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Congrats on getting your car out on the track and in a safe environment to play with it! The facility looks pretty cool, although I have heard it can be a bit dusty (track surface) at times.
Being your first time out on track, I would recommend that you just take it easy during your first morning session and feel the vehicle out, track surface, and learn the track configuration. No need to push things too hard at this point. I’d start off at 36 psi and remember to activate your “Sport” suspension mode. If you forget to engage the sport suspension mode your car will feel like a 1970 Caddy going around the circuit.
After you finish S1 check your tire pressures and see where they are hot. If they are in the mid 40’s bleed them down to 38 (per eurotom). Check your cold pressures before you go out for S2 and note the pressures. After S2 check your hot pressure and see where they are at. If they are in the low forties try bleeding down to 36 hot. Again, check your cold pressures before going out for S3 and note them. By the time you come in from S3 and check your hot pressures you should have a pretty decent baseline to reference and play with for future track events.
38 Hot, seems a bit high for me, although I have not run PSS….Thom does have experience with these therefore, his info would be a great place to start things off.
Thom, have you tried 36 hot?
Dr.S, remember, you are use to driving around at 44psi cold for daily driving, therefore, starting off S1 at 36psi the car may feel a bit strange to you at first... wiggley ; ]
Enjoy!
VID
Thank you very much...your advise is appreciated and respected.
Congrats on getting your car out on the track and in a safe environment to play with it! The facility looks pretty cool, although I have heard it can be a bit dusty (track surface) at times.
Being your first time out on track, I would recommend that you just take it easy during your first morning session and feel the vehicle out, track surface, and learn the track configuration. No need to push things too hard at this point. I’d start off at 36 psi and remember to activate your “Sport” suspension mode. If you forget to engage the sport suspension mode your car will feel like a 1970 Caddy going around the circuit.
After you finish S1 check your tire pressures and see where they are hot. If they are in the mid 40’s bleed them down to 38 (per eurotom). Check your cold pressures before you go out for S2 and note the pressures. After S2 check your hot pressure and see where they are at. If they are in the low forties try bleeding down to 36 hot. Again, check your cold pressures before going out for S3 and note them. By the time you come in from S3 and check your hot pressures you should have a pretty decent baseline to reference and play with for future track events.
38 Hot, seems a bit high for me, although I have not run PSS….Thom does have experience with these therefore, his info would be a great place to start things off.
Thom, have you tried 36 hot?
Dr.S, remember, you are use to driving around at 44psi cold for daily driving, therefore, starting off S1 at 36psi the car may feel a bit strange to you at first... wiggley ; ]
Enjoy!
VID
Vid- given it being his first outing the suggested cold temps would be a good starting point. Of course many variables ambient temp track distance etc. I typically see 7-8psi on the PSS at Sonoma which is what I used as my baseline reference. You want to stay under 38 after that the PSS gets greasy.
Dr.S You'll be ipressed with MPSS. They are suprisngly good and predictable, a agreat all purpose tire. As Vid stated take your time and build up your speed. One more suggestion do engage PASM but do not engage sports chrono etc. You do not want sensitive throttle your first time out and much a more lenient stabililty system. Good luck have fun
Thank you for the advise. I do miss my GT2 sometimes, but I feel it would have been quite a handful for my driving level on a track. I've always said a Porsche turbo can make an average driver look like a pro and a GT2 will bring the true "driver" out of anyone.
Read the same about driving a 996 GT3 Hey you can always turn off the nannies!
Highlight still from last Monday's (06/30) CFRA's race at Sonoma Raceway!!
All ended well though!!!
It was unbelievably hot, 98ºF at 3:30 PM after the race. I must say though, my car ran extremely strong all day. Even though my times were about 1.5-2.5 seconds off, most experienced the same as well due to the heat. I managed to get 11 heat cycles out of this set of R6's...very happy with that! Tires still look really good with even wear across all four tires and edge to edge surface. In fact it was so frickin' hot I opted not to change my tires and drove home with the R6's still mounted up!
We have a few months off before starting up the second half of our season, 'til then time to put the OEM driver's seat back in and have some DD'ing enjoyment while allowing for ease of entry and exiting!
Cheers!
VID
that looks like lots of fun...how many miles do yo track a year how is the turbo holding up....if I remember correctly you blew transfer case whs that ever fixed to your liking....keep up great track reviews great thread.....
It is a TON-O-FUN!!! Once bitten by the Track Bug...you quickly realized the street is no place for these vehicles to play the way they were intended to be used.
I'd say the Turbo is holding up very well considering how I use it, and how often. The engine is still incredibly strong. The tranny needed some freshening up around 30K and the clutch needed to be replaced as well.
As to the transfer case...are you referring to the front diff? If so, no. Still trying to resolve those issues and what approach to take in order to do so. Hope to have the front differential resolved within the next week or two.
