Hmmmm... there are a couple of grandsport speedway events and msrh race 4 charity coming up.... :P

Yeah I'll take a look and see what I can squeeze in, in the meantime. I've still never been to Grandsport even once. Every single time I plan for it, something goes wrong :P

Belated random updates!

Got the house and truck part nailed down. Now I have an acre of land in a unrestricted area and the Z has a 3-car garage all to itself, way out north of Houston close to Pinehurst, and I just picked up a used '05 Ford F-150 as a DD / tow-vehicle :)

Made it to the TDE event at MSR-H for the weekend of Jan 26/27 a little over a week ago. It was my first event back since September, and I really had to shake some rust off. I think I picked a bad time in my development to be putting such huge gaps in the timeline, but that's life. So mostly I was just trying to get back up to where I was before all weekend.

Mostly it went well. 2nd to last session Sunday was in very wet conditions, and my rear 295-width Conti DW's had already worn down pretty close to dead flat on tread by then. It was kinda hilarious. I had an instructor for this run. She jumped in the car at the grid and asked what my plans were for the session. I said something like "Hey it's wet and I've got almost no tread left, I'm just gonna take it easy and try not to spin", and then I proceeded to spin out on the first tight corner of the warmup lap. It came on outta nowhere without really feeling it give way first, and I corrected poorly. Luckily it was at very low speed and we just kinda drifted off track as we were spinning in slow motion and then drove back on when it was clear. It was still kinda stupid and embarrassing :)

Had another related first-ever event: first time I've ever had another car spin out directly in front of me mid-corner. This was in the dry, and the car had just passed me on the previous straight and entered a bit off-line and aggressive. I made it around him, but it was tough to avoid that "oh **** just stop" automatic mental reaction. I probably hesitated a fraction longer than I should have, but it still went well and I never came to a complete stop.

The CL brake pad setup (RC6 / RC5+) was pretty amazing, I was thoroughly impressed with how consistent the pads were on-track, and how much easier they were to modulate than my previous (Carbotech). Not that I'm yet the world's best at braking, but these are gonna make my life easier.

I did develop some brake vibrations on the second day, but I was feeling it in the chassis and pedal more than the steering wheel for once, assumed it was the rear rotors going and just drove through it for the rest of the event.

I got my post-analysis finished up yesterday on the car, and yes that was it. I had switched to a new set of DBA4000's in the front, but still had a set of cheap Z1 rotors on the back that have been on since back when I was having other brake issues with vibration. Either they were damaged back then and it took a while to show up, or they're just not capable of handling the heat. Either way, who cares. The front (DBA4000) rotors checked out on the dial gauge (at multiple radius on both sides) to within .001 still, and thickness variation random samples were all within .001 as well, so those are still perfect post-event.

The rear (Z1) I only checked via dial gauge along the outside surface (since the shield covers the back), but even that was just all over the map around .006-ish variation, and often the sweep on that was pretty dramatic within a few inches. Ordered some DBA4K's for the rear to replace from kamispeed, and will check out the rear pads at that time and see if I need to clean them up (flatten em out a bit with a grinder) before re-bedding.

Next event is Mar 2/3 TDE at TWS in College Station. I've got a fresh set of Conti DW tires to go on the existing wheels, getting those mounted and balanced today. Other than that I'm just gonna get phunk's fuel starve kit (waiting here in a box) installed and probably not much else between now and March, although I may start ordering parts for the next phases of work to occur in mid-late March.

My phone was still down for datalogging purposes, so I didn't bother. I think I'm gonna put a Race Keeper in the car soon so I don't have to futz with phone stuff.

I know what you mean by shaking the rust off. I have my first track day of the year next Friday. Been awhile due to my crash last year. I'm a little worried. Hard to shake that off.

You'll be fine, just take it easy the first couple of sessions and feel out that grip all over again :)

Been busy on the car the past few days. Got CJM's fuel starve kit ( http://www.the370z.com/track-autocro...l-product.html / 370z Road Race Fuel Pump ) installed. It's hard, but it could be worse :) Working fine so far, but I could never reliably and safely trigger it on the street anyways, so we'll see at the next track event how it holds up as my fuel level drops. I probably won't go under half a tank or so because I still need the fuel weight in the rear for now, but I was starving at ~2-3 dots down from full before on certain track corners.

