DDMotorsports: Redline Time Attack Round #7

M.Bonanni · 09-28-2009, 06:52 PM

Hey everyone! This past weekend was Round #7 of the 2009 Redline Time Attack series and the third round for the Street RWD West season championship. The DoubleDownMotorsports.com Time Attack Nissan 370Z was out there competing in the Street RWD class. Here is our story from the weekend as well as our quick impressions of some new parts that we finally got to track test.

The Setting:
The event was held 45 min outside of Las Vegas at a track called Spring Mountain Motorsports Park. It was blazing hot with the asphalt reading 150 degrees...in the paddock so I figure 165+ on the actual track. The track itself was 3.1 miles long with 18 turns. Definitely the perfect track for lightweight cars that have high cornering speeds and definitely not a horsepower track. Our 370Z would surely have its hands full in both the temperature department and the wieght department. Especially with the abundance of lightweight S2000s and Lotus' (Loti?) we would be competing against.

The New Parts:
The last time attack this car was at was Round #2 of the Redline Time Attack series at Willow Springs back in May. Since then we have added a few things to the car.

Back at Round #2 the high temps and lack of front camber adjustment from the factory left our front tires screaming for mercy after about a half of a lap. To fix this, we put SPC Performance front camber arms on the car and adjusted the camber to -3 degrees on the two front wheels to take advantage of a full contact patch of tire in the turns. We also added some Hotchkis Performance sway bars to combat the body roll we were seeing and set the rear sway bar in the middle setting so we could adjust either direction if necessary.

In the wheel & tire department our lightweight 18" Forgestar F14 wheels showed up without another minute to spare. We went with 9.5" fronts and 10" rears. We are limited to running a maximum tire width of 285 in the Redline Time Attack street class, so thats exactly what we ran in the rear, with a 275 width tire up front to compliment. This is a big change in both weight and tire width as at Round #2 we were running 245/275 tires on 19" rims. We stuck with the same Nitto NT05 street tires we ran in Round #2.

In the power department we added the Berk Technology Cat-Back Exhaust, but since the production versions aren't ready we were running the prototype version with h-pipe instead of the x-pipe, which made a bit more power. We also switched from the Jim Wolf Technology Dual Pop-Charger intake setup to the Injen Technology Dual Cold Air intake setup to see if there was any major noticeable difference.

On the cooling end of things, we were unfortunately not able to upgrade our oil cooler setup from the Mishimoto universal kit, but we did get a Jim Wolf Technology oil pan spacer kit which added an extra quart of oil capacity to help distribute heat and keep temps lower.

The last performance change we have made to the car since our last track outing was a Carbonetic 1.5 way LSD to replace our wounded stock one.

The Good:
The car is defintately faster overall with the new parts than it was at Round #2. Mid corner and corner exit have improved greatly with the wider tires, sway bars, and being able to dial in proper camber settings on all four wheels. Acceleration also feels noticeably better with the lighter wheel/tire package, exhaust, and intakes. The Carbonetic LSD is incredible and really let me start putting down power early exiting the corners.

The other good news is that there were no major issues we didn't already know about or expect going into the event.

The Bad:
We will start with the worst hang up of my weekend, the Hawk HP+ brake pads. At Round #2 we started surpassing the limit of these brake pads operating temperature range. After that event we had ordered some Carbotech XP10/XP8 pads to replace the Hawk HP+ for track duty. Unfortunately a customer called a week prior to this event and needed those exact pads for a track day of his right away. Well the only ones I had in stock were the ones I had set aside for my car so I sold them. I immediately called Carbotech and placed an order but a communication error resulted in the pads not showing up in time. So I was stuck using the Hawk HP+ again but this time the problem was 10x worse. Higher corner exit speeds, wider front tires, and a track that is much harder on brakes than Willow Springs meant that it didn't take long at all to reach the pad's operating temperature limit. And unlike Willow Springs you use the brakes often at Spring Mountain so there are really not enough periods without using them for them to cool back down. So if the brakes were completely cool, like cool to the touch, then I could get one hard lap on them before they were useless and I had to let them cool down completely again. This left me with one good lap for each practice session, which is nowhere near enough and even though they worked fine for that one lap, my confidence in them was shot, which had an effect on my driving.

