had fun wstar, at MSR Houston Today. Sorry I had to leave so soon, I had a funky feeling about the electrics with the newly installed diff controller, it kept shutting off, I was afraid of a bad wire or ground. Turned out the problem was my in ability to see the shitty green LED through white "translucent rubber" in direct sunlight. All was good. Thanks again for coming to help a Z brother out.

Yeah it was a fun day :)

I scrapped that data/video from the first run, since it was kinda short and half of it was following the tow vehicle around :p

I kept the data/vid from aLapRecorder HD on my last run of the day, and I'm processing it in RaceRender 2 now. The only windows machine I have on hand here is tiny little Dell Mini 1018 netbook that I use for UpRev. Says it's going to take ~5 hrs to encode the 13 minute output video in high def :eek: Anyways, maybe later this evening or tomorrow I'll finally have something encoded and youtube'd and we'll see how this cheap-*** data logging solution worked out.

Cost breakdown on the data logging setup:

Existing Android Phone (T-Mobile/LG G2X, has 2x 1Ghz CPU + high def camera): free
Existing cheapo windows laptop (Dell Mini 1018): free
Qstarz QT-818XT bluetooth 5hz DGPS: $70
PLX Kiwi bluetooth OBD-II: $90
aLapRecorder HD (Android App): $6.50
RaceRender 2 Deluxe (Windows App): $25

So we're looking at just shy of $200. If it works even half as well as a "real" racing data logger solution and is useful to learn from, it's a steal :)

Also, I had two fuel cuts on my last run of the day, around 2/3 of a tank this time. Both were exiting the same fast right corner onto a straight, in the exact same spot on the track as last time. Seems like an ECU limiter kicks in temporarily at 6K RPM. I'm guessing the ECU sees the loss of fuel pressure/volume/something and sets up that temporary limit automatically to protect itself or something.

New Video. I'll re-paste the summary info from Youtube below, for embedded watchers:

MSR Houston Clockwise again in my 370Z at the Red Meet and Race Fuel event on Sep 8th. This is my second time on the track, so obviously my driving isn't great :).

Experimenting with a new cheapo setup for telemetry, etc ahead of my upcoming The Driver's Edge class: "aLapRecorder HD" recorded the video, OBDII data, and GPS data on my dash-mounted Android phone (T-mobile G2X running Cyanogen firmware). OBDII hardware was a PLX Kiwi bluetooth, and GPS hardware was a Qstarz QT-818XT in 5Hz DGPS mode. Post-processing was done with RaceRender 2 Deluxe.

The phone's accelerometers (combined with the unstable window mount) seem to provide fairly useless G-force data, but the rest of the data came out pretty decent. Data to video sync is very slightly off, but not enough that I'm going to go back and re-encode this whole video. Audio is noisy as always from a dash-mounted cellphone with the windows open.

Also the "Throttle" display isn't logging pedal position. It's logging some parameter related to the ECU-controlled throttle butterflies, not my pedal position. I'm hoping it may prove comparatively enlightening down the road if I play with the throttle mappings more in UpRev before the next run.

Got what I think is fuel starvation, this time at 2/3 tank, twice this session at the same spot on the track (Laps 4 + 6) where it happened last time (beginning of the long back straight, coming out of a long fast right corner).

Lap 5 was the fastest one, a pretty decent run for me overall.

watched the vid... def an improvement over last time... bumpy track is actually a decent course to learn on because it will favor smooth treatment of driver inputs... you were clearly overbraking it certain cases - even looked like you were braking coming out of turns to set up for the next one when you prob didn't need to be on the brakes... once you get the lines right - and you get a feel for how weight balance impacts your traction - you'll be amazed how much speed you can carry into a corner and eventually get set up properly for sequenced turns at higher speeds throughout

Yeah, I also start braking earlier and more gradually than I need to most of the time. I could say it's to save brake wear, but really it's because I'm not confident in exactly when it's "too late" to aggressively brake at the last minute and still shed enough speed for the corner. Same thing with staying on them too long and not using the accel to plant the car down instead. I understand how that works in theory, but confidently doing it in practice is another matter entirely :)

I'm sure it will all become clearer after I get a couple days in with a good instructor pointing me around.