I also went ahead and pulled the trigger on some real datalogging, since I was tired of Android firmware bugs causing me to not record my events and losing out on all that data. So I got a Race Keeper and did the install on that as well. I went with the Black model, a single forward bullet-cam mounted to the front glass for now, the OBD-II interface, and of course the standard Mic, 10Hz GPS, and internal accelerometers. I've done a couple of short test vids on the street and it's working out fine so far. Install pic of the main unit here:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...5-rk-black.jpg

For now it's velcro'd to the top of the airbag controller and then ziptied for additional stability. Once I remove all the airbag hardware (which is waiting for when I go forward with the cage/seat plans), I'm going to reuse that airbag controller's 3x factory bolts to mount a nice little aluminum plate to screw down the Racekeeper to (with its anti-shock mounts) for even more stability and accuracy.

I'll be back at another TDE event at Texas World Speedway next weekend to try out both in real conditions.

Made it out to TWS this past weekend, had a blast. I'm still a little rusty, but I'm getting my confidence back stronger than it was at MSR-H in Jan. This is my first weekend at this track (other than like 4 laps a year ago when my brake problems first happened really badly). Since MSR-H in Jan, I've put on a fresh set of Conti DW tires, added the CJM fuel starve solution, and the RaceKeeper datalogger.

Brakes: My brakes are still juddering. Most likely there's just some physical issue with a caliper's alignment, or a sticking piston somewhere, or perhaps a caliper is flexed out? No idea, but it's clear to me that swapping out every related soft component still isn't fixing it in the long term. In any case, I was able to mostly put it out of mind since I know the car's holding together fine and it's a rotor getting chewed up or whatever.

RaceKeeper: I don't have the HD Video export (or multi-camera) yet, but regardless the video quality is less than stunning. It's fine for review/datalogging purposes, just doesn't look great for e.g. Youtube. With multiple cameras all on a single HD export in smaller frames, though, it's probably plenty enough resolution. Importantly the video is a lot more stable than using e.g. a phone. The OBD-II data came out nice, it's interesting to see a whole weekend of data graphed out with things like coolant temps, and to see how my intake air temp varies in different sections of the track. Their comparison features are also really awesome for seeing what you did different between two sessions/laps. In general I'm pretty happy with the system, and it's way less buggy and troublesome. Just jump in the car and hit the record button at the start of the session, pull out all the data later via USB stick.

CJM Fuel Thingy: Worked great. I was starving out on certain bad right-handers at over 3/4 full on the gauge before, and topping off between every session. This weekend I just filled up once each morning, and ran the car down to just under 1/4 tank by the end of each day. Never a single fuel hiccup :)

I uploaded most of my final session from Sunday to Youtube, shown below. The first few laps are the best part. Chased down a red 'vette, finally closed the gap when the other vette in front of him spun out, tailed him for a while, then he blew me away on the main banked straight, and then I reeled him right back in when we got back into the corners and he had to give me the pass :) Had my fastest lap of the weekend right after that stuff, on Lap 5.

Most of the issues I see in the video/data here still basically comes down to confidence, which I need to keep building up with seat time. I do some light braking consistently before 3 specific corners on this track when really they need just a little lift to nose it over at best, and then I'm usually not back in the gas hard and fast enough to really track out all the way. It's all just about overcoming fear and becoming more confident in the car's (and my own) capabilities. Made a lot of progress learning the track in any case. My best lap of the first session of the weekend was 2:21.50, and my best lap below at the end of the weekend was 2:08.49 :) I think the real badasses in the higher rungroups all run somewhere in the neigborhood of 1:57 -> 2:02 -ish.

Great day it sounds like.

Bit the bullet and ordered a BBK, because I'm tired of trying to diagnose whatever keeps going wrong with my calipers or whatever the case may be. I went with Stillen's AP Racing kit (just the rotors, calipers, brackets, but not their pads and SS lines, which I'm sourcing separately because they don't offer what I want). I'm still waiting on pads to arrive, but I went ahead and tested fitment (I mean, you can hear things and measure things, but it's always nice to get a physical confirmation after the parts arrive), and everything fits perfectly.

The calipers are just amazing. By far the most well-built looking things I've ever seen. The bracket's pretty solid too, and everything's super light.