As for mileage, this year I have only put on 3,600, but all of it track miles and commuting to and from various tracks. Not to mention trips to the shop!!!
Fortunately my support shop is less than 5 miles away if that, and my track commutes are 70-80 miles one way with Thunderhill being the furthest at 190 each way.
Ahh yes front diff...let us know how it goes...saw your video car looks super quick....what engine mods do you have if you don't mind me asking......btw I was just in Cali...passed by Sonoma raceway and Glenn cove...car guy in me had to visually check out those tracks...
It is a TON-O-FUN!!! Once bitten by the Track Bug...you quickly realized the street is no place for these vehicles to play the way they were intended to be used.
I'd say the Turbo is holding up very well considering how I use it, and how often. The engine is still incredibly strong. The tranny needed some freshening up around 30K and the clutch needed to be replaced as well.
As to the transfer case...are you referring to the front diff? If so, no. Still trying to resolve those issues and what approach to take in order to do so. Hope to have the front differential resolved within the next week or two.
As for mileage, this year I have only put on 3,600, but all of it track miles and commuting to and from various tracks. Not to mention trips to the shop!!!
Fortunately my support shop is less than 5 miles away if that, and my track commutes are 70-80 miles one way with Thunderhill being the furthest at 190 each way.
Cheers!
VID
couldn't agree more with the 1st sentence. But you didn't tell him about the other joy of this hobby - you will most likely develop carpel tunnel from the checks that you get to write LOL.
Just got an email from my shop on suggestions for work to do on my 996 race car this winter. All legit and nothing crazy. my knees are still shaking.
I was not happy with the performance of my car when warm weather was around...feel like it would be good investment.....arethere a certain steps I have to take to track the car as far as rules go....if I wanted to go to njmp would I have to register ...would like to go on a not to busy day just to toss the sled around....any info would be great...
I was not happy with the performance of my car when warm weather was around...feel like it would be good investment.....arethere a certain steps I have to take to track the car as far as rules go....if I wanted to go to njmp would I have to register ...would like to go on a not to busy day just to toss the sled around....any info would be great...
You would need to register with an organization that is running an event there. PCA, NASA, etc. Season is pretty much over but you can look at motorsportsreg.com to search for events there next year.
you would register as a novice which requires having an instructor - there won't be much "tossing the sled around" LOL. it's about safety and learning the proper line. you need to go slow in order to go fast. it's a great hobby but don't kid yourself - it gets expensive. if your only going to go a couple of times a year than it won't be so bad.
I have been a little disappointed with my last few events. My drive train has become very unreliable of late. I broke a rear right axle, then destroyed a front left CV boot. We re-built the CV boot and it blew-up within 80 miles after the rebuild. At that point we decided to replace the front left axle with a completely new unit. While we were at it, we replaced the front right axle as a precautionary measure. During this time my OEM LSD decided it was done and needed replacement. Ended up putting in a Guards GT2 PRO 40/60 LSD. Next outing the front left axle failed at the 150 mile mark and the front diff started leaking a lot of fluid. Therefore, being riddled with mechanical’s and not being able to finish events, turning on my GoPro and processing HLT video’s from my iPhone have been very low on my priority list. Not to mention I really have no desire to relive these last few events on film.
Below is a clip from 11-23-2014 at Sonoma. First time in the car in RWD mode. That’s right, we took out the front differential, drive shaft, and axles.
Primary purpose for testing was for suspension set-up. We started off by adjusting the sway bars to full soft up front and full stiff in the rear, while leaving all my shock settings were we typically have them for Sonoma. We were getting some oversteer as well as some nervousness with the rear when exiting the higher speed turns. After the first session we opted to adjust/soften the Compression dampening. This did help to minimize some of the oversteer, however the rear end was still nervous and unsettled under hard acceleration coming out of the exit of T10. Before heading out for S3 we adjusted the rear sway bar to the middle position. This really helped smooth things out. Next up S4, Sunday's race...did okay in finished the best I could considering the circumstances. After the race and downloading feed back to my Suspension support. The car actually felt really good and now only suffering from mild turn-in under steer at T7 and T11. We feel we can dial that out by softening the compression dampening on the front shocks, which we will try on our next outing.
Now for the BIGGER ISSUES.....the electronics were not happy at all!!! Stability and Traction control were going crazy and constantly trying to control the vehicle to the point were it would cut off power to the engine (meaning, it was chopping the throttle as I was accelerating through and out of the turns)....VERY FRUSTRATING!!!
This was a test session to see how the car would behave with the removal of the differential. This info will now be passed on to the software gurus. Hopefully they can come up with a solution, or already have one.
I am not done yet with this experiment….
For more about the Front Differential Removal, see link below:
The night before its two wheel drive debut at SP and the last event for 2014. Looks like the wallet won’t get much of a break over the winter as we continue to trouble shoot this beast.
11-09-2014, 01:28 PM