Your instructor should wear a headset so they can provide direction/commands as you go around... that will que you to make the correct pedal input at the right time

I had a power cut out a second time - which is one of the reasons I left early, as well as me suspecting my diff cooler programmer unit was possible going off and on - turns out it was fine. Pretty sure the second power loss was just fuel starvation since it came back up to full power in less than a minute. Was worried I was breaking the car too much for one day.

Travis, at the training sessions, they do wear headsets and give you one.

headsets are generally personal property of the instructors... in the clubs I run with, most do but not required that I know of

Got my brake rotor kit in from Relentless finally. Looks nice, around 21 lbs per rear and 19 lbs per front. Need to sort out the rear caliper work, etc. Probably do it tomorrow and/or wednesday, assuming a last minute trip out of town doesn't come up by then.

you most likely will need a brake piston retracting tool. Cheap little cube that you can get at auto parts stores; because you of course are going to put on new pads with new rotors....... :)

Hmm I've seen those cubes before, I thought that was for removing or re-installing the actual pistons? I usually just use small c-clamps to push the pistons back in to fit new pads.

rear brakes usually screw in because of the parking brake (in my experience). Go ahead and try the c clamp method, but if it isn't going any where, your best bet is to screw that sucker back in.

No screwing on these. Straight up pistons with separate e-brake shoes built into hub assembly. With fixed calipers it is tough to use a c-clamp, usually I just use an old pad to gently lever the piston back. Of course as you push one back another one wants to come out so it is like a game of wackamole.

Yeah I've swapped pads on these brakes twice before so far (oem -> hps, and hps -> hps), and I've managed with the C-clamps. I also use boards to help too, which I guess is similar to your "old pad" idea. e.g. I put a section of 3/4-inch think board I have laying around inside the caliper and then c-clamp that to the outside of the caliper until I get them both pushed in.

good to know, thanks guys.

Just got done with my big weekend of brakes work:

1) Put the Relentless 2-piece rotors on all 4 corners (along with their rear caliper expansion kit for the thicker rear rotors, which means taking the rear rotors completely apart and introducing lots of air into the system in the process).

2) A very thorough bleed of all the fluid: ran 2L of cheap Prestone stuff from autozone through just to clean out air bubbles and old fluid/moisture, around the 4 corners 2x over. Then flushed that with fresh RBF600 to past the obvious color change at all 4 corners.

3) Installed Carbotech XP8 pads all around.

4) Bedded it all in together.

The Carbotechs seem to bed in fine, and no real noise so far, so I may just keep using them as street pads, at least until they start getting noisy on me.

The Relentless kit seem to function fine so far. Both the rotors and the caliper expansion kit seem quite high quality. The rears are considerably thicker than stock, and at all 4 corners it's obvious they've got a better cooling vane setup in the interior (that and they're slotted to boot).

The only technical gripe I have is about the weights. The fronts are as advertised and talked about elsewhere on the board: ~19lbs per rotor, vs 29lbs for the stock ones I took off, so there's 20 lbs of unsprung rotating weight gone from the front of the car.

However, at least in my personal case, the "lightweight" 2-piece rear rotors are actually heavier than the stock ones I took off, by 1.8lbs per rotor. I checked and double-checked and triple-checked. Relentless claims roughly 3-4 lbs lighter on the rear rotors, and other installers seem to have confirmed this. Scott@RA claims I'm the first person to report having lighter stock rotors than his 2-piece ones. It's not an insignificant difference though, or just some minor measurement error. "3-4 lbs lighter" vs 1.8 lbs heavier is a net of ~5-6 lbs difference from expectations, which is in the ballpark of ~25% of the weight of the objects we're talking about. I repeatedly measured both of my RA ones and both of my stockers. The stockers are 19.2 lbs each, and the RA's are 21 lbs flat. It's hard to imagine some Nissan variance (as in, maybe on some 2009 cars they sourced different rear sport-package rotor part numbers) accounting for such a large weight discrepancy.