The second biggest problem would have been the good old oil temperature if I had gotten more than one lap at a time. Because of the brake pad issue and only being able to run one hard lap at a time, oil temperatures never got hot enough to get the car to start cutting power, but after one hard lap it was close, around 260 degrees. At that rate, there was no way I would be able to run a full 20 minute session (about 4 hot laps at that track + warm up/cool down). Now, although my oil temp problem is not fixed, the JWT oil pan spacer did indeed help the situation making the oil temps rise slower than before. The reality is, a bigger cooler core will be the only way to eliminate the problem entirely if I will be pushing the car at 100% in the summer in the desert.

The third biggest problem, is another problem we also already knew about but had gotten worse with the higher cornering speeds. Since the car could now sustain higher lateral g-forces due to the handling improvements, it amplified the fuel starvation issue. At round #2 we would start seeing fuel starvation issues starting at a little over half a tank and below. At this last event, the fuel starvation started occuring at anything below 3/4 tank so I had to keep the tank completely full to avoid the issue which is a lot of extra weight to be carying around when you are trying for your best lap time.

The fourth problem is a small and temporary one that is normal. I battled all weekend with an understeer issue that I am attributing to the front sway bar mostly. With switching from a 245 front tire with not enough negative camber to a 275 front tire and the proper negative camber you would think that oversteer if anything would be the prevalant issue. This was definitely not the case. The understeer was occuring on corner entry and mid corner and would go away as I rolled on the throttle for corner exit. The car rotated and exited the corners so beautifully that I concentrated on tweaking the front compression/rebound and tire pressure settings first. With the brake pad issue leaving me with one lap every session to test & tune, I didn't get much opportunity to play with it but by the second and final time attack session the understeer issue had gotten better, but still not anywhere near 100%. I personally think that the front sway is too stiff for my setup and tires, but since it is not adjustable I will have to play with the things that are adjustable to try and offset it. It was a problem that affected my overall results but a problem that will go away with more testing and tuning.

The Results:
The previous record for a Street Class car in time attack competition at this track was set back in 2005 at the very first Redline Time Attack event ever. The record was a 2:49.439 in the same month and I am sure the same hot conditions. I am not sure the details on the car or driver who set that record, but the rules back then for Street Class were WAY more open than they are now so I didn't really know what to expect out of myself or the 370Z since I haven't run a timed event at that track in that configuration since 2005 in my old 350Z before it was even turboed and it was probably my fourth track event ever. When the weekend was over my fastest time was a 2:42.213, a little over 7 seconds faster than the previous record! Now, don't get too excited because a lot of us shattered that record and I ended up with 4th place in Street RWD hahaha. That being said, given the fact that my 370Z is nowhere near the limits of the Street Class rules, or even the Stock Class rules, I am extremely happy with the outcome. I was almost exactly one second behind 3rd place and 2.3 seconds off of 2nd place which isn't a lot on a 3.1 mile track. In a perfect world with 100% confidence in my equipment and no handling issues, I really truly think I could have taken 2nd place. 1st place went to Manly Kao and his rule bending Lotus Elise which is incredibly fast, especially at a track like Spring Mountain with 18 turns.

I do also want to give a quick congratulations shout out to Paul and the guys at AE Performance who took 1st place in Stock RWD with their 370Z coming in with a lap time of 1:43.830!

Stay tuned for more photos and video from the DoubleDownMotorsports.com 370Z!

