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I don't mean for show :) As delivered my trailer floor is just plywood with some cheap grey paint on it. I figure hot rubber + rocks will chew through the paint, then I'll start getting water into the plywood and it will rot and tear up eventually.
Re: front straps - I've been test-fitting a solution using axle-straps through the wheel itself down low, seems to work without having to raise the car in the trailer. I'll snap a pic in a few minutes when I'm out there. |
Basically this, except I'd go one spoke further up/forward on the wheel (but where I happened to set the car in just now, the valve stem is in that spot, I'll have to figure out how to avoid that):
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...ough-wheel.jpg |
I put my tires on my counter. Have only had them fall one time... I just need room for more than four. :) I strapped them down (too tight probably) a few times and had a pair hanging halfway off the shelf though.
etrack on each wall and bars across that are what I want to do. I finally did some googling and found this thread: Rennlist Discussion Forums - View Single Post - Trailer Balance L-R that's very similar to what my buddies did. Some of them strap through the wheels some just let them ride. One of the guys is using the bars to hold a bed after he unloads the tires! :) |
I did pick up an e-track shoring beam as well (just one). I still feel like, as heavy as tires+wheels are, I'd rather have them sitting on the floor one way or another. I still haven't done any work on cabinets and/or work surface up in the front area either, so... for this initial setup, I'm basically going to run E-track down low along the driver's side up front, and also in front of the door for a couple of feet on the other side. Then I have basically a large plastic cargo bin (full of tools, winch, chains, whatever) and 5x wheel/tire to keep from sliding around the floor. I figure one of the two can be strapped to the long wall of e-track near the floor, and for the other I can put against the shoring beam up front and then strap to it.
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travisjb's link to that seal-krete stuff is making me rethink my floor plans, though. Maybe I'll ditch the tread plate and find something like that at Lowe's this weekend.
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I'm a big fan of crossing up the straps for safety at the front and rear... assuming you still have the OEM tow hook points behind the front wheels, it's really not difficult to reach under there and hook up, if you get the wheels ~4" off the floor... your approach is probably fine, and I know you wouldn't do it if it wasn't structurally appropriate, just wanted to give you and alternative to think about. i also like that my doors clear the wheel wells, that's a big plus getting in/out
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I've never even looked at/for the points behind the front wheels. I feel like I've stared at that area of the car a thousand times from underneath before, but I can't picture them because I've never looked for them :) I'll go look again and see how it works out. I'm planning to cross the rears in any case, it just didn't seem easy to cross the fronts (without lifting, or removing the bumper or something).
Re: doors, do you have an escape door on the trailer? I made it out of the car door once successfully, but it didn't seem like a very pleasant experience, even if I had been able to crack open the door a little wider over the fender. I figure I'll probably winch the car in. |
I wear cowboy boots at the track so that I can take them off when I crawl out of the car. So much easier climbing out the window barefoot. :)
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I had to stand on my door bars on the way out :) Actually, I was wearing a heavy coat when I tried too, it was cold that day. Might not be so bad with the extra 3 inches of door opening and lighter clothes.
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Yeah so, travis, I found the front OEM tow hook points, duh. The clip-hooks on my existing ratchet straps get through them, but not cleanly - they hang up at an odd angle where the tension would be trying to bend the hook sideways (it's those blade-shaped hooks you can see on the blue ratchet strap in the picture above). I think I can fix it with some larger, more rounded hooks I have here (which has a clevis pin on the other end), and link them with one of those chain links with the screw connector on the side (all rated for the car's load of course).