I'll have to check and see if anyone else kept the actual weight numbers from their stock and RA rear rotors for comparison sometime to delve deeper into this mystery.

Brakes update after 2 full days on the street. Minor squeals during light braking at low speeds are starting to creep in. It's not all that bad though so far, not enough to make me want to swap in a street pad for regular use anyways.

I imagine it will be a while before I fully understand the squeal, but so far the evidence seems to point to the idea that it's very dependent on how you treat the brakes. Basically if you're light on them on the street like a normal driver, it seems to de-bed them a little (remove some of the good xfer layer) and make them noisy. Doing a light rebedding seems to quiet them down for a while (and by light, I mean really just 4-5 good hard stops from ~50-55mph down to 10mph, fairly closely spaced together).

As I've always done, I'm careful to time it out so that I can let off the brakes and roll the last foot or two to a stop without them, to avoid burning them into one spot on the rotor (with a little parking brake help when necc). That alone probably avoids a lot of rotor and pad problems for me.

Time will tell if I can sustain a pattern of occasional partial re-bedding to keep them relatively quiet on the street between track days, or if I'll eventually give up and use a street pad to avoid noise.

The braking performance is awesome though, they're very grabby :)

Oh one other totally random technical note on our cars, maybe someone will Google this in a time of need someday:

Idle Air Volume Learning

The service manual details the pre-requisites for this, as well as the steps to accomplish it without any special tools (e.g. Consult-III), on pages EC-18 through EC-20. It's a good thing to do when you've made significant breathing changes (intake/exhaust work, etc), after changing the idle speeds via UpRev, or just anytime after a full ECU reset as well. I assume we all already know this. I've done it several times in the past without issue.

Yesterday after having my battery disconnected for an extended period, and fixing a minor intake problem (I had a leak between my filters and throttle plates, someone didn't fully hook up one of my PCV intake hoses properly last time they were in there... :shakes head:), I tried to do Idle Air Volume Learning again like before.

For the life of me, I couldn't get it to work. I kept repeating the Service Manual's sequence over and over (the gas pedal timing, etc), but never got the blinking SES light that indicates you've done it all right.

I finally figured out the problem after a while, randomly: Having my PLX Kiwi Bluetooth adapter hooked up to the OBD-II port was preventing it. I wasn't even running any diagnostic software, I just had the adapter hooked up and powered on. Disconnected it and the procedure worked on the very next try.

My wild guess is that if it senses a CAN-capable device hooked to the OBD-II port, the "manual" procedures for things like Idle Air Volume Learning are disabled because it assumes you've got Consult-III available or something. Who knows. Bottom line: disconnect your OBD-II adapters before doing this procedure or it will never work.

nice gremlin find.

Linking this here for visibility: done sorting out a good UpRev throttle map: http://www.the370z.com/tuning/43384-...tle-uprev.html

Another random note: my PC680 battery is finally failing. It finally crossed some line, and now I really only get a few good starts over a few days before it really needs charging with a good charger to top it off again (and even the good starts are little iffy). It was a good long run, but it's time to replace it. A new battery and some new electrical hardware (for better connectivity than the hackish first job) are ordered to arrive early next week, will post part#'s and pics after the install.

Re-relocated my battery yesterday and today. I put most of the info back in the DIY battery relocate thread, over here: http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...ml#post1370569

Replaced (with OEM stuff) the factory front spoilers (all 3: the little ones in front of the wheels and the big one on the lower front edge of the bumper). They've gotten pretty torn up over the past couple of years, to the point where I think their aerodynamics are compromised.

I had been putting off replacing the main one because I didn't want to deal with the riveting. Turns out the new OEM replacements come with bolts instead (don't ask me why they ever put rivets on what's clearly a wear item). Just had to cut off the rivets on the old piece and then enlarge the holes in the bumper very slightly (1/4 inch drill bit).

Also, I installed Z-speed's aluminum under-tray. I had been wanting one forever, but I knew my old 1-inch oil pan spacer wouldn't fit under it. Figured I'd give it a shot with the new AM Performance oil pan.