CLIFF NOTES:
- Car is faster than it was at Willow Springs in May
- Hotchkis Sways get our approval, although the front sway may be too stiff for street tires.
- Carbonetic LSD gets our approval
- Jim Wolf Technology Oil Pan Spacer gets our approval
- Injen Intake/Berk Cat-Back get our approval
- Hawk HP+ pads suck unless your car is completely stock
- The fuel pickup placement in this car is absolutely rediculous. Everyone will need a baffled fuel tank or fuel surge tank to track this car.
- Broke the track record from 2005 by over 7 seconds!
- Still only good enough for 4th place in Street RWD, but only one second off the podium.
- AE Performance won the Stock RWD class with their 370Z!

LiquidZ · 09-28-2009, 08:07 PM

Another great post by Mike @ DD!

import111 · 09-28-2009, 08:12 PM

Congrats on the great lap time. Pretty good considering the minimal mods on the car and the issues with brake pads and fuel starvation. I am hoping I don't have the fuel starvation issues when I track the Z, but hearing more and more tracked 370Z's having it happen, my hope is fading. My fingers are crossed for a simple solution (swap out the stock tank for a baffled replica or something similar).

M.Bonanni · 09-28-2009, 08:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by import111

Congrats on the great lap time. Pretty good considering the minimal mods on the car and the issues with brake pads and fuel starvation. I am hoping I don't have the fuel starvation issues when I track the Z, but hearing more and more tracked 370Z's having it happen, my hope is fading. My fingers are crossed for a simple solution (swap out the stock tank for a baffled replica or something similar).

Thanks guys!

I can guarantee you will as you make the car faster. I didn't have any issues with it at Buttonwillow when the car was stock except for coilovers. Then got better street tires for Willow Springs and it started happening around 1/2 tank. Then got sway bars/better alignment/wider tires and it started around 3/4 tank. Basically the more lateral gs your car can handle the more the fuel issue becomes a problem. I talked to a few people at the time attack about making a simple fuel surge tank kit specifically for the 370Z that will be easy enough for most to install. It will be a must do mod like the oil coolers are before getting into tracking the 370Z. Hopefully we don't uncover any more major engineering failures as we continue to make the car faster. AE Performance had the same issue with their 370Z by the way so I am really doubting its a fluke thing.

racerxj17 · 09-28-2009, 08:34 PM

just a little FYI.....i am seeing major understeer with my car as well, and im running BC coilovers with hotchkis sways. even put the rear bar all the way stiff to counter understeer, but unless im hard on the brakes prior to corner entry, or on the gas hard, it pushes, and pushes hard. i can literally feel the front tires almost vibrating from pushing across the pavement...

find a fix so i can do it to mine too

CrownR426 · 09-28-2009, 09:14 PM

Wow, I read the whole thing!
LOL...
Congratulations to DDMotorsports and AE Performance!

Represent the370z

import111 · 09-28-2009, 10:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by racerxj17

just a little FYI.....i am seeing major understeer with my car as well, and im running BC coilovers with hotchkis sways. even put the rear bar all the way stiff to counter understeer, but unless im hard on the brakes prior to corner entry, or on the gas hard, it pushes, and pushes hard. i can literally feel the front tires almost vibrating from pushing across the pavement...

find a fix so i can do it to mine too

How much negative camber are you running up front? You guys are both running pretty stiff setups and as such the car wont need as much negative camber cause it isn't rolling enough. Just a thought.

M.Bonanni · 09-28-2009, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by racerxj17

just a little FYI.....i am seeing major understeer with my car as well, and im running BC coilovers with hotchkis sways. even put the rear bar all the way stiff to counter understeer, but unless im hard on the brakes prior to corner entry, or on the gas hard, it pushes, and pushes hard. i can literally feel the front tires almost vibrating from pushing across the pavement...

find a fix so i can do it to mine too

Quote:

Originally Posted by import111

How much negative camber are you running up front? You guys are both running pretty stiff setups and as such the car wont need as much negative camber cause it isn't rolling enough. Just a thought.