Pics:

Front Caliper + Bracket:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...er-bracket.jpg

Testing fitment, just hand-tightening everything with no pads installed:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...wheel-view.jpg

Test fit worked, but check out how small the clearance is on 18" Forgestar F-14's. If those wheel weights were stuck on an inch further to the inside, they'd rub the caliper:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-clearance.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-clearance.jpg

I can't wait to put this on the car, but for now I'm held up while Essex orders some CL pads in the right shapes. Odds are good between that and me going out of town the first week of April, this stuff won't get installed until April 8th or later.

Awesome. I have the same kit on XP 10's

What are you running for rear pads?

I know on the stock setup I liked to bias the compounds a bit. I also really like the feel and bedding and whatnot on these CL-brand pads, but CL's low-end compound I was using in the rear (RC5+), they don't make it for the larger APRacing rear. And RC8 is just too aggressive given I'm still on street tires, I think, in the front. So I think my first pads experiment will be RC6 front and RC6E in the rear, which are only marginally different in bite/friction characteristics from each other:
http://www.essexparts.com/media/uplo...arison_400.jpg

If that doesn't work out (rear locking up too quick), then I may just have to go RC8 on the front and learn to use hardcore brakes on shitty street tires without hitting ABS all the time :)

XP 8's

very nice!

Ended up ordering RC6E pads at all four corners for the first experiment with the new brakes setup (because other CL compounds had to be ordered and would take forever), hopefully they arrive today. They're not super-grabby, so even if the lack of F<->R bite differential puts me back in ice-mode a little, I'm sure I can drive through it and/or tune it out via tire pressure and rear sway.

Also, I've got more new toys stacking up in the garage. Picked up a set of JRZ RS1 from Forged, and they look amazing. This and the APR brake setup are both in line with my new theme of "For a given chunk of cash, spend it on a lesser-featured product from a very high quality mfg, instead of a maximally-featured item from a lesser known mfg". They look pretty amazing so far on build quality, and I expect they'll do well on the car once I put them on. I'll probably stick them on the car and play with ride height today, but alignment and corner balance will have to wait a week while I'm out of town all next week. Any general advice on getting my initial ride height set up quickly (which I want close to stock, or maybe 1/2" lower) with this style of shock (helper springs, no adjustable shock body length) other than "guess at where to set the spring seat, set the car down, measure, iterate?" Is a "normal" setting on these kinds of shocks usually with the helper mostly compressed, half-compressed, or "as close to zero preload as possible, but just a little tension to keep things from bouncing off the mounts"?

Anyways, pic with the springs installed, still sitting in a box:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...90-jrz-rs1.jpg

Nice!!

If anyone else ever wonders the same things I was above, re: what's a sane starting point on helper spring compression on the bench, the answer is "almost fully compressed". Got them installed a test driven a little, but I ended up leaving the car with the ride height a little lower than I want, because I was out of time and energy to go adjust them all again. Feels pretty awesome so far.

A couple new pro-photographer pics from the last track event (crushed in quality by uploading to the albums here of course :P):

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-14684.jpg
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-img-14708.jpg

So, a couple good updates:

1) I got the ride height finalized on the JRZ's, at around ~1/2" lower than stock, today. Took the car for a pre-alignment test run on some twisty back roads around here, and it feels *amazing*. They're still set at full-stiff, and while that might not be very comfortable for any passenger, the car has tons of traction and even manages ripply pavement pretty well at that stiffness. I may back it down a few notches as a starting point on the track, but not much. The car feels so much more stable and predictable. Combined with the existing hotchkis sways, it's just damn near impossible to get the body to sway much on a corner anymore on the street. Also the nose movement on braking/accel stuff has a much smaller travel range now and the transition is so much easier.

2) I got a callback from Rick @ TDE today and a standby slot opened up for MSR-Houston this weekend in the Yellow rungroup, so I'll get to run these new coilovers on-track this weekend. I'm excited :)

I'm gonna leave the new APRacing brakes in their boxes for now. Between Real Life and alignment and misc track maintenance, I don't have time to put the brakes on before this weekend and be satisfied with testing and re-bleeding, etc. Too much risk. So they'll go on next week after I get back and get tested in May. I'm sure I'll have more to report on the JRZ RS1's after this weekend :)

What the spring rates?