The good results:

1. It fits the oil pan fine (the drain bolt just barely touches the undercover)
2. It looks like it would give better cooling to the pan (and seemed to during one test drive today vs normal behavior)
3. Probably better front underside aero, but who knows without testing
4. Seems stronger against possible underside damage.

The so-so results:

1. The Al is thick enough that this mod actually adds roughly 2.5 lbs to the front of the car vs the non-Nismo plastic undercover. All things considered I'm ok with that tradeoff, especially being so down low and spread out wide.
2. Z-speed and Z1 both warn about incompatibility with extended oil pans, but I found a new incompatibility: Hotchkis front sway bars. The Hotchkis bushings stick out about 1/8" (maybe less) more than the pan technically allows for, and then on top of that they have grease fitting nipples on the bottom that really get in the way. I worked around the grease fittings by cutting holes in the undertray with a 1-inch hole saw to let them peep through, and then the tray just barely stretches over the bushings themselves and bolts on securely. It's a little scary having those grease nipples sticking out, they're gonna get killed if I ever bottom out the front of the car. But on the other hand they're just grease fittings for swaybar bushings, it's not a catastrophic problem if that happens.
3. With the AM Performance oil pan Z-speed's little oil change door is useless, and one of the two bolts for it hits the pan to boot. I just removed the offending door bolt for now, and later I'm going to remove the other and weld the door shut so it can't rattle. I'm pretty used to removing the whole tray for oil changes anyways.

I expected all of these sorts of issues given how many unusual mods my car has, so the fact that it's on the car and usable was a good overall result for me, just things to keep in mind for others.

Undertray pics:

Front area:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...024-154147.jpg

Rear area (with the new grease fitting holes apparent, and you can kinda see where the bushing itself is a problem):

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...024-154157.jpg

Attempted a shot of the oil pan clearance, came out kinda useless :)

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...024-154232.jpg

I had a similar problem with the Z-speed undertray and the Hotchkis bar. I removed the nipples due to the interference, but then I discovered as soon as you hit any hard transition the sway bar comes down and smacks the undertray. After a few good hits like that the undertray will be bent all out of shape. Might happen with a stock bar as well, can't say for sure. I have the AM Performance pan, which relocates the drain plug so I have the same issue with the trap door now.

Edit: where do the swaybars end up hitting the tray when mobile?

As the end link is pushed up when compressed, the center section of the sway bar is pushed down by a similar amount. Compress the front suspension unevenly such as entering a harsh driveway or a track transition and you will hear a loud "thunk" as the center of the sway hits the tray. Eventually the noise stops once the sway bar has bashed the undertray into the desired shape :)

Ah I might get saved on that a bit for now, being on the stock super-tall suspension still. Probably gets worse as you drop the car down :)

Just got through getting a tech inspection form filled out for my Driver's Edge class. Took the car down to Nevrslo to have them do it, since TDE requires an actual SAE mechanic to sign off.

They're like 5 minutes away from me and I had never been down to their shop. It's a small shop, but I was pretty impressed with them overall. They had at least two of their drift track cars on display, and a lot of quality parts on the shelf. It's just refreshing to walk into a shop where they can point at two obvious full-on track machines sitting fully assembled out on the floor and say "yeah we did all the fabrication and mechanic work on these, and we run them in real events". The cars also happened to be a 350Z and heavily modded S14 or 240 (whichever it was it was hard to tell at this point, to me anyways. It also had an LS1 engine swapped into it), so they know Nissan stuff.

They're definitely my new favorite option for when it comes time to put a cage in this car, etc.

Been trying to get my oil pressure gauge installed in time for the Driver's Edge class this weekend. I've done all the electronics and interior stuff days ago, but I've been holding off on my oil change and sensor install pending parts. I ordered two sets of pipe fitting parts from two different vendors, one that assumes the car's threads are NPT and one that assumes they're BSPT, so that I can sort it out during the oil change and I've definitely got whatever I need to finish the job.

