TravisJB Journal

travisjb

I'll post the track pics directly here this week... shroud will be another week or two

Had mixed success at track today... Firebird east... last time i was there was shortly after I bought the car and was still on street tires... ran a 1:06.5... today I was running about that time maybe half second less... a bit frustrating and a sign of the problems I am having with my brakes... had three offs today that were a result of setup issues and me trying to pass cars on 'dirty lines' - or braking zones with debris / silt... if you haven't tried tracking this car with ABS off, you should! ABS masks a lot of problems with the car, or at least my setup... we ended up running a softer front suspension with a few clicks out of the front suspension and -2 PSI on front vs rear in an attempt to get the front end to bite better under braking. The setup changes got me 50% of the way "there", but I'm not dialed in yet...

Ironically I dropped the rear when I had ABS to keep the ABS from going into ice mode, but finding that the drop is too much now - given ABS is off - because it doesn't transfer enough weight to front... ABS off, keep rear high, ABS on, drop rear down low as possible

The pads I'm running are mintex F3R front and mintex xtreme rear... I've decided that the F3Rs may be too much brake for me as a driver, and perhaps for this car... the coeff of friction is just too high and it comes on strong too fast to be practical for me on a short track with lots of stop and go (and ABS off)... not to mention the track I was running today has lots of brake zone transitions/ bumps... If i had ABS today, would have prob worked out okay, but without I was locking up when the front wheels hopped over transitions and missing turns

Other things I may try before I ditch these pads... go from 18K front / 16K rear springs to 16/16... increase rear pads from mintex xtreme to ferodo ds3000's... increase rear ride height 1/4" to 1/2"... restore ABS

I should also mention that one of my front rotors is warped due to excessive heat (before I added brake cooling). It is possible that some of my brake lock up is coming on due to the warped rotor.

Will begin work on the shroud this WED and will prob take a week after that... now that we're down to 1 oil cooler core, temps are getting back to 255F in Arizona winter ambient temps... so the shroud is going to be very necessary

Will add a couple points to the weight reduction thread

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2009 370Z #104
*For Sale*