First post updated:
Minor housekeeping and scored a bullseye on the LSD debate. Also tweaked mission statement.
First post updated:
Minor housekeeping and scored a bullseye on the LSD debate. Also tweaked mission statement.
OK new self imposed rule: No more money is to be spent on modifying this car until I have clocked a 1:13.5 or better at Wakefield Park. At the end of winter I will get my Neova's re-fitted, have an alignent done my a proper suspension specialist, go to QLD Raceway in September and then Wakefield Park in October and see where we stand from there.
12 months later and a bit has changed. New wheels + R-Spec tyres, upgraded brake pads and rotors and a full suspension makeover is in the pipeline. Now that I'll have much more adjustability I am doing some reading on what settings affect what aspects of handling so I will be able to dial in the setup of my car more and more. the Coilovers I am getting have independently adjustable low speed compression and rebound settings so the tuning options of the car will be huge now.
Not without a bit more research first. I don't want grabby brakes and the pad/rotor combo I use currently has plenty of stopping power, it just struggles a little with wear.
We will have to see how the brakes hold up with the new suspension tho, more traction = harder time on the brakes.
Im in the process of getting brakes, maybe we can meet one day and you put your tyres on my car and test them on the track? I think everyone would like to hear back to your track impressions.
---------- Post added at 04:13 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:11 PM ----------
wouldnt mind getting someones impressions who does a lot of track days, about my set up too.
Many want Power not many hold it long.........
With your coilovers you will notice braking times rescued due to less nose dive
Yea, i'm just taking it one step at a time. I have gotten pretty good at identifying weaknesses in the cars handling characteristics so we will just see how the brakes hold up next time I go out. The suspension wasn't even on my radar until I swapped to R-spec tyres and all of a sudden the handling fell apart on me. It is very nicely balanced and fun to drive on street tyres but the R-specs causing the suspension to crap its pants took away a lot of the fun.
[QUOTE=Reedy;223984]Yea, i'm just taking it one step at a time. I have gotten pretty good at identifying weaknesses in the cars handling characteristics so we will just see how the brakes hold up next time I go out. The suspension wasn't even on my radar until I swapped to R-spec tyres and all of a sudden the handling fell apart on me. It is very nicely balanced and fun to drive on street tyres but the R-specs causing the suspension to crap its pants took away a lot of the fun.[/QUOtTE]
Glad to see someone going hard! you see lots of targa results but until all is pushed you are into uncharted waters! Go Reedy
Many want Power not many hold it long.........
Brace the shit out of it too. Under chassis bracing does a lot!
what sort of improvements can be found with under chassis bracing? How would that compare to installing a RSB to an otherwise stock suspension set up?
It will stiffen up the car, reduce body roll, better turn in and faster corner speeds, unlike coilovers there are no negative side effects and it will protect your exhaust. I installed mine after coilovers and it was a very good improvement.
Latest update: rolling on KW V3's now, also have a front swaybar and bump steer + rear camber kit. Setup needs some more dialing in but things are feeling very nice indeed with this hardware installed. KW make truely top quality stuff, the ride on the road is better than stock and the stability at the track has greatly improved.
Also: Backing plates on your front brakes. I took my car to RoadTrackRally when I was in Melbourne and the bloke there looked at me like I was some kind of idiot when he saw my front brakes backing plates were still on. He said people usually remove those asap and it makes sense from a heat dissipation point of view. But at the last couple of track days I have had a "Lost communication with ABS module" check engine light appear (ABS still works fine fyi) and last time I changed my brake discs over I noticed my ABS sensor plugs on the front are actually starting to MELT from the heat!
Long story short, I put my backing plates back on. You could probably trim them back to allow a bit more heat dissipation while still shielding the wiring and bushings around your wheel hubs if you wanted to be really pedantic about it but my brakes aren't having any problems with brake fade under heat so I don't think I need to take that too much further.
you could remove the driving lights and run some flexible ducting back to cool your brakes....i mean abs sensors ?
i considered taking mine off because they look ugly - i thought they were only to stop rocks getting into places they shouldnt - but seems as though the do serve another function.
but the fact that with them off allows enough heat past the rotor to melt the plastic sensor suggests that removing them very much would help with heat dissipation / keeping them on is holding a whole lotta heat against the rotor.
When I re-fitted them I bent them back away from the rotor so there is a much bigger air gap than there would have been before. The big problem with backing plates is they keep one side of the rotor warm and the other side has free air, which means a temperature gradient across the rotor which in turn means warped rotors. There are other rubber bushings that are similarly close to the rotor surface as well that could be affected by the radiant heat tho so I figured just putting them back on would be the best thing to do.
Last edited by Reedy; 09-08-2012 at 06:08 PM.
How would some flexible pipe picking up air from just behind the front bar and blowing in vicinity of the brakes (and ABS sensor) go?
Great to hear about your suspension upgrades too!
Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2
Brake ducting is under consideration, I just want whatever I do to be neat and not fall off at speed so we will see where that takes us.High temps aren't strictly a problem for the compounds I run, it's just the accelerated wear it produces.
Another hit out at Wakefield Park yesterday saw me beat my PB on street tyres by about a second. 1:11.4 on a badly abused set of AD08's is way faster than I was expecting to go. I also had a good play with the coilover settings and have found a real sweet spot in the cars handling. Funnily enough that setting is only 1 click away from what KW recommended. I was particularly impressed with how dramatically small changes to the damper settings would affect handling. I could go from safe steadystate understeer, to lift off oversteer and then close to oversteer on turn in (Opposite lock powerslides are epic)
I had some reservations about the track performance of this suspension setup after the first time out of them but that was thanks largely due to the alignment being terrible. Now that is fixed it is feeling better than ever. Definitely money well spent.
I've added my preferred street/track coilover settings to the first post.
Last edited by Reedy; 07-09-2012 at 09:37 AM.