The NPT hardware is here, but the BSPT still isn't, and now things are getting down to the wire. The BSPT hardware came from McMaster Carr, and UPS was supposed to deliver it two days ago on Monday, but they seem to have failed at that completely (it seems to be indefinitely "on the truck for delivery"). I have to drive down to the class late Friday afternoon.

The good news though, is apparently McMaster Carr has some of the best customer service I've ever seen on the phone. This is my first order with them ever, and it's a whole $16 order. One 5 minute phone call explaining about the UPS delay (and I didn't even get into how urgent this was for me personally) and they said they'd get in touch with UPS from their side, sort out what's happening, and if necessary re-ship new parts to me overnight to get them here tomorrow (Thursday) for sure. They re-iterated that one way or another, there's no way they wouldn't get this fixed and have the parts in my hands Thursday. Awesome stuff, I'm going to order everything I can through these guys in the future :)

Sorry to hear when things don't go your way and there are obstacles.

But get some pics up for your updates! haha

Soon as I get the sensor installed (hopefully tomorrow) I'll post pics/vid and details on the oil pressure gauge I picked and how it's all wired up (with an audio alarm on low pressure to boot!).

Oil Pressure Gauge install is done. I'm not going to do a full DIY, instead I'll link you to spearfish25's for a lot of the install details (and link this back to there as well): http://www.the370z.com/diy-section-d...ure-gauge.html.

First, I'll cover the sensor install stuff, I'll put the actual dash gauge stuff in the next post. My sensor (like almost all aftermarket sensors) is 1/8 NPT threaded. There have been conflicting reports on whether our car's stock oil pressure switch is 1/8 NPT or 1/8 BSPT. BSPT is more normal for Nissan and Japanese mfgs in general, but at least one other forum member checked his threads thoroughly and found NPT apparently. I ordered hardware for both scenarios, which also gave me known-good male and female examples of both thread types to compare with each other and the stock sensor. My car ended up being BSPT, but it could well be that this varies by mfg date or some other variable. In both cases I ordered a setup based on a 3-port all female Tee-shaped adapter, so that I could play with different installation orientations and find what worked best for me.

This was my NPT parts list from Aircraft Spruce, which I didn't end up using. It's a 3-way all-female 1/8 NPT tee, and one male:male hex nipple for attaching it to the engine block.

This was my BSPT parts list from McMaster-Carr, which I did end up using:

The double-male hex nipple goes between the engine block and the tee, the stock pressure switch goes into another tee port directly, and the aftermarket sensor uses the NPT -> BSPT adapter to plug into the tee.

For sealing the threads, on the advice I found via googling, I went with Permatex #2. You want to put a nice layer of this stuff over every Male threaded end in the assembly, but leave the first 1-2 threads clean (so that as you screw the threads in, while excess permatex tends to squeeze back out on the outside, it's not contaminating the inside where the oil flow will be).

This is the various BSPT fittings, the stock sensor, and the OEM sensor loosely threaded together in the final configuration I decided to use, and a tube of the sealant:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-123244.jpg

The orientation I chose has the stock sensor sticking out in its normal orientation (but further due to the tee), and the aftermarket pointing fairly close to straight down. It was the longer and heavier of the two, so I wanted to reduce its leverage on the whole assembly as much as possible. The bottom (wire outlet) of the sensor comes out about 1/2" above the level of my AM Performance oil pan, so that combined with the Z-speed solid aluminum undertray should sufficiently prevent any hits on the dangling sensor. The stock sensor reaches out close to in-line with the swaybar (as with spearfish's, but not quite as far out), but it's even higher up than my oil cooler lines which were placed to clear swaybar movement range, so it's all good.

After basic assembly, I had to cut one factory wire tie on the oil switch's wiring to get the wire to route correctly, and then I put some 1/4" split plastic tubing over the new sensor's wires and tied it up along the same rough path, and then sealed everything over with a bit of electrical tape to keep moisture at bay.

Pics of the sensors installed, in various stages of completion and from various angles:

From straight underneath, looking up at the OEM pressure switch into the Tee:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-134118.jpg

Same, zoomed out and showing the aftermarket sensor as well:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-134135.jpg

Angled view of roughly the same stuff:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-134141.jpg

Different underside view angle:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-134205.jpg

View from the front:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-134151.jpg

Cable protection / electrical tape stuff:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-144935.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-144952.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-145335.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-145345.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-145351.jpg

Part 2: The Gauge Itself.