Yeah there are TONS of things that can contribute to understeer, caster, camber, toe, tire pressure, dampening, sway bars, cross weight, tire compound, tire width, your driving, etc. I do think that for street tires the front Hotchkis sway bar is a bit on the stiff side but nothing that messing with other settings can't fix. Eventually, once we improve upon the handling further the sway bar will be a better fit. I am annoyed though that nobody makes an adjustable front sway bar for this car. That would be the ideal situation.

boosted180 · 09-29-2009, 04:05 PM

congratulations mike for the quick lap time despite the issues you're having. sorry for being the customer who bought your only carbotech pads. i was pretty stressed out the week of my event too trying to get last minute parts to arrive on time. the xp10's fronts and xp8s rears are THE pads for tracking on this car. absolutely no brake fade, even with hard, late braking, lap after lap. they were flawless. i'm also glad i never experienced the "ice mode" brake problem a few people have reported.

on stock tires and hotchkis sway bars, i had the same issue with not getting enough grip in the fronts causing understeer in the long sweepers (esp. the bowl at streets of willow). my front camber is set at -2.25 and rears at -1.8. my next time out, i'll try -2.75 in the fronts and adjusting the rear bars to full stiff and i think this should do the trick.

mike - i think a big part of why you're getting so much understeer (despite all the camber you're running and the wider tires in front) is the new diff. mechanical diffs when they lock up will cause both rear tires to rotate at the same speed, which will want to "push" the car instead of letting it rotate. (unlike a viscous lsd and a torsen type lsd which have variable "degrees" of lock-up, allowing the inside tire to rotate slightly more slowly than the outside tire, which helps to rotate the car). but you can adjust all the other things on the car to compensate.

oil temp. was the biggest issue for me, depsite having pretty decent size oil cooler on the car. it's a tru-cool 8x11, (unlike the 5.75x11 most aftermarket kits come with).

mike what are the symptoms of oil starvation? i think i may have been experiencing this and mistaken it for "limp mode" and getting frustrated that "limp mode" was comign on even after i let the car cool down. now that i think aobut it, it would hit hardest going up the hill going before the last two turns before the front straight ccw at sow. sounds like oil starvation...

M.Bonanni · 09-29-2009, 04:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boosted180

congratulations mike for the quick lap time despite the issues you're having. sorry for being the customer who bought your only carbotech pads. i was pretty stressed out the week of my event too trying to get last minute parts to arrive on time. the xp10's fronts and xp8s rears are THE pads for tracking on this car. absolutely no brake fade, even with hard, late braking, lap after lap. they were flawless. i'm also glad i never experienced the "ice mode" brake problem a few people have reported.

Oh no worries at all! Customers come first. Besides I should have had enough time to get another set here for myself before the event but I think Carbotech must have though I said I needed them by next Friday, not this past one. Good to hear that they worked well though!

Quote:

Originally Posted by boosted180

on stock tires and hotchkis sway bars, i had the same issue with not getting enough grip in the fronts causing understeer in the long sweepers (esp. the bowl at streets of willow). my front camber is set at -2.25 and rears at -1.8. my next time out, i'll try -2.75 in the fronts and adjusting the rear bars to full stiff and i think this should do the trick.

mike - i think a big part of why you're getting so much understeer (despite all the camber you're running and the wider tires in front) is the new diff. mechanical diffs when they lock up will cause both rear tires to rotate at the same speed, which will want to "push" the car instead of letting it rotate. (unlike a viscous lsd and a torsen type lsd which have variable "degrees" of lock-up, allowing the inside tire to rotate slightly more slowly than the outside tire, which helps to rotate the car). but you can adjust all the other things on the car to compensate.

Hmm, did not even think of that. I will have to stew over that one for a bit.

Quote:

Originally Posted by boosted180

oil temp. was the biggest issue for me, depsite having pretty decent size oil cooler on the car. it's a tru-cool 8x11, (unlike the 5.75x11 most aftermarket kits come with).

mike what are the symptoms of oil starvation? i think i may have been experiencing this and mistaken it for "limp mode" and getting frustrated that "limp mode" was comign on even after i let the car cool down. now that i think aobut it, it would hit hardest going up the hill going before the last two turns before the front straight ccw at sow. sounds like oil starvation...

