wstar's Journal

wstar · 11-06-2011, 05:14 PM

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

Red__Zed · 11-06-2011, 05:21 PM

sounds like a good time

In for the vids

travisjb · 11-06-2011, 05:51 PM

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

wstar · 11-16-2011, 10:56 PM

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

wstar · 11-22-2011, 02:25 PM

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:

wstar · 11-25-2011, 12:34 PM

This rambling post is mostly just to get my current thoughts down now that I've had time to reflect a bit more on my recent HPDE and everything related. The act of writing clarifies them, and I'll be able to review them myself down the road. Feedback on any of it is welcome, but mostly this is a public conversation between me and me

Reviewing the raw footage from the green and blue runs, it seems like in an ideal world there would be a group in-between the two that I would've fit into best. Not limping around the track like some of green and really holding up the show, but not quite as experienced as the average blue-grouper. I passed a few cars in blue, but I got passed a lot too, and I'm definitely in the lower range of speed and skill for that group. Still, at least here on my "home" track (MSR Houston), that's probably the group I need to run with going forward to improve. As I branch out to other nearby tracks, I think I do need to start back in green on them at least for a while, because I'm not adept enough to learn the course on the fly so fast.

Looking at lap time stuff: My best lap running solo at the informal lapping event before was 2:04.00. My best lap from the HPDE on the same track came in at 2:02.13. So I improved by almost 2 full seconds, but really I think of it as more than that in some virtual sense. I think there were a number of new complicating/distracting factors at the HPDE relative to how I was running by myself: I was forced to learn to look more broadly (helps planning and better overall, but harder to nail the current point compared to staring in front of the car), forced to pay attention to flag stations and understand them, there was a whole lot more traffic on the track, and I had someone talking in my ear the whole time. That last one in particular is interesting in the after-analysis. It's common in the video replays to see me getting some feedback on the corner we just finished, and my brain gets just distracted enough processing that feedback that I screw up the next corner a bit. I think that will fade as I get more comfortable and able to multi-task better, but again it's just another slowing factor compared to when I was running my horrible/unstable lines solo.

As far as specific driving technique/mistakes go: I need to learn to unwind the wheel a bit more/faster on corner exits while applying a bit more throttle, and trust the car dynamics to do the right thing there. I keep trying to add more throttle without the steering change, which results in my oversteer slip-ups. I need to keep trying to extend the range of my virtual line in front of me. Right now I'm visualizing the upcoming corner and the entrance of the next at best, I need to be able to start visualizing through multiple upcoming corners all at once when they're tightly connected. I need to get more aggressive, too. There were a lot of times I slacked off on the acceleration parts and/or the straights because I was busy thinking and processing things, when I could've picked up some easy time there. I also had a tendency to really back off and be too nice when a driver in front of me seemed slower, and that just complicated passing. I need to just get up on his *** and be ready to pass aggressively instead of worrying about how he feels.

Also, there was a consistent pattern where every time I nailed corner X a little better and came out of it faster, I'd end up entering the next corner too fast and screwing things up, and then maybe next time around I'd try to move the braking zone back to account for it. I need to start handling all of that in one cycle when I can. If I know I entered a corner better and I've got more speed coming out, part of the initial planning process in my head needs to be to move up the braking spot automatically to compensate.

My inter-mediate range plan and goals for now is to keep running HPDE-type (and occasional Auto-X) events at various local tracks, and to shoot for getting my times at MSR Houston down to 2:00 flat or less consistently, barring traffic holdups. I'm going to try to avoid any further major upgrades to the car until I reach that goal, because otherwise it gets hard to track my progress vs the car's progress. I'm still not sure what the long term plan is, or if I'll ever graduate to trying to do something competitive, but I think that's a ways off and I have time to reflect on it and consider the costs.