I decided on a pretty awesome looking (feature-wise) gauge from Spek-Pro: ProParts - Gauge Controllers, Mounting Pods. That listing shows it as 0-150 PSI, but the current model they're shipping is actually a 0-120 PSI gauge face with a 0-150 PSI pressure sensor. It's a little pricey at $255, but IMHO worth it. The basic rundown on the features of this gauge:

52mm (2-1/16"), digital internals with analog-style display
LED Backlight: several different colors for the main backlight, red needle.
3 Buttons along the bottom of the faceplate for programming menus: you can pick the backlight color, set the brightness, recall the last peak value, calibrate the gauge to zero sensor pressure (w/ engine off), and set high- and low- pressure alarm pressures.
Regardless of your chosen backlight color, when the pressure is low or high enough to trip one of your alarm settings, the gauge backlight switches to flashing red.
There's an alarm wire output that you can hook up, which will ground a small 12V load to do whatever you want it to do.

Full details on the features, wiring, and programming are in this rather poorly put together but informative instruction manual: http://www.propartsllc.com/pdfs/Pressure.pdf

I didn't use the dimmer wire (supposed to dim the gauge with the headlights/dimmer for your dash). I tried hooking it up to the dimmer+ and dimmer- lines used by the factory radio harness, but had no luck making it work, so I left it disconnected. It could be that I just didn't do something right at the time though. The brightness is easy enough to adjust from the gauge's buttons in any case.

I did make use of the alarm wire though. I went down to a local electronics shop and picked up a small 12V Piezo Buzzer rated for 75dB. You could search somewhere like Mouser to buy something similar online, e.g. this 95 dB one, they have a pretty wide selection of them there. My 75dB is loud enough to really be annoying, but I haven't yet had the chance to see if it's loud enough for windows down on the track with a helmet on. If not I'll upgrade it later. In any case, any reasonable piezo buzzer is well under the 1.5 Amp limit for the gauge's alarm wire, so you don't even need to use a relay or anything. Keep in mind the gauge's alarm "output" is a switched ground: you hook your buzzer's negative terminal to the gauge output, and your buzzer's positive terminal to an ignition-switched +12V source.

The problem with wiring up that alarm and setting an appropriate low pressure point on the gauge though, is that anytime I'd want the ignition on and the engine not running, the alarm would be sounding off the whole time due to the gauge being powered up and reading 0 PSI. I thought about putting a killswitch on the alarm itself, but then I figured I'd flip it off and forget that I did so, which ruins the whole point. So instead I wired up a lighted on/off switch for the whole gauge itself. This allows me to shut off the gauge+alarm if I'm going to have the ignition on and engine off for a while, and it's really obvious if I leave it that way when I start driving because the whole gauge is powered off (duh, turn the switch on).

As far as mounting for all of this goes (the gauge, the switch, the alarm buzzer), for now my center dash config is still a lid-less cubby and 2 empty DIN-sized pockets where the radio used to be. Later I'll probably upgrade to the "standard" of just a flat faceplate over this area to mount hardware on, but for now I mounted the gauge inside the cubby, and the switch and alarm hidden in the back of one of the DIN pockets.

This pic is the DIN pocket w/ the switch+alarm, obviously:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...103-175718.jpg

And this horrible shaky video is me playing with the gauge while the car is half-warmed-up. The brightness setting is just too high for the camera, hence the blurry look of the lit-up parts of the face. I roll through the basic settings menus (peak display, high alarm setting, low alarm setting, backlight color, brightness). On the way through, I set the low alarm high enough to make it trip at my current pressure just so you can hear it go off and see it flash, and then set it back to zero after.

Warning: partway through this video, I trip the alarm, and you're going to get really annoyed at the buzzing sound long before I get back through the menu system to set the low pressure alarm back to zero. Have your mute button handy:

Nicely done! And thanks for confirming the thread type.