And yeah, raising the car makes the door much easier to deal with, and the tow straps. I have a solution now (as you recommended!) with some 2x12 lumber, I think I'm just going to nail the lumber down in place so it doesn't slip as I drive over it. |
Related pics:
The 2x12 board config (a 4 ft section with a 2ft section nailed on top at the end, so I can step up in increments), setting about where I want to nail them down at. Plus the hook attachment stuff mentioned above: http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...ards-front.jpg All the rest of my tools and install-related junk currently sitting in the front. All I've managed to install so far is the pitpal cabinet on the right and a pair of front D-rings closer to the car. http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...-installed.jpg This worked out well - a set of RaceRamps made for trailer doors with notch cutouts. I got everything down at a low enough angle to allow for a future splitter: http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...s-trailers.jpg |
lucky you !!!
still waiting to find a good deal on a similar trailer ;) |
I hear you. From what I've seen so far, the best idea is to trawl racingjunk.com, craigslist, nasa/scca forums, etc. Eventually you'll see a used one that's already all decked out about the way you want it for $5K or less. I waited and searched ads for a month or two, but all the ones I saw at the time had something wrong with the trailer or the deal one way or another (or maybe I'm just too picky!), and I got impatient and just bought a new one to set it up myself so I can get going on other things. I definitely could've gotten more trailer+setup for less cash+labor if I waited longer searching all those ads, though.
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Oh I had a nifty idea about hooking up to those OEM front tow eyes. The main problem clipping into them isn't so much ground clearance, it's just that the trailer walls are kinda tight around you. If you could lay on the ground next to the car, you can reach them no-problem...
What I'm thinking about trying next time I load the car is clipping the front tie-down straps onto those before I load the car, while it's out on the pavement, and running them up front and hooking them to the car's own front tow hook and take the slack out. Then drive the car up into the trailer and just move them to the trailer D-rings. |
Yea I'm going to be working on a setup also. Course I have a open trailer but it's all the same. But my trailer has a open center, thus easier to work with and getting up under there to work. With the Stillen fascia and wind splitter I'll need a double hook system to keep strap low till the exit the height of the front clip. I'm also about crossing the straps.
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perfect! you pretty much have the same setup as me now... i'm actually 2x12 also, misspoke earlier... and have them stacked the same way. i added a bezel the front to make it easier to drive up each "step", by routing a 45 degree angle... i also built a little ramp at the end to ensure i don't run over. this is important, you're going to be tired at the end of track day and makes it easy if you can just bump up against where it needs to be without worrying about running over.
might consider screwing them down with cabinet screws instead of nails |
btw, not sure how athletic you are but once you get used to it, becomes very easy to reach under and hook up the car at the oe locations... one knee on the ground and reach your arm behind each front tire... so long as you have the hooks pre-positioned, you'll be able to easily pick those up and muscle memory takes over. really should become a 2 mins job hooking up over time
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I did find some Floor-Tex-like stuff and I think I might coat the remainder of the floor, but all the ones I saw wanted 50F+ temps for curing over a period of days, and it's colder than that now and I have events coming up 1 and 3 weeks out. So I guess I'll just let the grey paint wear down a bit until it gets warmer and I have the time. |
Had a fun weekend at TWS. We had a couple patches of ice on the track Saturday morning, but as the weekend progressed it turned out to be mostly perfect weather. Sunny enough to keep the track reasonably warm, cool enough to not sweat much in the car.