As far as car upgrades go, the basic lineup of remaining items is about the same as it has been: add some better coilovers dropping the car very slightly in the process, a better LSD, some good seats, fuel starvation fix, and continue stripping out interior weight over time. I think I'm going to hold off on any cage+harness work until the car becomes at least 95% track-only and/or I have a competitive plan and know what regulations I'll need to adhere to, both which are probably around the same future timeframe, whenever it is.

Equinox · 11-25-2011, 01:12 PM

thinking of trading the car in wstar, you could always trade me your seats with some cash. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Lightest but still recline able seats I could find. Sorry we never took the time to let you try them out like you wanted too at that track day. Was fed up with my terrible driving and the car fussing back at me.

wstar · 11-25-2011, 01:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Equinox

thinking of trading the car in wstar, you could always trade me your seats with some cash. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

That's tempting actually. I think yours is a Nismo thought right? Mine isn't, they're just the leather touring heated seats. I think Nismo ones are slightly different right, at least the word Nismo stitched into the backrest or something?

gurneyeagle · 11-25-2011, 03:15 PM

Great write-up wstar!

I'd love to see your car in person at Cars and Coffee or a Z Club event.

Equinox · 11-25-2011, 04:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wstar

That's tempting actually. I think yours is a Nismo thought right? Mine isn't, they're just the leather touring heated seats. I think Nismo ones are slightly different right, at least the word Nismo stitched into the backrest or something?

Wouldn't matter, I sold my Nismo seats to a 240 and they welded those in. Forgot you had leather touring. They'd still work.

Equinox · 11-27-2011, 11:14 AM

A little birdie told me wstar has Bride seats. Guess it's time to change my sig. lol.

wstar · 11-27-2011, 01:10 PM

Yup, new seats

.

Big thanks to Equinox. I drove out to his place today and we swapped our seats out. Nice deal all around and keeping it all in the "family" here at the370z. These Brides are the GIAS LowMax, they're adjustable and thus a little heftier than true racing seats, but it's a little more DD/girlfriend-friendly. They hug you on the corners a whole lot better than stock, and they're harness-compatible for future upgrades.

Got to try out the comfort level on the ~2hr drive home: not as comfy as the stock touring seats, but reasonable enough for most TX roadtrips. Worst case I might use a tiny pillow for a lumbar support on a long ride. Picked up a PW:JDM radiator air-guide thingy (whatever you call it, the bit that snaps to the top edge of the front bumper along the front) from Equinox as well, in a carbon/kevlar look that matches the seat-backs.

I checked weights on a bathroom scale while we had everything out too, esp since it looked obvious that my driver/passenger seats would be different, and the Weight Reduction Thread only lists one weight. Keeping in mind bathroom-scale inaccuracy, my TPH seats came in at 50.8 lbs driver and 47 lbs passenger, and the Brides came in at 42.2 lbs. So net weight drop is 13.4 lbs from swapping both.

Love the new seats, can't wait to see how they feel at the next track event. Thanks again Equinox

.

Equinox · 11-28-2011, 10:34 AM

Im now a silly Nismo with leather touring seats, lol. Never heard of that before. Seen Nismo's that the dealership reskinned the seats for leather to sell at a premium, but not an OEM swap. I got the power seats working for the motors, but I will wait to figure out the heaters. Turns out the heater relay for the seats are actually under the big pocket in the center dash. Who knew.

Thanks again for coming out and swappin Dubstar.

wstar · 11-28-2011, 10:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Equinox

Im now a silly Nismo with leather touring seats, lol. Never heard of that before. Seen Nismo's that the dealership reskinned the seats for leather to sell at a premium, but not an OEM swap. I got the power seats working for the motors, but I will wait to figure out the heaters. Turns out the heater relay for the seats are actually under the big pocket in the center dash. Who knew.

Thanks again for coming out and swappin Dubstar.