I'll have to hang my head in shame and say "I have no idea what spring rates are on my car" :) It's the JRZ RS1 setup from Sharif@Forged. Whatever spring rates they picked :) (Edit: actually, I think it was written somewhere, maybe I can go find the numbers, on boxes or something).

From http://www.the370z.com/brakes-suspen...s-release.html :
"Linear Rate main and helper springs: 6 X 2.25 650lb Front 8 X 2.25 500lb"

I imagine that's what's written on the spring boxes if I go dig for them in the garage (650 and 500), but I'm eating pizza right now :P Unless they changed something with this setup since then.

dude you got some serious mods within a couple months!!! wish i could check it out this weekend, but ii had to back out of the event.

Hah! You were probably the cancellation that got me through the waitlist, thanks :)

Brakes? What are those for? :P

j/k nice mods! Congrats

They're for avoiding read-ending your slow-*** car :p

Had an awesome weekend at MSR-Houston, lots of fun. They bumped me to Yellow because they knew I had been edging up into that range off and on for a while now, and it had a shorter waitlist. I was a little nervous about jumping into Yellow the first morning, but once I got out there it went great and I was able to keep pace and manage traffic there just fine. It's really great group to run with :)

JRZ RS1 Coilovers: Keep in mind I was coming from stock, but OMFG these made such a huge difference to the car's handling. Even after having played with them a little on the street, I wasn't expecting such a huge improvement on the track as what I ended up feeling. In an effort to be conservative I started out at half-stiff in the rear and about 2/3rd's stiff in the front and figured I'd adjust from there if things seemed screwy. It felt so good in the first session I decided to avoid the adjuster knob tweaking all weekend. I had a learning curve adapting to the car's new handling anyways, no point making it harder on myself.

Multiple other drivers that managed to follow me through a corner commented to me out of the blue about how my car was dead flat in corners, virtually zero body roll. Brake->Accel transitions were much easier and smoother, to the point where I started getting comfortable with small amounts of trail braking. No issues with loss of traction due to suspension hop or anything, even though MSR-H has lots of little ripples and bumps in the pavement here and there.

The biggest change though was how much easier it was to control the rear with throttle in the corners. It's like before I had to push through throttle while slowly compressing down the stock rear suspension, and then it would finally break hard and it would be difficult to control. Now it breaks free with less throttle in a very smooth, predictable manner. It was very confidence inspiring and I did a lot of drifty corner exits on them this weekend. I love these coilovers! Maybe next time out I'll start adjusting stiffness to find my optimal settings, but at any setting they just rock :)

New Failure Mode - Dead Thermostat: Saturday in the later sessions I was noticing a signs of coolant splash in the engine bay (i.e. from the pressure relief cap spewing a bit). My oil temps were a bit high, peaking around 265 but never really pushing any higher once they got there. After the final session I looked harder at things and it was apparent I had lost more coolant than I thought and needed to investigate. In the end, it turns out my thermostat had managed to stop working right. It wasn't opening, or at least wasn't opening fully enough to matter. I had the track shop take the thermostat out of the car so I could keep running Sunday. With the thermo gone the coolant stopped boiling over, oil temps were still peaking around 255, but kinda understandable: no thermostat probably isn't very efficient with the high-speed radiator flow. I really think the oil cooler saved me from engine damage on the first day when it was stuck, otherwise things would've overheated much faster.

Videos:

I youtube'd two laps from the 2nd Yellow session on Sunday. The first is my personal best time at 1:52.11, and the second is a few laps later when I ran off in the grass. As I mentioned in the Youtube descriptions: most of my really "good" laps this weekend were in the 1:53's and 1:54's. I was overdriving myself and the tires a bit this session (and not in a smooth way), which led to both the awesome fast-lap and the eventual off. At least it was a clean off, I straightened up before I hit the grass.

I very much understand what you mean by controlling the rear with the throttle. Helps so much. Glad your happy with them.

The RS1s are well worth the money. You articulated it far better than I could. :)

My problem now is that my VLSD seems to be completely shot now and I'm trashing my outside rear tire. I thought I was being light enough with the throttle on exit to not spin it but I corded the inside of my right rear yesterday. :( I should have softened the rear up a bit when I first started feeling it but I thought I was driving around it.