I switched over to my new 18x10 square wheel setup (+34 offset, w/ 10mm spacers on the rear, thanks Travis+Mike for offset info!), and broke in a new set of Hankook RS3's on them. My Saturday sessions were an exercise in traffic management (how fast can you throw out passing signals?), as the brand-new tires were slippery, I hadn't figured out my pressures yet, and I still had to develop some feel and confidence in them to boot. It was definitely a learning experience :) My last best time at TWS-CCW was 2:08.49 back in March, and in these good conditions I should've been able to improve on that substantially by now, but, all of the above. My best time Saturday morning was 2:16 :bowrofl:, but by late Sunday I had worked it back down to a 2:06. I still wasn't being aggressive enough with my braking, but that will come with a little more time learning to trust how this new rubber feels. My overall impression of the RS3 is that I wish I had switched up to it sooner. After hearing about how R-comps and slicks have a finer knife-edge of traction, I thought they would be harder to drive than my old high-treadwear Conti DW's, but they were much easier once I got used to it. The breakaway is more linear and predictable, and they don't get suddenly greasy overheating late in the session the way the Contis did. I think I'll end up adding a little more camber all around to keep up with how hard these push out mid-corner, but I want to feel them out for another weekend or so before making any more changes. Trailer stuff: I ended up adding another layer of 1x12 under the ramps from earlier (so 1x12 + 2x12 + 2x12 for front height), putting 45 angles on them all and a backstop, and also putting in some shorter rear ramps (1x12 + 2x12). Might be my suspension/tire setup, but more likely just my trailer wheel wells are taller than travis's. In any case, this is what I had to do to reliably open the door under all conditions: http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...iler-ramps.jpg Also, strapping the tires to E-track about a foot off the floor (and then another strap through the front of the tires to keep them together) worked out really well: http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...es-trailer.jpg While I'm at it, random picture of my car+shop+lift. I'd like to say the complete mess in there is temporary, but it's been temporary for a long time now :) http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...9-car-shop.jpg And video of my fastest lap for the weekend. I think my ego trying to chase down that Audi gave me some extra oomph :) (But really, the only reason I caught him is because he lifted to let the silver car that was kicking both our asses pass him). |
Had a great weekend at COTA! MVP TrackTime ran this event as a 3-day weekend. Friday morning was mostly lost to weather (ice started coming down during my first session, and then all the second sessions were cancelled while the track was slick), but COTA gave us an extra hour on Sat+Sun to make up for the lost sessions, which was really awesome of them. Got to meet Mike (the Powerdercoater) for the first time, guru came up from Houston Saturday and brought us BBQ for lunch, and then he brought back some of the local Z-club crowd on Sunday to hang out.
The track is ridiculously technical and complex, and has both faster straights and tighter corners than I've seen before. It was pretty scary until I started getting comfortable with it. The elevation changes are dramatic as well. Even after staring at videos of the track for hours, I wasn't prepared for how those look and feel in person. It would probably take many more weekends there before I really started to get the nuances of this track down, but that's unlikely to happen given how expensive events there tend to be. Still, it was well worth going once and giving it a spin. Every sector is exhilarating when you nail it just right (or at least, as just right as I was going to get for this weekend!). The only remotely boring part of this track is the back straight from 11 -> 12, but that flies by quickly and it's a good chance for tons of passing to sort out trains. Honestly, I think I really need that straight as a breather between the complex stuff happening before and after it anyways. No instructors, so I watched Mike Skeen's video from some practice laps last year in a Porsche over and over to try to have some idea about my lines. I eventually got down to 1:41.76 on a clean traffic-free lap, and that's about as good as I can do COTA currently. I had a back-to-back pair of clean laps on the session after that one and they were also high 1:41.xx's. I kept it on the pavement all weekend, and I only had one maybe-spin in my final session Sunday that I blame on getting tired and sloppy. I thought it qualified as a spin, but they didn't flag me, I guess because I didn't quite get fully perpendicular to the track during my mad rush of poor over-corrections? Who knows, but no flag so I kept on trucking :) No true equipment problems, but lots of things were showing signs of abuse - notably my trans fluid was fairly burnt out by the end of Sunday, shifts were getting sloppy. And some of the little surface checking on my front rotors was turning into real cracks after my final session. I don't think I can go another full weekend on these rotor rings. COTA is tough on brakes, be prepared if you go! Anyways, all I've exported for now is my fastest lap. I plan to edit up a highlights/incidents video later as well with the interesting stuff from my footage. |
Looks like a great weekend. Thank you for allowing me to live vicariously through you track guys :tiphat:
This is the first and, so far, only track I have experienced in the Z. Although it was at the Nismo Performance Academy, and I wasn't really able to go full speed, it was an amazing track and a great experience. Maybe someday I'll actually have the money to buy another DD and the time to track prep the Z :driving: For now, y'all's videos will have to do :icon17: |
Sounds great. I talked to Mike last night. Those times are still great in my book based on Mikes. Mike has a lot of track time so he adapts quickly. Did ChrisSlicks track also?
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No, I think Mike was confused between two different Chris's. guru on the forums here is the Chris that brought us BBQ :)
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Awesome! I'm jealous... I would love to take a trip down to COTA.
