking and seemed to have a bit more rear bias. The ABS was very active especially where there are any undulations in the road. The turn in was good but again with a little heat the tires would give up pretty early through long sweepers or double apex sections like T3, T7&8 at RPM. Through T4 which is a somewhat high speed left hander with some rough patches I found the car to be a touch squirrely fighting for grip all the way to the outer rumble strips.

Putting in laps is relatively short lived due to oil temps, which, I expected but I figured this would give me a reference point once I have installed an oil cooler. I seemed to be able to do a warm up lap, and about 1.5 hot laps before the oil temps were into the 270-280F range. A cool down lap would get things back to the 245-255 range usually. I never came across any brake fade or even a hint of it. I assume this can be attributed to the ducting, low grip levels and the fact I couldn't quite get in 2 laps due to oil temps.

Lower speed corners required modest throttle inputs to keep from burning up the inside tire on corner exit but it did have decent ability to rotate the car as needed with both the go pedal and brake inputs. I did get fuel starve twice around 3/4 tank in a hard right hander, which I've read is a problem so no surprise there.

All in all, I had a blast running down an M1, and a C6 vett and with a couple tweaks here and there I think it will be an excellent street car with a little track car duty. I’m sure I’ll be asking questions and look forward to getting to know the Z34 crowd. Cheers!