The VLSD is worthless when hot. And are diff gets hot quick.

Yeah, my car loses cornering late in sessions. Some of that's from overheating the Conti DW's, but undoubtedly some of it's from the VLSD as well. Need a good 1.5-way on my mod list, but there are so many other things I need to get to first (like, fixing up my cooling situation, and getting a 4-pt + solid seats + harnesses into the car). Oh and adjustable suspension bits moved up the list. I need adjustable camber in the front.

I think I destroyed the VLSD completely last year because I didn't have problems like this except for a few corners a few laps in. I can't wait to get the NISMO diff and 350Z ready. :P

wstar, on the JRZ RS1, that small silver knob at the bottom, do you know what that is for?

It's the valve for filling the shock with gas/nitrogen.

^ What he said.

Random progress updates:

The APRacing/Stillen BBK + CL RC6E pads are physically on the car, but the old calipers are still sitting in the backs of the wheel wells and hooked up to the brake lines. Tomorrow's the planned day to swap to the fresh braided lines and bleed the system and bed the rotors, etc.

I've got (in the garage or in-shipment) a CSF radiator, a bunch of silicone coolant hoses, an upgraded 25-row series-9 oil cooler, a new thermostat (Mishimoto's, to replace the one cut out at the track), etc. I'm giving up on sorting out a Laminova-like cooling setup for now, because I need the car to get colder and work right for a pair of upcoming track weekends like now, and there's no time to experiment. This is just a rehab of all my cooling system, with the water, oil, and trans coolers all getting larger/better (my old 19-row oil cooler will replace the even smaller existing trans cooler).

Also have Z1's engine/trans mounts on the way, will replace those while the radiator's out. Also planning to gut the engine-bay side of the HVAC stuff while the radiator's out, but will probably just plug/cap the lines going to the interior of the car at the firewall for now, no time to dig apart all the under-dash stuff.

Next event: May 18-19 @ Texas World Speedway.

You'll want some of these unless you like your dust boots extra crispy :p

DH586 Titanium Brake Shims for AP Racing CP7040 Caliper

Oh good thought, thanks! I actually have them on my stock front calipers, but I kinda forgot they were there :)

Do they really work? I just had my brakes rebuilt and roasted them again the day after.

I got them at the end last year but since my seals were already in a toasted state (refreshed in the spring) so I can't say yet. I will be replacing the seals and dust boots soon with high-temp parts and we'll see what happens.

<OT>
It's too bad they didn't design the kit with the CP5555 caliper, it has a recessed dust boot and a better bridge support. It matches up almost identically in specs, would need a just slightly different bracket since the caliper sits a couple of mm higher.
</OT>

Yeah there are a lot of options w/ AP's custom racing stuff, or having Essex do the calipers or whatever, including stuff with no dust boots at all (but then I guess you're expected to clean/rebuild more often that way as well). Just you lose the "Stillen says it works on this car, and gives you the right brackets and rotors that fit correctly" part.

New pro pics from the last event, Apr 13/14 at MSR-Houston. You can see how much lower the car is sitting, and how much less body roll and nose-dive there is in these. While it feels like "zero body roll" in the car, and other drivers were commenting that there was virtually no body roll, in the still photos you can of course see that there still is some mild roll in the car. I guess that's always the case unless you weld everything solid :). Not sure if damper settings affect that or it's just spring rate, so it's possible by bringing up the damper stiffness I could push some of that out, too. All through this event I had the rear Hotchkis sway at full-soft as well.

With notes on what's happening in each pic (This is MSR-H Clockwise):

This one's nearly done tracking out from a right-hander onto the pit straight, still accelerating in mid-4th-gear:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...suspension.jpg

Midway through the second corner of Sugar-and-Spice from the rear, you can easily see the remaining body roll. I'd say at this point in the corner the car's about as laid over on lateral G's as it's ever gonna get on these tires:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...suspension.jpg

This is at the end of the pit straight, a right turn again. I've started turn-in, but I'm not 100% sure whether I was off the brakes on this attempt or still playing with trailing them into it:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...suspension.jpg

Not even sure where this is, too little context. Maybe Gut-check, maybe the straight before Bus-stop?

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...suspension.jpg

And this is near the end of Keyhole, a ~50mph-ish tight little circular section to the right:

http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...suspension.jpg