Y'all are pansies for not running in the ice! Get the tires warm and it's pretty close to rain. :) |
Great meeting you Brandon!
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I was in Austin on Saturday and totally forgot about this event :(
Looked like fun! |
Doh, you could've come by to hang out at least :)
I reviewed a bunch of the rest of my footage. There's some interesting learning moments in there that aren't exciting to watch, and there's a bunch of exciting clips of other people's errors/spins/offs that I probably shouldn't publish for them, some people are sensitive about these things. The most tempting footage was several separate times getting stuck behind this one Porsche who was like a rolling safety hazard all weekend, going something like half the group's pace and randomly off-line all the time. The first couple of times I wondered if he was drunk, or had just had a stroke mid-session, but eventually I figured out that was just "normal". Anyways, not posting that either because I'm a nice guy :P I do post my own errors though! There was one definite loss-of-control moment in T12 here that got exciting, it was nearly a spin, but kinda saved it while losing all my speed. That was the only thing close to an incident I had throughout the event. Overall it was a pretty clean weekend. |
great times from both of u guys!:tup: now theres no pressure for next month... lol really looking good out there brandon, we need to actually coordinate some time to be at the same event this year.
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Looking good! I have an instructing gig there with Lone Star BMW March 21st-23rd. I can't wait to get back out there with the surge tank since last year I would start to starve on 16-17-18 after 5 laps.
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Yeah I can imagine, 16-17-18 looks like it would be fuel starve hell with our stock setup :)
My known schedule in the immediate future is: Mar 1-2 - TWS (Driver's Edge) Apr 5-6 - MSR-Houston (Driver's Edge) Apr 26 - Harris Hill (Nismo Fiesta) May 17-18 - TWS (Driver's Edge) (signup is on Mar 17 @ 9:00AM) I'll probably have some work travel to schedule around in late March or mid-April, so I doubt that I can squeeze much else in given that work travel tends not get firm dates until the last second :P. Chris introduced me to Sean Farrah (of SPL Parts, and also TX Regional Director for NASA TT) at COTA over the weekend and we chatted a bit, and that has lead to a renewed interest in hitting some NASA events sometime by mid-summer and start working my way into their system. Do their DEs a little and qualify up to do TT3 and then maybe start planning out a path to get me and the car to ST3 someday (or whatever the equivalent is by then). (although, looking at their schedule, probably my best bets there are Hallet in June, NOLA in Sept, and TWS in Oct). |
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I quote this particular post in your thread (in reference to the other relevant pages) as it really was one of the more educated findings about servicing the 7AT and it's fluid. Seems that most owners and newer members just ask how to change the fluid and aren't willing to dig for the right information. In finding 1) you mention a pressure loss in 3rd. Well, since I've owned my Z this has happened to me ONLY twice. Both times I was flogging the car and as you mention the trans free revs and then catches at a MUCH higher than necessary RPM. That leads me to believe I am probably experiencing a low fluid level but, draining/filling at this time might not be a bad idea. Would you not draw the same conclusion? |
Yeah I'd say if you have any odd problems with the trans, check fluid level for sure. I suspect if your level is borderline, fluid sloshing around and affecting pickup under certain G-loadings will make the difference.
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Just got done prepping the car for TWS this weekend.
I'm loving having this square tire setup now, with directional-but-symmetrical tires (the RS3's). I had the local NTB flip all four on their rims for $44, then rotated them all around (diagonal). Should even out the wear from my remaining slight camber issues and from 3 weekends in a row all running CCW (TWS->COTA->TWS). Changed the oil and trans fluid (Motul Multi-ATF again), swapped the stock AP bleed screws for SpeedBleeders (finally!) and bled the brakes. Good to go for load-out tomorrow :) So far on the weather reports Saturday looks ok, maybe some light sprinkles, but Sunday will probably get stormy by lunch. Will be interesting to see how the RS3's feel as it gets progressively wetter throughout the weekend. If they can't take the puddles very well, I can always flip back to my staggered Conti setup, those have huge grooves in them. I really need to work on getting a *good* rain setup for this car though. After seeing some of Mike's various tire/wheel combos at COTA, I'm thinking maybe a square set of 18x9 or 18x9.5 with some rain tires on them, like the Hoosier H2O's or something roughly equivalent. I think he had some Conti/Hoosier actual race-rain tires (as opposed to the H2Os, which are DOT-rated). |
If I had the money I was going to pick up a set of the discontinued wets that Mike posted about. Tight winter for me though. ;(
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Another fun weekend at TWS! Saturday morning's first session was a little damp, but the rest of the day was pretty dry and fast. Sunday was a wet mess dodging puddles in the falling rain - I only did one session and then packed up since it was looking like the weather was going to get much worse in the afternoon. My front rotor rings are surprisingly in about the same shape they started in, so I may push for another trackday or two on them before replacing them.