I think what you are experiencing is the fuel starvation issue, not oil starvation. I am trying to picture where you are talking about on SOWS but I have only been there once and it was years ago. Did you find it only happened after right hand turns? If so, thats the fuel issue. The oil pickup on the VQ37 is smack in the middle so I would figure if it were oil starvation it would happen on all corners not just right hand ones.

boosted180 · 09-29-2009, 07:06 PM

i meant FUEL starvation. NOT oil.

what it feels like is power is being cut - gas pedal down, engine not reving up.

M.Bonanni · 09-29-2009, 07:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by boosted180

i meant FUEL starvation. NOT oil.

what it feels like is power is being cut - gas pedal down, engine not reving up.

Yep, then everything is back to normal after probably 5 seconds.

Paul@AEperformance · 09-29-2009, 09:04 PM

yeah Mike intoduced me to that......not very cool..lol

Thanks again for all your help and pointers, pretty much every problem you mentioned would happen did..lol

Hopefully the AE crew can grab a drink with the DD gang when your in the OC for Rd. 8!

See ya soon.

M.Bonanni · 09-29-2009, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Paul@AEperformance

yeah Mike intoduced me to that......not very cool..lol

Thanks again for all your help and pointers, pretty much every problem you mentioned would happen did..lol

Hopefully the AE crew can grab a drink with the DD gang when your in the OC for Rd. 8!

See ya soon.

Hahaha well at least you knew what they were when they happened. I had to get surprised each time

. The first time my throttle cut out with the fuel starvation thing I thought it was something much worse.

We'll for sure meet up for that drink!

travisjb · 09-30-2009, 08:11 PM

Congrats ! Z is really proving itself as a capable track car... we're all converging on the same issues mechanically. We need some creative solutions for the fuel issue in form of baffling in tank, swirl pot outside tank, or complete fuel system replacement for the racers.

With the understeer, any second thoughts on trying out a 'square' tire setup? I'm dying to find out how the car would perform with that kind of setup. Maybe also a front splitter... was it high speed or low speed or both?