Oh, you may have to remind me, but I could pull the relays out for you next time I pull the center dash apart. It happens pretty regularly

wstar · 12-08-2011, 08:41 PM

Today I swapped in Carbotech's Bobcat-series street brake pads (taking off my XP8s), to see if they'd cut down on the cold/low-speed squealing. I mainly chose them out of fear of Carbotech's statement that their pads should only be mixed with their own other pads on the same rotor without scrubbing/prepping the rotor surface when changing and re-bedding completely. I figure I'll try to follow the mfg's recommendations and save some labor.

Pad swap was easy of course thanks to the nice design of the Akebonos. I bedded them per Carbotech's directions. I still get a little bit of a squeal in the <5mph range coming to a stop, but it's not anywhere near as loud or frequent as the XP8's, totally livable on the street. Given that it sounds so similar to a muted version of some of my worst XP8 squeals, I wouldn't be surprised if the cause was leftover XP8 material on the rotor that hasn't been abraded/replaced by the Bobcat pads yet, so it may fade completely in a few days.

My stock pads and my Hawk HPS's never made a peep though, so while it's not a big deal if it doesn't, it be nice if this little squeal went away.

As far as pad performance goes, it's definitely a big step down from XP8. I've gotten used to the quick bite on the XP8's, and this is back to feeling more like my old HPS's. Still, it's plenty good enough for a street pad, and seems a bit more consistent and fade-resistant than OEM/HPS I've had on the car in the past. My XP8's still have plenty of material on them, so they're boxed up for the next track event, which looks like it will be the weekend of Jan 21-22 back at MSR Houston again, hopefully in the opposite direction from the last few times out.

11-06-2011, 05:14 PM	#436 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	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 __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

11-06-2011, 05:51 PM	#438 (permalink)
travisjb A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jan 2009 Location: GSO Posts: 2,803 Drives: VIR Rep Power: 188	This addiction either bites hard or not at all... we now know which way this one went __________________ 2009 370Z #104 For Sale

11-16-2011, 10:56 PM	#439 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	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 __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

11-22-2011, 02:25 PM	#440 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	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: __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

11-25-2011, 12:34 PM	#441 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	This rambling post is mostly just to get my current thoughts down now that I've had time to reflect a bit more on my recent HPDE and everything related. The act of writing clarifies them, and I'll be able to review them myself down the road. Feedback on any of it is welcome, but mostly this is a public conversation between me and me Reviewing the raw footage from the green and blue runs, it seems like in an ideal world there would be a group in-between the two that I would've fit into best. Not limping around the track like some of green and really holding up the show, but not quite as experienced as the average blue-grouper. I passed a few cars in blue, but I got passed a lot too, and I'm definitely in the lower range of speed and skill for that group. Still, at least here on my "home" track (MSR Houston), that's probably the group I need to run with going forward to improve. As I branch out to other nearby tracks, I think I do need to start back in green on them at least for a while, because I'm not adept enough to learn the course on the fly so fast. Looking at lap time stuff: My best lap running solo at the informal lapping event before was 2:04.00. My best lap from the HPDE on the same track came in at 2:02.13. So I improved by almost 2 full seconds, but really I think of it as more than that in some virtual sense. I think there were a number of new complicating/distracting factors at the HPDE relative to how I was running by myself: I was forced to learn to look more broadly (helps planning and better overall, but harder to nail the current point compared to staring in front of the car), forced to pay attention to flag stations and understand them, there was a whole lot more traffic on the track, and I had someone talking in my ear the whole time. That last one in particular is interesting in the after-analysis. It's common in the video replays to see me getting some feedback on the corner we just finished, and my brain gets just distracted enough processing that feedback that I screw up the next corner a bit. I think that will fade as I get more comfortable and able to multi-task better, but again it's just another slowing factor compared to when I was running my horrible/unstable lines solo. As far as specific driving technique/mistakes go: I need to learn to unwind the wheel a bit more/faster on corner exits while applying a bit more throttle, and trust the car dynamics to do the right thing there. I keep trying to add more throttle without the steering change, which results in my oversteer slip-ups. I need to keep trying to extend the range of my virtual line in front of me. Right now I'm visualizing the upcoming corner and the entrance of the next at best, I need to be able to start visualizing through multiple upcoming corners all at once when they're tightly connected. I need to get more aggressive, too. There were a lot of times I slacked off on the acceleration parts and/or the straights because I was busy thinking and processing things, when I could've picked up some easy time there. I also had a tendency to really back off and be too nice when a driver in front of me seemed slower, and that just complicated passing. I need to just get up on his *** and be ready to pass aggressively instead of worrying about how he feels. Also, there was a consistent pattern where every time I nailed corner X a little better and came out of it faster, I'd end up entering the next corner too fast and screwing things up, and then maybe next time around I'd try to move the braking zone back to account for it. I need to start handling all of that in one cycle when I can. If I know I entered a corner better and I've got more speed coming out, part of the initial planning process in my head needs to be to move up the braking spot automatically to compensate. My inter-mediate range plan and goals for now is to keep running HPDE-type (and occasional Auto-X) events at various local tracks, and to shoot for getting my times at MSR Houston down to 2:00 flat or less consistently, barring traffic holdups. I'm going to try to avoid any further major upgrades to the car until I reach that goal, because otherwise it gets hard to track my progress vs the car's progress. I'm still not sure what the long term plan is, or if I'll ever graduate to trying to do something competitive, but I think that's a ways off and I have time to reflect on it and consider the costs. As far as car upgrades go, the basic lineup of remaining items is about the same as it has been: add some better coilovers dropping the car very slightly in the process, a better LSD, some good seats, fuel starvation fix, and continue stripping out interior weight over time. I think I'm going to hold off on any cage+harness work until the car becomes at least 95% track-only and/or I have a competitive plan and know what regulations I'll need to adhere to, both which are probably around the same future timeframe, whenever it is. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details