Just got home from my DE weekend. This was The Driver's Edge program, running at MSR Houston. The whole weekend was really awesome. A lot of fun, and a lot of learning.

The car held up great, no random mechanical issues to solve over the weekend (which means the 100lbs of tools and spare parts I lugged to the event were mostly dead weight). The new brake stuff (Relentless 2pc rotors + Carbotech XP8 pads) were awesome. Brought the car down pretty hard, and never faded on me. The new oil pressure gauge worked fine. The new battery relocate didn't come apart or anything. The Conti DW's are still going strong, lots of tread still on 'em.

I was in the Green (noob) run group, since this was my first event. It was the right place for me to be I think, at least initially, as there was more classroom time and more coverage of basic track-driving mechanics. It was a big group though, and there were a number of cars there that just weren't "getting it" and kinda slowing us down. Still, even then while we were slowed down, it gave me the opportunity to practice passes (including some off-line passes near corner entries), and my instructor and I got to sit back and chat about where the guy in front of us was doing good or making a bad line or using the brakes when they shouldn't, etc. For my last run on the second day, my instructor went ahead and moved me up a group and let me run with the Blue group. In that group everyone's past the very basics and kinda knows how to handle themselves, cornering speeds and lines are closer matched between the cars, and passing was being handled a lot more efficiently. Everything just "clicks" better between the drivers in that group, and I was able to hold my own I think, at least on this track in this direction.

Planning to do more events with these guys (and at more tracks), and work towards being a consistent blue-grouper, although I may need to drop back to green on new tracks at least once to figure them out, we'll see how that works out. My instructor (Ginger) was awesome, she talked me through correcting a lot of my mistakes (and yes all the instructors at these use the in-helmet headsets to talk to you).

As my speed ramped up, things kept changing, that was something I didn't really anticipate. When you finally nail down a challenging corner and exit it significantly faster, then you're suddenly coming into the next faster than you've done before, and it changes your setup a bit. Might have to brake earlier, get further to the outside before turning in, etc. I had a few slip-ups from mistakes (e.g. not shedding enough speed before turn-in, or not unwinding the steering enough as I laid back into the throttle), which led to a few minor slides (a couple of throttle oversteers, and one sideways 4-wheel drift), but I managed to correct them gently and not go off track, and recover my line a little further down, so I think things are coming along well. Lots to learn yet, but it will come with time.

I still need to do a minor tear-down on the car for after-analysis and make sure everything's good (primary concern is if my new oil pressure fittings had a tiny slow leak, it might not be apparent until I get back in there and feel for the slick on the fittings or look for drip marks on the undertray).

I shot video of my 2nd day sessions (3 with green, and the final run with blue, although I forgot to hit the "record" button when we started blue, and then finally realized it and hit the button while we were on a straight a few laps in). I still need to get those edited and youtube'd. Either I'll get it done tomorrow, or it'll be a week, since I'm leaving the country for a week tomorrow evening.

I'll stop rambling now with one final note: If you've got a functioning Z and you've never been to a DE type event, you really owe it to yourself to do so. You're missing out on a big chunk of your Z's fun value :)

sounds like a good time:tup:

In for the vids

This addiction either bites hard or not at all... we now know which way this one went :)

Sorry for the delays on the vid. I waited till I got back from my trip, and then it took a couple days just to get everything exported from my phone and re-encoded via RaceRender, which left me with just short 1.5 hours of HD video w/ gauge/track/timer overlays. I've been keeping all my raw data/video for myself to review and learn from, but I just pasted together a few shorter bits for a 20-minute video for youtube upload. I'm hoping they'll show the "train" section in the next green classroom when they're telling everyone for the 50th time to be vigilant about letting passers get by :p

Just got my images back from Hart Photography. They shot the event and sell prints and downloads and such, so I ordered a zipfile of all the raw images they had on my car, ended up being ~100 images @ 15 megapixels. I haven't really gone through it all in depth, but I picked out these 4 in a quick overview of them to post up here:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-11210.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-11230.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-13767.jpg

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-11051.jpg