The RS-3 tires were better than expected (from internet hearsay) in the wet. They're not a fast tire in the wet; they're slow and don't handle standing water all that well even with good tread depth. But they were easy to predict, control, and recover on in the wet, as opposed to the sometimes-twitchy nature of my old Contis. The slow wet laps were fun instead of death-grip-scary :) Not a ton else to report, it was fairly uneventful. I didn't do anything stupid, and I shockingly failed to spin the car or throw it off the track. I had a couple of near-misses on those things, but I'm adapted to the RS3's now and doing much better at control/recovery. My braking was sub-par and I did a lot of silly steering-wheel-shaking that I need to stop doing, but I don't care much. Mostly this weekend was playing with driving looser and becoming comfortable with a new level of car control and lots of small corrections, and it was pretty successful. I know where a lot of my suboptimal lines and speeds are at now, and I think I can correct them next time. Maybe next time at TWS I'll really try to optimize the whole picture in one smooth run and put down some really decent lap times. Anyways, my fast-lap vid for the weekend: And a highlights/errors vid (a nice traffic management clip, an almost-off in T1, a slippy situation in T4 in the dry that I pulled through without losing speed, and then several wet slip+recover moments): |
yo! I see you on the roster for pds @ tws this weekend. I'll be there in my miata. see you this weekend!
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Awesome. This is my first time w/ PDS, they put me in Blue Solo, we'll see how it goes :) I'm only up there for Saturday this weekend, and it might be a little wet, but who knows, the weathermen are wrong half the time.
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Just got my DVD of COTA pics from SSP, ~400 nice high res pics. I picked out a few to upload here:
http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...1-zjg-9440.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...0-zjg-7031.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...9-zjg-6884.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...8-zjg-0015.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...7-ms4-9099.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...6-ms4-2542.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...5-lms-6640.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...2-lm8-5324.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...3-lm8-5415.jpg http://www.the370z.com/members/wstar...4-lm8-5616.jpg |
Picked up a single track day w/ PDS @ TWS today. The dollars-per-track-hour just can't be beat there, I have to do more PDS weekends this year! I'm not sure about their entry-level Green group, but everyone else runs basically 8x 24-min sessions per day. Unfortunately I left my SD Card in the computer at home, so I didn't get any data logging or video. Luckily the dash timing stuff works without it, so I was able to record laptimes and see my realtime +/- vs best still. No spins/offs, again, so I didn't miss recording anything exciting really.
It was dry before lunch and wet after. I trimmed my dry time down substantially. A week ago my best was 2:05.65. My first session today I hit 2:04.78, and then in the last session before lunch I managed a 2:03.10 and a 2:03.22 back-to-back when I got free of traffic for a while. I think mostly I was picking that up with being more aggressive on my speeds through T7 and T12, and slowly getting a little better at T1->T3. My braking is my weak spot now; I really need to up my braking game to keep up with the rest (mostly smoother transitions, but also the location/duration of my braking zones). Still, even if I keep sucking at braking about like I am now, I think I could push my current runs down into 2:01-ish territory if I could get a solid dry weekend in. The wet sessions were fun too, but there are too many different levels of "wet" to really bother tracking times much. Next event scheduled is Apr 5-6 @ MSR-Houston. It will be nice to get back to my first track again, I haven't been in a while :) |
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