11-06-2011, 05:21 PM	#437 (permalink)
Red__Zed A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: window seat Posts: 28,940 Drives: Mostly on two wheels Rep Power: 119	sounds like a good time In for the vids

11-25-2011, 01:12 PM	#442 (permalink)
Equinox Track Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Beaumont, TX Posts: 685 Drives: 06 Porsche Carrera S Rep Power: 17	thinking of trading the car in wstar, you could always trade me your seats with some cash. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Lightest but still recline able seats I could find. Sorry we never took the time to let you try them out like you wanted too at that track day. Was fed up with my terrible driving and the car fussing back at me. __________________ Check out my Albums '13 Subaru WRX STi \| '06 Porsche 911 Carrera S (SOLD) \| '96 Mazda RX-7 6.0L V8 RHD (SOLD) \| '09 Nissan Nismo #0058 (SOLD)

11-25-2011, 03:15 PM	#444 (permalink)
gurneyeagle A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Jul 2011 Location: Houston/Saint Augustine Posts: 2,681 Drives: '18 Audi TT RS Rep Power: 20214	Great write-up wstar! I'd love to see your car in person at Cars and Coffee or a Z Club event. __________________ Waiting on the Z35! SOLD - 2011 Gun Metallic Touring 7AT w Sports Pkg & Nav, Nismo Bumper and Rims, RC Grille, RC Brake Ducts, H&R Spacers, Painted Door Hdls, GTR Start Button, Nav By-Pass, EVO R Fog Light, CF Ducktail, CF Interior Trim

11-27-2011, 11:14 AM	#446 (permalink)
Equinox Track Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Beaumont, TX Posts: 685 Drives: 06 Porsche Carrera S Rep Power: 17	A little birdie told me wstar has Bride seats. Guess it's time to change my sig. lol. __________________ Check out my Albums '13 Subaru WRX STi \| '06 Porsche 911 Carrera S (SOLD) \| '96 Mazda RX-7 6.0L V8 RHD (SOLD) \| '09 Nissan Nismo #0058 (SOLD)

