First Trackday Impressions

RCZ

Fairman, I think you are right, I think it deserves a 7 instead.

Here's video 1 of 4.

Check out the other cars in my class...needless to say I brought a small knife to this gun fight.





In this video you can see what I was talking about with the diff locking up sometimes and other times not. I was trying to get some wheel spin out of corners until the last lap where I tried to go for a cleaner one. Just lots of testing, no serious consistent laps.

m4a1mustang

LOL Nice. At :14 you see an old #31 Jeff Burton Nextel Cup car. Sweet.

__________________
- Steve

Zs & Coffee - Saturdays at 10AM in Fairfax, VA and Columbia, MD (Click the banner!)
LIKE us on Facebook!

travisjb

nice driving- looks like a fun track ! and a great write-up, thanks ! agree on pretty much all points !

really looking forward to the future write-ups as the car progresses

re mods, i think it'd make sense to start a separate thread at some point to talk about how to class this car for racing... good to think that through some so we can leave that option open, and make mods consistent with class, even if we have no immediate plans to race them outside of hpde / ta

370sed

Interesting writeup RCZ, thanks for that unbaised review. I can almost imagine myself sitting there with you. Your words are of a knowledgeable track addict and help me understand the car much better than marketing hype or around town type reviews.

For those like me, new to Nissan, looking for a new track car, however, it's frustrating so many areas of the car need improvement right out of the chute. That expense / work / warranty issues over the base car $$$ is getting up there to where a used ready-to-run Cayman is similar money with lots less problems.

Perhaps as a track car, a wait until used prices leaves $$$$ for these mods makes sense. Or I would prefer, Nissan might revise the car fixing them. No offense to anyone, but this exercise of looking for a track car replacement has me appreciating my RX-8 all the more.

I am surprised at Nissans engineers lack of follow thru to the spirit & DNA of a sports car. They had the opportunity and its sounds fairly easy- perfect, advance, and build on the huge success of the 350Z heritage. Yet engine cooling and powerband smoothness, transmission issues, some handling issues, NVH issues, and LSD issues got short shirft with them.

Damn! I wished they had taken the time/$ to do it right so I could buy this car, I seemed to have everything I wanted Here's hoping you can discover quick, inexpensive fixes to perfect the car.... I'll be following your journey

RCZ

Video 2 is up.



Yes thats the Viper ACR that passed me earlier that you see slammed into the wall at around 4:26

Just to be clear, I wasn't pushing the car all that much... maybe 85%....its was still on the original oil and with 700 miles on the ODO...

m4a1mustang

Watching that suspension work on the #31 car was awesome. Those cars are ridiculously fun to watch on the road courses.

__________________
- Steve

Zs & Coffee - Saturdays at 10AM in Fairfax, VA and Columbia, MD (Click the banner!)
LIKE us on Facebook!

RCZ

Haha yeah, but they are peppy on the straights.

m4a1mustang

Oh yeah. Hard to tell if that one was just running a crate motor or what, but a typical race-tuned NASCAR V8 will put out 900hp and rev to 9500 RPM.

Anyways, thanks for these vids. I find myself thinking about this car every day... don't know what to do with myself for the next couple of months before I buy!

__________________
- Steve

Zs & Coffee - Saturdays at 10AM in Fairfax, VA and Columbia, MD (Click the banner!)
LIKE us on Facebook!

ArtVandaleigh

Great track review. It's unfortunate to hear that an oil cooler looks to be a requirement for even standard track duty. Do you notice any overheating during daily driving or some "spirited" runs at times?

370sed

I hope someone here eventually puts something in place to follow differential temps. The C&D 370Z they were given had this 'option' as well. There must be a reason.

RCZ

yeah, thats not a bad idea....

Video 3

RCZ

Here's some cool pics from the Photographer, but he is insane as far as prices go.

PhotoReflect - Juha Lievonen - PhotosByJuha.com

StackTrack

Great write up RCZ ... but I gotta ask, since I didn't see it mentioned (surprisingly) anywhere:

Did you have VDC and other aides turned off?

If not, does that affect your write up in anyway?

-Stacy King
Asphalt Ventures

spiderman

Best write up to date RCZ ... thanks! Lots of opinions out there but I value your feedback based on what I've been reading (along with a couple others). When my Z comes in, I'm going to break it in for the first 1,000, then do an oil/filter change. Getting different feedback on using the Ester oil. I was thinking of K&N (or Wix) oil filter and changing to 5W-30 Castrol Edge synthetic. I'm not going to track the car. Thoughts?

__________________
grateful to be alive ... grateful to drive!

RCZ

It crossed my mind to mention it, but I guess I must have forgotten. VDC was off ALL the time. I had it on for 3 corners on the first lap of the first session and then I had to turn it off because it was getting in the way.

I would say that it does affect it quite a bit. You can't possibly drive the car the way it is meant to be driven with the VDC on. It is waaay too limiting and cuts in too early.

I appreciate that you value my opinion. That sounds like a good plan. Just to be on the safe side, I would definitely use the Ester oil Nissan recommends, or at least something with lots of ester additives. (Nissan oil is just oil with ester additives). I would stick with the factory filter. As far as your oil change. I would drive on the Nissan Oil until at least 5k, specially since you aren't going to track the car and therefore you wont need high heat/ high stress oils.


ANOTHER POINT ON OVERHEATING:

Now this one may seem a little crazy for most, but it does have some logical foundations and it worked in practice. So my friend had his TT built race 350Z there and as ALWAYS it was overheating. One of the guys there suggested turning the heater on full blast because that fixed his old car's overheating issues. The logic behind the suggestion was that the car uses engine heat to warm up the air that comes out of the vents when you turn the heat on. To do that, it runs the air through a separate radiator that is designed to warm up the air. Now, through that heat exchange, the energy used to heat up air has to have been lost somewhere else. He argued that the heater actually helps cool down the engine. So having tried just about everything else other than removing the front bumper of the TT350Z, we ran it with the heat blaring. No more overheating....at all.

So the next logical step was to try it on my car. The results were questionable...I don't know whether it was wishful thinking or not, but it seemed like it took a few extra laps to overheat than it had with the heat off. Don't take my word for it, but I think this might help a little bit. Someone who is getting on the track soon should check...