09-28-2009, 06:52 PM	#1 (permalink)
M.Bonanni The370Z.com Sponsor Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Las Vegas Posts: 2,575 Drives: Fast Rep Power: 1320	DDMotorsports: Redline Time Attack Round #7 Hey everyone! This past weekend was Round #7 of the 2009 Redline Time Attack series and the third round for the Street RWD West season championship. The DoubleDownMotorsports.com Time Attack Nissan 370Z was out there competing in the Street RWD class. Here is our story from the weekend as well as our quick impressions of some new parts that we finally got to track test. The Setting: The event was held 45 min outside of Las Vegas at a track called Spring Mountain Motorsports Park. It was blazing hot with the asphalt reading 150 degrees...in the paddock so I figure 165+ on the actual track. The track itself was 3.1 miles long with 18 turns. Definitely the perfect track for lightweight cars that have high cornering speeds and definitely not a horsepower track. Our 370Z would surely have its hands full in both the temperature department and the wieght department. Especially with the abundance of lightweight S2000s and Lotus' (Loti?) we would be competing against. The New Parts: The last time attack this car was at was Round #2 of the Redline Time Attack series at Willow Springs back in May. Since then we have added a few things to the car. Back at Round #2 the high temps and lack of front camber adjustment from the factory left our front tires screaming for mercy after about a half of a lap. To fix this, we put SPC Performance front camber arms on the car and adjusted the camber to -3 degrees on the two front wheels to take advantage of a full contact patch of tire in the turns. We also added some Hotchkis Performance sway bars to combat the body roll we were seeing and set the rear sway bar in the middle setting so we could adjust either direction if necessary. In the wheel & tire department our lightweight 18" Forgestar F14 wheels showed up without another minute to spare. We went with 9.5" fronts and 10" rears. We are limited to running a maximum tire width of 285 in the Redline Time Attack street class, so thats exactly what we ran in the rear, with a 275 width tire up front to compliment. This is a big change in both weight and tire width as at Round #2 we were running 245/275 tires on 19" rims. We stuck with the same Nitto NT05 street tires we ran in Round #2. In the power department we added the Berk Technology Cat-Back Exhaust, but since the production versions aren't ready we were running the prototype version with h-pipe instead of the x-pipe, which made a bit more power. We also switched from the Jim Wolf Technology Dual Pop-Charger intake setup to the Injen Technology Dual Cold Air intake setup to see if there was any major noticeable difference. On the cooling end of things, we were unfortunately not able to upgrade our oil cooler setup from the Mishimoto universal kit, but we did get a Jim Wolf Technology oil pan spacer kit which added an extra quart of oil capacity to help distribute heat and keep temps lower. The last performance change we have made to the car since our last track outing was a Carbonetic 1.5 way LSD to replace our wounded stock one. The Good: The car is defintately faster overall with the new parts than it was at Round #2. Mid corner and corner exit have improved greatly with the wider tires, sway bars, and being able to dial in proper camber settings on all four wheels. Acceleration also feels noticeably better with the lighter wheel/tire package, exhaust, and intakes. The Carbonetic LSD is incredible and really let me start putting down power early exiting the corners. The other good news is that there were no major issues we didn't already know about or expect going into the event. The Bad: We will start with the worst hang up of my weekend, the Hawk HP+ brake pads. At Round #2 we started surpassing the limit of these brake pads operating temperature range. After that event we had ordered some Carbotech XP10/XP8 pads to replace the Hawk HP+ for track duty. Unfortunately a customer called a week prior to this event and needed those exact pads for a track day of his right away. Well the only ones I had in stock were the ones I had set aside for my car so I sold them. I immediately called Carbotech and placed an order but a communication error resulted in the pads not showing up in time. So I was stuck using the Hawk HP+ again but this time the problem was 10x worse. Higher corner exit speeds, wider front tires, and a track that is much harder on brakes than Willow Springs meant that it didn't take long at all to reach the pad's operating temperature limit. And unlike Willow Springs you use the brakes often at Spring Mountain so there are really not enough periods without using them for them to cool back down. So if the brakes were completely cool, like cool to the touch, then I could get one hard lap on them before they were useless and I had to let them cool down completely again. This left me with one good lap for each practice session, which is nowhere near enough and even though they worked fine for that one lap, my confidence in them was shot, which