Quote:
Originally Posted by jmg944t
... I need to make the car capable enough to keep me happy for a season or two without making it so on edge that my wife puts it into a wall. Also safety is a priority, I won't put my wife in a car that has any chance of fuel starving, cooking brakes and does not have proper harnesses. She's hot and I can't damage her  |
Keeping the tank full will alleviate all fuel starvation issues on stock tires at most tracks in an unprepared car such as yours.
Overall, this is not a great car for the track if you're not willing to make a few mods... sounds like you are, so here's what I'd recommend in order
1. high temp brake fluid... ate blue/gold is fine for casual track days... you might consider swapping some of the other fluids as well... I use Motul for pretty much everything
2. single-core oil cooler... in your northern climate and given it sounds like you will be doing fairly tame 20 min session DE's, you don't need to get too crazy with big oil coolers
3. basic weight reduction... remove spare, etc
4. basic changes to make the car more fun to drive and control... my order: a) anti-sway bars, b) your preferred brake friction compound - Chris had good suggestions, c) upgrade the rear diff - I use and like Carbonetics, d) extra set of wheels and tires dedicated for the track
Do the things above and monitor tire pressure and temps across the tire surface of each tire in between runs and you'll both be safe and have a blast.
Your idea to add front brake cooling is a good one.
Further down the list... coilovers and other suspension parts... footnote: I've been running rear spring rates ~85% of front spring rate... thinking about altering this to ~65% of front spring rates, which has apparently worked well for the GrandAm race team running their 370Z
Further down the list... power mods
Further down the list... extreme weight reduction
Further down the list... more power mods
If you have to pick a couple power mods, I would buy used stillen g3 intakes with new filters, then buy a used cat-back, then uprev tune. Those will get you 3/4 of the way to easy NA power gains.
Keep in mind, none of these things fixes the issue of "brake ice mode" that has been attributed to the ABS computer on this car... most argue that it is caused by the computer picking up "significant" differential wheel spin rates... make sure you read about this before going to the track and understand and practice how you will respond if it happens... you can in fact learn to induce it in practice and then practice modulating (slowly) the brake pedal to reset the computer but it requires patience under difficult conditions