11-27-2011, 01:10 PM	#447 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Yup, new seats . Big thanks to Equinox. I drove out to his place today and we swapped our seats out. Nice deal all around and keeping it all in the "family" here at the370z. These Brides are the GIAS LowMax, they're adjustable and thus a little heftier than true racing seats, but it's a little more DD/girlfriend-friendly. They hug you on the corners a whole lot better than stock, and they're harness-compatible for future upgrades. Got to try out the comfort level on the ~2hr drive home: not as comfy as the stock touring seats, but reasonable enough for most TX roadtrips. Worst case I might use a tiny pillow for a lumbar support on a long ride. Picked up a PW:JDM radiator air-guide thingy (whatever you call it, the bit that snaps to the top edge of the front bumper along the front) from Equinox as well, in a carbon/kevlar look that matches the seat-backs. I checked weights on a bathroom scale while we had everything out too, esp since it looked obvious that my driver/passenger seats would be different, and the Weight Reduction Thread only lists one weight. Keeping in mind bathroom-scale inaccuracy, my TPH seats came in at 50.8 lbs driver and 47 lbs passenger, and the Brides came in at 42.2 lbs. So net weight drop is 13.4 lbs from swapping both. Love the new seats, can't wait to see how they feel at the next track event. Thanks again Equinox . __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 11-27-2011 at 02:18 PM.

11-28-2011, 10:34 AM	#448 (permalink)
Equinox Track Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Beaumont, TX Posts: 685 Drives: 06 Porsche Carrera S Rep Power: 17	Im now a silly Nismo with leather touring seats, lol. Never heard of that before. Seen Nismo's that the dealership reskinned the seats for leather to sell at a premium, but not an OEM swap. I got the power seats working for the motors, but I will wait to figure out the heaters. Turns out the heater relay for the seats are actually under the big pocket in the center dash. Who knew. Thanks again for coming out and swappin Dubstar. __________________ Check out my Albums '13 Subaru WRX STi \| '06 Porsche 911 Carrera S (SOLD) \| '96 Mazda RX-7 6.0L V8 RHD (SOLD) \| '09 Nissan Nismo #0058 (SOLD)

12-08-2011, 08:41 PM	#450 (permalink)
wstar A True Z Fanatic Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Houston, TX Posts: 4,024 Drives: too slow Rep Power: 3594	Today I swapped in Carbotech's Bobcat-series street brake pads (taking off my XP8s), to see if they'd cut down on the cold/low-speed squealing. I mainly chose them out of fear of Carbotech's statement that their pads should only be mixed with their own other pads on the same rotor without scrubbing/prepping the rotor surface when changing and re-bedding completely. I figure I'll try to follow the mfg's recommendations and save some labor. Pad swap was easy of course thanks to the nice design of the Akebonos. I bedded them per Carbotech's directions. I still get a little bit of a squeal in the <5mph range coming to a stop, but it's not anywhere near as loud or frequent as the XP8's, totally livable on the street. Given that it sounds so similar to a muted version of some of my worst XP8 squeals, I wouldn't be surprised if the cause was leftover XP8 material on the rotor that hasn't been abraded/replaced by the Bobcat pads yet, so it may fade completely in a few days. My stock pads and my Hawk HPS's never made a peep though, so while it's not a big deal if it doesn't, it be nice if this little squeal went away. As far as pad performance goes, it's definitely a big step down from XP8. I've gotten used to the quick bite on the XP8's, and this is back to feeling more like my old HPS's. Still, it's plenty good enough for a street pad, and seems a bit more consistent and fade-resistant than OEM/HPS I've had on the car in the past. My XP8's still have plenty of material on them, so they're boxed up for the next track event, which looks like it will be the weekend of Jan 21-22 back at MSR Houston again, hopefully in the opposite direction from the last few times out. __________________ 7AT Track Car! Journal thread / Car setup details Last edited by wstar; 12-08-2011 at 08:44 PM.

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