had an effect on my driving. The second biggest problem would have been the good old oil temperature if I had gotten more than one lap at a time. Because of the brake pad issue and only being able to run one hard lap at a time, oil temperatures never got hot enough to get the car to start cutting power, but after one hard lap it was close, around 260 degrees. At that rate, there was no way I would be able to run a full 20 minute session (about 4 hot laps at that track + warm up/cool down). Now, although my oil temp problem is not fixed, the JWT oil pan spacer did indeed help the situation making the oil temps rise slower than before. The reality is, a bigger cooler core will be the only way to eliminate the problem entirely if I will be pushing the car at 100% in the summer in the desert. The third biggest problem, is another problem we also already knew about but had gotten worse with the higher cornering speeds. Since the car could now sustain higher lateral g-forces due to the handling improvements, it amplified the fuel starvation issue. At round #2 we would start seeing fuel starvation issues starting at a little over half a tank and below. At this last event, the fuel starvation started occuring at anything below 3/4 tank so I had to keep the tank completely full to avoid the issue which is a lot of extra weight to be carying around when you are trying for your best lap time. The fourth problem is a small and temporary one that is normal. I battled all weekend with an understeer issue that I am attributing to the front sway bar mostly. With switching from a 245 front tire with not enough negative camber to a 275 front tire and the proper negative camber you would think that oversteer if anything would be the prevalant issue. This was definitely not the case. The understeer was occuring on corner entry and mid corner and would go away as I rolled on the throttle for corner exit. The car rotated and exited the corners so beautifully that I concentrated on tweaking the front compression/rebound and tire pressure settings first. With the brake pad issue leaving me with one lap every session to test & tune, I didn't get much opportunity to play with it but by the second and final time attack session the understeer issue had gotten better, but still not anywhere near 100%. I personally think that the front sway is too stiff for my setup and tires, but since it is not adjustable I will have to play with the things that are adjustable to try and offset it. It was a problem that affected my overall results but a problem that will go away with more testing and tuning. The Results: The previous record for a Street Class car in time attack competition at this track was set back in 2005 at the very first Redline Time Attack event ever. The record was a 2:49.439 in the same month and I am sure the same hot conditions. I am not sure the details on the car or driver who set that record, but the rules back then for Street Class were WAY more open than they are now so I didn't really know what to expect out of myself or the 370Z since I haven't run a timed event at that track in that configuration since 2005 in my old 350Z before it was even turboed and it was probably my fourth track event ever. When the weekend was over my fastest time was a 2:42.213, a little over 7 seconds faster than the previous record! Now, don't get too excited because a lot of us shattered that record and I ended up with 4th place in Street RWD hahaha. That being said, given the fact that my 370Z is nowhere near the limits of the Street Class rules, or even the Stock Class rules, I am extremely happy with the outcome. I was almost exactly one second behind 3rd place and 2.3 seconds off of 2nd place which isn't a lot on a 3.1 mile track. In a perfect world with 100% confidence in my equipment and no handling issues, I really truly think I could have taken 2nd place. 1st place went to Manly Kao and his rule bending Lotus Elise which is incredibly fast, especially at a track like Spring Mountain with 18 turns. I do also want to give a quick congratulations shout out to Paul and the guys at AE Performance who took 1st place in Stock RWD with their 370Z coming in with a lap time of 1:43.830! Stay tuned for more photos and video from the DoubleDownMotorsports.com 370Z! CLIFF NOTES: - Car is faster than it was at Willow Springs in May - Hotchkis Sways get our approval, although the front sway may be too stiff for street tires. - Carbonetic LSD gets our approval - Jim Wolf Technology Oil Pan Spacer gets our approval - Injen Intake/Berk Cat-Back get our approval - Hawk HP+ pads suck unless your car is completely stock - The fuel pickup placement in this car is absolutely rediculous. Everyone will need a baffled fuel tank or fuel surge tank to track this car. - Broke the track record from 2005 by over 7 seconds! - Still only good enough for 4th place in Street RWD, but only one second off the podium. - AE Performance won the Stock RWD class with their 370Z! __________________ MikeBonanni.com Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/MikeBonanni Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MBonanni36 Function > Form

09-28-2009, 08:07 PM	#2 (permalink)
LiquidZ A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: Columbus, OH Posts: 1,940 Drives: Mag. Black 2009 370Z Rep Power: 704	Another great post by Mike @ DD! __________________

09-28-2009, 08:34 PM	#5 (permalink)
racerxj17 Track Member Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Socal Posts: 555 Drives: 09 370z Rep Power: 17	just a little FYI.....i am seeing major understeer with my car as well, and im running BC coilovers with hotchkis sways. even put the rear bar all the way stiff to counter understeer, but unless im hard on the brakes prior to corner entry, or on the gas hard, it pushes, and pushes hard. i can literally feel the front tires almost vibrating from pushing across the pavement... find a fix so i can do it to mine too __________________ 2009 PW Sport/Touring/Nav M6 Stillen Gen 3 Intake/CBE/Berk HFC/BC BR Coil over/Phillips 6500k/Hotchkis Sways/Stillen oil cooler/B&M SS

09-28-2009, 09:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
CrownR426 A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Nov 2008 Location: South Korea Posts: 4,676 Drives: Manual Rep Power: 847	Wow, I read the whole thing! LOL... Congratulations to DDMotorsports and AE Performance! Represent the370z __________________ Love + Hardwork + Passion RIP SVTRacer

09-29-2009, 09:04 PM	#13 (permalink)
Paul@AEperformance The370Z.com Sponsor Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: At the Track Posts: 194 Drives: All sorts of Fast! Rep Power: 16	yeah Mike intoduced me to that......not very cool..lol Thanks again for all your help and pointers, pretty much every problem you mentioned would happen did..lol Hopefully the AE crew can grab a drink with the DD gang when your in the OC for Rd. 8! See ya soon. __________________ http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a1...Ejdmbanner.gif

09-28-2009, 08:12 PM	#3 (permalink)
import111 Track Member Join Date: Feb 2009 Location: Tucson, AZ. Posts: 622 Drives: 09 Nissan 370Z Rep Power: 191	Congrats on the great lap time. Pretty good considering the minimal mods on the car and the issues with brake pads and fuel starvation. I am hoping I don't have the fuel starvation issues when I track the Z, but hearing more and more tracked 370Z's having it happen, my hope is fading. My fingers are crossed for a simple solution (swap out the stock tank for a baffled replica or something similar).

09-29-2009, 04:05 PM	#9 (permalink)
boosted180 Base Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: long beach Posts: 188 Drives: '09 370z sport 6m Rep Power: 16	congratulations mike for the quick lap time despite the issues you're having. sorry for being the customer who bought your only carbotech pads. i was pretty stressed out the week of my event too trying to get last minute parts to arrive on time. the xp10's fronts and xp8s rears are THE pads for tracking on this car. absolutely no brake fade, even with hard, late braking, lap after lap. they were flawless. i'm also glad i never experienced the "ice mode" brake problem a few people have reported. on stock tires and hotchkis sway bars, i had the same issue with not getting enough grip in the fronts causing understeer in the long sweepers (esp. the bowl at streets of willow). my front camber is set at -2.25 and rears at -1.8. my next time out, i'll try -2.75 in the fronts and adjusting the rear bars to full stiff and i think this should do the trick. mike - i think a big part of why you're getting so much understeer (despite all the camber you're running and the wider tires in front) is the new diff. mechanical diffs when they lock up will cause both rear tires to rotate at the same speed, which will want to "push" the car instead of letting it rotate. (unlike a viscous lsd and a torsen type lsd which have variable "degrees" of lock-up, allowing the inside tire to rotate slightly more slowly than the outside tire, which helps to rotate the car). but you can adjust all the other things on the car to compensate. oil temp. was the biggest issue for me, depsite having pretty decent size oil cooler on the car. it's a tru-cool 8x11, (unlike the 5.75x11 most aftermarket kits come with). mike what are the symptoms of oil starvation? i think i may have been experiencing this and mistaken it for "limp mode" and getting frustrated that "limp mode" was comign on even after i let the car cool down. now that i think aobut it, it would hit hardest going up the hill going before the last two turns before the front straight ccw at sow. sounds like oil starvation...

09-29-2009, 07:06 PM	#11 (permalink)
boosted180 Base Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: long beach Posts: 188 Drives: '09 370z sport 6m Rep Power: 16	i meant FUEL starvation. NOT oil. what it feels like is power is being cut - gas pedal down, engine not reving up.

09-30-2009, 08:11 PM	#15 (permalink)
travisjb A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: GSO Posts: 2,803 Drives: VIR Rep Power: 188	Congrats ! Z is really proving itself as a capable track car... we're all converging on the same issues mechanically. We need some creative solutions for the fuel issue in form of baffling in tank, swirl pot outside tank, or complete fuel system replacement for the racers. With the understeer, any second thoughts on trying out a 'square' tire setup? I'm dying to find out how the car would perform with that kind of setup. Maybe also a front splitter... was it high speed or low speed or both? __________________ 2009 370Z #104 For Sale

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